Saw Ba U Gyi , first President of the Karen National Union, and Saw Sankey, co-founder of the Karen National Defence Organisation, along with a small group of colleagues including an unknown Caucasian were killed on the 12th August 1950.
While there is no concrete evidence to suggest that there was an informer in or around the area where Saw Ba U Gyi, Saw Sankey, the Caucasian – who became known as ‘Mr Baker’, and the small party of Karens found themselves staying that rainy night - the stories still persist. Despite warnings from a village headman at Tah Kreh village that they should remain with him until the rains stopped, they pushed on and arrived near Taw Kaw Koe Village, Kawkareik, not far from Myawaddy and the Thai border town of Mae Sot.
On their arrival at the small village they were given a small Bamboo hut to stay in until the rain slackened thus allowing them to more easily cross a nearby river which at that time was swollen and almost bursting its banks. While the party slept that night it is believed that a villager, on recognizing the Karen leader, was able to slip away and inform the nearby army battalion at Nabusakan.
Early the next morning, August 12th 1950, Burmese army units commanded by a young lieutenant, Sein Lwin (later to be know as ‘the Butcher of Rangoon’ for the 1962 Massacre at RIT), surrounded the village and demanded the group’s surrender, although there is some disagreement as to what happened next it is believe that the group refused and as such were killed in the fire fight.
Another version told by U Thaung, a young journalist at the time, says that the request for surrender they did capitulate to, but, as the Karens tried to escape they were shot in the act Their bodies were transported by cart to Moulmein. After a brief display of the body, Saw Ba U Gyi’s corpse was apparently transported four miles out to sea where the body was thrown overboard thus ensuring there would be no martyr’s grave for the Karen revolutionary leader.(1)
