Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Kza win seemed to know how his life would end. ‘Before the Revolution opened out,’ he wrote in ‘Skulls’, his final poem, ‘a bullet blew someone’s brains out.’ Eight days later, on 3 March 2021, security forces opened fire on a group of protesters in the city of Monywa, in central Myanmar. K (...)
Ever since the military first seized power in a coup in March 1962, Myanmar has been plagued by a vicious cycle of popular protests and violent repression—and, every time the people have risen up against the dictatorship, the men in green have managed to cling on to power. The question in 2023 (...)
Thakin Soe (1906-1989) is known as one of the founders of the Communist Party of Burma. He was also the leader of the Red Flag Communist Party of Burma, a radical split from the CPB. Since Thakin Soe was critical of Stalinism, Mao Zedong’s thought, and the CPB’s leadership, he was called a (...)
“Some observers, of whom this writer is one, have long considered General Ne Win as the most destructive personal force in Myanmar’s modern history.... Yet I have been forced to reconsider this evaluation with the rise of General Min Aung Hlaing”.
Some observers, of whom this writer is one, (...)
Myanmar’s military, known locally as the Sit-Tat or military, has embarked upon a massive campaign of violence since last year’s coup and, over the past 17 months, has intensified and expanded its use of terror. The Sit-Tat has a notorious history of committing atrocities, so much so that its (...)
History is written with our blood Revolution! Those who lost their lives in the fight for democracy Our country is a land built with martyrs We will not be satisfied until the end of the world
– “Kabar Ma Kyay Bu” (“Until the end of the world”)
This article is a preliminary account of an (...)
Bomb blasts not only in major cities like Yangon, Mandalay and Naypyitaw, but also in smaller upcountry towns, ambushes on army convoys, gun battles in Magwe and Sagaing regions, and, across the country, assassinations of suspected military informants. While it is too early to describe the (...)
“Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing Through the graves the wind is blowing Freedom soon will come Then we’ll come from the shadows.” — Leonard Cohen, The Partisan.
After staging a coup on February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military – known as the Tatmadaw – has been on a rampage, waging an internal (...)
As tensions peaked between Karen and Bamar in early 1949, Burmese irregular forces committed a series of mass killings on the outskirts of the then-capital that have never been officially acknowledged. Ninety-six year old Saw Maung Tin says he « will never forget the blood and the sound of (...)
Myanmar is at a point of no return. The army’s February coup, meant to surgically shift power within the existing constitutional framework, has instead unleashed a revolutionary energy that will be nearly impossible to contain.
Over the past four months, protests and strikes have continued (...)
East Asia is currently one of the epicentres of the world of important movements of democratic resistance, initiated in reaction to the authoritarian and dictatorial drift of many political regimes. After Hong Kong and Thailand, Myanmar has become, in the region, the “incandescent front” (...)
“In Myanmar’s long history of revolution, poets have fought injustice with the power of art.”
[Photo; K Za Win, Kyi Lin Aye, Khet Thi]
Poet Khet Thi was arrested by some 100 junta troops on the evening of May 8. The following day, he was dead. His wife reportedly had to ask the (...)
Since the military coup on Feb. 1 people have been furious about the violence committed by the junta’s police and soldiers. But their civilian accomplices and informants caused just as much anger.
They are among the people, closely monitoring anti-regime activists and informing on their (...)
Yangon — On this day in 1976, 25-year-old student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, a strong voice of dissent against the military regime led by dictator General Ne Win, was hanged in Insein Prison.
The ethnic Chin zoological student at the University of Yangon (then Rangoon) participated in (...)
The moment Kay Khine Tun, 22, was arrested at her nursing job in Yangon Children’s Hospital, her father readied for an exhausting battle with his former employer, the Myanmar Army.
“The military has no shame at all,” said Sein Mya, a 53-year-old taxi driver, as he spooned half a dozen (...)
Opening his 1990 political history, The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma, the Bangkok-based journalist Bertil Lintner summarized the then recent end to the party’s 40-year insurrection: “It’s cessation was not the outcome of a successful government offensive or of a generous (...)
Authoritarianism casts a long shadow over the left intellectual history of post-colonial Burma. This can been understood as a legacy of Burmese political and military organizations that advanced top-down agendas of nationalization and central planning. The historical prominence of such (...)
A. Context
Since the military coup of March 2, 1962, the Burmese armed forces (Tatmadaw) had been holding power in Burma. Under the leadership of General Ne Win (1910-2002) who established a socialist and autarchic military regime, Burma isolated itself from the outside world for almost (...)
This month is the 20th anniversary of Burma’s “8888 uprising”, which began on August 8, 1988, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Rangoon, the capital, to protest against decades of military rule and economic mismanagement. The protest included all sectors of Burmese (...)
Camp Thay Baw Boe, 1989: Despite our resolve to fight the Burmese army and sacrifice our lives for freedom and democracy, the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) was poorly equipped and extremely under-funded. So the battle against Burmese troops that many idealists, including me, (...)
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