Political activists in Burma and overseas are planning to mark the 20thanniversary this Friday of a bloody pro-democracy uprising that leftnearly 3,000 people dead.
On August 8, 1988, hundreds ofthousands of people took to the streets of cities and villages acrossBurma, demanding an end to the military dictatorship.
Government forces violently crushed the mass protests, opening fire into crowds of students and Buddhist monks.
A new group of generals seized power in Burma following the crackdown and have been in control of the government since 1988.
Burma'sruling junta allowed elections in 1990, but refused to recognize theresults of that race and the victory of the opposition National Leaguefor Democracy.
The 1988 protests pushed opposition leader AungSan Suu Kyi into the political limelight and helped her found theNational League for Democracy party to challenge army rule.
AungSan Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, has been under some form ofdetention for most of the past 18 years since the 1990 election.