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History of All Burma Federation of Student Unions
History of All Burma Federation of Students
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My name is Myo Win. In 1988 I was studying at RIT as a final year student, majoring inMechanical Engineering.On the evening of March the 13th, 1988, I was chatting with my friends at a tea shop. One of them told us that students were gathering to go back to the ward to ask the ward authorities totake action against some people who had beaten up a student.I went back to my hostel because I heard that my friends were looking for me, but I didn’t seeanyone at the hostel. I watched TV alone. Then one of my friends came and told me that somestudents were surrounded and being attacked in the ward, so I went out with him to where theriot was occurring. It was about 8 o’clock.At that time, there were not too many students there. We organized ourselves as well as wecould. When we took to the street, we saw some students who had escaped. A car whichbelonged to one of our school staff was driving out from the ward. In it were some students whohad been injured in the riot. A student shouted from the car that some other students weresurrounded at the ward, and we should go and help them. When we heard this, we reactedwithout thinking, picked up bricks and sticks, and went to the ward.When we arrived at the riot, students and members of the public were throwing stones at eachother. Some students got injured. We send those who got injured to Insein hospital. We sawmany injured students. We left them at the hospital and went back to the school. By then, therewas already a roadblock, and there were no buses. When we met with soldiers with barricades,they questioned us, but we gave our explanations and were allowed to go back to the school.When we got back to the RIT complex, we saw the riot police, fire fighters and ward councilmembers positioned on the Insein Road; and soldiers positioned at Thamaing junction and InseinBOC bus stop. High-ranking officials from the Ministry of Education also arrived. In themeantime, the riot police tried to disperse the crowd using fire hoses, but they targeted only thestudents rather than the public so we got angry.They could not disperse the crowd. They used tear-gas, while the riot police fired guns at theschool complex. They climbed into the school complex, and occupied the school.At that time, I was standing at near a water fountain. Ko Phone Maw was near the grass, facingthe riot police. He was shot, and died on the spot. As I remember, some students got injured.
They were Soe Naing, (who died on the 5th of May, 1988), and Myint Oo. That is all I rememberof the night when Ko Phone Maw was killed.After the shooting and tear-gas had stopped, we went back to our hostel in the car which took KoSoe Naing to the hospital. I had planned to go along with my friends to the hospital but in theend I didn’t. That was lucky for me, because one of our teachers, and some of our friends whowent to take Ko Soe Naing to the hospital, got arrested.We built a mausoleum where Ko Phone Maw’s blood had stained the ground overnight. Wedidn’t sleep, but made a pamphlet, and discussed justice and revealing the truth. Militarypersonnel were still positioned opposite the grass. All the gates were blocked. I am not sure if weformed a committee or not. Some witnesses told us about their recent experiences.The next day, on March the 14th, we held a demonstration. We walked around the campus as ourteachers would not allow us to go out. The military personnel had withdrawn from the complex,but the roads were still blocked. We discussed how to respond to the government action.The Burmese Broadcasting Service announced that Phone Maw had died during a clash betweenthe students and members of the public. The BBC (Burmese service) also made the sameannouncement. This made us angry, and we demanded that our rector reveal the true story. Hereplied to us that though he knew the truth, he could not do anything. We decided we would do itourselves.We gave speeches; - I can’t remember who gave the speeches - we decided that we would nevergive up this cause; we chose leaders; if our leaders were to die, some of our followers wouldreplace them. Our registry signed a statement that said Phone Maw was shot dead. We copied theletter and distributed it to other university campuses. We formed a Phone Maw funeral servicecommittee. I was one of the committee members. On March the 15th, the roads were reopened.Some students from other universities came to RIT. We collected money for Phone Maw’s tomb.We got a lot of money.At midday on the 15th of March, soldiers took up position again in front of the school andsurrounded us. Some students tried to escape. We discussed what we should do as the militaryprepared to invade the school. We decided we would probably be arrested when they came in.At 3pm, the authorities used a loud speaker to tell us not to fight back. We were surrounded andour teachers knew that the military would soon enter the complex. Some teachers tried to help usto escape. They asked a member of the public to show us the way. We followed him, and wereable to manage to escape.
I think students launched the demonstration for many reasons. The killing of Ko Phone Maw wasan immediate cause, but even before he was killed, there had been some political activity on thecampus. In 1987, a student had quarreled with staff from the government savings bank when hewent to withdraw money. He was one of our friends. He was just given a warning by the schoolauthorities, but a rumor got up that had been dismissed from the university. Some studentsplanned to demand that he be allowed to remain, but we informed the students that it wasn’t true,that he hadn’t been kicked out of the university. We were also worried that the time was not yetright to take up political activity on the campus.One student was well aware that the BSPP wasn’t managing the country well. Even Ne Winhimself confessed that his socialist economy was not working, and that it might be necessary tochange things. After the BSPP demonetization, this student organized a committee to ask thegovernment for compensation. He encouraged us to form a committee. We asked the schoolauthorities for compensation, and to postpone the examinations, but the education authorityrefused our demands. As a result, we started a demonstration, and marched to ThamaingTownship. The Thamaing junction was blocked, so we went back to school. The next day, theschool closed.The school re-opened in December and we took the exam. At that time, when some studentswere trying to form student unions, we got letters from Rangoon University and MandalayUniversity which stated that they already formed student unions. I got a letter. We plannedactivities to start to organize the students on National Day, but we were not successful. We triedagain on the night of the last exam. We turned off the lights and shouted by way of demonstration.Another reason was that the Lanzin Youth leadership training used to be held at RangoonUniversity, but the authorities planned to hold it at RIT, and decorate the hostels, roads, andparkland etc. Waiters were forced to take a medical check, and those who passed were able toserve in the Lanzin Youth. We got angry because we assumed it was an insult to us, so we brokeall the new windows on the last night of the examinations.The Ko Phone Maw affair followed former affairs. When many people talk about the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, they only concentrate on the clash between the public and students onMarch the 13th. In fact, there were many reasons for the occurrence of the “Four Eights Affair”.However, I honestly didn’t know too much about politics at that time. I became involved inpolitics because of some of my friends.(Interview with Ko Myo Win/ Translated by Gyittu)
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| Upload Date: | 03/13/2009 |
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