They even drowned protesters in Rangoon's Inya Lake. Riot police then stormed the University campus and arrested over 1000 students. Forty-one students died of suffocation after being left crammed into a police van.
Uncowed, on March 18 the students marched into central Rangoon. More than 10,000 townspeople joined them. Convoys of troops were sent into the city and arrested anyone on the streets, forced them into trucks and drove them to prison. Continuing to dowse the protests, the state closed all schools and universities and a curfew was rigorously enforced.
By the end of that week, the demonstrations were over. An estimated 200 people had been killed.
The stand-off did not last long. The report of a government enquiry, published in May, inflamed public opinion with its claim that only two students had been shot.
Anger mounted as those released from prison told terrible tales of torture and gang rape by the riot police. When the universities reopened on 30 May, the students began to reorganise. By mid-June, the students were demonstrating again, somewhat wiser and better organised. The general public came to their support in the clashes, in which some riot police were killed. Crucially disturbances had now spread well beyond Rangoon.
The government responded with a variety of tactics: they tried to divert the protests by fomenting inter-communal conflict against Muslims; they offered some concessions and some ministerial resignations; and they continued to crack down hard.
Public criticism focused upon the ageing Ne Win and his family's wealth. He was compared to Ferdinand Marcos, the recently-deposed president of the Philippines. Under intense pressure, Ne Win called an extraordinary session of the BSPP and announced his resignation as head of government and suggested a referendum on multi-party elections.
However, this was, as other seemingly concessional acts by Ne Win, a cosmetic resignation. It did not represent a change of course; he simply found it more convenient to dominate from behind the scenes. A carefully stage-managed BSPP conference predictably rejected the very idea of multi-party elections and chose hard-liner Sein Lwin to succeed Ne Win.
The 8th Day of the 8th Month | False Dawn | 
