The September 2007 Crackdown

In August 2007, the SPDC raised fuel prices in Burma without warning, increasing the burden on Burma’s struggling impoverished majority. The fuel price rise sparked bolder public protests by Burma’s increasingly assertive civil society. Even during the first half of 2007, groups of activists had begun organizing against haphazard electricity supplies, rising food prices, low education standards, lack of access to health care, and a host of other daily complaints against military rule.

Members of the 88 Generation Students, a political organization composed of former students active during Burma’s 1988 uprising, many of whom had spent time in prison, were at the forefront of the demonstrations. In peaceful marches through the streets of Rangoon, the 88 Generation Students and their supporters called on the military government to begin peaceful dialogue on political and economic reforms. The SPDC responded swiftly and, by late August 2007, had arrested most of them.

Then, in early September, local authorities attacked Buddhist monks marching in the northern town of Pakokku, Magwe Division, making demands similar to those of the dissidents in Rangoon. This sparked a nationwide Buddhist protest movement. By late September monks were staging peaceful marches through the streets of Rangoon involving tens of thousands of monks and nuns.

In one incident, almost impossible to imagine, hundreds of monks marched down University Avenue in Rangoon to the home of Burma’s most famous political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi. There the monks chanted and prayed for her while she looked on from her gate. The monks then peacefully walked away.

The sense of hope arising from the steadily growing processions did not last. On September 26, Burmese riot police backed up by regular army units and government-backed militias called Swan Arr Shin (Masters of Force) began clearing the streets of Rangoon. During two days of violence, security forces shot into crowds of protesters, beat and clubbed monks and civilian protesters, and arrested thousands of people. Monasteries and homes were raided numerous times by Burmese security forces looking for suspects. The United Nations estimated that security forces killed at least 31 people, although the true figure is likely much higher. In the full glare of international attention, the SPDC used violence to restore an uneasy calm.