The 8.8.88 Uprising: A Memoir

By AUNG NAING OO

KYAUK YEI TWIN, Rangoon: August 10, 1988

The Standoff

I woke up to a commotion outside the house, as protesters marched toward the highway. As I heard the noise, I knew the day would unfold just like the previous day—exciting yet tragic, truly tragic.

Half asleep, I scanned the room and saw my younger brother was not in his bed. He was gone again. His second disappearance in two days. I prayed for his safety.

The noise on the street faded as the crowd moved on, and the morning stillness returned. I did not get up immediately. I lay back on my bed, replaying the previous day’s scenes of gunfire near the bridge. Images filled my mind: military vehicles, protesters demanding passage across the bridge, an officer who shouted warnings to the protesters, cordite from the gun barrels and falling bodies. The scenes replayed over and over in my mind – I could not come to term with what I witnessed.

I had gone to bed the previous night, exhausted, emotionally drained even as noises echoed in the distance, with fresh memories of the mayhem on the highway burning in my mind. It had been a day I would never forget until perhaps I could find an answer to the mystery; how could this have happened?

Still in bed, I replayed the pictures in my mind. Following the protesters, passing by the small local grocery store, and walking down the road that led towards the railroad track, morning glory fields and the highway that separated Kyauk Yei Twen in Mayangone Township from North Okklapa Township to the east.

I had moved to Kyauk Yei Twin, or “stone well,” near the Rangoon International Airport a few months before the August uprising. Unlike other parts of Mayangone Township where the more affluent and high-ranking officials lived—most significantly Burma’s strongman General Ne Win—Kyauk Yei Twen was a poor neighborhood with a number of rose farms.

Eventually, I forced myself out of bed. I should be with the crowd, I thought. But it was already well after nine as I finally made my way to the highway.

I finally reached an angry crowd—men and women of all ages—along an embankment by the teashop next to the railroad tracks. Many of the men carried home-made weapons: swords, pointed bamboo stems, sling shots. Their fury at the brutal shootings they had witnessed the day before was visible on their faces, and their eyes were trained on the right side of the highway.

While listening to their angry outbursts and vulgar curses aimed at the socialist government and police, I followed their eyes and was shocked to see an old, rutted railway carriage lying on its side in the morning glory field between the highway and rail tracks. The carriage had not been there the day before. I wondered whether it had come from the inner-city “circle” train that trundled along under the flyover—the scene of shooting—during the demonstration.

The crowd began to yell, prompted by something I couldn’t see. I pushed my way towards the front of the crowd and saw a group of the feared “Lon Htein,” or riot police, bunched up on the highway.

I counted seven men, all heavily armed. One had a Bren (light machine) gun mounted on the road. He was lying by the side of the highway with the gun trained on the crowd. The rest of his comrades looked relaxed on the deserted highway. Some were facing the bridge on their left. Immediately, I realized what was happening.

Two different crowds had gathered to exact revenge on security forces for the indiscriminate shooting the day before. The Headquarters of the Lon Htein’s 9th regiment was located just on the other side of the highway. I assumed there had been some provocation from the public before I arrived.

It looked as if the seven Lon Htein police were trapped. There was a crowd to the left of the squad on the highway, gathered near s famous pagoda called “Mae Lamoot.” People were shouting slogans and hurling stones at the men.  And then there was the crowd I was with on the embankment across the morning glory fields. The police seemed to pay more attention to us because we were closer compared to the angry group on the highway.

Towards our left, I saw the branches of a fallen tree lying across the highway. They were from a huge rain tree whose trunk just lay at the edge of the tarmac.  The riot police were going nowhere; their exits to either Rangoon or North Okklapa on the highway were blocked.  

Just as I got a grip on the scene, something pointy nipped my back. I whipped around and saw a short but familiar guy trying to push his way through the crowd towards the front with a pointy bamboo stick in his hand.

“Win Kyaing,” I said, recognizing him as an old friend who had come from Rangoon to my hometown to live with his relatives there for a few years, but had disappeared before I finished high school. He looked up, “Aung Naing Oo!”

But before we could say anything further, a shot ran out.  As if it was second nature—or perhaps from the experience of the previous day’s shooting—I fell to the ground. Many people did the same. Shouts and curses and people falling over each other ensued.   

Soon the crowd regained its composure. People stood up again and starting hurling abuse at the police. I turned around to look for Win Kyaing, but he was gone and I never saw him again.

Soon I realized what some brave hearts were going to do; they wanted to use the old railway carriage, with its metal walls, as cover to attack the Lon Htein. About 30 people tried to push the carriage towards the right down the track away from the crowd. They stopped when they thought they were directly across from the police—with the carriage lying in the morning glory field between them.

A few people got into the carriage and started throwing anything they could, or using slingshots, to try to hit the riot police. However, the carriage was still some 100 meters from the rail tracks to the highway and the police did not even flinch. They began firing their guns towards the carriage. The crowd ducked, but then began shouting slogans and abuse at the riot squad once they realized the police were not shooting directly at them.

A light rain began to fall, prompting some to seek shelter in nearby houses. I went to the teashop but most of the people remained on the embankment and continued the protests. The crowd on the highway had also thinned.

The standoff lasted about two hours, with riot police occasionally firing warning shots. The protesters seemed to have run out of ideas of what to do. About mid-day, they began to disperse slowly. I thought that was the end of it and stated talking to people in the teashop to find a way to get into town.

As I was leaving the teashop, I saw rapid movement among the people on the embankment and excitement on their faces. The crowd on the highway had gathered again, and people seemed to be readying for an attack against the Lon Htein.

The Attack

From the distance, it seemed as though the protestors had driven a car onto the highway. I thought it was a green-colored Mazda, a government-issued jeep given to directors of state-own firms. A crowd had gathered around the car, and there was loud cheering.

The police were focused intently on the crowd on the highway now, and as we watched, the car moved towards the police, moving slowly at first then accelerating as it passed a little bridge on the highway near the pagoda. People on the embankment cheered.

Within seconds, the car was in full view. It was indeed a green Mazda, and it had a portrait of Gen Aung San tied to the front, resting on the bumper. The police began to shoot at the jeep, while the crowd on the embankment fell silent and watched.

The jeep came screeching to a stop about 70 meters from the police. No one got out, and I could not tell whether any bullets had hit the vehicle. Then we saw the jeep reverse, going back in the other direction, and there were grumbles and sighs of frustration from the crowd.

A few minutes later, the jeep drove towards the police again, only to turn around after the police fired at it... This time, though, I saw a bottle fly out of the jeep then fall on the rain-soaked highway and crack into pieces, only meters away from the police. 

It dawned on me that the anti-government protesters were throwing Molotov cocktail bottles at the police. But even on the second attempt, the jeep could not get close enough to the police. As the Mazda went into reverse, I heard a collective sigh from our crowd. 

Then we heard the sound of another engine, and I saw a TE-11 truck roll onto the highway. It had come from the building next to the pagoda, the office of the Home Industry Corporation, with the Lon Htein base located just next door. It dawned on me that the protesters must have taken over the compound, and that the Mazda had come from the same place.

From the distance, we saw people climbing onto the back of the truck, preparing for another offensive. Our crowd cheered then fell silent as they watched the TE-11 roar towards the police.

The truck got closer to the police than the Mazda, but again police began firing. I saw another bottle fly out of the back of the truck and hit the wet highway, close to the police, before the truck again reversed. The bottle did not explode, and there was a sigh of disappointment from the crowd.

For a while, all was quiet and still. The truck was parked on the road. The police were sitting on the highway, seemingly relaxed. It began to drizzle. After 15 minutes, the truck engine came alive and people again began to cheer.

Its engine roaring, the truck gained full speed within seconds. The police jumped to their feet, faced the truck, and as it reached within a hundred meters, they opened fire. This time, the truck did not stop and accelerated towards the Lon Htein.

Bottles flew out of the truck when the vehicle was about 30 feet from the police. They hit the highway in the rain and broke into pieces but did not explode. The police stopped shooting as the truck came closer to them, and then simply jumped out of its way, as the truck sped off at top speed. 

We watched in horror as the truck sped towards the tree lying across the road. It hit the branches, went over them and flew into the air as if in slow motion with its nose pointing upward.

The rear wheels hit the tarmac first. There was the sound of tires bursting as the truck hit the highway, then the screeching of breaks as the driver tried to stop the truck. We all ran down towards the rail-tracks.  

The truck came to a complete stop facing backward a short distance from the tree. There was no movement in the truck. We waited a moment, which seemed like an eternity. Two people climbed out of the back of the truck, with blood covering their bodies. They fell on the road. I could not tell if they had been shot or injured when the truck hit the tree. Then the door to the front seat opened, and the driver fell to the ground. Like his passengers, he seemed soaked with blood.

Spectators from that side of the highway came out to help the injured. They were taken to North Okkalapa Hospital in another truck.

The Tragedy  

I returned to the spot the next day on August 11. I saw the charred chassis of the truck, and the railway carriage the protesters used as cover still rested across the tracks. They stood as silent testament to the public anger.

There was a worse tragedy the next day. An 8-year-old girl was hit by a stray bullet from the police. Her house was only a few doors down from the teashop by the railroad tracks. It happened while we were watching the struggle between the police and more protesters. Her parents were among the protesters and did not know the bullet intended for the protesters had taken away their daughter. No one heard her cry. She died instantly. 

Soon after the uprising, the locals erected a statute at the foot of the bridge in memory of those killed. It was demolished by the military.

My brother came home that night and told me many stories of shootings elsewhere in Rangoon. I had become increasingly concerned about his safety and decided that we had to get out of town. We spent two days looking for a way to get out of town and back to Bago where my parents lived.

By the standards of other standoffs between the people and the authorities, this one was small. But it represented the same feelings of disgust and frustration that existed throughout the country in 1988.