The State: Enemy of the People Suppression of Human Rights In Burma

Abstract

The survivors fled; one wounded made it to the RGH (Rangoon General Hospital) and related the story to the outraged nurses and doctors:The worst day was Wednesday the 10th (August 1988). Army trucks dumped both dead and wounded from all over Rangoon outside the hospital. Some kids had a bullet wound in their arms or legs - and then a bayonet gash in their throats or chests. Some were also totally disfigured by bayonet cuts. Several corpses were male and stark naked - with shaven heads. Those were the monks whom the soldiers had stripped of their robes before dumping their corpses outside the RGH. I counted 160 dead and hundreds of wounded at the RGH alone and there were many more at other hospitals throughout Rangoon. At least 1000 people were killed by the army during the period 8th-12th August.… Shortly afterwards a group of nurses emerged from the hospital… I decided to join them, believing that it would be safe to march together with the nurses. We walked around the quarter - and saw an army truck approaching. I never thought that they'd shoot. Some enraged people climbed the fence outside the hospital and shouted abuse at the soldiers. Then I heard a single shot, and another - followed by automatic rifle fire. They were firing into the column of hospital personnel! I saw dead and wounded sprawling in pools of blood outside the RGH. I helped carry them inside, where people cried at the sight of the nurses, their hospital white sullied with blood (Lintner 1990: 103–4).1