8 August–19 September 1988
The Lon Htein, Burma’s armed riot police, had been overwhelmed by the numbers of protesters since late July. Beginning 1 August, the movement for the NLD gained momentum and as its following grew, the demonstrations in the streets of Rangoon became a focal point for other demonstrations beyond Rangoon. Activists in Rangoon contacted lawyers and citizens in Mandalay, encouraging them to take part in the protests. Burmese citizens from all walks of life—including government workers, Buddhist monks, air force and navy personnel, customs officers, teachers and hospital staff and even farmers—quickly joined the marches, swelling over a hundred thousand. About 10,000 protesters alone demonstrated outside the Sule Pagoda in Rangoon, where they buried effigies of Ne Win and the Butcher in coffins decorated with demonetized bank notes. ‘Aung San Suu Kyi! Aung San Suu Kyi!’ became the chant of the nation, and the chant of the people grew louder while the old prayed quietly in the privacy of their homes for liberation from a tyranny that had shackled and impoverished them for three decades and more.
The army promptly retaliated, promulgating martial law on 3 August. Elite Tatmadaw troops of the 22nd, 44th and 77th Light Infantry Divisions, who were well-experienced with counter-insurgency operations, were brought into Rangoon and deployed at strategic locations.
‘Shoot the bastards!’ the chairman thundered.
Just a little before midnight, the troops fired.
The soldiers who had been positioned earlier to cut off the escape of the demonstrators held their guns in readiness to discharge a greeting of death as soon as the fleeing mob surged onto their streets. The soldiers did not have to wait long, for soon the mob—no longer protected by the aura of Aung San or the immunity of his daughter—sought the safety of the narrow streets of Rangoon in the hope of evading the pursuing troops. The operation was planned in detail and the army was not intending to let its beloved mentor down. Students, the unwary public, the unfortunate pedestrians, the educated conscientious citizens, monks, young school children, boys and girls—and anyone that came in the way—were put down by gunfire. And when the shooting subsided, bodies, in their thousands, littered the streets of Rangoon—the body of U Tin Nu among one, lying in front of his tea shop in a pool of blood, his octogenarian head shattered and split open by an anonymous bullet, unburdened by a conscience or by guilt.
Beginning the day of 9 August, the streets downtown had been cleared but army troops kept on firing at demonstrators in the northern outskirts of Rangoon. The protesters had built barricades and, in retaliation, attacked police forces with pickaxes, sickles, knives, stones and stolen firearms, burning down several police stations and beheading six police officers.
On 10 August, a Tatmadaw battalion guided by Military Intelligence (MI) agents burst into the Rangoon General Hospital packed with hundreds of students, monks and demonstrators who had been wounded during the previous two days. Doctors and nurses tried to hang a banner at the entrance asking to stop the killings, but the soldiers shot at them with automatic weapons in cold blood, killing the doctors and the nurses, and dying civilians—not even sparing blood donors waiting to help outside the hospital. The MI agents were hunting down the leaders of the demonstrations since early August. The news of the incident spread like forest wildfire and, on that day, the army that Aung San had laboured to build, lost the little reverence the Burmese people still had for it.
The chairman of the erstwhile Revolutionary Council was disappointed that the much-hoped-for foreign involvement in the movement of Aung San’s daughter had not surfaced, and the junta’s effort to establish one had drawn a blank. He sat grimly in his chambers and reviewed the alarming report that the intelligence chief had submitted.
‘The motherless curs!’ swore the chairman, and snatched the telephone from its cradle, dialling Military Headquarters.
‘Khin Maung Nyunt?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, Chairman?’
‘Shoot the bastards!’ he thundered. ‘The miserable dogs are planning a demonstration in front of the American embassy.’
‘In front of the embassy?’ returned the incredulous voice on the telephone.
‘Shoot them anywhere, I don’t care….No, I don’t care for the Americans, damn it! This is our country.’
‘Won’t we be drawing attention to ourselves, Chairman?’ replied the voice urging caution. ‘Maybe she wants it to happen that way.’
‘Okay. Herd them away from the embassy and then shoot them on the Maha Bundula Street or Anawratha Street. Coordinate with Myo Mint. Shoot the whole bloody lot.’
‘And her?’ asked the voice apprehensively, seeking clarification.
‘No, damn it! Not her….I personally doubt that she will be there….The woman’s as cunning as a fox.’
‘And if she’s there?’ came the voice again, irritating the chairman abundantly.
‘Uhh? Put her under house arrest or something like that, you idiot!’ he yelled. The chairman was dismayed that no one was willing to take personal responsibility when it came to the direct question of Aung San’s daughter.
‘Very well, Chairman,’ replied the voice. ‘It will be done.’
‘And one more thing, Khin Maung Nyunt,’ said the chairman.
‘Yes, Chairman?’ asked the voice obediently on the phone.
‘Any soldier that does not obey the command will be transferred to the south; they can fight the Karens. Tell them that,’ he barked and slammed the phone down.
The chairman had been alarmed when he heard that some of the troops had refused to open fire on an earlier occasion, and had to be confined to their barracks. He had no time for the re-education of these troops now, he fumed. He’d let them die fighting the Karens instead and save himself the bother, he swore, and then dialled for the man in charge of the Ministry of Information and Broadcast.
‘Complete news blackout, make sure of that,’ he ordered into the telephone as soon as the Information and Broadcast man came on line. ‘Deny everything, you hear? Khin Maung Nyunt’s men will be having some target practice soon.’
‘Yes, sir,’ answered a meek voice on the telephone.
Running from automatic gunfire, demonstrators had run towards the American and Indian embassies on Merchant Street, next to the Maha Bundula Gardens.