As always, youth love justice and a rule of law in any country, and they are the group who renege against any tyranny and oppressive regime. A strong example was Burma's pro-democracy uprising in August 1988 led by young students.
Prior to the uprising, the people in Burma including the ethnic nationalities in frontier areas, were under the oppression by one party rule by the Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). BSPP was nominated by the Burmese Army in order to transform military rule to civilian government rule in 1974 after its 12 years seizure of political power from a democratic government. But it was exactly the same and the people were under the rule of the military regime.
The political parties, the entire people, and the ethnic and religious minorities totally lost their political and civil rights as BSPP ruled the country with an iron fist. At the same time, the Burmese Army launched military offensives against the ethnic armed resistance groups. They launched an inhumane four-cut campaign against the ethnic civilians with the purpose of cutting off all support from civilians to rebel soldiers. However, the civil war was separate issue and intensified.
Under the centralized socialist economic system, the farmers were forced to contribute their crops to the government, the daily use of the people were restricted, the entire people in the country faced scarcity of food and clothing, and other social problems created by BSPP.
This terrible situation of the people hit the soft heart of young students. They realized that something was wrong in their country. Increases corruption, currency inflation, enlargement of black markets (to solve the problem of scarcity), and a deteriorating economy, pushed Burma to being listed as a "Least Developed Country (LCD)" status in UN.
Furthermore, in late 1987 demonetization announced by the BSPP government poured fuel on the fire of anger of the people. The students from Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT) began their demonstration in students' hostels and blamed it on the BSPP's wrong policy.
Young students of RIT, who came from countrywide including ethnic areas were well-informed about what happened in the country's political, economic and social scenario and demanded students' rights in March 1988, after some students clashed with riot policemen and were killed. A politically motivated student uprising was widely organized again in June in Rangoon Arts and Science University (RASU) or the Main University and many students from Burma joined hands. That uprising was cracked down upon brutally when the students moved out of the RASU campus.
But that was not the end of the story. The students created their networks in all parts of Burma and rose up and led countrywide pro-democracy demonstrations and protests by bring together millions of people to the streets started on 8th August 1988 or 8.8.88. The students and the entire people of the country believed at that time that the democratic system must be better than the social system. The countrywide demonstrations faced a repressive crackdown at the beginning and the strongman Gen. Ne Win had to step down. But the Burmese Army refused to negotiate with students and they seized power on 18th September 1988 by killing thousands of students and ordinary civilians. Many fled from their homes and took shelter with the ethnic armed oppositions to challenge the regime through an armed struggle.
Currently, the 8888 Generation Students are still struggling for democratic reforms and many of their leaders are imprisoned by the current regime, the SPDC. The other 8888 Generation Students who fled to border areas and to neighboring countries still lead various types of organizations and have kept fighting for democracy. The best result was that these 8888 students could establish well an understanding with ethnic nationalities to establish a future Democratic Federal Union of Burma, which guarantee both democratic rights and racial equality rights.
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