25th anniversary of the student uprising marked in Burma amid reconciliation and victims' pain
Yangon (AsiaNews) - Among appeals "for justice and reconciliation" and the pain of parents who will never forget the tragedy of a daughter killed by the bullets of the military, today Myanmar is marking the silver jubilee of the student revolt, known as "8-8-88". In August 25 years ago a handful of students started demonstrating for greater democracy. Their protests were bloodily suppressed by the ruling dictatorship. One of the blackest pages in the history of former Burma, which now seems to be heading towards a path of reform and opening up to civil rights, so much so that even the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi - who spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest - has a seat in Parliament.
However, the wounds remain open
and different movements are still seeking justice. Human
Rights Watch (HRW) is calling for an investigation of the facts that back in
1988, led to the military's bloody repression of popular protest. Asia
director, Brad Adams, said that "mass murder 25 years ago in Burma - 3
thousand deaths and 10 thousand students in exile, ed - are still open wounds
and have never been addressed, which undermines the government rhetoric of
reform."
For
years, the student revolt and the subsequent massacre ordered by the military
junta in Myanmar were taboo subjects. Since
2011, it seems that something has changed, although it is impossible to say
whether the nation has really left behind 50 years of dictatorship and
violence. The
fact remains that last year thousands of Burmese - including activists and
former political prisoners - for the first time celebrated the anniversary with
the approval of the government, flooding the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and
other cities in Myanmar to remember the
fateful "8888".
The protagonists of the uprising, the student movement "Generation 88", after almost 20 years also took part in mass protests in August 2007, against the decision of the military regime to increase fuel prices, the agitation then led to a genuine popular uprising, led by monks and bloodily repressed once again by the army. And it is one of the leaders of "Generation 88", the 50 year-old Min Ko Naing - in Yangon for a three-day commemoration also attended by government officials - who has expressed hope for "justice and reconciliation" for the future. In an interview with The Irrawaddy the most famous dissident after "the Lady" points out that "the search for truth is not synonymous with revenge."
Change does not happen quickly and painlessly, he explains, for this reason "we must continue to fight" for harmony between the different souls of Myanmar without "sacrificing the historical truth of the facts." And it is certain that in the end "dhamma (justice) will prevail over Adhamma (injustice)." In a context of "greater freedom" "some draconian laws" like the Electronics Act remain, but above all he points to the need to solve the "ethnic problem" because otherwise "any reform policy will be useless and we can not build a new nation."
However, still today in Myanmar
there are families who can not forget the drama lived at the time of the riots
of "Generation 88". Like
61 year old U Win Kyu, for who this anniversary will always be an open wound,;
the wound of a father - and a mother - who lost their daughter to the army's
brutality and a photo that has become one of the iconic images of the military violence
(pictured). "Every
year I relive it all", he says, looking back at the last moments of life of the
then 16-year-old Ma Win Maw Oo who was shot in the lungs. The
girl was one of many activists of the student movement and the image of her
death, which appeared on the cover of Asian Newsweek, is one of the strongest
symbols of the military brutality.
With
her last words, Ma Win Maw Oo asked her parents not to invoke the merits of
her soul - a tradition rooted in Buddhist Myanmar - until "until there is democracy
in Burma." "As
a Mother, I do not want her soul to continue to wander," said Daw Khin
Htay Win, "but I have to respect her wishes and the promise that my
husband made" at the point of death. And
the reforms (real or imagined) initiated by the government of Naypyidaw in the
last two years not enough because "we can not say that that there is democracy
in our country." As
you can imagine, they do not like the army or military uniforms but - at the
same time - they are not looking for personal vendettas. "My daughter was
killed in a brutal manner", says the father, and it was her" destiny
"to face the death
in this way, however, "we would like the president to set up a memorial or
make some sort of gesture to remember those who have died in the uprising of
'88. If
this were to happen, it would be a source of joy and pride for us. "
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