General Aung San
ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေအာင္ဆန္း
Bogyoke (General) Aung San ( ဗိုလ်ချုပ် အောင်ဆန်း); 13 February 1915 –
19 July 1947) was a Burmese revolutionary, nationalist,
founder of the modern
Burmese army
(Tatmadaw), and considered to be the Father of modern-day Burma.
He was responsible for bringing Burma's independence from British colonial rule
in Burma,
but was assassinated six months before independence.
He is recognized as the leading architect of
independence, and the founder of the Union of Burma. Affectionately
known as "Bogyoke" (General), Aung San is still widely admired by the
Burmese people, and his name is still invoked in Burmese politics to this day.
General Aung San had a daughter, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is a Burmese
politician and the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize.
U Aung San was born to U Pha, a lawyer, and
his wife, Daw Suu, in Natmauk, Magway District, in central Burma on
13 February 1915. His family was already well known in the Burmese resistance
movement; his grandfather Bo Min Yaung fought against the British
annexation of Burma in 1886.
U Aung San received his primary education at
a Buddhist monastic school in Natmauk, and secondary education at Yenangyaung High School. He went
to Rangoon University (now the University
of Yangon) and received a B.A. degree in English Literature, Modern History,
and Political Science in 1938.
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Portrait of the 1936 Oway
magazine's editorial committee
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Portrait of the 1936 Oway magazine's
editorial committee
After U Aung San entered Rangoon University
in 1933, he quickly became a student leader. He was elected to the executive
committee of the Rangoon University Students' Union (RUSU). He then
became editor of their magazine Oway (Peacock's Call).
In February 1936, he was threatened with
expulsion from the university, along with U Nu, for refusing to reveal the name of the author of the
article Hell Hound At Large, which criticized a senior University official.
This led to the Second University Students' Strike and the university
authorities subsequently retracted their expulsion orders.
In 1938, U Aung San was elected president of
both the Rangoon University Student Union (RUSU) and the All-Burma Students
Union (ABSU), formed after the strike spread to Mandalay. In the same year,
the government appointed him as a student representative on the Rangoon
University Act Amendment Committee.
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| Dobama protest |
In October 1938, U Aung San left his law
classes and entered national politics. At this point, he was anti-British, and
staunchly anti-imperialist. He became a Thakin
(lord or master – a politically motivated title that proclaimed that the
Burmese people were the true masters of their country, not the colonial rulers
who had usurped the title for their exclusive use) when he joined the Dobama Asiayone (Our Burma Union),
and acted as their general secretary until August 1940. While in this role, he
helped organize a series of countrywide strikes that became known as ME 1300
Revolution (၁၃၀၀ ပြည့် အရေးတော်ပုံ, Htaung thoun ya
byei ayeidawbon), named after the Burmese
calendar year.
He also helped found another nationalist
organization, the Freedom Bloc (ဗမာ့ထွက်ရပ်ဂိုဏ်း, Bama-htwet-yat Gaing), by
forming an alliance between the Dobama, the ABSU, politically active monks and
Dr Ba Maw's Sinyètha (Poor
Man's) Party, and became its general secretary. What remains relatively unknown
is the fact that he also became a founder member and first secretary-general of
the Communist
Party of Burma
(CPB) in August 1939. Shortly afterwards he co-founded the People's
Revolutionary Party, renamed the Socialist Party after the Second World War. In
March 1940, he attended the Indian
National Congress
Assembly in Ramgarh, India. However, the
government issued a warrant for his arrest due to Thakin attempts to organize a
revolt against the British and he had to flee Burma. He went first to China,
seeking assistance from the nationalist government of the Kuomintang, but he was
intercepted by the Japanese
military occupiers
in Amoy, and was convinced
by them to go to Japan instead.
Whilst Thakin Aung San was in Japan, the Blue Print for a
Free Burma, which has been widely but mistakenly attributed to him, was
drafted. In February 1941, Thakin Aung San returned to Burma, with an offer of
arms and financial support from the Fumimaro Konoe government of Japan.
He returned briefly to Japan to receive more military training, along with the
first batch of young revolutionaries who came to be known as the Thirty Comrades. On 26 December
1941, with the help of the Minami Kikan, a secret intelligence unit that
was formed to close the Burma Road and to support a
national uprising and that was headed by Colonel Suzuki, he founded the Burma Independence
Army
(BIA) in Bangkok, Thailand.
It was aligned with Japan for most of World
War II.
The former capital of Burma, Rangoon (now Yangon), fell to the Japanese in March 1942 (as part of the Burma Campaign in World War II).
The BIA formed an administration for the country under Thakin Tun Oke that
operated in parallel with the Japanese military administration until the
Japanese disbanded it. In July, the disbanded BIA was re-formed as the Burma
Defense Army (BDA). Thakin Aung San was made a colonel and put in charge of the
force. He was later invited to Japan, and was presented with the Order of the Rising
Sun
by Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
On 1 August 1943, the Japanese declared Burma
to be an independent nation. Thakin Aung San was appointed War Minister, and
the army was again renamed, this time as the Burma National Army (BNA).
General Aung San became skeptical of Japanese
promises of true independence and of Japan's ability to win the war. As William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim put it "It was
not long before General Aung San found
that what he meant by independence had little relation to what the Japanese
were prepared to give - that he had exchanged an old master for an infinitely
more tyrannical new one. As one of his leading followers once said to me, 'If
the British sucked our blood, the Japanese ground our bones!' He became more
and more disillusioned with the Japanese, and early in 1943 we got news from Seagrim, a most gallant
officer who had remained in the Karen Hills at the ultimate cost
of his life, that General Aung San's
feelings were changing.
On the 1st August 1944 he was bold enough to
speak publicly with contempt of the Japanese brand of independence, and it was
clear that, if they did not soon liquidate him, he might prove useful to
us...At our first interview, General Aung San began to take rather a high
hand...I pointed out that he was in no position to take the line he had. I did
not need his forces; I was destroying the Japanese quite nicely without their
help, and could continue to do so. I would accept his help and that of his army
only on the clear understanding that it implied no recognition of any
provisional government...The British Government had announced its intention to
grant self-government to Burma within the British Commonwealth, and we had
better limit our discussion to the best method of throwing the Japanese out of
the country..." He made plans to organize an uprising in Burma and made
contact with the British authorities in India, in cooperation with Communist leaders Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Soe.
On 27 March 1945, he led the BNA in a revolt
against the Japanese occupiers and helped the Allies defeat the Japanese, 27
March came to be commemorated as 'Resistance Day' until the military regime
later renamed it 'Tatmadaw (Armed Forces) Day'.
After the return of the British, who had
established a military administration, the Anti-Fascist
Organisation
(AFO), formed in August 1944, was transformed into a united front, comprising
the BNA, the Communists and the Socialists, and renamed the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL). The Burma
National Army was renamed the Patriotic Burmese Forces (PBF) and then gradually
disarmed by the British as the Japanese were driven out of various parts of the
country. The Patriotic Burmese Forces, while disbanded, were offered positions
in the Burma Army under British command according to the Kandy conference agreement with Lord Louis Mountbatten in Ceylon in September 1945.
General Aung San was offered the rank of
Deputy Inspector General of the Burma Army, but he declined it in favor of
becoming a civilian political leader and the military leader of the Pyithu
yèbaw tat (People's Volunteer Organisation or PVO).
In January 1946, General Aung San became the
President of the AFPFL following the return of civil government to Burma
the previous October. In September, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the
Executive Council of Burma by the new British Governor Sir Hubert Rance, and was made
responsible for defence and external affairs. Rance and Mountbatten took a very
different view from the former British Governor, Sir Reginald
Dorman-Smith,
and also Winston Churchill, who had called General
Aung San a 'traitor rebel leader'. A rift had already developed inside the
AFPFL between the Communists and General Aung San, leading the nationalists and
Socialists, which came to a head when General Aung San and others accepted
seats on the Executive Council, culminating in the expulsion of Thakin Than Tun and the CPB from the
AFPFL.
General Aung San was to all intents and
purposes Prime
Minister,
although he was still subject to a British veto. On 27 January 1947, General Aung
San and the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee signed an agreement
in London guaranteeing Burma's independence within a year; General Aung San had
been responsible for its negotiation. During the stopover in Delhi at a press conference, he stated that the Burmese wanted
'complete independence' not dominion status and that they had
'no inhibitions of any kind' about 'contemplating a violent or non-violent
struggle or both' in order to achieve this, and concluded that he hoped for the
best but he was prepared for the worst.
Two weeks after the signing of the agreement
with Britain, General Aung San signed an agreement at the Panglong Conference on 12 February 1947
with leaders from other national groups, expressing
solidarity and support for a united Burma. Karen representatives played a
relatively minor role in the conference and, as subsequent rebellions revealed,
remained alienated from the new state.
U Aung Zan Wai, U Pe Khin, Bo Hmu Aung, Sir
Maung Gyi, Bo Khin Maung Galay, U Tin Tut, Dr. Sein Mya Maung, Myoma U Than
Kywe were among the negotiators of the historical Panglong Conference negotiated with Burmese
representative leader General Aung San and other ethnic leaders in 1947. All
these leaders unanimously decided to join the Union of Burma. All these leaders
decided to join together to form the Union of Burma. Union day
celebration is one of the greatest in the history of Burma.
In general elections held in April 1947, the AFPFL won 176
out of 210 seats in the election for a Constituent Assembly, while the Karens won 24, the
Communists 6 and Anglo-Burmans winning 4. In July, General Aung San convened a
series of conferences at Sorrenta Villa in Rangoon to discuss the
rehabilitation of Burma.
Assassination
On 19 July 1947, a gang of armed
paramilitaries of former Prime Minister U Saw broke into the Secretariat Building in downtown Rangoon
during a meeting of the Executive Council (the shadow government established by the
British in preparation for the transfer of power) and assassinated General Aung
San and six of his cabinet ministers, including his older brother U Ba Win, father of Dr Sein Win, leader of the government-in-exile, the National Coalition Government of the
Union of Burma
(NCGUB). A cabinet secretary and a bodyguard were also killed. U Saw was subsequently tried and hanged.
Family
While he was War Minister in 1942, General Aung
San met and married Daw Khin Kyi, and around the same
time her sister met and married Thakin Than Tun, the Communist
leader. General Aung San and Daw Khin Kyi had four children. Their youngest
surviving child, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader
of the Burmese Opposition, the National
League for Democracy
(NLD), and was until 13 November 2010 held under house arrest by the military regime. Their second son, Ko Aung San Lin,
died at age eight, when he drowned in an ornamental lake in the grounds of the
house. The elder, U Aung San Oo, is an engineer
working in the United States and has disagreed with his sister's political
activities. Their youngest daughter, Ma Aung San Chit, born in September
1946, died on 26 September 1946, the same day General Aung San got into
Governor's Executive council, a few days after her birth.
General Aung San's wife Daw Khin Kyi died on
27 December 1988.
Legacy
His place in history as the Architect of
Burmese Independence and a national hero is assured both from his own legacy
and due to the activities of his daughter. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was only two
when her father died. A martyrs' mausoleum was built at the foot of the Shwedagon Pagoda and 19 July was
designated Martyr's Day (Azani nei),
a public holiday. His literary work entitled "Burma's Challenge" was
likewise popular.
