Cold Open

It’s March 16th, 1988 in Rangoon, the capital of Burma.

A young woman cycles down a narrow back alley, her wheels splashing through puddles left by a recent monsoon. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a thousand angry voices chanting in unison rises above the corrugated iron rooftops and hangs in the air like an electric charge.

The young woman’s heart rate quickens as she follows the rumbling noise.

She turns a corner onto a tree-lined road, where thousands of demonstrators are marching with signs bearing pro-democracy messages. The crowd is mostly students like her - young people angered by the corruption and violence of Burma’s socialist dictatorship.

The young woman abandons her bicycle and joins the demonstration, lending her voice to the spirited cries for democracy and freedom.

She follows the flow of protestors onto a bridge over a lake where a line of military vehicles forms a menacing blockade. As armed soldiers square up to the front line of protestors… there’s a sudden screech of tires. The young woman spins around to see a fleet of police vans have appeared behind the demonstrators, trapping them on the bridge. Officers in riot gear start pushing and shoving the students, who suddenly have nowhere to run.

Then a single gunshot rings out and a protester crumples to the ground, dead. Chaos ensues as the demonstrators panic and try to escape the bridge.

But within seconds, bullets fly through the air as the officers start firing indiscriminately into the crowd—a dark tide of blood courses over the concrete of the bridge.

The young woman joins the frantic crush of fleeing students. But the police vans block them in, forcing them back with batons, assault rifles, and tear gas.

Her eyes stinging, the young woman is left to wonder if their dream of a free Burma will ever be achieved - or if it's doomed to die on this bridge.

Since 1962, Burma has been suffering under the oppressive totalitarian rule of the socialist dictator, General Ne Win. During that time, the south-east Asian country has gone from a prosperous nation to one of the world’s poorest. The corrupt government’s isolationist economic policy has set Burma back several decades and created a generation of impoverished and disillusioned young people whose calls for democracy are only met with violence.

The brutal crackdown against demonstrators in Rangoon will claim the lives of hundreds of students and become known as the White Bridge Massacre. But rather than spell the end of the uprising, these killings will only fuel the widespread feelings of anger and unrest already sweeping the country, ultimately galvanizing even more young people to rise up and demand change in Burma, on August 8th, 1988.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is August 8th, 1988: Burma’s Pro-Democracy Uprising.

Act One: The Journalist

It’s July 1988, inside an office in London; one month before the revolution in Burma.

Journalist Chris Gunness stifles a yawn while typing up a news report. The 29-year-old is a rookie reporter on the Asia desk for the BBC World Service, the broadcaster’s international branch. Chris joined the BBC straight after university with dreams of being sent overseas on exciting assignments. Instead, he spends his days in a dreary office in central London, filing inconsequential reports that few people will ever read.

While he types, Chris is suddenly interrupted by a sharp knock on his cubicle partition. It’s his editor, wanting to know if Chris has heard the latest news from Burma.

After years of rising discontent, the nation’s students took to the streets of Rangoon in March to demand free elections. But the protest was violently suppressed by state police. And then the government announced today that an emergency congress would be convened at the end of the month to decide what steps should be taken to resolve the crisis.

Chris tells his editor that he’s been following all these events closely. And the editor nods. Then he clears his throat and says: “We’d like you to travel to Burma immediately. We need somebody on the ground to report on events as they happen.” Seeing Chris’s face light up, the editor quickly adds that they would have sent a more experienced reporter, but all the senior journalists are away on summer vacation. Chris is all they’ve got.

Nevertheless, the following evening, Chris is elated to find himself in Burma’s capital, sitting in the backseat of a taxi disguised as a backpacker. Though he barely slept on the 12-hour flight, he feels wide awake, his senses alert to every new sight, sound, and smell. As the taxi weaves through narrow back alleys, Chris detects an edge to the night air, the feeling of something brewing just beneath the surface.

The taxi pulls up outside his hotel: a crumbling rat-infested building on the banks of the Rangoon River. Chris enters the lobby and collects his key from the unsmiling concierge. Up in his cramped room, he lies down on the springy bed and tries to get some sleep.

Over the course of the next few days, Chris brings himself up to date with developments in Burma. He reaches out to journalist contacts and embassy staff. He even questions bartenders and pedestrians - anyone who might be able to shed some light on the complex political situation. But he isn’t able to glean any useful information.

Then, a few days after Chris’s arrival in Burma, the government convenes the emergency congress. There, the country’s dictator General Ne Win makes a shock announcement: he is resigning as party chairman and calling for a referendum on whether to return to a multi-party system of government. The people of Burma don’t know how to react. They can’t believe that the dictator would reverse his stance so abruptly and so absolutely.

And sure enough, the General’s promises prove hollow. He resigns as party chairman, but he doesn’t make way for a democratic transition. He hands the role of chairman to one of his loyal deputies, the widely-reviled General Sein Lwin, whose notoriety as a brutal enforcer of state law has earned him the nickname: “The Butcher of Rangoon.”

Following this change in leadership, the widespread feeling of anger only increases. Chris monitors the situation closely and broadcasts his dispatches via the BBC Burmese Service. With most national media organizations controlled by the dictatorship, Chris becomes one of the few sources of accurate information available to the people of Burma, and they take note.

One afternoon, Chris returns to his hotel room to find an anonymous note on his bed. It reads: “Be at the entrance of the Sule Pagoda at 9 tomorrow. We have news for you.”

So the following morning, Chris packs his tape recorder and notebook and arrives at the Pagoda at the appointed time. There he is met by a group of students, who usher him into a waiting car and drive him to a safe house on the outskirts of the city. Once inside, Chris turns on his tape recorder and interviews the students. They inform him that they are leading an underground resistance movement, planning a general strike to take place “at eight minutes past eight, on the eighth day, of the eighth month of 1988.”

Chris will smuggle the cassette tapes back to the BBC in London. And from there, the recording of the interview will be broadcast across Burma, spreading information about the planned uprising on the eighth day of the eighth month. And though Chris doesn’t know it at the time, his interview will prove to be the spark that lights a revolution.

Act Two: The Student

It’s just after 8 AM on August 8th, 1988, in Rangoon, Burma.

College student Bo Kyi marches in the midst of an agitated crowd. Everywhere he looks, the streets teem with demonstrators from all walks of life - there are students of course, but also dockworkers, monks, lawyers - all assembled to protest against Burma’s corrupt dictatorship. Rows of heavily-armed police officers watch on, unsure how to react.

Because the atmosphere is festive and celebratory. The marchers bellow the national anthem and traditional military songs. Some kiss the police officers’ feet, encouraging them to lay down their weapons and join this popular uprising against the tyrannical government.

Ever since the BBC broadcast an interview with a group of student revolutionaries, thousands of Burmese citizens have been preparing to rise up on the appointed day - the eighth of August. All across the country, workers’ unions formed strike committees and made arrangements to down their tools and take to the streets. Pamphlets denouncing the government were circulated. Posters were plastered across lamp-posts and buildings each depicting the insignia of the revolution: a white star and a fighting peacock. The whole country feels united against a common enemy: the military strongman who has been oppressing Burma for decades.

Bo Kyi raises his fist and joins the rousing cries for democracy as the demonstrators continue throughout the city. They are headed for the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred Buddhist temple in Burma. But as they approach the giant golden structure, the march suddenly comes to a halt. Bo Kyi cranes his neck to see what’s caused the obstruction. Then discovers it’s a military roadblock. Up ahead, the front line of protesters seems to be negotiating with the soldiers, demanding to be let through. But the soldiers refuse, driving back the demonstrators with the muzzles of their guns. Bo Kyi feels a stab of unease as he watches the situation grow increasingly tense. In his outgoing address a few days ago, the former dictator, General Ne Win, warned the people of Burma that “when the army shoots, it shoots to kill.”

Before that can happen, the demonstrators turn around and reconvene outside City Hall. There, the protest songs and chants continue long into the night. Groups of soldiers and police officers watch on warily, their guns ready at their hips. And it's in the early hours of the morning, that the uneasy tension between these two groups finally spills over into violence.

Confrontation breaks out between authorities and the demonstrators. More soldiers arrive and start firing into the crowd. The screams of the wounded resound in Bo Kyi’s ears. Some of the protestors start hurling bricks at the soldiers. There’s a loud smashing sound followed by a fiery explosion as someone throws a Molotov cocktail. Bo Kyi watches in horror as the demonstration descends into chaos and confusion. And as more military vehicles screech into the square, Bo Kyi joins the other demonstrators and runs for his life.

Over the course of the next five days, the government’s crackdown against the demonstrations becomes increasingly brutal. People continue to march and protest against the dictatorship, but the military does not hesitate to use violence to break them up. By the end of this period of civil unrest, an estimated 3,000 demonstrators are dead and thousands more are thrown in prison and tortured. It seems the revolution has been suppressed.

*** 

But a few days later, on the outskirts of Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi listens anxiously to the radio from her mother’s bedside.

The 43-year-old is the daughter of a Burmese politician who led the fight for Burma’s independence from Britain in the 1940s. But rather than follow her father’s footsteps into politics, Suu Kyi left Burma to pursue an academic career overseas. But when her mother fell ill recently, Suu Kyi returned, despite the political turmoil that's turned Burma's streets into a warzone.

Suu Kyi clutches her mother’s frail hand as she listens to the latest death toll statistics on the radio. She feels intense anger when she thinks about what's happened to her country - the country that her father helped liberate from colonial occupation. The tyrannical military regime has brought nothing but subjugation and misery to the people, and Suu Kyi knows what the democracy movement needs is a strong leader to unite behind - someone like her father.

She stands and walks over to the window. A crackle of distant gunfire sends a flock of birds spiraling into the summer sky. As the startled birds flap their wings, Suu Kyi’s dark, fiercely intelligent eyes flash with a sudden idea. Perhaps fate has brought her back to Burma at this moment of upheaval for a reason.

This thought will change the course of Suu Kyi’s life and the fate of Burma forever. Compelled to join the revolutionary movement, Aung San Suu Kyi will soon emerge as the figurehead of democracy in Burma, and the bright hope of the nation’s future.

Act Three: The Daughter

It’s August 26th, 1988 in Burma; two weeks after pro-democracy demonstrations were violently suppressed by the military.

Aung San Suu Kyi stands on a raised podium outside the Shwedagon Pagoda, the largest Buddhist temple in Rangoon. A crowd of half a million people are gathered to hear her speak. As the daughter of Burma’s independence hero, Aung San Suu Kyi is seen as an almost mythical figure, a deity sent down to deliver democracy to the people.

As she looks out at her vast audience, Suu Kyi's gaze is steely and determined. She glances down at her script resting on the lectern. Then she leans forward and speaks into the microphone, declaring: “I believe that all the people who have assembled here have come with the unshakeable desire to strive for a multi-party democratic system. In order to arrive at this objective, all the people must march unitedly in a disciplined manner toward the goal of democracy!”

The crowd roars their approval. Suu Kyi urges her supporters to continue their brave struggle for free and fair elections without resorting to violence. And by the end of her long speech, Burma’s pro-democracy movement has a new leader to rally behind.

In September, the government convenes a new congress, in which ninety percent of the Socialist Party delegates vote to hold multi-party elections. The widely despised military dictator, General Sein Lwin, resigns and an election is scheduled. For a brief period, it seems as though democracy might prevail. But such optimistic feelings don't last long.

Just a few days after the congress, a military coup takes place. Another belligerent general seizes power and repeals the national constitution. He establishes a new party, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, and imposes martial law across Burma, brutally cracking down on any dissent.

Suu Kyi and her supporters form a rival party, the National League for Democracy, which quickly gains tremendous support among the masses. In 1990, the government finally concedes to the people’s demands and holds a general election, in which Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy win by a landslide. But the results of the election are voided by the military government, and Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest.

Aung San Suu Kyi will remain under house arrest for fifteen years, during which time she will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her courageous campaigning for democracy in Burma, or Myanmar - as the county is now known. Following years of outcry from the international community, Suu Kyi will eventually be released in 2010, whereupon she will be elected as leader of the opposition.

In 2015, she will lead her National League for Democracy to victory in Myanmar's first openly contested election in 25 years. For the next half-decade, Suu Kyi will encounter her own struggles, receiving criticism for not making enough democratic reforms and for not doing enough to address the longstanding conflicts and human rights abuses against the country’s ethnic minority groups. Still, in 2020, the National League for Democracy will win another landslide victory and prepare to form the next government. But again the military will dispute the election results. Claiming voting fraud, they will depose Suu Kyi in another coup, and sentence her to prison — a startling repeat of history for a leader that played a vital role in shaping the future of a democratic Myanmar following the so-called "8888 Uprising" on August 8th, 1988.

Outro

Next on History Daily. August 9th, 1945. Three days after the first atomic bomb falls on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the U.S. drops a second bomb on Nagasaki.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mischa Stanton.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Joe Viner.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.