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Dissident students

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BANGKOK: Dissident Burmese students on Tuesday called on Burma's ruling military to begin talks with freed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and to release all political prisoners who remain in jail.

Dozens of Burmese dissidents rallied peacefully outside their embassy here on Tuesday to mark the seventh anniversary of what has become known as the "four eights" massacre.

"In reality, the only route to peace, justice and development in Burma is for all parties to come together in good faith for political dialogue," the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) said in a statement.

"Political questions should be solved by political means," said the statement issued to mark the anniversary of a bloody nationwide crackdown against pro-democracy protesters on August 8, 1988.

The demonstrators, many wearing red headbands bearing the image of a fighting peacock, a traditional symbol of defiance, placed a wreath at the Bangkok embassy gate and held up posters denouncing military rule and expressing support for Suu Kyi.

Police monitored the brief demonstration but made no arrests before ordering the protesters to disperse.

August 8, 1988 was one of the bloodiest days over the course of six months of demonstrations in Burma against military rule.

A student call for a strike on the auspicious eighth day of the eighth month of the eighty-eighth year, reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation's Burmese-language service several days earlier, was heeded by hundreds of thousands of people in cities and towns throughout the country.

The Burmese military responded with bullets in Rangoon and several other towns. Doctors in Rangoon at the time put the death toll in the capital for that day as high as 3,000.

A week later, military authorities said 112 people had been killed and 267 wounded.

The pro-democracy uprising, which began in March that year, was finally crushed in September after the establishment of a new ruling military body, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC).

The SLORC, which still rules Burma, released the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi on July 10 after nearly six years of house arrest.

She has called for dialogue on national reconciliation but the SLORC has yet to make any public response.-Reuter