After the
1990 general election, which was unrecognised and suppressed by the
newly formed military junta, many students that participated in the
8888 Uprising fled the country and went into hiding in neighbouring Thailand. In August 1999, the VBSW was formed as a militant opposition group, in contrast to groups such as the
All Burma Students' Democratic Front, which originally sought the return of democracy through peaceful means. On 1 October 1999, a group of five VBSW militants raided the Burmese embassy in the Thai capital
Bangkok and took 89 people hostage. The group demanded that negotiations be opened between the
National League for Democracy (NLD)the leading pro-democracy organisation at the timeand the military junta, and that a new
Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (national parliament) be convened based on the results of the 1990 election. However, the group soon relaxed their demands and began to release hostages, and the siege ended with the Thai government escorting the VBSW militants by helicopter to the
Myanmar–Thailand border. Despite openly supporting the democracy movement in Myanmar, contemporary figures of the movement such as
Aung San Suu Kyi, the president of the NLD, denounced the VBSW and its use of violence to achieve its goals. ==Notes==