This book is a first-person account of the 1988 student movement against Burma’s totalitarian regime

I remember the heady days before the national uprising on August 8, 1988 or the Four Eights Uprising. In the days and weeks leading up to the historical day, there was feverish activity on the campus and outside.

It was the first time in my life I took part in open political discussions, attended meetings and we students gathered together to form student unions and organisations. Students all over the country were organising themselves and we were concerned about how to coordinate amongst ourselves.

It was during those days that I started becoming aware of the long history of the students’ movement in Burma and the role they had played during our movement for independence and later against the military regime of General Ne Win. The senior students who would come to lead the uprising told us about this history. It was a learning process for me since I came from a non-political family and my association with Ne Win’s Socialist Party had not exposed me to democratic politics or the history of dissent in my country.

Student unions, which had been crushed after the 1962 coup, were once again revived in 1988. For instance, the Rangoon University Students Union which had been formed in 1931 was reborn on March 17, 1988 as thousands of students gathered inside the campus. I, too, became a member of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU).

I also became a member of the All Burma Federation of Students Unions (ABFSU) which was an underground national, umbrella student organisation. Although it was officially formed on August 28, 1988 the ABFSU or the BaKaTha traces its history to May 1936. It was then known as the All Burma Students Union (ABSU) and it was formed on the initiative of Gen Aung San during the colonial rule. The ABSU played a key role in the National Independence Movement and continued to do so even after Burma won her freedom from British colonial rulers. There was a crackdown on the ABSU forcing the students to go underground in 1949. In 1951, despite the atmosphere of oppression, the Union re-emerged under the name of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU). And once again it emerged to take the leadership of the movement for Democracy in 1988. And that is the name under which it still functions; and it is still banned.

I was assigned the task of documenting the scenes in the streets by taking photographs so that they could be published in our Union magazine, which was called Mainstream. I readily accepted the assignment even though I had never handled a camera before; and I did not possess one. Those were the days before the mobile phones.

It was not easy to get a camera in those days when the country had been kept isolated under the “socialist” regime. Burma did not manufacture cameras and they had to be imported and are still being imported.

I wondered how I could get hold of a camera.

I asked a friend whether she had a camera and could lend it to me. She did indeed have a camera, a Japanese Yashica, which she most willingly lent me. It required film rolls and I bought some and started regularly roaming on the streets of Rangoon recording the scenes.

I would get up early in the morning and join the street protests. I remember one day when I returned home I was barefoot. My slippers must have fallen off while running away from the military or Lon Htein, which often came to disrupt the demonstrations. I had not even realized that I was barefoot.

Each day when the roll finished, I went to a studio in downtown Rangoon and gave it for developing. However, I did not immediately pick up the developed photos because it would have been dangerous if I had been caught with the photos so I thought I would pick them up when I could take them safely to be published in the student union magazine.

As it happened, I never got to pick up my photos because on September 18, 1988 the military staged a coup. And with that there was a brutal military crackdown on protests. Years later when I returned to Yangon and tried to find the studio I could not locate it. I deeply regret that the photos got lost and with it was gone the record of those days. This would not be the first time I lost the documentation I had done of the repression and the resistance.

Despite the bans on public gatherings and curfews, students, later joined by a section of the monks and people from all walks of life, continued to protest. Many of the demonstrations were to demand the release of arrested student leaders; there were regular clashes, people died and funerals were held.

I took photos of high school students staging sit-in protests, I took photos of people from all walks of life – monks, police, soldiers, teachers, artists, writers, nurses and doctors, etc., all coming out under their banners – staging protests on the streets. I also remember the students gathering on the campuses both in the Main Campus of Rangoon University but also on other campuses. I also remember taking photos around Rangoon General Hospital where the wounded and injured protestors were brought in after being shot by the military.

Sometimes, I stayed in my parents’ home but most nights I would go to the hostel of a classmate in Tamwe township in Rangoon. I did not go home most nights mainly because I knew that my mother would try to keep me away from the demonstrations and I would not be able to freely involve myself in the student activities.

The hostel in Tamwe township was a small two-storeyed building where we students could occupy both the floors. Several friends would gather there to discuss political developments during those heady days of 1988.

On August 1, 1988, ABFSU gave a call for a general strike on August 8, 1988 – considered an auspicious day, since the number of the date (8th), month (8th) and year (1988) were the same. They distributed leaflets all over. Two days later, martial law was declared but people continued to protest in defiance.

On August 8, 1988 there was a general strike and the demonstrations swelled up with tens of thousands of people joining in the protests and demanding the resignation of the government and an end to the Burmese socialist economic system which had strangulated the economy. People raised slogans demanding democracy and human rights. The army remained in its barracks till evening, and when it was dark it came out and started shooting unarmed demonstrators. The following day, thousands were arrested. The Rangoon General Hospital was full of wounded people, largely students.

It was estimated that more than 3,000 demonstrators were shot dead between August 8 to August 12, 1988. The majority were students. But this did not deter the people from continuing their protests and demanding the restoration of democratic rule in Burma.

At first, the protestors used to gather outside the US Embassy or the Rangoon General Hospital, but soon, the focus of our protests shifted to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. On August 26, 1988, I was a part of the large crowd that had gathered together at the Pagoda to listen to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some of my classmates were leaders of the student movement and they had told me that she would be speaking. I knew she was the daughter of General Aung San, who was our hero. Many of us students dreamt of emulating him and his 30 comrades. We were really excited to learn that the daughter of our hero had returned to Burma. I knew that she was living with her husband and two sons in the UK but learnt later that she had come back to Burma to look after her mother, Daw Khin Kyi. But when she saw the events unfolding, she thought it was her duty to join the movement for democracy and this was going to be her first major public speech. A large photo of Gen Aung San was put on the stage and the students had formed a human chain to protect the area.

I was there behind her but could not really see her because of the large crowd. But I heard her speech; every word she spoke, clearly and precisely. I had never heard such a political speech and I was truly inspired by her simple, short, and direct speech on the meaning of democracy and human rights and the need for a multiparty democracy. It was clear to us that day that she was the one who could lead our movement.

Excerpted with permission from Resisting Military Rule in Burma (1988-2024); Story of Mizzima Media: Born in Exile, Banned in Myanmar, Nandita Haksar and Soe Myint, Aakar Books.