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Then As Now: Myanmar Protests

September 26, 2007 11:34 AM

Senior Broadcast Producer Tom Nagorski blogs:

The protests and now the crackdown in Myanmar bring back a profound memory. Eighteen years ago (1988 link) -- when the nation's name was still Burma, the capital still Rangoon -- I traveled there to cover a burgeoning protest movement. Then as now, a military dictatorship ruled, and ruled brutally; then as now, public gatherings of more than a handful of people were banned; then as now, the generals saw a challenge emerging, and deemed it dangerous. (At left, masses of demonstrators gather August 27, 1988 to listen to Aung San Suu Kyi, speaking in Rangoon to call for democracy in Burma.)

Today's challengers are the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Buddhist monks who have taken to the streets. Two decades ago, the catalyst was a soft-spoken but passionate woman named Aung San Suu Kyi, who happened to be the Oxford-educated daughter of Burma's founding father. In January 1989 Suu Kyi resolved to fight for democracy until her death; that spring she faced down soldiers with rifles trained on her. In July I followed her at rallies that flaunted the rules -- five thousand supporters came to a Rangoon neighborhood (2007 link) one morning, to hear her demand change and chastise the generals, always in the language of peaceful protest. Her models, she said, were Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. "We do not want violence," she said. "But this does not mean we are going to sit back weakly, and do nothing." (At right, Myanmar civilians join Buddhist monks during a march held in protest against the military government in Yangon, on Monday.)

Before leaving Burma I met with Suu Kyi at her home in the capital. She offered tea, and a small plate of cookies. The government's posture, she told me, could be summed up as "No dialogue, just bullets." But she was unbowed, gently defiant, and hopeful. "Civil disobedience has a great history," she said. "Martin Luther King said to the people, 'I have a dream.' Well, in a way it is the same with us. We just want to bring our dreams to reality." (At right, Tom's photo of Suu Kyi addressing thousands of people at a 1989 rally in Rangoon before being placed under house arrest.)

Later that month Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest. Her odyssey of these eighteen years has brought her acclaim from the world over -- including the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded her in 1991. Time and again Suu Kyi has refused offers to leave the country -- even when her husband lay dying in a British hospital -- because she knew she would never be permitted to return. More recently Laura Bush has joined the legions of those taken by her plight, the power of her cause, and her quiet eloquence. But at this moment at least, the sad fact is that Aung San Suu Kyi's dream, and her challenge, are meeting the same response they did all those years ago. Suu Kyi is still under house arrest, in that same home in the capital. The generals still choose bullets rather than dialogue. They still have patrons -- the Chinese in particular -- willing to look the other way.

September 26, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0)

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