Burma / Myanmar: U Aung Gyi (1919 - 2012) addresses a rally in Rangoon, 1988

The 8888 Nationwide Popular Pro-Democracy Protests (also known as the People Power Uprising) were a series of marches, demonstrations, protests, and riots in the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (today commonly known as Burma or Myanmar). Key events occurred on 8 August 1988, and therefore it is known as the 8888 Uprising.

Brigadier General Aung Gyi (Burmese: အောင်ကြီး [ʔàʊɴ dʑí]; 16 February 1919 – 25 October 2012) was a Burmese politician and a member of General Ne Win's 4th Burma Rifles rising to Brigadier General. He was born to a Burmese Chinese family in Paungde, British Burma in 1919.

He participated in the independence movement before World War II and joined the anti-Japanese struggle in 1945. He influenced the 1988 uprising by writing and widely distributing a series of open letters to Ne Win, in which he criticised the government's economic policies and human rights abuses.

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Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

Lintner Collection

Credit:

Pictures From History