Letter from Burma (No. 19) by Aung San Suu Kyi

Mainichi Daily News
Monday, April 1, 1996

BOH AUNG GYAW REMAINS AN INSPIRATION TO STUDENTS
"A Few Introductions (2)"

Among the group of Burmese cadets with whom U Lwin went to Japan for military training in 1943 was a young man who became a particularly close friend and later, his brother-in-law: U Kyi Maung. At university, U Kyi Maung had been active in the students' movement for independence. In 1938, he marched at the head of demonstration holding aloft the flag of the Students' Union. Mounted police sent to stop the demonstration rode into the ranks of the students with batons swinging. U Kyi Maung was one of the first students to be struck down, hit in three places on the head. Another student marching close behind him, Ko Aung Gyaw, also received on the head a single sharp blow that knocked him down. A few hours later, the young man died from his injuries in the hospital, causing great anger throughout the country and raising the tempo of discontent against the colonial government. "Boh Aung Gyaw," as the student martyr came to be known, remains an inspiration to students fighting for justice and freedom today. At the outbreak of the war, U Kyi Maung joined the Burma Independence Army, where he came to know many of the men who would form the core of the armed forces of independent Burma. A staunch believer in the importance of an apolitical, professional army, he was strongly opposed to the military takeover of 1962. It was thus hardly surprising that in 1963, at which time he was serving as the commander of South Western Command, he was asked to retire from the armed forces.

During the quarter century that followed his retirement from the army, U Kyi Maung was imprisoned twice, for a total of seven years, on suspicion of opposing the military, later the Burmese Socialist Programme Party, government. Soon after the outbreak of the democracy movement in 1988, U Kyi Maung was pulled into prison for the third time, but he was released within a month. In September 1988, he became one of the 12 members of the Executive Committee of the National League for Democracy. When U Tin U and I were placed under house arrest in July 1989, the Executive Committee of the NLD decided on collective leadership, but it would not be wrong to say that U Kyi Maung was the man who led the party to its resounding victory in the elections of 1990. After the first few weeks of euphoria, the people of Burma began to suspect that the authorities had no intention of honoring the results of the elections. Their worst fears were confirmed when U Kyi Maung was arrested in September 1990, tried by a military tribunal and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. He was, however, released in March 1995.

Another eminent leader of the NLD released on the same day as U Kyi Maung was U Tin U. As chairman of the NLD, he had been placed under house arrest in July 1989 and in December of the same year tried by a military tribunal and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. When the end of his prison term was approaching, he was tried again on the same charges as previously and given another prison sentence of seven years. The years U Tin U spent in Insein Jail from 1989 to 1995 were his second stint in the infamous prison. His first period of incarceration had lasted from 1976 until 1980. U Tin U joined the army as a mere 16-year-old in 1943. After the war, he was included in the 150 Burmese officers to be given commissions in the reorganized Burma Army which formed the basis of the nation when it became independent. During the 1950s, he was twice awarded for valor shown in action against Kuomintang troops which had fled into Burma at the time of the communist victory in China. He rose rapidly from rank to rank through the 1960s and early 1970s, and in 1974 he was appointed chief of Defense Services and minister of defense.

The year 1974 was also when the meanness of spirit shown by the authorities over the funeral of U Thant, retired secretary-general of the United Nations, scandalized the people of Burma and fermented anger among students already resentful of conditions imposed by the Burmese Way of Socialism. In the course of disturbances related to this episode, and even more during the 1976 demonstrations by workers, U Tin U was hailed as a champion of the people. It is likely that his popularity with the public had much to do with his dismissal from the armed forces in March 1976. In September of that year he was arrested, charged and alleged misprision of treason and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.

On his release from prison under a general amnesty program in 1980, U Tin U went straight to a monastery, where he stayed as a monk for two years. When he returned to lay life, he studied law and acquired the Registered Lawyers' certificate as well as the LL.B. degree. The democracy movement of 1988 drew him from a quiet, private life into the struggle to bring justice and human rights to Burma. He was appointed deputy chairman of the NLD in September 1988, and in December of the same year he replaced U Aung Gyi as chairman of the party.

This article is one of a yearlong series of letters, the Japanese translation of which appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous day in some areas.