The Past, Present, and Future of Political Protest in Burma: In Conversation with Bo Kyi
- Aidan Johnson
- Jul 1, 2024
- 20 min read
Updated: Jul 6
Bo Kyi is a Burmese human rights activist and founder of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a human rights organization that advocates for the release of political prisoners in Burma and works to document prison conditions, unlawful arrests, and detention-related abuses carried out by the Burmese government. The AAPP also provides humanitarian assistance and other support to current and former political prisoners and their families. Bo Kyi is a former political prisoner due to to his participation in pro-democracy protests during the 1988 uprising. Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
CJLPA: Can you tell us about your first interactions with politics during the 1988 student movement and what made you want to get involved with anti-government protests?
Bo Kyi: I was born in a country where fear was pervasive. We feared imprisonment, there was a fear of being tortured, losing a loved one or home, a fear of losing your dignity, a fear of poverty and forced labor. The military dictatorship began in 1962, three years before I was born. But by the time I was a teenager I already understood that our university students had long been at the heart of political movements in Burma, since before colonial independence.
In 1988, I was a final year student at Rangoon Arts and Sciences University, majoring in Burmese literature. In that time, there was not a multi-political party system, only one military-aligned party called the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). We were taught political science in university, but it was the ‘Burmese Way to Socialism’ with no space for criticism. We were told to just listen and memorize what was taught. Students had not been allowed to establish student unions since 7 July 1962, when military soldiers infamously blew up a Rangoon student union with dynamite. Thereafter, all students’ unions were declared illegal, students were forced to join the BSPP for a chance to gain further study, everything was controlled by the Party. I had never heard of democracy or human rights. In university, we had to learn what happened in the past by listening to our elders in secret. Professors and tutors taught us the history of the student movement in Burma, and the role that it played before, in colonial times.
My father was a soldier in the Air Force, and he raised me as if I was a soldier, not allowing any question back. If I asked questions, he beat me. When I was young, I had a great fear of my father. But as I got older and older, I tried to look for ways to free myself from my father. This is why I worked hard to get good grades at high school and go to university. Such kinds of emotions would lead me to join the struggle.
On 22 September 1987, the military government led by General Ne Win announced demonetization of the national currency, the Kyat. The decision rendered the existing banknotes of 1, 5, 10, and 20 kyats invalid. The purported aim of the demonetization was to curb black market activities and reduce corruption, but everyone knew it was led by the senior generals’ superstition. Most of the population faced challenges in exchanging their old currency for the new notes, so many people simply lost their entire savings and what little wealth they had.
As students, we financially relied on our parents as they supported us through our studies. When they suffered, we also suffered. This dissatisfaction with the economic situation soon boiled over into rage at the injustice of dictatorial military rule.
