early August, Min Zaw insisted on attending. A layman who had come to know Min Zaw at the temple and often gave him extra meals encouraged him to give a speech. After shouting nervously at the audience, ‘Do you think I am a monk?’, Min Zaw told them that he was actually a student from Rangoon University and explained everything he had witnessed during the demonstrations in March and June. The community had planned a protest for the next day, and Min Zaw decided he could no longer be a monk. 5 The next morning, he changed into street clothes, and walked out of the monastery. When the abbot saw him, he smiled and said nothing.
Six weeks of nationwide protests
In Rangoon, following the walkout of the dock workers at 8.08 a.m. on 8 August, thousands of people took to the streets. Surprisingly, the soldiers just watched. Late that night, however, the killing began. Violence incited more anger, and people continued to come out on to the streets over the next few days. With the fearlessness of youth, high-school students led numerous demonstrations in their school uniforms. Many provocatively bared their chests in front of the troops, daring the soldiers to shoot or bayonet them. Although a number of soldiers refused, others obeyed orders to kill the young students. Many soldiers had been brought into the city from remote areas, having been told that the students were communists bent on destroying the country. Between 8 and 12 August, several hundred people were killed in Rangoon alone. 6
In Rangoon students played the central role in organizing demonstrations. In Mandalay students and monks led together. Kyaw Tint, a student activist in Mandalay, remembers:
We started on the morning of 8/8/88, but the monks had to eat their morning meal, so they asked us to please wait until after eleven. But some students couldn’t wait so they started. At that time one youth was shot and died. At eleven thirty the monks’ group started marching. And the next day, we started the boycott camps in monasteries and pagodas and some schools.
In medical student Ye Min’s township in the delta, students began their demonstration at the local high school. As they marched, they called for the release of two locally arrested students as well as for the end of one-party rule. As in many rural areas where there were no soldiers, onlylocal police, the atmosphere was not as frightening as it was in Rangoon or Mandalay. When the crowds poured into the police station, the police had no choice but to release the two students. In the following days, the students organized a strike committee camp at one of the monasteries with the full support of the monks. They formed a township student union including high-school and university students, and encouraged teachers to become involved. Later, teachers’ unions, workers’ unions, a health workers’ union and a lawyers’ union were also set up. Then the various unions joined together to select a township general strike committee. Other towns followed a similar pattern, with professional groups organizing themselves into impromptu unions and their leaders forming strike committees to coordinate demonstrations and later administrative affairs.
Back in Rangoon, Moe Thee Zun had become one of the leading speakers and strategists. He urged students to move their demonstrations out of the universities and into the markets and other centres of activity. Wherever the students began speaking, the troops attacked. Unable to tell who was a student and who a bystander, the soldiers beat everyone, and sometimes shot people. As a result, everyone automatically became involved. Moe Thee Zun also encouraged activists to hold demonstrations in the evenings, when people were on their way home. Such protests didn’t interrupt their work, and the protesters could more easily escape in the dark if soldiers came after them.
In every demonstration, students carried fighting-peacock student union flags, banned
Six weeks of nationwide protests
In Rangoon, following the walkout of the dock workers at 8.08 a.m. on 8 August, thousands of people took to the streets. Surprisingly, the soldiers just watched. Late that night, however, the killing began. Violence incited more anger, and people continued to come out on to the streets over the next few days. With the fearlessness of youth, high-school students led numerous demonstrations in their school uniforms. Many provocatively bared their chests in front of the troops, daring the soldiers to shoot or bayonet them. Although a number of soldiers refused, others obeyed orders to kill the young students. Many soldiers had been brought into the city from remote areas, having been told that the students were communists bent on destroying the country. Between 8 and 12 August, several hundred people were killed in Rangoon alone. 6
In Rangoon students played the central role in organizing demonstrations. In Mandalay students and monks led together. Kyaw Tint, a student activist in Mandalay, remembers:
We started on the morning of 8/8/88, but the monks had to eat their morning meal, so they asked us to please wait until after eleven. But some students couldn’t wait so they started. At that time one youth was shot and died. At eleven thirty the monks’ group started marching. And the next day, we started the boycott camps in monasteries and pagodas and some schools.
In medical student Ye Min’s township in the delta, students began their demonstration at the local high school. As they marched, they called for the release of two locally arrested students as well as for the end of one-party rule. As in many rural areas where there were no soldiers, onlylocal police, the atmosphere was not as frightening as it was in Rangoon or Mandalay. When the crowds poured into the police station, the police had no choice but to release the two students. In the following days, the students organized a strike committee camp at one of the monasteries with the full support of the monks. They formed a township student union including high-school and university students, and encouraged teachers to become involved. Later, teachers’ unions, workers’ unions, a health workers’ union and a lawyers’ union were also set up. Then the various unions joined together to select a township general strike committee. Other towns followed a similar pattern, with professional groups organizing themselves into impromptu unions and their leaders forming strike committees to coordinate demonstrations and later administrative affairs.
Back in Rangoon, Moe Thee Zun had become one of the leading speakers and strategists. He urged students to move their demonstrations out of the universities and into the markets and other centres of activity. Wherever the students began speaking, the troops attacked. Unable to tell who was a student and who a bystander, the soldiers beat everyone, and sometimes shot people. As a result, everyone automatically became involved. Moe Thee Zun also encouraged activists to hold demonstrations in the evenings, when people were on their way home. Such protests didn’t interrupt their work, and the protesters could more easily escape in the dark if soldiers came after them.
In every demonstration, students carried fighting-peacock student union flags, banned
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