Brief events leading to 8.8.88 uprising and clashes
between pro-democracy movements and the military
regime in Burma.
1962 ; March 2d:The Burmese military led by General Ne Win seized power and the 24 member Revolutionary Council was formed.
July 7th:Rangoon University students took over the campus. The military responded by heavy shootings, which turned the university into a slaughtered house.
July 8th: In early hours of this day the army dynamited the historic Student’s Union Building together with some students reducing it to rubble.
1974 December: Students uprising regarding the funeral arrangements of former United Nations General Secretary U Thant. Troops open fire to students demonstrating. Estimate 400 were gunned, 1800 arrested.
1976 March: Students demonstration coinciding with the 100t” anniversary of the birth of national hero ThaKhin Kodaw Hmine. 130 students were arrested in Rangoon.
1987 September 5th: The military government demonetised Kyat 25,35 and 75 banknotes without compensation, wiping out 80% of the country’s money in circulation. 500-1,000 students go on a rampage in Rangoon.
1988 March 16th: Students from Rangoon University (Main Campus) march down Prom Road towards the Haling Campus and RIT. The riot police as well as regular army units near Inya Lake block them. Many students are killed, some died by suffocation on the overcrowded prison van. Jewelleries from some female students were snatched by the police and some were brutally beaten to drown in the lake, some sexuallyharassed. The bridge near Inya Lake was renamed Tada Ni meaning blood stained red bridge from Tada Phyu white bridge. Troops enter Rangoon University Main Campus.
March 17th: Thousands rally outside Kyandaw crematorium for Maung Phone Maw’s funeral – just to find out that his body has already been cremated secretly elsewhere. The government announces the setting up of an Inquiry Commission to look into the cause of his death without mentioning the other casualties. The Rangoon University Students’ Union is formed at a meeting on the main campus. Approx. 1,000 students are arrested.
March 18th: Thousands of students march down to central Rangoon and are joined by thousands of others. Thousands of protesters are arrested and killed by the military. The day becomes known as ‘ Bloody Friday’.
June 20th: 5-6,000 students and others stage a peaceful protest in Rangoon.The ban on public gatherings, set up a strike centre at the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. The unrest spreads to Pegu, 50 km north of Rangoon, where at least 70 people are killed.
August 8th: There is a general strike and also massive street demonstrations in Rangoon. Tens of thousands of demonstrators demand democracy, human rights, and the resignation of the BSPP government and end to the socialist economic system. Similar demonstrations are held in all major cities and towns in the country. The army remains in the backround until 11.44PM when heavily armed troops spray automatic rifle fire into crowds of unarmed demonstrators outside the City Hall in central Rangoon.
August 9th-10th Mass demonstrations spread to over 40 places all over the country. Military fired on demonstrators in Rangoon.
August 11th: Rangoon remained paralysed by the general strike. Western diplomats estimate that at least 1,000 demonstrators have been killed in Rangoon alone.
Troops open fire on demonstrators in a northern town killing at least 100 people.
August 22nd-23d Ten and thousands of people take to the streets in Rangoon. A general strike is proclaimed to force the government to resign. Daily demonstrations occurred in other towns. An estimate 600,000 people joined the demonstrations.
August 26th: The general strike cripples Rangoon.. Aung San Suu Kyi addresses a crowd of one hundred thousand people outside Shwe Dagon pagoda.
August 30th: Mass demonstrations of civil servants and others. Thousands of BSPP members quit the party.
September 18th: The demonstrations continue. At 4pm, Gen. Saw Maung led a military coup and set up a “State Law and Order Restoration Council” (SLORC). Troops open fire on demonstrators.
September 19th: Street battles between army units and protesters continue. The security forces gun down hundreds of people.
September 20th: Saw Maung `s SLORC sets up its own government. Saw Maung becomes Prime Minister, foreign minister and defence minister.
September 24th: Formation of National League for Democracy (NLD). Mass arrests and summary executions of pro-democracy activist continue through out the country.
October 31st: The general strikes collapses. The government’s threats force people to return to work or face dismissal or other punishments are heeded.
1988 November 2d: 43 registered political parties protests against arrests and harassment of students who have returned to the cities from the border areas.
1989 January coup.
1989 March 16th: Army troops prevent students at gunpoint from floating wreaths on the Inya Lake to commemorate the “White Bridge” massacre a year before. About 1,000 students demonstrate against the military government.
July 18th: The confrontation between the NLD and the SLORC reaches its climax as the former announces its own plans for commemorating Martyr’s Day, the 42nd anniversary of the assassination of Aung San and the latter responds by sending several battalions of heavily armed troops into Rangoon.
July 19th: Martyr’s Day. Thousands of soldiers patrol the streets of Rangoon to prevent the NLD’s march from taking place. The NLD cancels its plansto hold a separate ceremony.
1989 July 20th: The SLORC places Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo under house arrest for one year. Scores of NLD workers are arrested nation-wide.
July 30th: 5,000 monks in Mandalay demonstrates against the government.
October 5th: Mating Thaw Ka, a member of NLD’s central committee, is sentenced to 20 years hard labour.
December 22nd: The NLD chairman, Tin Oo, is sentences to three years imprisonment with hard labour by a military tribunal in Rangoon.
December 29th: The SLORC places U Nu under house arrest along with 12 of his associates.
1990 January 8th: Aung San Suu Kyi’s candidature is challenged by a NUP rival on the grounds of her connections with Britain and her alleged links with insurgent groups.
January 16th: Rangoon’s Elections Commission bars Aung San Suu Kyi from contesting the elections. Troops move into Rangoon as hundreds of people Protest the decision.
1990 May 27th: General Elections were held without allowing Aung San Suu Kyi and Tin U to stand for candidacy. NLD won a landslide victory with 80% of votes.
1995 July 10th- Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest. Her time in detention falls nine days short of six years.
1996 November 9th – A group of 200 USDA members attack Aung San Suu Kyi’s motorcade with sticks and bars in Rangoon.
1998 June 26th -Authorities block university students who arrive at Aung San Suu Kyi’s house for regular reading sessions. Military commanders are told to strike at NLD members and Aung San Suu Kyi is injured. The road to her home was block for days.
1998 July 7th – Aung San Suu Kyi and other N.L.D members traveling by car to Pegu Division are stopped by the military just outside Rangoon. Soldiers lift up the car and turn it around in the direction of the capital.
June 23d: Students, defying Kyi’s funeral in the first street march in Rangoon overnight.
1998 July 19th – An NLD vehicle is stopped again, this time on a trip to visit supporters in Irrawaddy Division. Barricades are placed around Aung San Suu Kyi’s car. During another attempt to leave the capital on July 23, her vehicle is stopped again and this time she remains in the car for six days.
August 12th – On route to Bassein, Aung San Suu Kyi is stopped again. She remains in her stationary vehicle for 13 days. 2000 September 22″d Aung San Suu ki, U Aung Shwe, U Tin Oo and six other central committee members of the NLD were put under de facto house arrest after Suu Kyi defied a travel ban by trying to go to Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city.
2002 May protests, about 1,000 Buddhist monks march peacefully through Rangoon, carrying religious flags, with one monk carrying his alms bowl upside down as a symbol of not accepting alms from the military government or its supporters. Hundreds of students and young people protest with the monks by joining hands to form a human chain.
September 22nd: Security forces, bearing riot shields, line up in front of monks who are chanting the “Metta Sutta” at Aung San Suu Kyi’s lakeside home on Rangoon’s University Avenue. She comes to her gate and talks briefly with one leading monk. In Mandalay, about 10,000 monks talked and Ang San Suu Kyi was freed today after 19 months of house arrest.
2003 May 30th: Many people were injured and killed in the clash between NLD supporters and USDA members near Depayin Township, Sagaing Division. The
military says four were killed and 50 injured. Aung San Suu Kyi received head wounds. Aung San Suu Kyi and at least a dozen others are taken into “protective custody.” All senior NLD officials are placed under house arrest, party officers are closed and phone lines cut.
The Gandhi of Burma
2007 August 15th : Burma’s ruling junta imposes a surprise 100 percent hike in petrol and diesel prices and a five-fold price increase for natural gas at state-run stations.
2007 August 17th:About 500 people, led by former student activists of the 88 Generation Students group, stage a protest in Rangoon against high fuel price hikes.
2007 August 21St: Burmese authorities arrest at least 13 prominent activists of the 88 Students Generation group, including leaders who staged a protest against fuel price increases.
September 05th Monks chanting the “Metta Sutta” (the Buddha’s words on loving kindness) in Pakokku, upper Burma, are brutally attacked by police,
soldiers and pro junta paramilitary thugs. Three monks are tied to an electricity pole and beaten with rifle butts and bludgeons. A prominent monk, U Sandima, sustains head injuries.
September 10th: The Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks urges all monks to refuse alms from members of the military regime unless an apology is given
for the violent way in which protesting monks were dispersed by the authorities and pro junta thugs in Pakokku. It warns it will hold “patam nikkujjana kamma”- a boycott of alms from members of the military regime.
September 18th: Hundreds of monks march peacefully through downtown Rangoon and Pegu. They also march in Pakokku and other towns in Magwe Division. The monks walk in procession to local temples, chanting the “Metta Sutta” and “Paritta Sutta,”
September 20th: On the third day of march through the city in the largest anti-junta protest to date.
September 24th: Tens and thousands of monks and laypeople march in Pegu, Mandalay, Sagaing, Magwe and Kawthaung in Tenasserim Division, as well as in towns in Mon, Arakan and Kachin states.
September 26th : Burmese security forces fire directly at protesting monks and other demonstrators in Rangoon, reportedly killing five monks and one woman in separate clashes.
September 27th: Troops of riot police use a vehicle to break down the main gate of Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery. Shorts are fired and tear gas used in rounding up about 150 of the monastery’s monks. Soldiers also raid Maggin and Mogaung monasteries and arrest monks. A 50-year-old Japanese journalist, Kenji Nagai, is shot by security forces. Witnesses report that several other people are killed in the protests. Burmese Military Regime still exists. They refuse to convene the parliament elected in 1990. Of the 392 NLD Elected representatives in the 1990 general elections – 101 have resigned, 29 are deceased, 75 have been incarcerated by the authorities, 28 are in prison, 11 operate outside the country, 132 still operate inside the country, 3 have been expelled from the NLD and 13 are unaccounted for. As long as there are governments whose authority is founded on coercion rather than on the mandate of the people, and interest groups which place short-term profits above long- term peace and prosperity, concerted international action to protect and promote human rights will remain at best a
partially realised ideal. There will continue to be arenas of struggle where victims of oppression have to draw on their own inner resources to defend their inalienable rights as members of the human family.
Sources: “The Irrawaddy Magazine “;
“Outrage ” Burma’s Struggle for Democracy
Burtil Litner
8.8. 88
Lest We Forget
21St Anniversary of the massacre of unarmed
civilians by the Military regime of Burma
Australian Asian Association Hall
275 Stirling Street
Perth
WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6000
It was one day while I was whiling away my precious time going through Khaled Hosseini’s most popular book “The kite runner” when I happened to come across a part in the book where the main protagonist who is named Amir gravely contemplates his life and its inequities and asks himself “If there is anyway he can turn everything bad he did into good?” It sounded very familiar and then I reflected on that Isn’t this I’ve asked many times to myself as well?
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