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In-Depth Information
ish prime minister Clement Attlee guaranteeing Burma independence within a year, while in
February he convened the Panglong Conference, during which leaders of the Shan, Kachin
and Chin (but not, notably, Kayin) agreed to form part of a future unified Burma. In general
elections in April 1947, Aung San's
Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
(AFPFL), as
the AFO had now been renamed, won 176 out of 210 seats.
Aung San was by now firmly established as Burma's post-independence leader in waiting.
Or would have been. On July 19, 1947, Aung San and the Executive Council of his pro-
visional government were in a meeting at Rangoon's Secretariat when a group of gunmen
stormed the rooms and
assassinated Aung San
along with six of his ministers. The attack
was eventually traced to former colonial-era prime minister U Saw, who was subsequently
hanged (although as with the assassination of another national political hero, American John
F. Kennedy fifteen years later, conspiracy theories continue to abound; many suggest British
involvement, while others point to the hand of future military ruler Ne Win).
The catastrophic effect of Aung San's death on Burma can hardly be overestimated, given
his status as the one leader who might have been capable of uniting the country's widely di-
vergent peoples, and it's often speculated how much more peaceful the country's subsequent
history might have been, had he lived.
Independence and after
It was left to socialist leader (and Aung San's old university friend)
U Nu
to oversee
in-
dependence
on January 4, 1948, becoming post-colonial Burma's first prime minister. The
countrywasimmediatelywrackedbyaseriesofarmedinsurgenciesfeaturingawide-ranging
cast of communists, army rebels, Arakanese Muslims and Kayin militia. Then, from 1949,
fleeing Kuomintang forces, recently driven out of China by Mao Zedong's communists, took
over remote areas of the north (covertly supported by the US). Physical and economic re-
construction of the ravaged country continued apace, even so. Regular elections were held,
with U Nu continuing as prime minister except for a brief period in 1956-57 when he was
replaced by his communist-leaning AFPFL colleague, Ba Swe.
In1958,therulingAFPFLsplitintotwofactionsledbyUNuandBaSwerespectively,dur-
ing which U Nu narrowly survived a vote of no confidence brought by Ba Shwe. U Nu sub-
sequently“invited”armychiefofstaffGeneral
NeWin
totakeoverthecountry(somesayhe
was coerced) until fresh elections were held. Ne Win duly obliged, taking the opportunity to
arrest overfourhundredalleged communist sympathizers andclose three daily newspapers -
a very modest taste of things to come.
Fresh elections in 1960 returned U Nu's faction of the AFPFL with a large majority, al-
though Shan separatists almost immediately commenced agitating for independence. Faced
with bickering politicians, closet communists and endless separatist uprisings by Myanmar's
ethnicminorities,thearmyappearstohavecometotheconclusionthatonlystrongleadership
