Burmese students remember August 8
By Sean Healy
August 8 is the 11th anniversary of the 1988 uprising in Burma. On the 8/8/88, the entire country rose up against the corrupt and brutal regime of General Ne Win, in power since a military coup in 1962. The uprising all but liberated Burma until September 18 when the military was able to restore control through a bloody crackdown on dissent. The uprising was led by students, many of whom are in exile in Thailand, the United States and Australia. Green Left Weekly's SEAN HEALY spoke to MAUNG MAUNG THAN, MIN NAING and PAR PARR about their experiences in 1988.
On March 16, 1988, a rally protesting against the police killing of a student, Bo Maw, three days earlier was attacked by the military on the White Bridge in the capital Rangoon. Dozens of students were killed, either shot or drowned in the water below, and many more were arrested. The government then closed the universities.
Maung Maung Than, now the national coordinator of the All-Burma Students' Democratic Organisation and studying at Macquarie University, was a 21-year-old student at the Rangoon Institute of Economics at the time. "During the closure, I became more active and committed", he said. "Every day, my friends and I would meet at a tea shop to discuss issues. We planned what we would do when classes returned."
When the regime re-opened the campuses in June, the agitation increased and spread. At Rangoon Arts and Science University, students took over the campus and occupied it until June 21, when the military forcibly re-occupied the university. "The soldiers coming to RASU was probably a good thing", says Maung Maung Than. "It forced us out of the campus and into the community; we went to the people."
Min Naing, now working in Melbourne, was a 15-year-old high school student in 1988. "My brother was a student leader, and he said to me 'what sort of future do you want to see?'. He suggested to me and my friends that we set up a high school students' union." Min Naing was elected chairperson of that union, which began agitating amongst high school students and the community; the protests escalated.
On July 23, Ne Win called an emergency congress of the ruling party. He promised economic reforms (mainly intended to attract foreign capital), held out the possibility of a referendum on a multi-party system and then announced his resignation.
Par Parr, now living in Sydney, was then 21 and, having been active in the student movement since 1983, was working for a timber company in the northern town of Mandalay.
"When people heard Ne Win's speech, they were very angry. They weren't fooled by his promises because he also threatened that the soldiers would shoot to kill protesters. Everybody knew that Ne Win would still run things from behind the scenes. I became convinced then that there would be an uprising."
The regime declared a state of emergency, but rumours started to circulate that the mass uprising would begin on August 8 (8888 is an auspicious date in Burmese numerology). "On August 8, my group went down to one of the main streets in Rangoon at about 10am. There were many people milling about, but no one wanted to start the protest themselves", Maung Maung Than recalls.
"So we spread throughout the crowd, put on handkerchiefs to cover our faces and started shouting slogans and clapping. A student grabbed a table and put it in the middle of the road. A young woman comrade got up and made a powerful speech. Many Burmese are very chauvinist but when they saw a woman making a speech and being courageous, the protest started."
The rally split into two sometime during the afternoon, one part marching on the Town Hall, the other occupying Shwedagon Pagoda, the largest Buddhist temple in Rangoon. The rally at Town Hall was viciously attacked by the military and hundreds of protesters were killed.
"I was at Shwedagon, one of the committee of 22 responsible for running the occupation", Maung Maung Than recalls. "There were 20,000 people there and we had to deal with many problems: asking for food and water from the nearby community, stopping thieves stealing gold from the Pagoda, organising security.
"We heard there were protests in many other cities and we were delighted, but we were also threatened by the military's response. We held an all-night meeting — should we continue or not? Eventually, we decided to continue and laid out a plan for the following day's march to Town Hall. We were very bold."
The following day, Maung Maung Than and some other comrades went to find food for their march. "When we got back, we saw the military outside the Pagoda and blood all over the street. The military had attacked the march as soon as it left and we had to hide from them in my teacher's house.
"The next day, my friends and I went downtown and started again. We had to continue. There were about 100 students and 200 local people, all very poor, in our march.
"A military truck pulled up in front of us, the soldiers opened fire without warning. I grabbed a woman next to me and pulled her out of the way. But another woman next to her, holding the flag, was killed. That was the first time I saw shootings close up.
"I took one man to Rangoon Hospital, he was shot in the leg. There were people there from all over Rangoon who had been shot by the military. Then I heard shooting outside; the army had attacked the hospital and killed more people."
Angered by the shootings, and the attack on the hospital in particular, people all over Rangoon rose up. Not able to crush the protests in so many places, the military withdrew to its barracks.
By this time, Min Naing was organising in Moulmein in southern Burma. "After 12noon on August 8, many people started gathering and a long march started. In the evening, we set up our strike centre at the main pagoda in Moulmein; from there we began organising all the suburbs and villages.
The army negotiated with the students and withdrew. Many soldiers were sympathetic to the student movement and no violence occurred at that time in Moulmein. We were in control of the whole town."
The next 40 days were a time of enormous confusion and hope. People's councils and strike centres were formed across Rangoon and in many other parts of Burma, taking over government offices and tearing down all the symbols of the regime. Rank and file soldiers started joining the protests.
But there was no central direction and therefore no coherent counter-power; no provisional government could be formed. The moderate anti-regime politicians split, with former prime minister U Nu and Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of independence leader Aung San, unable to agree on who would be prime minister.
The student movement, too, split between left and right and wasn't able to provide an alternative.
"The rumours started to spread in late August", Maung Maung Than recalls. "The military put the word around that 'there's only one group that can save the country from chaos: the army' and that there would be a military coup."
On August 21, Min Naing learned that his brother had been killed leading a student demonstration in Rangoon. Min Naing left to visit his family. By the time he returned to Moulmein, the military had attacked, killing many people and closing down the strike centre. Slowly, the military began reasserting its control.
On September 18, the military announced it had seized power and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). "We were holding a big public forum downtown", Maung Maung Than said. "Someone came up and told me that the military had launched a coup. I couldn't believe it, I accused him of seeking to destabilise the forum and said that the military was going to give up. It hadn't."
The military started a systematic sweep of Rangoon, reclaiming occupied buildings, arresting students, killing anyone who resisted. It had carefully drawn up lists of opposition activists and these people were either taken away or summarily executed.
Par Parr was by now in Moulmein. "I was in a group that was responsible for getting students to the border so we could start the armed struggle. On September 19, there was a protest in town but it was quickly dispersed. By September 20, the army was everywhere, patrolling everywhere, every shop was closed. It was then that we left for the border."
Thirty thousand students were able to get to the jungle, where they took up arms. But the uprising was over. The SLORC, now called the State Peace and Development Council, has ruled ever since.
Many countries, including Australia and the south-east Asian nations, despite expressing outrage at the time, are now trying to rehabilitate the military regime in the eyes of the world in order to gain access to Burma's enormous natural resources. Burma is now even a member of ASEAN.
However, the legacy of 8/8/88 runs deep, not only amongst student activists who were in the front lines, but amongst the people as a whole. Preparations are under way for an international day of action on September 9 (9/9/99) to keep the voice of the Burmese people alive.