U Thant uprising
1974 U Thant uprising – a first hand account
July 23rd, 2008 by Hla Oo, Guest Contributor · 14 Comments
Believe it or not, our small group of about 50 students from the RIT’s First Year Section-D unknowingly started the 1974 student uprising. The beginning of the so-called “U Thant Uprising” was the day I will never forget even though, nowadays, I can’t really recall the exact date. Then in 1974, I was a first year engineering student at the famous Soviet-built Rangoon Institute of Technology. (Bastard generals changed her name to some Yangon Technical University or some idiotic name later just to break her rebellious tradition.)
We, the whole class of First Year Section-D, were in the lecture hall 1-3-16 or 1-3-18, I don’t really remember now, without even noticing the secret preparation for the uprising, seriously following the lecture as usual. Suddenly a couple of senior students busted into the lecture theater and simply told us to get out and into the waiting buses just outside on the campus ground.
“Are you boys wearing hta-meins (women’s sarong in Burmese) or what? Be a man and join us to protest the unfair treatment of our famous son of the land,” that was their loud battle cry to jolt us out of the lecture hall and onto the buses. The reason for the protest was mad Ne Win’s military government’s refusal to build a memorial and tomb for the former UN General Secretary, the late U Thant.
They were going to bury U Thant’s body at Kyandaw Cemetery, and only later reluctantly agreed to let the general public show their respect at the ground of Kyaikasan Racing Ground. The funeral casket was displayed on a stand and the public were to queue up in many long lines under a brightly shining sun to give the last deserving respect to the famous son of our land.
But on that particular day General Ne Win made a serious mistake. He banned the public from the ground and allowed only the 3000 strong students of our RIT and the students from Rangoon Arts and Science University, RASU. So the senior students took the rare opportunity to stage the uprising without even letting us juniors know in advance.
When we got there at the Kyaikasan Ground we were somehow positioned right across the field from the stand where U Thant’s coffin was. We could clearly see the silvery colored casket and the fierce-looking throng of Military Police, civilian police, and many government officials.
As we were patiently or unknowingly standing by our buses for our turn in line to reach the coffin, one senior student climbed onto the roof of one nearby bus and started giving us a rousing speech. That was the first time and only time I saw the famous student leader Tin Maung Oo close-up. He wasn’t even from our RIT, he was from RASU, but he was clever enough to choose us as the spearhead of his carefully-planned uprising. We RIT students are famous for our fighting spirits as almost of all us are boys and young men.
The summary of his rousing speech was that U Thant should be treated with more respect than Ne Win’s thugs had so far shown and we the brave RIT students had to take matter into our hands, so take the coffin, and build a deserving memorial for U Thant on the ground of historical Rangoon University Campus.
Then he jumped down from the bus roof and started energetically attacking the about five-foot-tall iron-bar-fence which stood between us and the stand. We just followed him and the fence immediately collapsed and the individual fence poles became the weaponry for the brutal assault on the security forces guarding the coffin.
It was a blood bath on the manicured lawn. Many officials were either bashed or stabbed where they stood trying to stop the young students rushing towards them with murderous intents. I even saw a senior driving his pointed iron pole through the fat body of a police officer already flat on the ground. I didn’t know how many exactly were killed there. Only a few days later, the government announced that the rioting students had killed at least 20 officials and injured many more that day.
To make the story short, as we reached the coffin a few seniors tried to lift the casket. I even gave a hand, but the coffin was so heavy it wouldn’t budge. But many more hands joined in and they eventually rigged a crude carrier and we lifted the coffin onto our shoulders and brought it all the way to RASU.
On the way, we the marching band of rouge students were cheered and waved by many people standing by the sides of the roads as the news spread like wildfire all over Rangoon. They were giving us food, water, and cold drinks as if they could correctly guess that we were almost starving. I even managed to grab a
boiled egg or two while I was still carrying U Thant’s heavy coffin.
It took us, the whole marching mob of at least 5000, more than 4 or 5 hours to reach the RASU campus by night fall. Once we got there the seniors decided to lay the coffin inside the Grand Old Convocation Hall. Us students were then organized by many seniors into various committees and sub-committees. Me and a
group of my classmates ended up as the foot soldiers of a security sub-committee. We manned the now-closed iron gates of the big campus and had to check everyone coming or going through the gates.
We didn’t even go home, and the first few nights were like a fun-filled carnival, celebrating the rare moment of freedom. Every night, on the lawn right in front of the Convocation Hall, many seniors took turns to deliver rousing speeches of our uprising. We were on a high all the time there in our own campus fortress. We also didn’t need to worry about our food as the whole of Rangoon had sent us truck loads of packed meals, Hta-Min-Dotes. The army and socialist government also left us alone for, I think, at least the first two or three weeks.
Architectural students from our RIT designed the U Thant Memorial on the sacred ground of old Student Union building, notoriously blown up with many students still inside by Ne Win’s thugs just after 1962 coup, and our Civil Engineering students built the grave. Later U Thant’s coffin was moved into the new tomb. It was a very rare moment of triumph and freedom for all of us inside the campus.
The trouble started only later in the third week. The now-distressed government started sending their agents into the campus, and so many of them were caught by ever alert students as most of them were old or at least middle-aged men, who stood out among the young students. The ugly head of violence started
showing up again among us. Every night, the security students with masks on their faces would bring out the already tortured and confessed spies into the large student crowd right in front of the RASU Convocation Hall and threw them to the violent mob waiting ready for the blood. The brutal beating and bashing would go on every night as the situation became totally out of control from the student leaders inside the Convocation Hall. Some old men from the local government councils sent in as the informants were killed there on the spot.
One night, the blood thirsty crowd decided to go out of the campus to stage a violent attack on the Hle-Dan Police Station right outside of the RASU on the Prome Road. I followed them with a burning torch in my hand and ended up just outside the Police Station which had a high fence. Their original plan was to
torch the Police Station. As we gathered there many student leaders came out of the campus and tried to
persuade the students to abandon the imminent attack on the police station and come back inside the campus. During their heated arguments, me and a few students bravely crossed the wide road and peered through the cracks in the timber-planked-fence and what I saw frightened me to the bone.
Inside the large police compound were the truck loads of armed soldiers ready to fire. Their arm badges showed they were from two Chin Rifle Battalions under the Light Infantry Division 88 then stationed in Middle Burma. As a former soldier myself, I knew very well these Chin Troops were fighting the Communists on the Chinese border and their presence here signaled the imminent assault on the Campus. They are notorious for their brutality and ruthlessness towards their enemies.
As we didn’t want to be facing their G3 rifles, once we knew the army presence, we came back inside and that was the last night of our pathetic little rebellion against the ruthless military government. My tail tugged between my legs, I came back home early morning and luckily my uncle who ran a ferry boat
between Rangoon and our little Delta town was at home and he brought me back to his house as my mother had asked.
That night, while I was peacefully asleep on the boat on my trip away from the troubles in Rangoon, the Chin Troops circled the RASU Campus watertight and violently attacked the rebelling students inside. Witnesses later recalled that, true to their well-known reputation, the battle-hardened Chin soldiers
killed many hundreds and captured thousands of students during that first night of the week long brutal assault on the RASU Campus.
According to many witnesses that first night of assault was a bloodbath in the campus. The brave or naive students who wrongly believed that the UN flag would protect them and thus gathered at the new U Thant’s grave were clubbed and bayoneted to death right there by the grave under the huge blue UN flag that
accompanied the coffin all the way from New York UN Headquarters. Many female students were rumored to be gang raped and later killed by the Chin soldiers.
A few years later I ran into an old school friend who went to DSA and became a navy officer, and he told me the sordid tale of how they rid the bodies of slain students, of course after plying him with a bottle of scotch and plenty of satay-sticks at Chinatown. The Chin soldiers loaded the dead and dying from the scene of massacre onto the sand-filled Hino TE-11 trucks and, in the middle of the dark night, took them to the sand-filled naval barges waiting at the Than-Lhyet-Soon Naval Base. The bodies, many were still half-alive according to him, were then taken and dumped into the crocodile-infested waters by the sea.
Later that night I wept remembering some of my friends vanished forever after that uprising.
During that night of massacre inside the RASU only a few students managed to hide from the bastards and one of them was my own kid brother. He wasn’t even a university student but a high school student. Just that evening he had an argument with our mother and, probably just to spite her, he went into the RASU
campus just in time to get caught up in the assault. He and some other students hid in a drain and were only caught two days later by the searching Burmese soldiers. They were severely beaten and then sent to the notorious Insein Prison with the rest.
The assault on the campus caused a mass riot all over Rangoon and the army declared martial law and took stern actions against the civilian populace. The soldiers totally took over downtown Rangoon. Long hair was popular at that time and the soldiers used their bayonets to chop the hair of any young male caught
unfortunately by them on the streets of Rangoon.
The leader Tin Maung Oo and his sister somehow managed to escape to the border and rejoined U Nu’s Exile Rebels. Later the army said the uprising was planned with the money from U Nu and not a spontaneous one as we thought. A few months later Tin Maung Oo and his sister sneaked back into Rangoon with a cache of
hand grenades, but was caught by the army and immediately tried and hanged at the Rangoon Jail.
It took almost a year and a lot of kyats to get my 15 year old brother released from the prison and he wasn’t the same sweet boy any longer. He was extremely lucky as many of my classmates didn’t get out until many years later and when they got out they were kicked out of RIT for life. Two of my classmates were never seen again and their mothers still cried whenever I visited their houses even many years later. The universities were closed for over 6 months and we had to take our first year final exams in the respective local high schools.
The only outcome of all those lives lost and the massive suffering was a shoddy memorial for U Thant rushed by Ne Win government as a late compromise and, I think, still standing today near Shwe Dagon Pagoda. The army broke the student-built grave, stole the coffin, and re-buried it there during the middle of a very dark night.
By this personal account of what happened during the so called U Thant Uprising I remember the fallen students of RIT and salute them for their sacrifices and bravery for their country.
May Their Souls Rest In Peace as Ne Win’s Dark Soul Burns In Hell.
Tags: Burma
14 responses so far ↓
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1 Colum Graham // Jul 23, 2008 at 1:25 pm
This is the best thing I’ve read all week. Thanks.
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2 Khin Swe Nyunt // Jul 23, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Amen, ah ko.
I remember those days vividly. I was a first year physics student at RASU (Rangoon Arts and Science University) when that happened and my family would not let me leave the house during these chaotic times.
May the corpses of all of Burma’s present leaders and those of the Socialist RC rot in hell for eternity.
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3 Moe Aung // Jul 25, 2008 at 9:23 am
What a ripping yarn, Hla Oo, though I must admit I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It seems to leave us with more questions than answers regarding this particular episode in the history of modern Burma.
You were one of the students and yet you painted them and their actions thus:
‘brutal assault’, ‘blood bath’, ‘murderous intents’, ‘band of rouge (sic) students’, ‘violent mob’, ‘tortured and confessed spies’, ‘brutal beating and bashing would go on every night’, ‘totally out of control’, ‘informants were killed’, ‘blood thirsty crowd’, ‘brave or naive’, ‘
There was also this ‘ fierce-looking throng of Military Police, civilian police, and many government officials’ , perhaps outnumbered but unarmed and overwhelmed?
The students did manage to occupy the funeral pavilion and snatch the casket but other detailed accounts do not corroborate your version of a violent student mob attacking and killing the officials.
You said you went to an army school and served in the army before you got into university. And how did you get enrolled into an engineering degree course at the prestigious RIT as a former soldier? The usual route through the good offices of the MIS (Military Intelligence Service)?
The use of agent provocateurs to incite violence in order to justify a brutal crackdown by the distressed government is a well known tactic. They have even been known to release violent criminals from prison for this purpose at times of crisis as in 1988.
And how come you got despatched posthaste back home whereas your baby brother was at large in Rangoon and left to his own devices? Favouritism?
You also faithfully reported the official version claiming it was all a plot by U Nu implying that the students were either duped or willing stooges.
The role of Buddhist monks, actively involved in the demonstrations and also bayoneted for their trouble, and of workers preparing for a general strike were conveniently forgotten, so it became a conspiracy of U Nu’s exile rebels and a handful of student leaders as an act of violence and sabotage.
And I wondered why the first part read rather like an article in the New Light of Myanmar.
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4 Hla Oo // Jul 25, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I didn’t write this essay particularly for the New Mandala. I wrote it for a group forum of RIT alumni on Yahoo many months ago for the 19th July Martyrs Day. After I posted this essay on the RIT forum, which has close to 4000 RIT graduates as active members, my Yahoo email was almost overwhelmed by tens of private emails from my contemporaries. Mainly the painful recalls of all the events during that uprising. Some even wept in their emails.
No one refuted my story or even doubted my sincerity. How dare you, Moe Aung, or whoever you are?
Only surprising thing was no one, not a single one of them old RIT graduates, dared to post their reply publicly to my post in the forum. Am I the brave one or a stupid one with a death wish.
I wrote what I saw and what I did during that time. No more, no less. Maybe some events I couldn’t recall clearly now. It was 34 years ago and I am now 53 and almost dying from liver cirrhosis and my old battle wounds. I just would like to tell the story so that people remember and so my fellow students didn’t die in vain.
But I have to admit that your doubts about me and your line of reasoning is quite logical. Amazingly logical. You definitely read the essay very thorough and cleverly picked the seemingly illogical holes. Very highly educated, probably retired, nothing to do, aren’t you, Moe Aung? A retired army general with very accessible Internet terminal right at home?
But you are wrong. Completely wrong. I did fight in the army, I admit it since the beginning of posting here. I basically grew up in the army as a son of former army officer turned Communist, but I left the army in very early 1974 and I had nothing to do with the army since then. I even admitted that two of the younger generals in SPDC were my dear classmates at the army high school. It is a very long story. But it is my private life and I didn’t want to air it here, period.
The reason you don’t like the first part is me mentioning of the violence committed by the protesters, isn’t it? Ugly violence is always a part of mob, whether they are rioting or protesting. You sounded like you have no complaints about second part of the essay though. Why is that? Do you like it?
Any way, thanks for your remarkable and well thought-off comments. You will hear from me more though. I am on a mission to change the history of our beloved Burma, provided God let me live a few more years.
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5 Hla Oo // Jul 25, 2008 at 2:10 pm
By the way, Moe Aung, I did pass my matriculation in the academic year 1971-1972 with distinctions in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. My roll number is 21742. I almost got into Medicine but I was just two marks short. They gave me Dentistry and RIT. You can check it out if you still have access to student records from the Basic Education Department .
In a way you are a typical Burmese with a paranoid schizophrenic fear, always thinking and suspecting every other Burmese works for the MIS. That’s what a brutal totalitarian system has done to us Burmese. It took me more than 20 years of peaceful living in a free country like Australia to rid of that fear.
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself!”
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We oppose terror because it forces us to choose between murdering and being murdered; and it makes communication impossible. This is why we reject any ideology that claims control over all of human life.
(Albert Camus)
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6 Moe Aung // Jul 25, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Thanks for the accolade, Hla Oo aka Harry Oo, also for the full diagnosis not just paranoia. Am I now on a pedestal along with your generals? Feet of clay comes to mind.
Well, I’ll be interested in how a son of a former officer turned Communist rebel came to grow up among the enemy in the army and to serve in it, what kind of twist in destiny at play here I wonder. Family connections or just old friends/comrades in the Tatmadaw?
There was no mention of any violence let alone killing at the old race course at Kyaikasan anywhere. Here’s the story as told by one of your fellow student protesters from the RIT, Henry Soe-Win:
Peace Eludes U Thant
http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/11810
And the story of the student leader Tin Maung Oo, a Chin national:
http://www.chinforum.org/PUBS/TMOEng.pdf
The state’s reaction to this challenge to their hold on power was predictable as shown before with no room for doubt on July 7, 1962. As Ne Win had said before in the wake of the massacre in 1962 – sword against sword and spear against spear, only they used G3s, and was also to say later in 1987 – when the army shoots, it aims to hit. Most of the latter part of your article is common knowledge in Burma.
BTW did you acquire the name Harry after you’d arrived in Oz? I’m sorry to hear about your health and I’d say good luck on your stated mission. If you are a Buddhist like me, you know your karma awaits you – as you sow so shall you reap, but there’s still time to atone for your sins just like Ne Win tried by building the Maha Wizaya pagoda to change his karma. I’m sure you can do better than a symbolic gesture. So I’ll wish you the universal Buddhist wish – may all sentient beings without exception be happy.
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7 Hla Oo // Jul 26, 2008 at 10:34 am
Jesus Christ almighty! Moe Aung, you surprise me. Who the hell are you really? Are you from the MIS? Ha ha, just kidding.
Any way, since you have asked I should answer the crazy story of me. I was born in the jungle near Pyinmana. ( Actually I could now call myself a Nay-Pyi-Daw born since they cleared the jungle and built the so-called capital there.) It was during the Aung-Mar-Ga opeartion and I almost died, but my elder sister died.
Later my mother with my baby brother was captured by a Chin battalion. Usually these Chins killed every communist caught alive. Fortunately their commander had served under my father during WW2. So he kept my family alive as hostages in their battalion compound for years and finally his boss General Tin Oo, who was a young cadet when my father was a senior Burmese instructor at the Japanese Military Academy, persuaded my father and his division to surrender. That was the end of my father’s pathetic rebellion.
One other reason for his surrender was that, I think, he didn’t like Chinese and didn’t agree with the BCP’s policy shift towards China. He was then a member of Central Committee and controlled the biggest military division of the Communist Party’s red army. You see, our generals are not stupid at all. They are winning the civil war not just by killing their enemies. My father’s eventual surrender proves that.
I, a ten years old wide-eyed boy, ended up in the army boarding school run by then La-Pa-Kha command under General Tin Oo (now NLD vice chairman) in Mingaladon. Usually almost all the graduates from my school ended up in DSA, provided they passed matriculation. That was my dream too when I finished my year 10. But my father refused, so I ran away from home, joined the army as private right at the height of civil war in 1972 or 1973, I forgot now.
After almost 2 years on the front line on China border and people getting killed all around me like flies, I realized the crazy folly of my stupidness. Suddenly I discovered I didn’t want to die. So I deserted the army, came back home, and rejoined the RIT. Actually, General Kyaw Htin, who fought in my father’s battalion as a young lieutenant during the Japanese Revolution, saved my neck from the hangable offense of “the desertion with a 9mm pistol”, and I had to promise him that I would keep my mouth shut forever, which I’d kept for almost 30 years till the PTSD got hold of me recently and I had to go see a psychologist.
The rest is straight forward, an ordinary story of universities and works and moving from county to country looking for a greener pasture. As a therapy, I wrote a fictionalized-semi-autobiographical novel called “A Boy Soldier” based on the early 18 years of my life and self-published last year. My book seems quite popular on the internet and now I am near to closing a representation deal with a literary agency in Europe to publish my book all over the world. I am giving away half of the money to the Burmese charities.
I hope and wish I will be able to use my forthcoming-notoriety for my stated mission for the good cause of Burma. Moe Aung, I honestly hope you are satisfied with my this answer.
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8 Moe Aung // Jul 27, 2008 at 1:26 am
What a gripping tale, Hla Oo, and thanks for sharing it. A good plug too. I’ll look forward to a signed copy, shall I?
Despite a very similar history shared by our fathers, compared to yours my life would bore you to tears. I completely understand your old man refusing you permission to join the enemy however benevolent they might have been to his family after he had ‘entered the light’. Lucky you got away with as much as you did thanks to your old man. You’d have been disappeared quite easily like so many others from nameless families.
You never leave behind a certain sense of loyalty and camaraderie to the army or to those whom you’ve fought with shoulder to shoulder, do you? Not unless you’ve looked down the barrel of the gun turned back on and pointing at you like your father did. And it’s not just ‘traitors’ but the entire nation on the receiving end eventually and inevitably for daring to challenge their rule.
Well, even you seem to believe the army is the only group holding the Union together. They’ve done a good job instilling this in the head of the youngest recruit onwards, haven’t they? So they can hang on to power forever making the same old tired excuse over and over again.
They really believe all the peoples of Burma owe it to them for eternity just because your father and mine, their generation, had fought the colonialists and then the Japanese fascists so you and I could be born free men. Alas, only to be enslaved by our own kind.
Have you also been struck by the irony that we in turn have come back to slave for the white man of our own free will even if circumstances not of our own making have driven us to it?
Were you by any chance born at Payadaung Botet? Not Thanmani Maung Maung’s boy? Why don’t you give us a link to your story? I’d love to read it. And good luck with the book deal. There might even be a film next.
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9 RITStudent of seventies // Aug 3, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Hla Oo,
You are very clever person. Very cleverly distorted the event especially what was happening at the Kyaikkasan ground. For your information, I was at the Kyaikasan ground and I was one of the first 10 students arrived near the U Thant coffin. LET ME POINTED OUT .. NOONE WAS KILLED AT THE KYAIKASAN GROUND. PERIOD. ..BLOODBATH? WHAT BLOOD BATH. ARE YOU KIDDING..ARE YOU REALLY THERE AT kYAIKASAN GROUND AT THAT TIME?
Let me pointed out all the WRONG FACTS you wrote..
You wrote “As we were patiently or unknowingly standing by our buses for our turn in line to reach the coffin, ” IT WAS WRONG FACT, WE DIDNOT GO TO kYAIKKASAN GROUND BY BUS. WE WENT TO RASU FROM RIT BY BUS AND THEN FROM RASU, WE MARCHED TO KYAIKKASAN GROUND BY FOOT VIS UNIVERSITY AVENUE, KOKINE ROAD AND GOODLIFF ROAD.
You wrote..”But on that particular day General Ne Win made a serious mistake. He banned the public from the ground and allowed only the 3000 strong students of our RIT and the students from Rangoon Arts and Science University, RASU. So the senior students took the rare opportunity to stage the uprising without even letting us juniors know in advance.”
Wrong again..!!
-Let me pointed out ..the STUDENTS WERE NOT ONLY from RIT and RASU, Also from MC I, Dental, Vet, Eco and Students from Institute of Education were there. Let me ask you which university students carrying the “one for all all for one posters”
- No senior students go around and ordered the junior to go out, it was on the poster on the RIT notice board that mentioned “MA-SA-LA government blocked to hire all the busses to go to Kyaikasan ground..so instead we the students will march to the Kyaikasan ground on foot” becuase of this posters ,everyone got angry and those who are not plan to go to the Kyaikasan in the first hand chnage their mind and decided to march to Kyaikkasan and show the students courage.
you wrote..”That was the first time and only time I saw the famous student leader Tin Maung Oo close-up. He wasn’t even from our RIT, he was from RASU, but he was clever enough to choose us as the spearhead of his carefully-planned uprising. We RIT students are famous for our fighting spirits as almost of all us are boys and young men.”
WRONG AGAIN!
- Tin Maung Oo was not the student leader during U That uprisng. He was the leader of Hmaing Yar Pyi( Thakin Kodaw Hmaing 100yrs anniverassary) and later hanged immediately after arretsed.
-Noone used RIT students as spearhead..there were students from others universities especially RASU and ECO together with RIT students when we rushed to seige the U THANT coffin.
You Wrote. “By the way, Moe Aung, I did pass my matriculation in the academic year 1971-1972 with distinctions in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. My roll number is 21742.”
Really??? You passed matriculation in 1971-72 and how come you can able to join the RIT in 1974 after desetred the army??? At the time Basic education Department was not allowed to do that..if you passed your matric in 1972 you have to join the universities in 1972 september.. otherwise you enrollment is void…(your family must be one of the families who corrupted together with Ne Win and or you have good connection with Col Hla Han who was educatiom minister at that time or major Nyunt Muang who was chief of Basic Education department at that time.
You wrote “They were giving us food, water, and cold drinks as if they could correctly guess that we were almost starving. I even managed to grab a boiled egg or two while I was still carrying U Thant’s heavy coffin.”
-Ha ha ha What a joke!!! when the U thant coffin was carried back to RASU it was not carried by the students on their shoulders.. it was carried on the Lorry…
You managed to grab boiled egg or Two???? how come I didn’t see anyone giving food on that same evening. Only people were donating the next day when student went out and request public for help.(I am one of the students who went out for asking doation for food)
I just want to say..you are a very good “FICTION WRITER BASED ON ACTUAL EVENT AND BENT IT TO SUIT YOUR STORY” LIKE THE MOVIE .. EXODUS BASED ON THE ACTUAL EVENT AND PUT A FICTIONAL CHARATER for a Noval.
I agree what Moe Aung said The more you write..the more it sound like the junta newspaper Myanma Ahlin. Looke like Your family and relative were granted good business in Burma by Than Shwe and Inc. In return you have to write this story to discredit the students involviong in U Thant uprisng acting like you are the one of the students witnessing or confessing the student brutality(as per normal Ne win and associate trick ..try to rewrite the Hisyory).
You dared to crtise NE Win because now Than Shwe is not good term with Ne Win Family(so it is not only please the people who suffered under Ne win but it also please the ThanShwe and Inc.) and you praise the recent generals by saying..”You see, our generals are not stupid at all. They are winning the civil war not just by killing their enemies. My father’s eventual surrender proves that.”
I just want to say this..don’t insult the Students(not only RIT all the universities student at that time) who invloved in U Thant uprising.
May be you and Than shwe might think that ..it is time for all of you to rewrite and distorted the History cleverly(by putting in 30% true facts and 70% lies).. ..fat hope!!! we are still alive and as long as we are still alive you cannot rewrite the History with distorted information.
it is not so difficult to check who is the 1974 RIT section D student with a name Hla Oo.
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10 Colum Graham // Aug 3, 2008 at 10:13 pm
This whole post is an example of why New Mandala is great. Not that I can add anything to it, but RIT Student of the Seventies, I’d be really interested to read any stories you wish to let out of the locker.
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11 Hla Oo // Aug 4, 2008 at 4:00 am
(Here is one of the moving emails I’ve received from my fellow graduates from RIT forum after I posted my original essay there. I have to ask his forgiveness for posting his email here without a permission, even though I cut out his name and his personal particulars. I should stop responding this post after this. I’ve been receiving serious threats from all sides of Burma’s political spectrum, and the violent responses scared me, ha ha, just kidding. No wonder our little country has been in shit for so long! But, I am glad I’ve recalled and restarted the debate on this sad episode of our violent history.)
Dear Ko Hla Oo,
I was deeply touched and moved by your superbly organized short essay on our late 70s days in mother RIT. Kindly allow me to save your essay in my personal archive.
Well, as I was reading along your essay, my dislocated memoreis popped up again in my eyes as if I was watching a blurred film movie.
I was then a third year civil student, boarding at Poppa Hall.
In the afternoon of that day (U Thant’s funeral procession day), the most striking memory ever in my RIT days left a deep stamp in my heart. That was a very remarkable and short, but very descriptive, comment made by our ever respectable ex-Rector Dr. Aung Gyi. We were, just like other fellows, seriously attending a session of class (CE-301) lectured by Saya himself in the morning of that day.
Amidst his long lecture on the subject, he all of a sudden pasued and whispered to us ,with a trace of humor in his tone as he’d always been. It seemd to us he was very much aware of what would happen and to which exetent it would develop on that day. Honestly, I was not that much convinced of what would really take place rather than was a bit eager to join other fellows to attend the funeral procession.
Saya asked an off-subject question to us with a faint smile on his face.
“Guys. Have you ever heard about the funeral event of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat who was tragically assessinated?”
Some answered “Yes”, some “No”, some silent. I was in the third group. But, at that moment, I recalled nobody had a clue what Saya was trying to drive us at.
Then, Saya continued. “OK. I’ll share the story with you. On Sadat’s funeral day in Cairo, there were thousands and thousands of mourners took part in the procession to the graveyard. They were so much eager to pay their last tribute to the fallen hero. In fact, they were on a mission to send a single dead body to the graveyard. But, you know, just after burying the body of ONE dead person, they ended up with leaving hundreds of another dead ones in the graveyard at the end of Sadats’ funeral rites followed by clashes amongst the mourners for their different grievances. Hmmmmmm……. huge crowd, riots, mob action,.. those could lead to another unexpected deadly scenario.”
Saya then deeply sighed. The whole class went eerily silent.
“Alright, guys. Be thoughtful and watch your steps if you have planned to do something special today.”
Saya, with a weary face, quietly left the theatre at the end of his last words for the day.
I could never forget that moment whenever I recall our good old days under the canopy of our mother RIT.
All other chain events you described in your essay were truely witnessed by myself, too. Not very suprisingly, I found out that most of your experiences were almost identical with mine.
To mention a few, I was carrying a wreath together with a student colleague from Workers’ College, among others, all along the road from Kyaikkasan ground to RASU campus. Funnily, I almost choked to death at the entrance of main gate where waves of students and on-lookers rolled into the campus joining the procession. Just after entering the gate, someone from behind me accidently stepped on one of my slippers. By instant reflexion, I frantically attempetd to get hold of my slipper in the rapidly moving stream of crowd. As a result, I lost control of myself and fell down on the pavement whereby I sudden sensed the massive weights of tens of hundreds of fellow commerades who unavoidably had to walk across all over my body. I was in semi-consious state when someone spotted me and rescued by dragging me out of the crowd. Phewwww…. I was just lucky!
I joined the sudent’s committee in the following days. I was assigned to Marlar Hall entrance check point while you were at the main gate.
The last day’s scene must have been very shocking as you mentioned. Just like you, I wasn’t in the campus anymore when that brutal crash down took place. On that day, I was leaving Rangoon for my home town by air. It was at dawn around 4:00am when BAC bus passed the RASU campus. I could even see the dimly lit campus behind the halls along the Prome Road when our bus was driving past the campus. That was my last scene on the campus. As I hail from a little town in the south, I was flown back to my home on that day. Airplane was the only reliable means of transport to our place in those days.
Well, Ko Hla Oo…. Thanks you very much for your essay and for sharing it with us.
My intention of writing this little supplimentary note is just to share our memories and feelings.
With best regards,
*** ****
Civil (1979)
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12 Hla Oo // Aug 4, 2008 at 4:54 am
By the way, I have graduated in 1980 from RIT and even worked as a tutor in Mechanical Engineering Department for a year in 1981. You can easily check it in the RIT graduates database openly available right on the internet. Please don’t threaten me with a violent tone. It made my blood boil because of my PTSD.
Yes, your are absolutely right. After passing my matriculation I attended the RIT in late 1972, just for a month. Believe it or not, I ran away from home and joined the army as a private, but deserted the army in early 1974, and rejoined the RIT in late 1974.
Read my posts carefully, as I hide nothing about me. You don’t need to threaten me by using such a dreadful alias like “RIT student of Seventies”. why don’t you come out and debate like a man like the rest of us here. Not under a funny pseudonym. I think you sounded like a man. Were you really there at the old turf club’s ground as you bravely claimed.
I have written a book called “A Boy Soldier” based on my over a year stint in Burmese Army. As a result I couldn’t go back to Burma, for your dear General Than Shwe and his generals would hang me by neck till death, let alone letting me do business with them.
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13 Stephen // Aug 4, 2008 at 12:30 pm
In the afternoon of that day (U Thant’s funeral procession day), the most striking memory ever in my RIT days left a deep stamp in my heart… Saya asked an off-subject question to us with a faint smile on his face. “Guys. Have you ever heard about the funeral event of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat who was tragically assessinated?”
U Thant’s funeral uprising: 1974
Anwar Sadat’s assasination: October 6th, 1981
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14 Hla Oo // Aug 4, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I think he recalled wrongly the sadat’s funeral instead of Nasser’s funeral. What Dr Aung Gyi said must be about Nasser’s funeral. Many Egyptians were killed on Nasser’s funeral day in 1970.
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