Legacy of 8-8-88 in Burma: story by IPS

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BURMA: Expats Keep Democracy Hopes Alive
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 8 (IPS) - Aung Moe Zaw still lives in the hope that
democracy will take root in Burma, 20 years after hundreds of
thousands of people took to the streets in Rangoon to oppose that
country’s military dictatorship. ‘’More people have joined our
democracy movement. We are very optimistic about it,’’ the 41-year-old
said in an interview on the eve of that anniversary better known in
Burma as ‘8-8-88’, the day when this spirit of democracy flowered,
Aug. 8, 1988.

It happened 26 years after the military had grabbed power in a coup,
in March 1962, and ruled the country with an iron grip and a policy of
isolationism.

‘’The momentum is still with us, if you look at what has happened
since then. The international community is with us and is better aware
than it was in August 1988,’’ added the leader of the Democratic Party
for a New Society (DPNS), the second largest political party in the
country.

Yet against such feelings of hope for a moment that has been pivotal
in this South-east Asian nation’s struggle to become a democracy is
the brutality and the bloodshed that also marked those heady days. The
military dictatorship at the time crushed the pro-democracy uprising
with force, troops firing into unarmed crowd, leaving over 3,000
protesters dead.

But that is not all. That brazen attack on unarmed citizens has hardly
diminished, taking other oppressive forms in the ensuing years. It has
consequently undermined the pro-democracy leaders that emerged out of
the 8-8-88 protests to build a country that celebrates political and
civil liberties.

Aung Moe Zaw typifies this predicament of Burma’s pro-democracy
leaders, men and women who have been denied a chance to shape their
political vision. He cannot talk freely and champion democracy in his
country. He has to do so as a political exile in Thailand.

He is not an exception. Many Burmese who won seats at the 1990
parliamentary elections -- held due to the pressure of 8-8-88 -- have
had to flee the country. The regime refused to recognise the results
of the poll, where the National League for Democracy (NLD), an
opposition party that was formed after the pro-democracy protests, won
with a thumping majority. These elected Burmese arliamentarians who
escaped set up the National Coalition Government for the Union of
Burma (NCGUB) in exile.

And for the country’s democracy leaders who chose to stay behind and
fight, the regime responded with arrests and long periods in jail or
under house arrest. The most famous among them are Aung San Suu Kyi,
the Nobel Peace laureate who leads the NLD, and has spent over 12 of
her last 18 years under house arrest. The other is Min Ko Naing, a
leader of the ’88 Generation’ university students who spearheaded the
8-8-88 protests, currently in jail for the third time in the past two
decades.

The junta’s repression of democracy is best captured in Burma’s
notorious prisons, where over 10,000 political activists have been
jailed since the protests of August 1988, of which 2,000 still remain
behind bars. And during the two decades, 137 political activists have
died in Burmese jails or while being interrogated.

‘’The ’88 demonstrations produced many new leaders for Burma’s
democracy movement but they were denied the freedom to build a new
culture. They have been jailed or kept under house arrest,’’ says Bo
Kyi, a former political prisoner and leading member of the Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a group based on the Thai-
Burma border championing the rights of the imprisoned activists.

‘’Those who have been freed and have not stopped working for
democracy, like Min Ko Naing and the other leaders of the ’88
Generation,’’ he said during a telephone interview from Mae Sot. ‘’It
is a very difficult decision they make being politically active. They
know they can be sent back to prison. And they know the suffering
there.’’

The junta’s use of Burmese jails to crush the hint of democracy since
1988 has been amplified by the longer prison sentences jailed
political activists have been given than during the years before the
pro-democracy uprising. ‘’Previously, a prison sentence for political
activity would last seven years or a little more. But since a-8-88,
political activists have been given 20 year sentences to even over 50
years,’’ says Win Min, a Burmese national security expert teaching at
a Thai university in Chiang Mai.

‘’The jail has been one method the military regime has used to crush
the political space for democratic activity. There is less space today
than during the period shortly before the ’88 uprising,’’ he said
during a telephone interview from Chiang Mai. ‘’The military has used
more coercive power to control the political process and they appear
relatively stronger than opposition groups.’’

The junta’s new found friends since 1988, such as China, India, Russia
and the governments from a 10-member regional bloc, the Association of
South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), have also contributed to its staying
power at the expense of a healthy Burmese democracy. This
international protective net came to the regime’s rescue last
September after it was condemned for the brutal crackdown of peaceful
pro-democracy protests led by tens of thousands of Buddhist monks.

It may be a daunting political landscape, but Burma’s young political
leaders like Aung Moe Zaw are far from conceding defeat. They want to
keep the legacy of 8-8-88 alive, a reminder of a country in need of
political reform. ‘’We have to use every possible means to convince
the regime that democracy is good,’’ he says. ‘’We are not going to
give up no matter how more restricted and controlled Burma is today
than 20 years ago.’’

(END/2008)