Interviews With Rit Students In 1988

မတ္လ (၁၃) ရက္ေန ့ႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္ျပီး ကိုယ္တိုင္ႀကဳံေတြ ့ခ့ဲသူမ်ား၏ ေျပာဆိုခ်က္မ်ား။ (ကိုမ်ဳိး၀င္း - ရန္ကုန္စက္မွဳတကၠသိုလ္ေနာက္ဆုံးႏွစ)္ ။ My name is Myo Win. In 1988 I was studying at RIT as a final year student, majoring in Mechanical Engineering. On the evening of March the 13th, 1988, I was chatting with my friends at a tea shop. One of them told us that students were gathering to go back to the ward to ask the ward authorities to take action against some people who had beaten up a student. I went back to my hostel because I heard that my friends were looking for me, but I didn’t see anyone at the hostel. I watched TV alone. Then one of my friends came and told me that some students were surrounded and being attacked in the ward, so I went out with him to where the riot was occurring. It was about 8 o’clock. At that time, there were not too many students there. We organized ourselves as well as we could. When we took to the street, we saw some students who had escaped. A car which belonged to one of our school staff was driving out from the ward. In it were some students who had been injured in the riot. A student shouted from the car that some other students were surrounded at the ward, and we should go and help them. When we heard this, we reacted without thinking, picked up bricks and sticks, and went to the ward. When we arrived at the riot, students and members of the public were throwing stones at each other. Some students got injured. We send those who got injured to Insein hospital. We saw many injured students. We left them at the hospital and went back to the school. By then, there was already a roadblock, and there were no buses. When we met with soldiers with barricades, they questioned us, but we gave our explanations and were allowed to go back to the school. When we got back to the RIT complex, we saw the riot police, fire fighters and ward council members positioned on the Insein Road; and soldiers positioned at Thamaing junction and Insein BOC bus stop. High-ranking officials from the Ministry of Education also arrived. In the meantime, the riot police tried to disperse the crowd using fire hoses, but they targeted only the students rather than the public so we got angry. They could not disperse the crowd. They used tear-gas, while the riot police fired guns at the school complex. They climbed into the school complex, and occupied the school. At that time, I was standing at near a water fountain. Ko Phone Maw was near the grass, facing the riot police. He was shot, and died on the spot. As I remember, some students got injured.

They were Soe Naing, (who died on the 5th of May, 1988), and Myint Oo. That is all I remember of the night when Ko Phone Maw was killed. After the shooting and tear-gas had stopped, we went back to our hostel in the car which took Ko Soe Naing to the hospital. I had planned to go along with my friends to the hospital but in the end I didn’t. That was lucky for me, because one of our teachers, and some of our friends who went to take Ko Soe Naing to the hospital, got arrested. We built a mausoleum where Ko Phone Maw’s blood had stained the ground overnight. We didn’t sleep, but made a pamphlet, and discussed justice and revealing the truth. Military personnel were still positioned opposite the grass. All the gates were blocked. I am not sure if we formed a committee or not. Some witnesses told us about their recent experiences. The next day, on March the 14th, we held a demonstration. We walked around the campus as our teachers would not allow us to go out. The military personnel had withdrawn from the complex, but the roads were still blocked. We discussed how to respond to the government action. The Burmese Broadcasting Service announced that Phone Maw had died during a clash between the students and members of the public. The BBC (Burmese service) also made the same announcement. This made us angry, and we demanded that our rector reveal the true story. He replied to us that though he knew the truth, he could not do anything. We decided we would do it ourselves. We gave speeches; - I can’t remember who gave the speeches - we decided that we would never give up this cause; we chose leaders; if our leaders were to die, some of our followers would replace them. Our registry signed a statement that said Phone Maw was shot dead. We copied the letter and distributed it to other university campuses. We formed a Phone Maw funeral service committee. I was one of the committee members. On March the 15th, the roads were reopened. Some students from other universities came to RIT. We collected money for Phone Maw’s tomb. We got a lot of money. At midday on the 15th of March, soldiers took up position again in front of the school and surrounded us. Some students tried to escape. We discussed what we should do as the military prepared to invade the school. We decided we would probably be arrested when they came in. At 3pm, the authorities used a loud speaker to tell us not to fight back. We were surrounded and our teachers knew that the military would soon enter the complex. Some teachers tried to help us to escape. They asked a member of the public to show us the way. We followed him, and were able to manage to escape.

I think students launched the demonstration for many reasons. The killing of Ko Phone Maw was an immediate cause, but even before he was killed, there had been some political activity on the campus. In 1987, a student had quarreled with staff from the government savings bank when he went to withdraw money. He was one of our friends. He was just given a warning by the school authorities, but a rumor got up that had been dismissed from the university. Some students planned to demand that he be allowed to remain, but we informed the students that it wasn’t true, that he hadn’t been kicked out of the university. We were also worried that the time was not yet right to take up political activity on the campus. One student was well aware that the BSPP wasn’t managing the country well. Even Ne Win himself confessed that his socialist economy was not working, and that it might be necessary to change things. After the BSPP demonetization, this student organized a committee to ask the government for compensation. He encouraged us to form a committee. We asked the school authorities for compensation, and to postpone the examinations, but the education authority refused our demands. As a result, we started a demonstration, and marched to Thamaing Township. The Thamaing junction was blocked, so we went back to school. The next day, the school closed. The school re-opened in December and we took the exam. At that time, when some students were trying to form student unions, we got letters from Rangoon University and Mandalay University which stated that they already formed student unions. I got a letter. We planned activities to start to organize the students on National Day, but we were not successful. We tried again on the night of the last exam. We turned off the lights and shouted by way of demonstration. Another reason was that the Lanzin Youth leadership training used to be held at Rangoon University, but the authorities planned to hold it at RIT, and decorate the hostels, roads, and parkland etc. Waiters were forced to take a medical check, and those who passed were able to serve in the Lanzin Youth. We got angry because we assumed it was an insult to us, so we broke all the new windows on the last night of the examinations. The Ko Phone Maw affair followed former affairs. When many people talk about the 1988 prodemocracy uprising, they only concentrate on the clash between the public and students on March the 13th. In fact, there were many reasons for the occurrence of the “Four Eights Affair”. However, I honestly didn’t know too much about politics at that time. I became involved in politics because of some of my friends. (Interview with Ko Myo Win/ Translated by Gyittu)


(ကိုမင္းေဇာ္ - ရန္ကုန္စက္မွဳတကၠသိုလ္ စတုတၳႏွစ)္ ။ I am Min Zaw, in 1988 I was studying at RIT majoring in mechanical engineering as a fourth year student, I lived at Hostel “C”. On March 13, while we sat at a tea shop in front of our school, we were discussing how should we response to the quarrel which was occurred last night and some students were beaten ordinary people. We separated two groups, the first group which included 10 students went to the tea shop where students were beaten last night, the second group followed the first group after fifteen minutes, I was belonged to second one. When I arrived there, students were throwing stone to the teashop. When Students heard about it, more students marched into the ward from the school. Students asked the ward’s authority to handover the person who beat the student yesterday in a mean while the ward was black out. When they were talking, one ordinary person suddenly popped up and cracking with a knife to a student, so students withdrew from the ward, the ordinary people chased the student with knife and stick. “On the first night, through words of mouth among students, we heard about a student being hit. Some of us formed small groups and went to the place where the student was hit. We were waiting and contemplating how we should take action for our student. Our main demand was to release the person who hit our student on the very first day. Just as we left the East Jo-Gone Ward, someone set fire to the cooperative enterprise in that area. We did not know who did it. I was already on the main road of Insein when that happened. Some students also attempted to set fire to Burmese Paramedical Institute (BPI) but were unsuccessful as they could not enter the compound. Afterwards, one fire engine came to extinguish the fire at the cooperative enterprise. As soon as it entered the road in front of our school, one student threw a stone at it. Its front glass was shattered and it retreated immediately from the area. Later, more fire engines came into the school compound and used fire hose to break up the students’ crowd. However, the students made fun of them and some students threw stones at the fire engines. The other side also retaliated by throwing back stones. Soon after, we heard the sound of gun shots. At that time, I was in front of our university. Upon seeing the uniformed soldiers with guns coming into the school, I ran back towards the main building of my school. They seemed to be carrying both guns and tear gas. It was my first time experiencing how it is like to be attacked with tear gas. My eyes were sore and tears rapidly streamed down my face. It was a terrible feeling.

I also saw Ko Phone Maw lying unconscious after being hit by a bullet at the stomach area. There was so much blood. His lips had even turned blue from losing so much blood. Apart from him, I also saw my friend, Ko Myint Oo, being dragged away by other students after he was shot at. My friend and I went towards the area near the school canteen to look for a doctor but all the houses there had their lights turned off. Feeling frustrated, we looked for whatever weapon that we could find and only managed to get a small cooking-knife. While holding it, we felt our tears on our faces. Whether it was because of the tear gas or the anger that we felt at our students being killed, we could not differentiate. One thing for sure is that, that day will always be memorable for us. It has been 20 years since that day. During that time, there was no students’ union, no coalition group, and no political party. As such, it was not surprising that an uprising started by students, would have a certain level of violence and unpredictability. It would have been impossible for the events to unfold in a supposedly sequential order. At that time, there were no student leaders and all of us were simply students. If you look at the case of Ko Phone Maw, he was just an ordinary student, not a student leader. However, he was turned into a hero and that significant turn of event eventually became an example of courage for future democracy uprisings. On the night of 14th, at around 8 PM, many students gathered along the road connecting the main building and hostels, and chose 3 suicide-leaders. I can’t recall all the names though I vaguely remember a name like Nay Myo Aung, whom I think was from Mandalay. On the next day, we went around the school compound, telling everyone that our students had been killed and urged them to participate in the protest. Some of the student delivered political speeches. I remember this guy by the name of Ko Than Dote. He was full of guts. Before being part of this 1988 uprising, I had no idea about politic. After I passed 10th standard, I even tried to enter military academy but failed to pass the entrance exam as I was underweight. My parents were both teachers and did not have any political liaison. When I was in university, I even attended University Corp Training and knew how to use the gun. Currently, as you know, I am only a student-rebel. (Interview with Ko Min Zaw/ Translated by Gyittu) 

(ကိုစိန္ဟန္ - ရန္ကုန္စက္မွဳတကၠသိုလ္)။

“My name is Sein Han. In 1988, I was studying at the Rangoon Institute of Technology. When Ko Phone Maw died, I was at the RIT compound. In fact, there was a clash between students and lay people on the 12th of March, but we didn’t care about that because we were used to it happening. On the 13th of March, I went to a picnic. There was a minor accident, my hand was injured, and I was hospitalized. That evening, one of my friends came and told to me there was a quarrel between students and ordinary people, and they had started a fire, so I left the hospital without informing the doctors. There was no bus, so I went to the school by foot. When I arrived at the school, seya U Thein Tun Aung asked me where I had come from. When I told him I had been hospitalized, he was worried and asked me if anyone had died during the accident. I said no. He said that was good, but that at the school some students had been killed. At that time, students and ordinary people were fighting - throwing stones at each side, and chasing each other. It looked like a small riot. I told my friends to pick up some bricks for self defense, and we sat near a water fountain. Then fire engines suddenly emerged, throwing water at the students to disperse us. We noticed that they planned to disperse only us, not the ordinary people, so we threw rocks at the fire engines, and they withdrew immediately. After that everything was quiet. Later we heard the riot police wanted to charge into the school and shoot us, so we tried to escape. I went to the halls, but some people ran into the main building. Their target was the main building. I think some students got injured. They used teargas, We didn’t know what it was. We felt suffocated and we couldn’t breathe well. We went downstairs. Our teacher said we should wet our clothes and hold them over our noses, after that we felt better. At that time, there was no more shooting. Later I heard some students had been shot. One of my friends, Myat Aung, was shot in both legs. He was not an RIT student, he had just called in to see us. I saw Ko Soe Naing. He had fallen to the ground and was injured in the chest. We didn’t see Ko Phone Maw’s corpse, I don’t know where it was. Then we tried to send our friends to the hospital. Ko Soe Naing’s situation was not serious. Our teacher tried to help us to take them to hospital with his car. One of my friends went along with them. However, the authorities would not allow them to leave the school. We got angry. Our rector came and tried to calm down us and he said he would arrange it. I didn’t know who he contacted, but later the authorities allowed us to send Ko Soe Naing and Ko Myat Aung to the Rangoon General Hospital.

Later, we were chatting and discussed what we should do. At that time, one of my former roommates, I forget his name, suggested uniting to organize a committee and demand compensation from the government. At that time, we didn’t know too much about politics, we just loved justice and freedom. He seemed clever at political affairs. He led the discussion, urging us to form the committee and we did. As far as I remember, we demanded five conditions: the government had to declare they had managed things badly; apologize for it; give compensation for those who were killed or injured; allow an official funeral service for Ko Phone Maw and for us to build a mausoleum; and they had to allow us to establish a student union. We didn’t raise any political matters. This friend tried to contact U Maung Maung from the BBC (Burmese service) using the phone at the registry office, but the phone was cut off. Then we continued to discuss what we should do over the next days. We decided to continue our struggle by peaceful and non-violent means. Then we left to go back to our hostel. Before we went back, we made wreaths for the death. There was a bloodstain, I am not sure if it was Ko Phone Maw’s or Ko Soe Naing’s. We decided to make star-shaped block, and we collected bullets and shirts with blood on them, then we saluted them. The next morning, we went round the school, to the female hostel, and then round the school again holding the wreaths. In a meantime, our teacher requested us not to go out from the campus. We said we wouldn’t. We went round the school quietly without chanting or speaking. When we entered the main hall, we saluted the star-shaped block mausoleum. We got back to where we belonged and decided we would do it again the next day. After that, I took a risk and went back my hostel, although I was scared of being arrested outside the campus. There were some riot police outside the campus holding police truncheons and shields, and it looked like they were ready to attack potential demonstrators. They blocked the road. When I got back to the hostel, some senior students came and talked with me. They said they were hiding in their hall, and that they hadn’t gone to school on the night of Ko Phone Maw’s killing. They suggested that I should go away from there. I complained, asking them what I had done wrong. I told them we had peacefully shown our wishes without using any violent means, and we planned to do it again the next day. However, they explained the potential dangers to me if I dared to do this: I might be killed, arrested, have to go underground or at least be dismissed from the school. When I said I was not afraid to die, be arrested, have to go underground or be dismissed from the school they suggested to me that I went away from there as soon as possible. Our hostel hall tutor also suggested that I should go away as soon as possible. So we went back to my native town.

A few days later, my friend who went to Rangoon General Hospital along with Ko Soe Naing and Myat Aung returned from Rangoon. He told us what he saw at the hospital. On the morning of March the 14th, he went out to a tea shop. Then returned to the hospital where he saw many police, and Ko Soe Naing and Myat Aung handcuffed to police. Then our friends were moved to a criminal ward in the hospital and he became afraid and returned to school. Later, we heard that Ko Soe Naing was dead. I went to school when it resumed. There I heard that Myat Aung had been released and that he was allowed to continue studying. Our Burmese opposition have declared the 13th of March to be Burma Human Rights Day. I think we should hold a ceremony every year. We should not forget this day. I would like to tell our new generation, that the SPDC is trying to hide the truth. For instance, they changed the name of RIT into Yangon Technology University. This was done to attempt to conceal history; our responsibility is to reveal the true history. We should hold a Burma Human Rights Day ceremony every year. We should salute those who have died struggling for democracy. Our new student generation inside Burma should know the truth of what happened on the 13th of March, 1988. (ယခုေဖၚျပပါ အင္တာဗ်ဴးမ်ားအား ABFSU (All Burma Federation of Student Unions) ထံမွ ျပန္လည္ေဖၚျပထားျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္)။