Daw Suu's Letter from Burma #19

[carol@xxxxxxx]

Mainichi Daily News, Monday, April 1, 1996

BOH AUNG GYAW REMAINS AN INSPIRATION TO STUDENTS

"A Few Introductions (2)"

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

	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.