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Suu Kyi Praises 88 Generation Leaders
Thursday | 08/08/2013 - 04:30 PM
Suu Kyi Praises 88 Generation Leaders

Rohingya News Agency-(irrawaddy):‎ ‎A thronged Myanmar Convention Center saw Burma’s opposition ‎leader Aung San Suu Kyi praise the leaders of the 1988 student uprising against military rule, at the ‎closing of an event on Thursday marking the 25th anniversary of the demonstrations.‎

‎“We have to be grateful to the people for their involvement in the uprising,” she told the packed ‎auditorium in the north of Burma’s commercial capital, Rangoon. “We shouldn’t forget about it. We ‎thank anyone involved, especially those who sacrificed their lives for our cause.”‎

Suu Kyi, now a parliamentarian with ambitions to be Burma’s next president, saw her political career ‎launched in 1988 with a public speech in Rangoon two weeks after the Aug. 8 demonstrations against ‎the Ne Win dictatorship, which had been ruling for a quarter-century.‎
Her speech this year on Thursday was the culmination of three days of debate and ceremony ‎organized in part by the 88 Generation leaders—prominent former political prisoners who are now in ‎their 40s, including Min Ko Naing, Mya Aye, Ko Ko Gyi, Pyone Cho and Min Zeya.‎

‎“Our cause will have success someday, given the number of people gathering here today,” Min Ko ‎Naing told the crowd, an estimated 4,000 to 5000 people wedged into the convention center and an ‎area outside, where some watched the proceedings on a video screen.‎
Among the delegates were Htay Oo from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), ‎the party set up by the same Burmese military that brutally crushed the 1988 student-led uprising, ‎killing an estimated 3,000 people.‎
Others present included Shan leader Khun Htun Oo and US Ambassador Derek Mitchell.‎

Speaking to The Irrawaddy about the commemoration and its relevance to Burma today, Mitchell ‎recalled a famous aphorism by philosopher Carlos Santayana. “Those who forget history are doomed ‎to repeat it, so it is important to honor the sacrifice of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the ‎freedoms we hope are beginning here,” he said.‎
After crushing the 1988 uprising, Burma’s military ruled the country until early 2011, before ‎transferring power to a civilian government—albeit one under President Thein Sein, a former general, ‎and with a Constitution that reserves 25 percent of seats for the powerful military.‎

After those 1988 student protests, the Burmese military refused to acknowledge a landslide win for ‎Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party in a 1990 election. The ruling generals kept her ‎and other activists from the 88 Generation in jail for many of the subsequent years, and in 2007 they ‎ordered the military to crush another uprising, this time led by Buddhist monks.‎

The post-2011 government has undertaken political and economic reforms, including the release of ‎most 88 Generation leaders from jail early last year. The 88 Generation leaders, who have worked ‎with the government on various peace processes between the military and ethnic militias, have ‎formed a prominent group in Burmese civil society, prompting speculation that they might establish a ‎political party ahead of the 2015 national elections.‎
Tin Oo, a senior member of the NLD and a former head of the Burma Army, told The Irrawaddy that ‎the 88 Generation would make suitable political allies for the NLD, should the activists decide to enter ‎formal politics.‎
‎“I don’t know whether they will go into politics or not,” Tin Oo said. “If they do, they will not join the ‎NLD—they will have their own party, I think. But in Parliament we will be the same, on the one ‎principle we will be united.”‎
Both the NLD and the 88 Generation are calling for a revision to Burma’s 2008 Constitution, which ‎vests significant powers with the military and bars Suu Kyi from becoming president.‎

Refraining recent criticisms of the slowing pace of Burma’s reforms at the 1988 commemoration event ‎on Thursday, Suu Kyi said, “There’s no rule of law in this country so far,” and reiterated her view that ‎the Constitution must be amended.‎
Human rights groups have said that Burma’s reforms have stalled recently, as farmers and others ‎protesting land-grabs are arrested and jailed. A range of old, repressive laws also remain in place, as ‎Burma’s legislature works through a litany of new and proposed laws.‎

Nonetheless, Mitchell, the US ambassador, sees the Silver Jubilee commemorations as indicative of ‎change in Burma, remarking that such an event would have been impossible prior to 2011.‎
‎“It’s the beginning of a process, but the fact that you can have such an event here, with such a large ‎crowd and wide participation, is remarkable,” he told The Irrawaddy.‎

Former BBC correspondent Christopher Gunness, who reported on the 1988 demonstrations in Burma, ‎echoed Mitchell’s comments, saying, “It is extremely significant that government ministers and ‎military people came to an event like this, because in all societies that are transitioning from ‎dictatorship to democracy, the first step along the way is truth, is discovering the truth, is telling the ‎truth and acknowledging the truth.”‎




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