By Tim Aye Hardy — Special to GlobalPost.Published: April 3, 2010.
Photo: Members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) shout slogans to free Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi at the NLD party headquarters in Yangon March 29, 2010. Myanmar's biggest opposition party said on Monday it would not register for this year's election, meaning the party of Aung San Suu Kyi will not be allowed any role in the military-led political process. (Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)
NEW YORK — Twenty years on, my escape from Burma is still vivid in my mind.
In June 1988, six military intelligence agents knocked on my door in Rangoon in the middle of the night. They had come to arrest me for speaking out against the regime during the student uprising that came to be known as the “8888 Uprising.”
With my father’s help, I managed to evade arrest that night. A determined monk hid me among the novices at a nearby Buddhist temple. In the morning, I fled to a small remote town in Upper Burma.
I was one of the lucky few. Up to 6,000 innocent protesters were gunned down, and many more were imprisoned or mysteriously disappeared in the night. I lost many colleagues and close friends.
