On the 8th of august in 1988, a general strike began in Myanmar (Burma) as part of the 8888 Uprising, with mass anti-government demonstrations throughout the country demanding multi-party democracy from the ruling one-party state. Over the following days, the mass demonstrations devolved into violent riots as the military fired into crowds of protesters.
The 8888 Uprising, also known as the People Power Uprising, took place in the context of an economic crisis in the country, governed as a one-party state by the Burma Socialist Programme Party, led by General Ne Win. Students and farmers had been engaging in protest and campaigns of rebellion against various state economic policies since 1985.
On August 8th, 1988 (thus the uprising’s name) mass anti-government demonstrations took place throughout the country. Participants came from a wide variety of demographics - Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, students, workers, young and old participated.
The protests began relatively peacefully, with only one casualty reported on the first day, the result of a frightened traffic cop who fired into the crowd and fled. Over the next few days, the protests devolved into violent riots as the military and police fired on the protesters, at one point even shooting doctors and nurses tending to the wounded.
Protesters responded by throwing Molotov cocktails, swords, knives, rocks, poisoned darts and bicycle spokes. In one incident, rioters burned a police station and killed four fleeing police officers.
On August 26th, Aung San Suu Kyi (eventual leader of the country and complicit in the rohingya genocide), the daughter of anti-imperialist revolutionary Aung San, addressed half a million people at Shwedagon Pagoda, becoming an international figure in the uprising, supported by the West. Her party would later go on to win elections in 1990, however these results were ignored by the military government and she was arrested.
On September 18th, the military retook power in the country, with General Saw Maung repealing the 1974 constitution and imposing martial law. The demonstrations were violently suppressed and, by the end of September, at least 3,000 people were killed, however estimates of casualties vary widely.
Eventually after another mass protests in the saffron revolution and the 2010-2015 reforms Aung San party the NLD would take power in 2015 and be overthrown by a coup in 2021 and banned 2 years later.
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While joking that one of the cooks wasn’t really visiting family but had been called in for one last mission one of the servers told me she has a cousin in the FBI. Reflexively I said “that’s a shame.” And she asked why and bear in mind this is in Canada, brainworms about American alphabet groups are less here but like…also she acted like this was the first time she’d heard of someone not liking the FBI. I said something to the tune of if this restaurant had done cointelpro I wouldn’t be working here. She then asked what cointelpro is, I explained and then she said that was back in the 60s, I explained their more recent activities of entrapments, if I could go back to the 60s they killed most civil rights leaders you’ve heard of and you already know I hate cops in general. Got an 'oh…okay…" .
Huh, a lib
It’s kinda weird cause Canada tho. Here the average person generally gets the fbi is sketchy but the lib gap in knowledge is that the mounties are literally our equivalent and up to some real shady shit too, rcmp for sure had this dude on payroll https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks
I think the RCMP is probably even more shady than the FBI. The crossover between them and the Hells Angels is insane. The FBI’s informant system runs protection for lots of criminals and indirectly allows a significant amount of crime but the HA and RCMP are 100% integrated at the highest levels. Being an unaffiliated criminal in canada is next to impossible for anything above street level crime. So essentially any serious criminal is working with the RCMP.
Huh, the FBI didn’t strike me as a dirty card player a la CIA, though I can see why (eg. COINTEL)
On the other hand, I didn’t know it’d be full-on collaboration with organized crime for RCMP, tell me some sources on this sorta thing?
Its all anecdotal. If a journalist could prove that The RCMP only take down major criminals when the HA give them the ok that journalist would disappear.
On several occasions cops told me that all the cops knew what went on on Willy Picton’s farm and everyone knew that his farm was where the HA disposed of women. I knew a guy whos dad and granddad were HA and two of his uncles were cops.
I heard something sketchy of it, from the tip of my ears, last I heard… anything else?
I have a lot of family in the RCMP. (Don’t worry, I don’t tell them anything about this place or my real politics, I am super low profile on my leftism with them.) Whenever I ask about that mass shooting they instantly clam up. And these are people who normally talk to me about investigations, at least general things if not details. There’s something super-fucky about the whole thing.