Page 373 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

History CONTEXTS 371
Independence and after
It was left to socialist leader (and Aung San’s old university friend) U Nu to oversee
independence on January 4, 1948, becoming post-colonial Burma’s first prime
minister. The country was immediately wracked by a series of armed insurgencies
featuring a wide-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 reconstruction 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.
In 1958, the ruling AFPFL split into two factions led by U Nu and Ba Swe
respectively, during which U Nu narrowly survived a vote of no confidence brought by
Ba Swe. U Nu subsequently “invited” army chief of staff General Ne Win to take over
the country (some say he was coerced) until fresh elections were held. Ne Win duly
obliged, taking the opportunity to arrest over four hundred alleged communist
sympathizers and close 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,
although Shan separatists almost immediately commenced agitating for independence.
Faced with bickering politicians, closet communists and endless separatist uprisings by
Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, the army appears to have come to the conclusion that
only strong leadership could save the country from disintegration. On March 2, 1962
Ne Win, along with sixteen other senior army officers, staged a coup, arresting U Nu
and others and proclaiming the establishment of a socialist state to be run by a
military-led revolutionary council, initiating a period of army rule that would last, in
one form or another, until 2015. Myanmar’s age of the generals had begun.

Ne Win and military rule
The coup itself was almost completely bloodless, while protests following the
announcement of military rule were allowed to run their course until July 1962, when
soldiers fired into a student protest at Rangoon University, killing over a hundred people.
In March 1964 all opposition political parties were banned, and hundreds of activists
arrested. Meanwhile, there were ongoing insurgencies by the Kachin Independence
Organization (from 1961), and in 1964 a rebellion by the Shan State Army.
In response, Ne Win commenced slamming all Myanmar’s doors on the rest of the
world firmly shut. Around 15,000 private firms were nationalized, causing the
economy to stagnate; foreign aid agencies and the World Bank were expelled; the study
of English was cut back in schools; and visitors limited to 24-hour visas. The few
Burmese who were allowed to travel were sent mainly to the Soviet Union for training;
mass press censorship was put in place and foreign-language publications and privately
owned newspapers banned. Over 200,000 expat Chinese, Indians and Westerners quit
the country, along with almost the whole of the country’s remaining Jewish population
(see p.69).
More than a decade of isolation and underachievement passed. Ne Win retired from
the army in 1974 but continued to run the country through the Burma Socialist

1930–32 1939 1940
The Saya San Rebellion Outbreak of World Nationalist leader Aung San and the rest of the “Thirty
sees mass popular protests War II Comrades” are given military training by the Japanese
against colonial rule in preparation for the overthrow of British rule

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