Instead, he recalled “a trend of good Samaritans” trying to take charge and assist. And I keep asking myself why. What happened on January 12th. [29] Several students recalled the police shouting, "Don't let them escape" and "Kill them!". Jesse Aliganga. From 1988 to 2012, the military and police illegally detained and imprisoned tens of thousands of democracy leaders, as well as intellectuals, artists, students, and human rights activists. But I started running.”. I was putting the finishing touches on a report while the rest of the Engineering Services Center (ESC) staff drove off to view new storage facilities at the warehouse compound on the other end of town. But Miss Suu Kyi herself, the principal target of the ambush, escaped, at … Instead of going outside, something tells me to turn back. Over the weekend, more U.S. government personnel and others, such as the Israelis, deployed to help. [20] The first procession circled Rangoon, stopping for people to speak. [49] Incidents like these were not as common in Mandalay, where protests were more peaceful as they were organised by monks and lawyers. [2] News of the protest reached rural areas and four days prior to the national protest, students across the country were denouncing Sein Lwin's regime and Tatmadaw troops were being mobilised. Macharia wanted to sit and wait. U.S. Embassy Nairobi’s garage entrance was protected by a manual drop arm, secured with a padlock and local guards controlled the security feature. Nathan Aliganga (Originally released in August 11, 2017) By Cassandra Cooke, DSS Security Engineering Officer It was another beautiful day in Nairobi. Ambassador Bushnell was in a small group of people, attending a meeting in a neighboring high rise. [2] Pamphlets and posters appeared on the streets of Rangoon bearing the fighting peacock insignia of the All-Burma Students Union. When they reopened in June, rallies gathered pace. Cambodia has much to teach Burma’s government and people. Directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn, the film was made by Warner Bros. immediately after the raid. [32] Despite the gains made by the democracy movement, Ne Win remained in the background. He was later arrested. (10 August 1988). [31] Many students, sympathisers and riot police died throughout the month as the protests spread throughout Burma from Rangoon. The United States emphasizes in its dialogue with the Government of Burma the importance of promoting tolerance, diversity, and peaceful co-existence. DSS also increased security at other posts that could be targeted by al-Qa’ida. 532 – Nika uprising against Emperor Justinian in Constantinople fails, 30,000 killed by troops loyal to the Emperor in the Hippodrome. Meanwhile, the police and army began fraternising with the protesters. “They told me how wonderful my son was and that he was a good Marine. [54] Schools and universities remained closed to prevent any further uprisings. [13] Suu Kyi's house arrest was lifted in 2010, when worldwide attention for her peaked again during the making of the biographical film The Lady. Macharia saw that an embassy vehicle was nearby. [64], Although an exact body count has not been determined as bodies were often cremated, it is estimated[by whom?] Objective, Burma! [57][page needed], By mid-September, the protests grew more violent and lawless, with soldiers deliberately leading protesters into skirmishes that the army easily won. [2] Two days later, doctors, monks, musicians, actors, lawyers, army veterans and government office workers joined the protests. [27] A brawl followed in which one youth, who was the son of a BSPP official, was arrested and later released for injuring a student. “He was so proud to be a Marine—something he was bound and determined to do,” recalled his mother, Clara Aliganga, who received her son’s Purple Heart Medal during a memorial service at Quantico, Virginia, in August 1998. [38][page needed] Protesters responded by throwing Molotov cocktails, swords, knives, rocks, poisoned darts and bicycle spokes. Lured by the sound of the stun grenade, Macharia said he left his office and initially turned toward a gate that would have led directly to the blast site. They sped to investigate and began helping, and also organized support from the Kenyan and city governments. When British soldiers conquered Burma in 1885, they gave the last king hours to pack. In 1998 – as Cundall was visiting Burma for the first time – Kislyi and his brother Eugene released Iron Age, to worldwide indifference. [43], A short while later, the authorities opened fire on the protesters. During this time, demonstrators became increasingly wary of "suspicious looking" people and police and army officers. Aside from his family, Sergeant Aliganga’s love was the Marines, and his memory lives on through online and physical memorials in his honor throughout the world—and on a simple bronze plaque at the Marine Security Guard School at Quantico. She died at her post along with one of her best friends, Air Force Sgt. After the fall of Rangoon, the Allies tried to make a stand in central Burma. U.S. Embassy Nairobi doctor Gretchen McCoy and her staff had set up a triage station and frantically provided first aid. Independence to Burma was originally granted by Japan in 1943 after Japan had temporary control over it. It grew impossible to breathe until a draft wafted through the blown out windows. By the dim light in the stairwell, we found the stairs, which had turned into a slide of rubble. by Sharon James Evangelical Press: Durham, England, 1998, 237 pgs. The 8888 Nationwide Popular Pro-Democracy Protests (MLCTS: hrac le: lum:), also known as the 8-8-88 Uprisings, or the People Power Uprising, the People's Democracy Movement and the 1988 Uprising, were a series of nationwide protests, marches and civil unrest in Burma (Myanmar) that peaked in August 1988. Pyone Cho, one of the leaders of the uprising, spent 20 years of his adult life in prison. The East Africa bombings affected attitudes throughout the State Department, with a heightened sense of security awareness. The Nairobi blast killed more than 200 people and wounded more than 4,000. When country assignments were given out during one of the first classes of the Marine Security Guard school after Sgt. Large scale protests were reported in Pegu, Mandalay, Tavoy, Toungoo, Sittwe, Pakokku, Mergui, Minbu and Myitkyina. “I felt very safe at the American embassy,” Macharia recalled. When the military junta arranged an election in 1990, her party, the National League for Democracy, won 81% of the seats in the government (392 out of 492). Objective, Burma! There is also support amongst students in Thailand, who commemorate the uprising every 8 August. Fong (2008). Aung San Suu Kyi was also placed under house arrest. (CBS) Suzy Lyall of Milton, N.Y. was 19 when she disappeared on March 2, 1998, apparently after getting off a bus on her college campus, the University at Albany in New York. (1988). In an era before wide use of cell phones, email, or the Internet, radio and TV stations were critical for learning immediate information, and the Kenyatta Centre had televisions. I need to be back with my people.”. We could see the tools we wanted, we just couldn’t reach them. In front of the embassy, the MSGs jumped out of their van to respond. About 15 or 20 minutes before the blast, Macharia said, he walked from his office – on the same corridor as the U.S. Marine Security Guards – up to the second floor to the Financial Management Center. Some staffers heard the noise and ran to the windows to take a look; many of them died there when the walls and windows exploded inward. In one village, 2,000 of the 5,000 people also went on strike. Poems were written by students who participated in the protests. An official website of the United States government, Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues, Office of the U.S. The drop arm remained locked with its padlock as the guards dove and ran for cover. Today, the uprising is remembered and honoured by Burmese expatriates and citizens alike. Other witnesses said it sounded like noises at a construction project. [18] In November 1985, students gathered and boycotted the government's decision to withdraw Burmese local currency notes. But prior to the outbreak of large-scale demonstrations, its members were arrested and given lengthy prison sentences of up to 65 years. 1998 Terrorist Attack in Nairobi Embassy Staffer Recalls Nairobi Bombing Good Samaritans of Nairobi Honoring Sgt. He liked to draw, read Greek mythology, collect comic books, and played saxophone in his high school band. The BBC News website looks at the background to those events, which ended in a bloody crackdown. "Hunger for food, leadership sparked Burma riots". During the crisis, Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a national icon. [30], Following the latest protests, authorities announced the closure of universities for several months. Yet, his memory will continue to live in the hearts and minds of those who knew him—and those who didn’t—as described, for example, in an article about Marine Security Guard training in the Washington Post, published several months after the East Africa bombings. The condition of the building was unknown, but we knew it was in danger of collapsing. On the deadly morning of Aug. 7, 1998, Stanley Macharia, a retired Kenyan police official working for DSS as a Foreign Service national recalled, “I’m one of the people who would have died.”. Aliganga’s death, the students broke out in cheers when eight of the students’ names were called —and the instructor simply said, “Nairobi.” The Washington Post article noted that the Marine Security Guards who were heading to Nairobi considered the assignment a badge of honor. It is not to be confused with, "I would like every country in the world to recognize the fact that the people of Burma are being shot down for no reason at all.". This page was last edited on 8 April 2021, at 19:45. In 1962, Lwin had ordered troops to fire on student protestors, killing dozens, and ordered the Union Building at Rangoon University to be blown up. The driver and passengers insisted that they had a special delivery for the embassy loading dock. The country had a national debt of $3.5 billion and currency reserves of between $20 million and $35 million, with debt service ratios standing at half of the national budget. Mathew Kimokiy is a local security employee in the Regional Security Office at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. Pyone Cho, one of the main leaders of the 88 Generation, was elected to the House of Representatives in the 2015 Election. In 1998, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) described Burma and Indonesia as the region’s two foremost enemies of the press. The parking lot was enveloped in towering flames. The back of the building was gone, so we went out the front and around the building where blackened husks of cars and a bus were burning. [65] Maung described the dead as "looters". The lack of these gave the book a feeling of shallowness. In 1998 Suu Kyi attempted to leave Yangon to meet with supporters, but was blocked by the military and forcibly returned to the city. Global AIDS Coordinator and Global Health Diplomacy, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Special Representative for Syria Engagement, U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, Office of the U.S. 1998; More than US$1 million is collected from local donations for the restoration of Bagan. [13][14] The uprising ended on 18 September after a bloody military coup by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). They continue to work as politicians and human rights activists in Myanmar. A bunch of us laid hands on it and tried tearing it out of the frame by brute force. Mandy's storyline stepped up a gear in 1998 when she decided to give her father another chance. )[37] Protesters kissed the shoes of soldiers, in an attempt to persuade them to join the civilian protest, whilst some encircled military officers to protect them from the crowd and earlier violence[40][41] Over the next four days these demonstrations continued; the government was surprised by the scale of the protests and stated that it promised to heed the demands of the protesters "insofar as possible". In the immediate aftermath, DSS sent 41 special agents, four security engineering officers, and 41 Navy Seabees to the two embassies to assist local staff and begin investigating the attacks. Next, he went to the U.S. embassy compound nearby, where he joined other police efforts, aware of the possibility of a follow-on attack. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. https://www.rfa.org. Staff at the British High Commission, which sat elevated above the city, immediately noticed the column of smoke climbing from the U.S. Embassy Nairobi location. Waiting back in his office he heard a muffled explosion – sounding perhaps like gunshots. Daniel Briehl, who charged through blinding smoke only to fall 20 feet through the blown-out walls of the elevator shaft, breaking three ribs in the process. Terrorists have funding constraints too, and their interest turned from the newly fortified compounds to less well-protected locations. Burma was seized by the Japanese in World War Two, and became a major battleground as British, Indian, American, and Chinese forces battled against the Japanese. U.S. military elements deployed from nearby regions. Someone else tried to “jimmy” the lock with a pocketknife. [56] Stephen Solarz who had experienced the recent democracy protests in the Philippines and South Korea arrived in Burma in September encouraging the regime to reform, which echoed the policy of the United States government towards Burma. The United States government continues to use the name “Burma.” U.S. Assistance to Burma They also campaigned for the National League for Democracy in the 2015 Elections. [25][page needed] The protests were fanned by public letters to Ne Win by former second in command General Brigadier Aung Gyi from July 1987, reminding him of the 1967 rice riots and condemning lack of economic reform, describing Burma as "almost a joke" compared to other Southeast Asian nations. In the article, one of the instructors who had trained Sgt. Most U.S. Embassies did not record video at the time. It actually was a small stun grenade thrown by one of the occupants of the truck bearing 2,000 pounds of explosives. All needed immediate assistance. At first, we only had our bare hands to sift through the rubble. But the clerk told him not to sit and wait, assuring him he would bring them down to Macharia’s office once the papers were processed. [38][page needed] Upwards of 10,000 protesters demonstrated outside the Sule Pagoda in Rangoon, where demonstrators burned and buried effigies of Ne Win and Sein Lwin in coffins decorated with demonetised bank notes. Yet, since the fall of Suharto in that same year, Indonesia’s mass media have blossomed, leaving Burma with the dubious distinction of being the region’s number one adversary of the press. The blast knocked him to the ground. [23] The incident angered pro-democracy groups and the next day more students rallied at the RIT and spread to other campuses. The government announced on the state-run radio that the military had assumed power in the people's interest, "in order to bring a timely halt to the deteriorating conditions on all sides all over the country. ", Europa Publications Staff (2002), pp. Senior embassy personnel rode-out the blast in the secure conference room known as “The Box.” All survived. [41] On 10 August, soldiers fired into Rangoon General Hospital, killing nurses and doctors tending to the wounded. [34] Between 2 and 10 August, co-ordinated protests were occurring in most Burmese towns. All who go through the rigorous training see and remember one of their own—and the sacrifice he made for his country. [20] Students were particularly angry at the government's decision as savings for tuition fees were wiped out instantly. It was on this day, too, that the junta made its first determined attempt at repression. The political upheavals that really happened in Burma in 1988 were never heard or talked about in the US, and needed to be. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. “Then I have this funny feeling … like, all is not well. that 10,000 people – including protesters and soldiers, had been killed. [58], By the end of September, there were around 3,000 estimated deaths and unknown number of injured,[58] with 1,000 deaths in Rangoon alone. When the guards refused to allow them in, as they were trained to do since the truck was not authorized to enter, the attackers began shooting and threw a grenade. Born in Oakland, California, and raised in Pensacola, Florida, Sgt. Included in these arrests are prominent figures such as Min Ko Naing, Mya Aye, Htay Kywe, Mie Mie, Ko Ko Gyi, Pyone Cho, Min Zeyar, Ant Bwe Kyaw, and Nilar Thein. [23] Police later received threatening letters from underground groups, who organised small protests around the university campus. [2] Large marches took places from Taunggyi and Moulmein to distant ethnic states (particularly where military campaigns had previously taken place),[47] where red, the symbolic colour for democracy was displayed on banners. In Mandalay, 100,000 people protested, including Buddhist monks and 50,000 demonstrated in Sittwe. Considering it was Friday, he thought the young clerk might put off the project until Monday. The frustrated terrorists then triggered the bomb in the rear parking lot instead of beneath the embassy as planned. Indeed they did: hundreds of pounds of explosives. Copyright © 1998-2020, RFA. [59][page needed]. Many of the student leaders of the uprising became lifelong activists and human rights leaders. “Madam, get in here,” he recalled telling the ambassador, gesturing to the vehicle. Meanwhile, the newly created Burma Corpswhich had been formed to relieve Burma Army h… Soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators and hundreds of unarmed marchers were killed. [58] Protesters demanded more immediate change, and distrusted steps for incremental reform. [46][page needed] Maung was a legal scholar and the only non-military individual to serve in the Burma Socialist Programme Party. [52][page needed] Kyi urged the crowd not to turn on the army but find peace through non-violent means. 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