Door opened to activists
Play
President meets '88 leaders for first time
President Thein Sein met the country’s top political activists for the first time this weekend, according to state media.
The meeting between the president and leaders of the 88 Generation Students occurred on Saturday in Nay Pyi Taw, The New Light of Myanmar reported.
The “cordial discussions” covered a wide range of topics including “reconciliation, mapping out of a new form of political culture, flourishing of democracy system ... inclusiveness of national race groups”, the government mouthpiece said.
Min Zeya who attended the meeting as a member of the 88 group, said: “The president and his ministers explained ongoing issues relating to workers, farmers and religious and racial affairs. Our side discussed what we knew about those issues. We also discussed what we knew about the country’s peace process.
“The president said he would direct the government and regional authorities to engage and cooperate more with the 88 Group in its activities.”
Leading the talks for the former dissident group were Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi, both of whom were released from lengthy prison terms in 2012, under a presidential amnesty.
Both men were key leaders of anti-military student protests in 1988, when mass demonstrations rocked the county, ending in an army crackdown that claimed up to 3,000 dead.
In 2005, after years in prison, former student leaders established the 88 Students Generation Group in Yangon. They played a key role in the “Saffron Revolution” of 2007 – street protests led by monks – for which many received 65-year jail sentences.
Some members of the 88 Generation Group are mulling entering politics in the upcoming 2015 general election, sources said.
