'8-8-88' anniversary observed quietly

Yangon: Cowed and afraid, people in Myanmar on Friday marked exactly 20 years since the army crushed an "8-8-88" democracy uprising with the loss of an estimated 3,000 lives, although the only protests were outside the country.

After last year's extensive fuel-price rallies, the generals in charge of the former Burma were taking no chances, posting armed police and pro-government thugs at strategic sites, such as Yangon's gilded Shwedagon pagoda.

Political imprisonment

Most of the leaders of the 1988 uprising, the biggest challenge to army rule dating back to 1962, have been behind bars since the start of the fuel-price demonstrations last August. They are just a few of an estimated 1,100 political prisoners.

"We are not planning any official ceremony, although some people might choose to do something in private," Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy, said.

Others concurred, citing the daily struggle to survive in one of Asia's poorest nations and a sense of the futility of protest that has lingered since 1988 and last year's crackdown, in which at least 31 people were killed.