Page 16 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
August 20, 2018
Activists mark 30th anniversary of Myanmar uprising
By Grace Brown and Min Kyi Thein
The Associated Press
ANGON, Myanmar — Hundreds of
people commemorated the 30th
anniversary of Myanmar’s 8888
uprising, a seminal and ultimately bloody
episode in the Southeast Asian nation’s
struggle for democracy.
The flag of the uprising — a fighting
peacock — flew on the campus and in a hall
of Yangon University, where activists,
including those who took part in the mass
revolt, heard speeches and viewed exhibits
that recalled the events.
The August 8, 1988 uprising came after
more than a quarter-century of military
rule and international isolation that had
condemned once-prosperous Myanmar —
then called Burma — to poverty. More
than 1 million people are estimated to
have protested throughout the country,
driven to take to the streets after the
government’s sudden demonetization of
the country’s currency, which wiped out
many people’s savings.
The revolt dislodged longtime dictator
Ne Win but was violently crushed by the
army in the weeks that followed.
Estimates of the number of deaths range
as high as 3,000. Although an equally
repressive set of generals took over, the
events also marked the founding of the
pro-democracy movement of Aung San
Suu Kyi, which finally took power
peacefully in 2016, although under a
restrictive constitution that forced it to
share power with the military.
Many of the leading figures of the 1988
uprising are still active in political and
social work, and several recalled the
momentous historical events and how they
started.
Y
“Suddenly, someone put out the student
flag, which had been hidden under his
shirt, and waved it,” recounted former
student protest leader and 88 Generation
activist Min Ko Naing. “At the same time,
another person brought a bamboo stick to
the fence and tied that flag to the top. All
the rest started chanting and waving their
posters.” All of a sudden, the demon-
stration had begun, he recalled, adding
that it had been “born in our hearts” many
years before.
Along with hundreds of others, Min Ko
Naing was arrested in the army takeover
that followed. He spent approximately 19
years behind bars, before finally being
released in 2012 during a mass pardon of
political prisoners.
An exhibit inside the university showed
in detail what took place in 1988. People
young and old stopped to read carefully
preserved archives of journals and
newspapers, hanging like ornaments.
Members of the 88 Group, an association
of protest veterans, also showed visitors
how word spread to the streets in the
pre-internet era, relying on foreign radio
stations including Voice of America and
BBC. Using simple manual printing
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UPRISING ANNIVERSARY. Members of the
National League for Democracy party (left photo) show
respect in front of the numbers “8888” during a cere-
mony marking the 30th anniversary of the pro-democ-
racy uprising, in Yangon, Myanmar. August 8 marked
the 30th anniversary of the nationwide protests for
democracy against the then-military dictatorship.
The protest was referred to as the 8-8-88 (four eights)
uprising. In the right photo, a boy holds a portrait of
Gen. Aung San at the 30th anniversary ceremony.
(AP Photos/Thein Zaw)
techniques, transcripts of the broadcasts
were shared in quiet teashops from
Yangon to Mandalay, the traditional
venues for gossip and discussion.
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