World News Story

23 November 2008 10:47 BST

The two sides of 8888

In oriental culture and language, particularly Chinese, the number eight can represent prosperity and good fortune.

The phonetics-based superstition is a boon to the organisers of the Olympics, who today open the Beijing Games on eight past eight local time on August 8th 2008.

But the number eight holds a further significance today, for it is exactly 20 years since the 8888 uprising in Burma.

What started out as a student-led protest calling for Burmese democratisation attracted workers from all walks of life, Buddhist monks and even government employees.

The protests spread to the four corners of the south-east Asian nation and marked the rise of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as a champion of Burmese democracy.

Within weeks however, the Burmese army, the Tatmadaw had been ordered to fire upon the demonstrators, with up to 3,000 activists dying on September 18th alone.

So began a second period of military rule in Burma which still endures, despite widespread international condemnation at its violation of human rights and suppression of political opposition.

Today's 20th anniversary will be overwhelmingly overshadowed by the Beijing fireworks for the majority of people the world over.

Not so for the survivors of the 8888 uprising though.

For former student leader Ko Aung, the memories of the brutal army crackdown will never fade.

In Burma, second chances rarely come by, which makes the London-based dissident's story all the more remarkable.

Ko Aung was just 22 when he joined the 8888 uprising protests 20 years ago.

A member of the All Burma Student Union and the founder of the Red Fighting Peacock pro-democracy organisation, Ko Aung was in the final year of his industry and chemistry degree when the protests began.

Before the uprising started he was part of an underground movement to mobilise and organise opposition to the government and was personally responsible for student movements in the east and west of the country.

At the time he was also responsible for the safety of Daw Suu Kyi who had only recently returned to Burma to care for her ailing mother.

On the 20th anniversary of the 8888 uprising, Ko Aung told inthenews.co.uk of the painful memories of the protests' bloody suppression.

"It is lucky that I am still alive, so many of my comrades have been killed," he says in a stoical, down to earth fashion.

"I was an eyewitness on 8888 to hundreds of people being killed in front of Rangoon city hall on August 8th 1988."

While Ko Aung managed to survive the protests he was unable to avoid capture and was jailed between 1988 and 1995, for "my role in organising and mobilising the protest – for the official reason of undermining the stability of the state".

After serving his seven-year sentence he was placed under house arrest but stayed in contact with the underground anti-junta movement, culminating in the 1996 student demonstrations spared by students being badly beaten at the Rangoon institute of technology.

"'OK', I thought, 'we can mobilise; we can use this as a political tool'."

Ko Aung and his fellow activists wanted the police officers who beat the students to be convicted and the wounded students to be released, but on December 2nd the government ignored their demands, prompting mass protests in Rangoon and Mandalay.

"I was lucky again to escape, this time on the Thai-Burma border," he recalls.

After two brushes with the Burmese junta Ko Aung was not likely to be released from prison again, so he fled to the UK, where he has remained since.

Today he will take part in a protest outside the Burmese embassy in London marking the 20th anniversary of 8888 and to petition for the release of up to 2,000 political prisoners still held in Burmese jails.

"We have to hold our hope, we have to do something," he says of the future struggle for democracy in Burma.

"We need to encourage ourselves, analyse and criticise ourselves for the past 20 years we have been revolutionising [without success]."

Today though, his thoughts are mainly with his fallen comrades.

"We must also give our respect and thoughts to the people who gave their lives in the 8888 protests."

Ko Aung was talking to inthenews.co.uk's Matthew Champion