on 1 December 1990 it would have been a very different scene, because it was here that local people (men, women, and children) gathered in their thousands to march to the nearby garrison to demand an end to harassment by soldiers stationed there. They had been spurred to action by an event earlier that day. Several soldiers from the garrison had been in town drinking and had got out of control. When they started harassing local women, some villagers threw stones at them. The soldiers pulled their weapons and fired, killing one of the villagers.