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The All Burma Students' Democratic Front ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာကျောင်းသားများဒီမိုကရက်တစ်တပ်ဦး;
abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
ABSDF or မကဒတ) is an opposition group in
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
(also known as Burma). It was founded on 1 November 1988, after the
8888 protests The 8888 Uprising ( my, ၈၈၈၈ အရေးအခင်း), also known as the People Power UprisingYawnghwe (1995), pp. 170 and the 1988 Uprising, was a series of nationwide protests, marches, and riots in Burma (present-day Myanmar) th ...
in
Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
. The group's leadership consists mostly of former student exiles. The ABSDF operates an armed wing, which has fought alongside other armed opposition groups in Myanmar, such as the
Kachin Independence Army The Kachin Independence Army (KIA; Kachin: ''ShangLawt Hpyen''; my, ကချင်လွတ်လပ်ရေးတပ်မတော်) is a non-state armed group and the military wing of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), a pol ...
and the
Karen National Liberation Army The Karen National Liberation Army ( ksw, ကညီဒီကလုာ် တၢ်ထူၣ်ဖျဲး သုးမုၢ်ဒိၣ်, my, ကရင်အမျိုးသား လွတ်မြောက်ရေး တပ်မတ ...
.


Objectives

The objective of the group is to free the people of Myanmar from the oppression of the military, to create a
democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
with
political freedom Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and F ...
and respect for
human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
, to obtain nationwide peace, and to introduce a
federal system Federalism is a combined or compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments ( provincial, state, cantonal, territorial, or other sub-unit governments) in a single po ...
in the country.


Leadership

The ABSDF elects its leadership democratically, with leaders of the organisation serving for three-year terms in accordance with the ABSDF constitution. Its first leader was Htun Aung Gyaw, a leader in the December 1974 student protests following the
U Thant funeral crisis The U Thant funeral crisis or U Thant crisis ( my, ဦးသန့် အရေးအခင်း) was a series of protests and riots in the then-Burmese capital of Rangoon triggered by the death of U Thant, the third Secretary-General of the ...
. The following is the list of the organisation's current leaders who were elected in ABSDF's Eleventh Conference convened in September 2018, to serve for a three-year executive term. * Than Khe - Chairman *Myo Win - Vice-Chairman *Sonny Mahinder - General Secretary *Myint Hein - Joint-General Secretary *Ye Htut @ Hla Htay - Joint-General Secretary *Ma Lay Lone @ Mi Sue Pwint - Central Leading Committee Member *Min Zaw - Central Leading Committee Member *Saw Maung Oo - Central Leading Committee Member *Salai Yaw Aung - Central Leading Committee Member


History

The Burmese military staged a coup d'état in September 1988, following its crackdown on peaceful demonstrations concerning democracy and human rights. Soon after seizing state power, the
State Law and Order Restoration Council State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
, the then-military regime, announced that it would hold a free and fair election. It encouraged the public to register political parties. However, at the same time, regime officials were suppressing political expression and opposition throughout the country. It was in this atmosphere that serious discussions and debates took place within the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) to find ways to continue the struggle. Finally, leaders of the ABFSU reached a decision: the struggle would consist of three practical strategies: Maintaining semi-underground networks, forming a political party, and taking up arms. To pursue this decision, thousands of people, mostly students, youth, and intellectuals, left for the border areas near Thailand, India, China, and Bangladesh. On 1 November 1988, they founded the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF) on the Myanmar-Thailand border. Thus, the formation of the ABSDF and its Student Army followed closely on ABFSU's decision. In other words, its formation was a strategic decision of the student movement inside Myanmar. To fulfill its aims and objectives, the ABSDF upholds the strategy of "armed struggle in combination with political activities". From 2001 to 20 December 2010 ABSDF was on the US terror list.


Name origin

The ABSDF is an organisation representing all students and social classes throughout Myanmar in their struggle to achieve democracy and human rights. The students of Myanmar were recognised as the leading force fighting against the dictatorial military regime, and the Front indiscriminately counts all Burmese ethnic nationalities and classes among their membership. The ABSDF is at the forefront of the popular struggle for democracy and human rights in Myanmar; hence the name "All Burma Students’ Democratic Front". ABSDF's motto is born out of collective experiences: "Our Heads are Bloody But Unbowed".


Politics

The ABSDF is a combatant in the civil war in Myanmar, which is a long-running conflict between government forces and opposing various armed factions. People who are struggling against the military dictatorship to overthrow it constitute not a single stratum but a cross-section of all people regardless of social class, gender, ethnic origin, religion, education, and political ideology. Based on that ideology, the ABSDF believes in national politics and applies it as a political strategy.


Membership and camps

The ABSDF holds seven camps on the Myanmar–Thailand border, one camp spread over three separate locations on the Myanmar-India border, and one camp spread over three separate locations on the Myanmar-China border. It also has foreign branches such as in the United States and Australia. The ABSDF is a member organisation of the
National Council of the Union of Burma The National Council of the Union of Burma ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံအမျိုးသားကောင်စီ; ) was an opposition organisation in Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunc ...
, an umbrella organisation of the border-based opposition. The ABSDF is also a member organisation of the Asian Students’ Association, the
International Union of Students The International Union of Students (IUS) was a worldwide nonpartisan association of university student organizations. The IUS was the umbrella organization for 155 such students' organizations across 112 countries and Territory (administrative ...
, and the
World Federation of Democratic Youth The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) is an international youth organization, and has historically characterized itself as left-wing and anti-imperialist. WFDY was founded in London in 1945 as a broad international youth movement, o ...
.


Ceasefire talks

ABSDF had held two formal discussions and three informal gatherings with the government in 2012 and 2013. On 5 August 2013, the
Kayin State Kayin State ( my, ကရင်ပြည်နယ်, ; kjp, ဖၠုံခါန်ႋကၞင့်, italics=no; ksw, ကညီကီၢ်စဲၣ်, ), also known by the endonyms Kawthoolei and Karen State, is a state of Myanmar. The ...
government and ABSDF signed a state-level ceasefire agreement in
Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
. On 10 August, the Burmese government and ABSDF signed a 13-point preliminary ceasefire agreement. The agreement includes continuation of political dialogues to reach ceasefire agreement, formation of independent monitoring committee for ceasefire, opening of liaison offices, and setting a date to hold union-level political dialogue.


Controversy

In 1991–92, 35 ABSDF members died in custody in
Kachin State Kachin State ( my, ကချင်ပြည်နယ်; Kachin: ), also known by the endonym Kachinland, is the northernmost state of Myanmar. It is bordered by China to the north and east (Tibet and Yunnan, specifically and respectively); Sh ...
. Fifteen of them were executed as spies on 12 February 1992, 20 others were tortured to death while undergoing interrogation. Another 80 members were also detained on similar charges. The killings were allegedly motivated by internal power struggles within the organisation. That incident has attracted growing attention in 2012 on social media sites, where former members of the student army and their families claim no one has yet been held accountable. Naing Aung, who was the chairman of the ABSDF Southern Myanmar at the time, has denied the allegations and said that he is ready to co-operate with any inquiry into the incident.


See also

*
Htein Lin Htein Lin ( my, ထိန်လင်း, ; born 31 December 1966) is a Burmese painter, performance artist, and activist.Cu ...
, Burmese artist and political activist * Moe Thee Zun (exile in the US) * Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors


References


External links

*
The ABSDF Split 1991-1996

Embassy gunmen flee
''
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
'', 2 October 1999.
Burma, Voices from the Resistance
{{Authority control Paramilitary organisations based in Myanmar Student organizations established in 1988 Burmese democracy movements Rebel groups in Myanmar 1988 establishments in Burma Student organisations in Myanmar