BANGKOK, AUG 8: Exiled Burmese students marked the ninth anniversary today of a nationwide democracy uprising by blocking the entrance to the Burmese embassy in Bangkok and chanting denunciations of the country's military regime.

A score of Burmese students, joined by some of their Thai counterparts and human rights activists, waved the red and yellow flags of the country's democracy movement and chanted slogans such as ``8-8-88 ... still alive '' in front of a clutch of journalists and Thai police.

The students have protested in front of the walled embassy compound in downtown Bangkok every August 8 since the day nine years ago when millions of Burmese took to the streets to demand an end to 26 years of repressive military rule and economic ruin. The Army responded by gunning down the demonstrators, killing more than 3,000.

``We want to keep doing our activities to protest the illegal regime, so one day there will be changes in our country,'' said Tun Thien, a Burmese student who fled to Thailand in 1988. Thousands of demonstrators fled to the Thai border once the killing began, and many have moved on to exile.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.