General Aung San (Bogyoke Aung San in Burmese) ; February 13, 1915 – July 19, 1947) was a Burmese revolutionary, nationalist, general, and politician. He was instrumental in bringing about Burma's independence, but was assassinated six months before its final achievement.
He is the father of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
He was born to U Pha, a lawyer, ... in central Burma, then part of British India. His family was already known in the resistance movement, .... He continued his education, after attending schools at Natmauk and Yenangyaung, at Rangoon University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature, Modern History, and Political Science. Soon, he was elected to the executive committee of the Rangoon University Students' Union (RUSU). He then became editor of their magazine Owei (Peacock's Call
In February 1936, he was expelled from the university, along with Ko Nu (later Thakin 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 subsequently retracted their expulsion orders. In 1938, Aung San was elected president of both the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU) and the All-Burma Students Union (ABSU) formed after the strike spread to Mandalay.[1][2] In the same year, the government appointed him as a student representative on the Rangoon University Act Amendment Committee.
Struggle for independence
In October 1938, Aung San moved from student politics to nationalist politics. At this point, he was anti-British, and staunchly anti-imperialist. .... he helped organize a series of countrywide strikes that became known as Htaung thoun ya byei ayeidawbon (the '1300 Revolution', named after the Burmese calendar year). ... 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. .... also became a founding member and first secretary-general of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in August 1939........co-founded the People's Revolutionary Party, renamed the Socialist Party after the Second World War.[2]
....with the help of ... Colonel Suzuki, he founded the Burma Independence Army (BIA) in Bangkok, Thailand (under Japanese occupation at the time).[2] He became chief of staff, and took on the rank of Major-General.[1]
The capital of Burma, Rangoon, fell to the Japanese in March 1942 (as part of the Burma Campaign in World War II), and the Japanese military administration took over the country. In July, Aung San re-organized the BIA as the Burma Defense Army (BDA). He remained its commander in chief—this time as Colonel Aung San.[1] In March 1943, he was once again promoted to the rank of Major-General. Soon afterwards, he was invited to Japan, and was presented with the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor.[1]
On August 1, 1943, the Japanese declared Burma to be an independent nation. Aung San was appointed War Minister, and his army was again renamed, this time as the Burma National Army (BNA).[1] His cooperation with the Japanese authorities was to be short-lived: Aung San became skeptical of their promises of true independence and was displeased with their treatment of the Burmese people. He made secret plans to drive the Japanese out of Burma and made contact with the British authorities in India, with the help of Communist leaders Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Soe who had anticipated and warned the independence movement of the more urgent threat of fascism before the Japanese invasion.
On March 27, 1945 he led the BNA in a revolt against the Japanese occupiers and helped the Allies defeat the Japanese.[2] March 27 came to be commemorated as 'Resistance Day' until the military regime later renamed it 'Tatmadaw (Armed Forces) Day'.
[edit] Post-World War II
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). ....
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 Mountbatten in Ceylon in September 1945.[2] ...... 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.[2]
In January 1946, 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.[2] Rance and Mountbatten took a very different view from the former British Governor Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, and also Winston Churchill who had called Aung San a 'traitor rebel leader'.[2]
..... Aung San was to all intents and purposes Prime Minister, although he was still subject to a British veto. On January 27, 1947, Aung San and the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee signed an agreement in London guaranteeing Burma's independence within a year - he had been responsible for its negotiation.
[2] 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 later, on February 12, 1947, Aung San signed an agreement at the Panglong Conference, with leaders from other national groups, expressing solidarity and support for a united Burma.[2][4] In April, the AFPFL won 196 of 202 seats in the election for a constituent assembly.
Assassination
On July 19, 1947 around 10:37 AM, a gang of armed paramilitaries 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 Aung San and six of his cabinet ministers, including his older brother Ba Win. A cabinet secretary and a bodyguard were also killed. The assassination was supposedly carried out on the orders of U Saw, a rival politician, who subsequently was tried and hanged.
However there are aspects of U Saw's trial that give rise to doubt.[5] There were rumours of a conspiracy involving the British - a variation on this theory was given new life in an influential, but sensationalist, documentary broadcast by the BBC on the 50th anniversary of the assassination in 1997.
His Legacy
..........names have been retained. Many towns and cities in Burma have thoroughfares and parks named after him. His portrait was held up everywhere during the 8888 Uprising and used as a rallying point.[2]. Following the 1988 Uprising, the government redesigned the national currency, the kyat, removing his picture and replacing it with scenes of Burmese life. He was only 32 when he died; a martyrs' mausoleum was built at the foot of the Shwedagon Pagoda, and 19 July was designated Martyr's Day (Azani nei). His place in history as the Father of Burmese Independence and a national hero continues to the present day both due to his own legacy and due to the activities of his daughter.