Campaigning for a brighter future
"Open Our Schools - Enlighten Our Future" is an international campaign organised and carried out jointly by
the Burmese students' organisation All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) and the Norwegian human
rights organisation Worldview Rights. The aim of the campaign is to draw international attention to the appall-
ing state of the educational system in Burma/Myanmar and to press for the reopening of Burma's universities,
which have been closed for most of the past eleven years. The campaign also aims to mobilise the student
movement in Burma to collectively fight for the reopening of the universities. The campaign is to mobilise stu-
dents, academics, parliamentarians, journalists and others around the globe to exert maximum pressure on
the brutal Burmese military dictatorship.
Students struggling for freedom and democracy
The student movements and their activities have played a major role in the history of Burma ever since 1920,
first in the struggle for independence, later for democratic change. Many political leaders in Burma today
started out as members of these student organisations.
The military dictatorship, which gained power in 1962, and again in 1988, has through the last decades bru-
tally suppressed the students and their organisations. The military is fully aware of the students' democratic
influence on the general population, and use all means available to separate them from the public. In order to
avoid large gatherings of students, the military regime has closed down virtually all institutions of higher edu-
cation for the last eleven years. Thus the dictatorship has been the students' most dangerous opponent ever
since the Student Union's offices were razed in 1962. In 1988, large student-led demonstrations all over
Burma were suppressed by brutal military force. Thousands of students were killed or reported missing, addi-
tional thousands were arrested and put behind bars as political prisoners, and even larger numbers fled to
the border areas in order to continue the struggle from neighbouring countries.
ABSDF
The All Burma Students' Democratic Front was formed in 1988 by students and youth who fled to the border
regions of Burma after the military SLORC regime brutally suppressed the 1988 pro-democracy uprising.
ABSDF works to raise awareness of Burma's political problems among the international community in order to
discourage international support for the military dictatorship and to bring about peaceful democratic change.
ABSDF aims are:
1. To topple the Burmese military dictatorship.
2. To restore internal peace and to promote understanding and co-operation among Burma's ethnic groups.
3. To bring about a democratic system of government that guarantees human and civil rights for all Burma's
citizens.
(Continued on page 18)
"Open Our Schools - Enlighten Our Future"
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