The 88 Generation Students' Announcement

Press Release 15/ 2007 (88)
The 88 Generation Students
August 8, 2007
Rangoon (Yangon), Burma (Myanmar)
The 88 Generation Students' Announcement
on the 19
th
Year Anniversary of the 8888 Democracy Uprising
(1) Today is the 19
th
year anniversary of the 1988 popular democracy uprising in Burma, which is
remembered to this day as a great event not only in the history of Burma, but also of the world.
(2) We should learn from the lessons of this history. We need to learn and review logically and
without prejudice about the immediate and accumulated causes that forced the uprising to be
born.
(3) Thousands of peaceful democracy activists, including students, monks and peoples from all
walks of life, were killed or injured during the 8888 uprising. Thousands of families were brutally
broken by the tragedies as family members were taken to prisons, fled to the borders to live in
exile or were killed.
(4) A State Constitution is key to shaping the political, economic and social life of the country.
The 1974 Constitution, which cemented the single-party dictatorship and its closed-door
economic policy, was created by the previous dictator Ne Win, while politicians who held
different opinions were put in prisons.
(5) This was the reason why Burma, a country with the most potential to be developed among the
Southeast Asian nations and other newly-independent countries, became the poorest one.
(6) By making it extremely difficult to amend, the 1974 Constitution did not have enough
flexibility to timely solve the political, economic and social problems that led to a general crisis.
(7) Both, those who govern and who are governed, had to suffer the consequences as a result of
having a Constitution which was drawn by force and intentionally designed to be difficult to
amend.
(8) Therefore, the military government had recognized the demands of the people of Burma, who
led the 1988 popular democracy uprising. It had promised to implement a multi-party democratic
system and market economy when it came to power.
(9) History does not want us to move backward, but to move forward step by step. Today citizens
of Burma are the best witnesses of this history. They can compare the situations in 1962 when
General Ne Win staged a military coup and in 1974 when a single-party dictatorship emerged
from the Constitution.
(10) The 8888 popular democracy uprising in Burma was born because of the peoples'
unhappiness with the 1974 Constitution. It is true that another uprising in Burma today depends
entirely on current constitution drafting process.
(11) Therefore, we, the 88 Generation Students, would like to attest that preventing the negative
consequences of another disempowered and detrimental State Constitution will be the duty of all
people of Burma.
The 88 Generation Students
Rangoon, Burma