The soldiers began to shoot students at Rangoon University at 6:30 p.m. Hla Shwe watched, cowering in a nearby building, as his friends died. “I heard the shouting,” he recalled. “They shot whoever they saw,” the Associated Press reports. It was July 7, 1962, the day rage at the military’s recent coup boiled over and a date now seared into the memory of Hla Shwe, who is 75 years old.
“I got the idea that if they used the gun against students, why shouldn’t we use guns to fight them?” he said.
When President Barack Obama speaks at Hla Shwe’s alma mater Monday, he will be treading on ground heavy with political and historical significance……Read More