80 Hour Fast for 8.8.88 Bloody Crac

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

80 Hours Fast in DC in front of the SPDC's Embassy

Burmese exiles launched the demonstrations kickoff in Washington, DC yesterday
to celebrate the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the 8-8-88.  Burmese
activists staged a protest against the ruling military junta, officially
known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), in front of the 
regime's embassy in downtown Washington.  Ko Khin Maung Shwe, 
Ma Taw and Htet Htet, their 5 year-old daughter, who came all the way from
L.A., California, together with their fellow dissidents in the Washington
metropolitan area, launched the first day of a series of activities to honor
the
8-8-88 uprising, in which thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were gunned
down and arrested by the soldiers.  

Ko Khin Maung Shwe and Ma Taw, founders of the Free Burma Movement,
based in L.A., California, have been in the struggle for democracy in Burma
for 10 years.  They spent their initial period of the exile-life in the jungle
on Thai-
Burmese border and came to the United States in 1990.  Back in December,
1996, the couple and other 12 activists were arrested by the police, when they
chained themselves to a gas tanker in front of the Unocal Gas Distribution
Center, in Carson, CA.  

Ko Khin Maung Shwe said that he totally supports the NLD's call for the
convenning of Parliament on August 21.  He denounced the military imposition
of restrictions on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party.  The couple
will be fasting 88 hours from midnight August 4 to 4 p.m. August 8.  They will
join several other Burmese and American activists on August 7 and 8.