Htun Oo

HTUN OO, U – FIRST CLIP My name is Ko Htun Oo. I was born in October 1957. My parents are U Sein Win and Daw San Kyi. I have 7 siblings. My spouse is Daw May Thant. I have two daughters. The first one as you know is Ma Han Ni Oo working at student Union. The next is Ma May Phyo Oo. When I was in 9th grade, there were poetry groups in Rangoon around 1968-69. It was the time the military suppressed politicians and leftist forces sending them to the isolated island. The remaining leftists formed poetry groups as resistance against the military. I joined one of those groups. There I began familiar with politics and I started studying leftist ideology. So you could call me a leftist. In 1970 student movements like the military game, student strike took place. We were still young students. We began involved in 1974/75. In 75 we got arrested. In October 1975. Around this time there were successive strikes; 74 worker strike, then U Thant strike, 75 worker strike anniversary and Shwedagon student strike. After those movements military intelligence claiming there were instigating political forces conducted a scavenger operation. We got arrested for being associated with leftist groups. At that time there was no particular group other than BCP. Ba Ka Pa as mentioned by the military existed inside the country as cells. We joined those cells. We studied and discussed the current situation of Myanmar that time. In 70s PDP also known as Patriotic Army was broadcasting radio programs. And on leftist side we had People Voice on air. We also called it Meter 60. We wrote down the broadcast transcripts, printed on wax and circulated among us. On that day as far as I remember they came in a TE truck, rounded up my house and took me away without letting me take anything with me. They took me to MI 6 in khayaypin street. No, no MI 7. They put me in MI 7 office. They blindfolded and tied hands from behind whole day. In the evening they brought me to interrogate. I realized gradually there were other 6 colleagues. Most of them passed away now. The question they mainly focused was, at that time around 1975 Burma Communist Party was established in Pan Sung in North, the party chair-Thakhin Ba Thein Tin made a 14 page speech. We were brought in to be questioned related to the speech. End of first clip