8-8-88
It is with sadness today that I remember one of the most tragic events in Burma: A bloody massacre that occurred on August 8th, 1988.
I almost did not remember it because I didn't know what the date today was but I was at the post office today filling out forms and it hit me as I wrote: 8/8/05. It is the 17th anniversary of this tragic day where the Burmese government brutally crushed the hopes and dreams of the peaceful protestors that filled the streets of Burma.
I can't fully explained it because I did not fully witness it. I've only seen the aftermaths of the destructions and the whispered stories. I was barely 8 years old.
However, from reading rebound88.net, i know that they decided that on 8,8,88 that they had had enough and decided to kill whoever was on the street protesting.
This did not stop people from spreading the word about Democracy. You think a little killing was going to stop the progress, no no!
The government then stopped for one month. Burmese people are stubborn. Killing them did not stop the rest from protesting, so the rest who were not dead continued to protest in fervor.
So in September, the government brought out the big guns.
Some excerpts from rebound88.net:
"There was joy and hope once the troops withdrew from the streets (In Augut).People from all walks of life demonstrated, demanding an end to 26-years of one party military rule.In September 1988, these hopes and dreams were dashed.Thousands of army trucks and tanks rolled into the cities and towns. The sound of gunfire day and night made it seem like the country was in the midst of civil war.
Hospitals were filled with dead bodies and injured demonstrators. Smoke came out from chimneys at the city crematoriums almost continuously. That left permanent scars among many citizens of Burma. I left a note to my parents, saying that I'll be gone for few months.Then I left my home immediately.From Rangoon to Thailand, it took me about two weeks: first by bus, by foot, then by boat and then by bus again."
---
I still remember driving by the Children's Hospital in Rangoon - where my mother used to always point out - "This is where you were born, Darling" - as we drive by. But when we drove by there, sometime after September, my mother didn't point the hospital out to me. I looked at it anyway. The Hospital was riddled with bullet holes.
I kept hearing someone's whispers in my head that nurses had to keep running out to carry the dead and the injured into the hospital that day because so many people were outside, lying dead/ nearly dead. Then the soldiers started shooting into the hospitals/ at the nurses, warning the nurses not to come get the demonstraters or else they would end up like them too.
I also remember trying to play the Burmese version of the "Ouijee" board later on that year at my grandmother's house - a place near the city central - and a main campus of the main University in Burma - a central place where the killings took place.
My grandmother stopped us at once. "Are you being silly?" She stopped us. "Do you know, how many were freshly killed months ago? So many ghosts would be trying to talk to you, you do not want to contact that world right now."
But I always wanted to know how it happened. I wanted to know what they had to say. I wanted to tell them, I'm so sorry you had to die in vain and that the governement is still in control. But I have faith. One day. One day, they will be overthrown.
