'Every single day I live with the guilt," says Toe Kyi. He's talking about survivor guilt. He was one of the young activists who rose up in Burma in the summer of 1988, when he was 14 years old. Today, he lives in Ottawa, safe and sound, with his wife and son.

He works for a charity called CompuCorps Mentoring that gets computers and training to people in need. He's lived in Ottawa for seven years; it's his favourite Canadian city. But like most people who escape a horrific situation, he feels a duty to those left behind.

It's not as if Toe Kyi has had it easy. He spent four years in a Thai prison as an illegal immigrant, and before that, three years living in the jungle with the rest of the students who fled Burma's cities after the uprising. He's survived hunger strikes, and learned English from reading newspapers in prison. His parents and siblings live in New Zealand now; he hasn't seen them in about 15 years, because he can't afford to visit them.

When young people visit Ottawa, they often end up on Parliament Hill, being lectured to about democracy. It might make more sense to take them to meet Ottawans like Toe Kyi, who really know what it's worth.

This Friday is the 20th anniversary of the day Burma's people rose in throngs to demand democracy -- and very nearly got it.

Tin Maung Htoo, executive director of Canadian Friends of Burma, estimates there are dozens of Burmese living in Ottawa today who fled after that uprising of August 1988, and the subsequent crackdown. There's even a member of the Ottawa police service who was once a student resister in Burma's jungle. Tin Maung Htoo was also part of the uprising, and he was with Toe Kyi in that Thai prison.

The people of Burma have demanded their freedom many times in the last half-century. But it's the Aug. 8, 1988 uprising that has become synonymous with today's democratic opposition. It was that uprising that would turn Aung San Suu Kyi into an icon.

"Eighty-eight was the biggest because they didn't crack down right away," says the practically minded Toe Kyi. "For about two months, the government didn't run the country. Students were the managers of the country."

The protests had been building all summer. It was sometime in July 1988, that the 14-year-old Toe Kyi first heard the word "democracy." Soon, he was joining his classmates in demanding freedom.

"I remember standing on a chair and making a speech about democracy. I didn't even know how to pronounce the word ... Nobody understood about democracy at that time. What we understood was maltreatment from authorities. Now I know the words 'forced labour.' At the time, I never heard of it. We all had to 'volunteer' for our country."

The uprising that began with the students spread, until even members of the police and army defected to the democratic cause. On Aug. 8, the movement peaked in a wave of mass protests across the country.

"Every day was like Canada Day in Ottawa," says Toe Kyi. "Every single village, there were people in every street corner during the uprising. People who had a little bit of money would come to give food and water."

On Sept. 18, the crackdown came. Soldiers shot protesters, and many of the protesters who survived were taken away. In short, the government did then exactly what it did in response to the uprising last September. The difference, last year, was that the military junta acted sooner.

After the '88 uprising, thousands of students fled to the jungle to join ethnic resistance movements, especially among the Karen people of eastern Burma, and to create their own armed and political resistance.

Toe Kyi, then still a teenager, spent three years in the jungle, watching his friends die from disease and army attacks.

"At the time, we had a lot of hope. We thought we would get a lot of guns from the United States, a lot of guns from the West and we would win because the whole country was behind us. It was a very childish hope ... All we got was malaria."

Online: a photo gallery of archival news photos from the Burma uprising in 1988, at ottawacitizen.com

Kate Heartfield is a member of the Citizen's editorial board.