8888 Uprising
| 8888 Uprising | |
|---|---|
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| Date | 12 March 1988 – 21 September 1988 |
| Location |  Burma (Nationwide) |
| Causes |
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| Goals | Democracy in Burma |
| Methods |
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| Result | Violently suppressed |
| Concessions given |
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| Number | |
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| Casualties | |
| Death(s) |
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| Injuries | Unknown |
| Arrested | Unknown |
The 8888 Nationwide Popular Pro-Democracy Protests (MLCTS: hrac le: lum:) also known as the People Power Uprising, the People's Democracy Movement, and the 1988 Uprising, was a series of nationwide demonstrations, marches, protests, and civil unrest in Burma (Myanmar) that peaked in August 1988. Key events occurred on 8 August 1988, and therefore it is known as the 8888 Uprising. The protests began as a student movement and was organized largely by university students at the Rangoon Arts and Sciences University and the Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT).
Since 1962, the country had been ruled by the Burma Socialist Programme Party regime as a one-party state, headed by General Ne Win. The catastrophic Burmese Way to Socialism had turned Burma into one of the world's most impoverished countries. Many firms in the formal sector of the economy were nationalised and the government combined Soviet-style central planning, although the process was rather ineffective, with Buddhist and superstitious beliefs.
The 8888 uprising was started by students in Yangon (Rangoon) on 8 August 1988. Student protests spread throughout the country. Hundreds of thousands of ochre-robed monks, children, university students, housewives, doctors and people from all walks of life demonstrated against the regime. The uprising ended on 18 September, after a bloody military coup by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Thousands of deaths have been attributed to the military during this uprising, while authorities in Myanmar put the figure at around 350 people killed.
During the crisis, Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a national icon. When the military junta arranged an election in 1990, her party, the National League for Democracy, won 80% of the seats in the government (392 out of 492). But the military junta suppressed everything that could have developed from these democratic achievements. Part of the strategy was to place Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. The State Law and Order Restoration Council would be a cosmetic change from the Burma Socialist Programme Party. Suu Kyi's house arrest would be lifted no earlier than in 2010 when worldwide attention for her peaked again during the making of the biographical film The Lady.
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