Obama speech in Yangon touches opposition history

Source: AP-Excite

ERIKA KINETZ

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - The soldiers began to shoot students at Rangoon University at 6:30pm. Hla Shwe watched, cowering in a nearby building, as his friends died. "I heard the shouting," he recalled. "They shot whoever they saw."

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.

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Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20121118/DA2K8KQ82.html

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In this picture taken on Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, repair work progresses at Yangon University's Convocation Hall, in Yangon, Myanmar. Inside the school's Convocation Hall, where President Barack Obama will deliver a speech on Monday, Nov. 19, 2012, is a riot of staple guns, buzz saws, sandpaper, hammers, spackle, drills, brooms, and fresh paint. But the facade of the building remains cracked with a black crust. Local superstition holds that scrubbing the building clean would unbalance the resigned calm that has settled on the campus and spark another round of unrest. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)