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| 1st row: Protesters gathering at Sule Pagoda.
2nd row: Protesters rallying in Mandalay; Aung San Suu Kyi addresses half a million of protesters at central Yangon. 3rd row: Soldiers about to open fire on protesters; Two doctors carry a critically wounded school girl. (All of them died in the aftermath[1]) |
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The 8888 Nationwide Popular Pro-Democracy Protests (Burmese: ၈-၄လုံး or ရှစ်လေးလုံး; MLCTS: hrac le: lum: also known as the People Power Uprising[4]) was a series of marches, demonstrations, protests,[5] and riots[6] in the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (today commonly known as Burma or Myanmar). Key events occurred on August 8, 1988, and from this (08/08/1988), it is known as the "8888 Uprising".[7]
Since 1962, the country had been ruled by the Burma Socialist Programme Party regime as a one-party state, headed by General Ne Win. The catastrophic Burmese Way to Socialism had turned Burma into one of the world's most impoverished countries.[8][9][10] Almost everything was nationalized and the government combined Soviet-style central planning with superstitious beliefs.[10] In an article published in a February 1974 issue of Newsweek magazine, the Burmese Way to Socialism was described as "an amalgam of Buddhist and Marxist illogic".[11]
The 8888 uprising was started by students in Yangon (Rangoon) on August 8, 1988. Student protests spread throughout the country.[8][12] Hundreds of thousands of ochre-robed monks, young children, university students, housewives, and doctors demonstrated against the regime.[13][14] The uprising ended on September 18, after a bloody military coup by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Thousands of deaths have been attributed to the military during this uprising,[12][15][16] while authorities in Myanmar put the figure at around 350 people killed.[17][18]
During the crisis, Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a national icon. When the military junta arranged an election in 1990, her party, the National League for Democracy, won 80% of the seats in the government (392 out of 447).[19] However, the military junta refused to recognize the results and placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. The State Law and Order Restoration Council would be a cosmetic change from the Burma Socialist Programme Party.[13]
Contents |
| Part of a series on the |
| Democracy movements in Burma |
|---|
|
The fighting peacock flag
|
| Background |
| Post-independence Burma |
| Internal conflict in Burma |
| Burmese Way to Socialism |
| State Peace and Development Council |
| Mass protests |
| 8888 Uprising · Protests of 2007 |
| Concessions and reforms |
| Roadmap to democracy New constitution Reforms of 2011 |
| Elections |
| 1990 · 2010 |
| Organizations |
| National League for Democracy · 88 Generation Students Group · Burma Campaign UK · Free Burma Coalition · U.S. Campaign for Burma · Generation Wave · All Burma Students' Democratic Front · The Irrawaddy · Democratic Voice of Burma · Mizzima News |
| Figures |
| U Nu · Aung Gyi · Tin Oo · Aung San Suu Kyi · Min Ko Naing · Thein Sein |
| Related topics |
| Human rights in Burma · Politics of Burma · Foreign relations of Burma |
Before the crisis, Burma had been ruled by the repressive and isolated regime of General Ne Win since 1962. The country had a national debt of $3.5 billion and currency reserves of between $20 million and $35 million, with debt service ratios standing at half of the national budget.[20] In November 1985, students gathered and boycotted the government's decision to withdraw Burmese local currency notes. Economic problems coupled with counter-insurgency required continuous involvement in the international market.[21]
On 5 September 1987, Ne Win announced the withdrawal of the newly replaced currency notes, 100, 75, 35 and 25 kyats, leaving only 45 and 90 kyat notes, apparently because only the latter two are numbers divisible by 9, considered lucky by Ne Win.[22] Students were particularly angry at the government's decision as savings for tuition fees were wiped out instantly.[23] Students from the Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT) ran riot through Rangoon, smashing windows and traffic lights down Insein road.[24] Universities in Rangoon closed and sent students home. Meanwhile, larger protests in Mandalay involved monks and workers, with some burning government buildings and state businesses.[25] Burmese state media reported little on the protests, but information quickly spread through the students.[25]
With the re-opening of schools in late October 1987, underground groups in Rangoon and Mandalay produced dissident leaflets which culminated in bombs exploding in November.[25] Police later received threatening letters from underground groups, who organised small protests around the university campus.[26] After securing Least Developed Country status from the United Nations Economic and Social Council in December 1987, government policy requiring farmers to sell produce below market rates to create greater revenue for the government sparked several, violent rural protests.[27] The protests were fanned by public letters to Ne Win by former second in command General Brigadier Aung Gyi from July 1987, reminding him of the 1967 rice riots and condemning lack of economic reform, describing Burma as "almost a joke" compared to other Southeast Asian nations. He was later arrested.[21][28]
On 12 March 1988, students from the RIT were arguing with out-of-school youths inside the Sanda Win tea shop about music playing on a sound system.[4][25] The drunken youth would not return a tape that the RIT students favored.[29] A brawl followed in which one youth, who was the son of a BSPP official, was arrested and later released for injuring a student.[25] Students protested at a local police department where 500 riot police were mobilized and in the ensuing clash, one student, Phone Maw, was shot and killed.[25] The incident angered pro-democracy groups and the next day more students rallied at the RIT and spread to other campuses.[30] The students, who had never protested before, increasingly saw themselves as activists.[25] There was growing resentment towards military rule and there were no channels to address grievances – further exasperated by police brutality, economic mismanagement and corruption within the government.[4]
By mid-March, several protests had occurred and there was open dissent in the army. Various demonstrations were broken up by using tear gas canisters to disperse crowds.[22] On March 16, students demanding an end to one party rule marched towards soldiers at Inya Lake when riot police stormed from the rear, clubbing several students to death and raping others.[31] Several students recalled the police shouting, "Don't let them escape" and "Kill them!".[32] Stories, some of which were later found out to have been fabricated,[33] were circulating of the events of that day and quickly spread gaining popular support for the movement. Unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the government led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country.
Following the latest protests, authorities announced the closure of universities for several months.[34] By June 1988, large demonstrations of students and sympathisers were a daily sight.[34] Many students, sympathisers and riot police died throughout the month as the protests spread throughout Burma from Rangoon. Large scale civil unrest was reported in Pegu, Mandalay, Tavoy, Toungoo, Sittwe, Pakokku, Mergui, Minbu and Myitkyina.[35] Demonstraters in larger numbers demanded multi-party democracy, which marked Ne Win's resignation on July 23, 1988.[34] In a valedictory address, on July 23, 1988 Win affirmed that "When the army shoots, it shoots to kill."[22] He also promised a multi-party system, but he had appointed the largely disliked Sein Lwin, known as the "Butcher of Rangoon"[36] to head a new government.[28]
Protests reached their peak in August 1988. Students planned for a nationwide demonstration on August 8, 1988, an auspicious date based on numerological significance.[3] News of the protest reached rural areas and four days prior to the national protest, students across the country were denouncing Sein Lwin's regime and Tatmadaw troops were being mobilized.[3] Pamphlets and posters appeared on the streets of Rangoon bearing the fighting peacock insignia of the All-Burma Students Union.[37] Neighbourhood and strike committees were openly formed on the advice of underground activists, many of which were influenced by similar underground movements by workers and monks in the 1980s.[37] Between August 2 and 10, co-ordinated protests were occurring in most Burmese towns.[38]
During this period, dissident newspapers were freely publishing, fighting-peacock banners were unfurled, synchronised marches were held and rally speakers were protected.[37] In Rangoon, the first signs of the movement began around the Buddhist full moon of Waso at the Shwedagon Pagoda when student demonstrators emerged demanding support for the demonstrations.[39] Neighbourhood and strike committees barricaded and defended neighbourhoods and mobilised further demonstrations.[37] In some areas, committees built makeshift stages where speakers addressed the crowds and brought donations to support rallies.[40]
In the first few days of the Rangoon protests, activists contacted lawyers and monks[41] in Mandalay to encourage them to take part in the protests.[40] The students were quickly joined by Burmese citizens from all walks of life, including government workers, Buddhist monks, air force and navy personnel, customs officers, teachers and hospital staff. The demonstrations in the streets of Rangoon became a focal point for other demonstrations, which spread to other states' capitals.[42] 10,000 protesters alone demonstrated outside the Sule Pagoda in Rangoon, where demonstrators burned and buried effigies of Ne Win and Sein Lwin in coffins decorated with demonetized bank notes.[22] Further protests took place around the country at stadiums and hospitals.[43] Monks at the Sule Pagoda reported that the Buddha's image had changed shape, with an image in the sky standing on its head.[22] On August 3, the authorities imposed martial law from 8 pm to 4 am and a ban on gatherings of more than five people.[43]
| “ | Across Burma, people poured out in thousands to join the protests – not just students but also teachers, monks, children, professionals, and trade unionists of every shade. It was on this day, too, that the junta made its first determined attempt at repression. Soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators and hundreds of unarmed marchers were killed. The killings continued for a week, but still the demonstrators continued to flood the streets. | ” |
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—Amitav Ghosh (2001)[42] |
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A general strike, as planned, began on August 8, 1988. Mass demonstrations were held across Burma as ethnic minorities, Buddhists, Muslims, students, workers and the young and old all demonstrated.[22] The first procession circled Rangoon, stopping for people to speak. A stage was also erected.[40] Demonstrators from the Rangoon neighborhoods converged in downtown Rangoon. Only one casualty was reported at this point as a frightened traffic policeman fired into the crowd and fled.[40] (Such marches would occur daily until September 19.)[40] Protesters kissed the shoes of soldiers, in an attempt to persuade them to join the civilian protest, whilst some encircled military officers to protect them from the crowd and earlier violence[44][45] Over the next four days these demonstrations continued; the government was surprised by the scale of the protests and stated that it promised to heed the demands of the protesters "insofar as possible".[43] Lwin had brought in more soldiers from insurgent areas to deal with the protesters.[46]
In Mandalay Division, a more organized strike committee was headed by lawyers and discussion focused on multi-party democracy and human rights. Many participants in the protests arrived from nearby towns and villages.[47] Farmers who were particularly angry with the government's economic policies joined the protests in Rangoon. In one village, 2,000 of the 5,000 people also went on strike.[47]
A short while later, the authorities opened fire on the protesters.[12][22] Ne Win ordered that "guns were not to shoot upwards," meaning that he was ordering the military to shoot directly at the demonstrators.[42] Protesters responded by throwing Molotov cocktails, swords, knives, rocks, poisoned darts and bicycle spokes.[22] In one incident, protesters burned a police station and tore apart four fleeing officers.[45] On August 10, soldiers fired into Rangoon General Hospital, killing nurses and doctors tending to the wounded.[48] State-run Radio Rangoon reported that 1,451 "looters and disturbance makers" had been arrested.[28]
Estimates of the number of casualties surrounding the 8-8-88 demonstrations range from hundreds to 10,000;[12][15][16] military authorities put the figures at about 95 people killed and 240 wounded.[49]
Lwin's sudden and unexplained resignation on August 12 left many protestors confused and jubilant. Security forces exercised greater caution with demonstrators, particularly in neighbourhoods that were entirely controlled by demonstrators and committees.[45] On August 19, under pressure to form a civilian government, Ne Win's biographer, Dr. Maung Maung was appointed as head of government.[50] Maung was a legal scholar and the only non-military individual to serve in the Burma Socialist Programme Party.[3] The appointment of Maung briefly resulted in a subsidence of the shooting and protests.
Nationwide demonstrations resumed on August 22, 1988. In Mandalay, 100,000 people protested, including Buddhist monks and 50,000 demonstrated in Sittwe.[3] Large marches took places from Taunggyi and Moulmein to distant ethnic states (particularly where military campaigns had previously taken place),[51] where red, the symbolic colour for democracy was displayed on banners.[3] Two days later, doctors, monks, musicians, actors, lawyers, army veterans and government office workers joined the protests.[52] It became difficult for committees to control the protests. During this time, demonstrators became increasingly wary of "suspicious looking" people and police and army officers. On one occasion, a local committee mistakenly beheaded a couple thought to have been carrying a bomb.[53] Incidents like these were not as common in Mandalay, where protests were more peaceful as they were organised by monks and lawyers.[53]
On August 26, Aung San Suu Kyi, who had watched the demonstrations from her mother's bedside,[54] entered the political arena by addressing half a million people Shwedagon Pagoda.[52] It was at this point that she became a symbol for the struggle in Burma, particularly in the eyes of the Western world.[55] Kyi, as the daughter of Aung San who led the independence movement, she appeared ready to lead the movement for democracy.[56] Kyi urged the crowd not to turn on the army but find peace through non-violent means.[57] At this point in time for many in Burma, the uprising was seen as similar to that of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 1986.[28]
Around this time, former Prime Minister U Nu and retired Brigadier General Aung Gyi also re-emerged onto the political scene in what was described as a "democracy summer" when many former democracy leaders returned.[35] Despite the gains made by the democracy movement, Ne Win remained in the background.
During the September congress of 1988, 90% of party delegates (968 out of 1080) voted for a multi-party system of government.[52] The BSPP announced they would be organising an election, but the opposition parties called for their immediate resignation from government, allowing an interim government to organise elections. After the BSPP rejected both demands, protesters again took to the streets on September 12, 1988.[52] Nu promised elections within a month, proclaiming a provisional government. Meanwhile, the police and army began fraternizing with the protesters.[58] The movement had reached an impasse relying on three hopes: daily demonstrations in order to force the regime to respond to their demands, encouraging soldiers to defect and appealing to an international audience in the hope that United Nations or United States troops would arrive.[59] Some Tatmadaw did defect, but only in limited numbers, mostly from the Navy.[60] Stephen Solarz who had experienced the recent democracy protests in the Philippines and South Korea arrived in Burma in September encouraging the regime to reform, which echoed the policy of the United States government towards Burma.[61]
By mid-September, the protests grew more violent and lawless, with soldiers deliberately leading protesters into skirmishes that the army easily won.[62] Protesters demanded more immediate change, and distrusted steps for incremental reform.[63]
| “ | If the army shoots, it has no tradition of shooting into the air. It shoots straight to kill. | ” |
On September 18, 1988, the military retook power in the country. General Saw Maung repealed the 1974 constitution and established the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), "imposing more Draconian measures than Ne Win had imposed."[66] After Maung had imposed martial law, the protests were violently broken up. The government announced on the state-run radio that the military had assumed power in the peoples interest, "in order to bring a timely halt to the deteriorating conditions on all sides all over the country."[67] Tatmadaw troops went through cities throughout Burma, indiscriminately firing on protestors.[68] Within the first week of securing power, 1,000 students, monks and schoolchildren were killed, and another 500 were killed whilst protesting outside the United States embassy[48] – footage caught by a cameraman nearby who distributed the footage to the world's media.[69] Maung described the dead as "looters".[69] Protestors were pursued into the jungle and some students took up training on the country's borders with Thailand.[62]
"I would like every country in the world to recognize the fact that the people of Burma are being shot down for no reason at all."
By the end of September, there were around 3,000 estimated deaths and unknown number of injured,[62] with 1,000 deaths in Rangoon alone.[68] At this point in time, Aung San Suu Kyi appealed for help.[58] On September 21, the government had regained control of the country,[68] with the movement effectively collapsing in October.[58] By the end of 1988, it was estimated that 10,000 people – including protesters and soldiers, had been killed. Many others were missing.[16]
Many in Burma believed that the regime would have collapsed had the United Nations and neighbouring countries refused recognition to the coup.[70] Western governments and Japan cut aid to the country.[69] Among Burma's neighbours, India was most critical; condemning the suppression, closing borders and setting up refugee camps along its border with Burma.[71] By 1989, 6,000 NLD supporters were detained in custody and those who fled to the ethnic border areas, such as Kawthoolei, formed groups with those who wished for greater self-determination.[72] It was estimated 10,000 had fled to mountains controlled by ethnic insurgents such as the Karen National Liberation Army, and many later trained to become soldiers.[73][74]
After the uprising, the SLORC embarked on "clumsy propaganda" towards those who organised the protests.[75] Intelligence Chief Khin Nyunt, gave English-language press conferences aimed at providing an account favourable to the SLORC towards foreign diplomats and media.[75][76] The Burmese media underwent further restriction during this period, after reporting relatively freely at the peak of the protests. In the conferences, he detailed a conspiracy of the right acting with "subversive foreigners" of plotting to overthrow the regime and a conspiracy of the left acting to overthrow the State.[75] Despite the conferences, few believed the government's theory.[75] While these conferences were ongoing, the SLORC was secretly negotiating with mutineers.[76]
Between 1988 and 2000, the Burmese government established 20 museums detailing the military's central role throughout Burma's history and increased its numbers from 180,000 to 400,000.[58] Schools and universities remained closed to prevent any further uprisings.[58] Aung San Suu Kyi, U Tin Oo and Aung Gyi initially publicly rejected the SLORC's offer to hold elections the following year, claiming that they could not be held freely under military rule.[77]
Today, the uprising is remembered and honoured by many Burmese expatriates and citizens alike. There is also support for the movement amongst students in Thailand, which is commemorated every August 8 since.[78] On the 20th anniversary of the uprising, 48 activists in Burma were arrested for commemorating the event.[79] The event garnened much support for the Burmese people internationally. Poems were written by students who participated in the protests. The 1995 film Beyond Rangoon is based on a true story that took place during the uprising.
Many activists who joined the movement played a role 19 years later during the 2007 Burmese anti-government protests. The 88 Generation Students Group, named for the events of 8-8-88, helped to again organize protests during this uprising, leading to lengthy prison sentences for such prominent figures as Min Ko Naing, Ko Mya Aye, Htay Kywe, Mie Mie, Ko Ko Gyi, and Nilar Thein.[80] Though not an 88 Generation Students Group member, later solo protester Ohn Than also joined the democracy movement through the 8888 Uprising.[81]
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