The Burma uprising of 1988
Witness History
BBC
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2021
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On August 8th 1988 the Burmese military cracked down on anti-government demonstrators, killing hundreds possibly thousands of people. In the weeks of protest that followed, Aung San Suu Kyi rose to prominence as an opposition figure. The date 8.8.88 has come to symbolise the resistance movement in Myanmar at the time. Ma Thida was a medical student working at Rangoon General Hospital when the dead and injured began to arrive. In 2018 she spoke to Rebecca Kesby about treating gunshot wounds for the first time, and about her political activism and subsequent imprisonment. This programme is a rebroadcast.
Photo: Demonstrators in Rangoon in 1988. Credit: Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:40.0 | Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Rebecca |
| 0:45.6 | Kespi. Amid the news this week that there's been a military coup in Myanmar or Burma |
| 0:51.4 | and that the country's leader Ansang Suu Kyi is under house arrest, we bring you a program |
| 0:56.9 | we recorded in 2018, looking back at the popular uprising against the military government in 1988. |
| 1:04.8 | It signaled the rise of Ansang Suu Kyi as a figurehead for the pro-democracy movement, a role that |
| 1:10.7 | would win her the Nobel Peace Prize, but in recent years she's been internationally |
| 1:15.5 | criticized over the treatment of minority communities in Myanmar. |
| 1:20.1 | But we begin this program in August 1988, |
| 1:23.7 | when the whole country seemed to rise up against the military government. |
| 1:28.0 | Hundreds of thousands of Burmese have taken to the streets, demanding economic reforms and a return to democracy. |
| 1:38.8 | On the 8th day of the 8th month in 1988, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets |
| 1:45.6 | as a general strike was led by students. |
| 1:48.2 | It was really nice feeling you know but at that time we were so naive |
| 1:55.0 | is pretty much new feeling. |
| 1:58.0 | Martida was a student in her final year at medical school at the time. |
| 2:02.0 | The students had been demonstrating for months, |
... |
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