A Review of the Fight for the Karen People’s Autonomy
(Abridged)

By

Ba Saw Khin
Tucson, Arizona

1998
(Revised 2005)

FIFTY YEARS OF STRUGGLE
A Review of the Fight for the Karen People’s Autonomy

Contents

Introduction
A Meeting That Failed To Take Place
The Karen People and the Karen National Union (KNU)
Historical Background (Synopsis)
The Battle of Insein
Elsewhere in the Country
The Toungoo Interlude
Papun and the Demise of Saw Ba U Gyi
Transition Period
Karens Inside Burma Proper
Rapprochement with the CPB and the Zin-Zan Agreement
The Formation of the KNUP and the KNU’s Second Phase Program
Inconsequential British Involvement
More Than Socialism?
KNUP-KNU Split, 1960 Peace Talks and the 1964 Peace Treaty
Bo Mya, the KNU Leader, NULF Alliance KNU and NDF Serious Setbacks- Still Striving
Beyond Manerplaw
Concluding Remarks

Notes

INTRODUCTION

The Karen people have lived in Burma for many centuries. They may well have been one of the first of many ethnic nationalities in Burma, if not the very first. That they could have been among the first settlers in Burma is indirectly supported by an account, written more than a century ago by the Consul for France in Rangoon in his book, “Burma under British Rule”, which was later translated by Sir James George Scott, and quoted by General Smith Dun in his Memoirs of the Four-Foot Colonel. Part of the last paragraph of the quote reads: ‘What is certain is that there was an irruption of Hkayins (Karens) into Burma before there were any Burmese there, and that the Burmese destroyed their capital and subjugated them. At this period, about the fourth century of our era, the Burmese were called Pyu, and the Karens down to the present day still call the Burmese Piya ’.1 [The Sgaw Karen term for the Burman has always been P-Yaw (which, to the French ear might sound Piya.) It should be noted that current usage of the word ‘Burmese’ covers all the people or citizens of Burma as well as the major or official language spoken, and ‘Burman’ refers to the ethnic majority, the predominant people in the country who, until relatively recent time, would also be referred to as Burmese.]

The Karens have had a long history, albeit oral, in Burma and yet it was only after the arrival of the British in the early nineteenth century that they were able to emerge from obscurity. The Burmese kings, starting with Anawrahta in 1044 A.D., had never officially recognized the Karen people as an ethnic entity and ignored them as they did the other lesser ethnic minorities such as the Chin, Kachin, etc. To answer the question of why the Karen people are now desirous of having a state or country of their own is going to require more than a simple explanation. In a broader and somewhat simplistic sense, the answer may well be obvious. To quote a recent newspaper article, “Most global conflict can be blamed on a basic imbalance: - humankind is made up of 5,000 ethnic groups with only 190 countries to live in.” 2

There are dozens of distinct ethnic minorities in Burma, who have been almost invariably dominated by the majority Burmans. The present-day Karens are but one of the dissatisfied groups, and this is not even taking into consideration politics and various contending parties that easily complicate matters further, engendering problems and conflicts that have been pervasive in Burma ever since gaining her independence from the British on January 4, 1948. At this writing, the current military SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) government claims that they have achieved peace and stability in Burma. This happens to be true only on the very thin surface of the real situation in that country. The regime is still engaged in suppressing the various dissident groups, one of the long standing and most stubborn among them being the Karens of the KNU (Karen National Union), and is using a variety of inventive and insidious methods, means and tricks, with full employment of seemingly inexhaustible military resources, to suppress them. The KNU is now cooperating with other ethnic minorities and various Burman opposition organizations toward eliminating the repressive military regime and the establishment of a government of true pluralism in Burma and, eventually for the ethnics to achieve genuine autonomy for themselves.

On the eve of Burma’s independence shortly after the end of World War II, most of the Karen leadership felt, with some justification that, without a separate and autonomous region, despite the high military positions held or promised to be attained by some of their own ethnic minority members, which they deemed to be merely cosmetics, the Karen people eventually would be subjugated. They suspected that there was a distinct possibility that they would even be eliminated completely from the Burmese scene by the major ethnic Burman leaders who have hitherto never proved themselves trustworthy, not to mention the Karens’ perception of the Burmans or Bama as a people with habitual predilection to chicanery, duplicity and domineering. The current Burmese military government is generally understood to regard the KNU as one of its most, if not the most, hated foes. The premises and facts of all aspects of the Karen struggle may never be satisfactorily explored.

This booklet has no Index simply because it is not meant to be anything more than a synoptic background about the Karen people’s struggle and aspiration for a separate place to live in and manage own affairs in the current difficult, often locally complex, global situation.

A MEETING THAT FAILED TO TAKE PLACE

On January 31st, 1949, at noon, Saw Ba U Gyi, President of the KNU (Karen National Union) and Thakin Nu[later U Nu] Prime Minister of the brand new, barely one year old, independent Union of Burma, were to meet for resolving the rapidly deteriorating situation between the Karens and Burmans, in general, and the KNDOs (Karen National Defense Organization, the armed wing of the KNU) and the Levies or ‘Sit-wun-tan’ troops (roughly, irregular armed units of the ruling AFPFL party of the government) as well as Burman Police and UMP (Union Military Police) forces, in particular.3 The night before, the Karen village at Thamaing, the southern suburb of Insein town, was fired upon by the Levies and intermittent gunfire into this Karen quarter continued for the entire nocturnal hours. Early on the 31st morning, the Levies practically surrounded the Thamaing Karen quarter and started firing into it in earnest. Attempts to contact U Nu, the PM, by phone were unsuccessful. This meant that communication between Insein, where the KNU Headquarters had moved to some time earlier, and Rangoon, a bare eight miles to the south, was completely severed. The meeting between Saw Ba U Gyi and U Nu never took place.

There were three Karen villages or quarters in the Insein area; the Thamaing quarter in the south, closest to Rangoon, the Gyogon-Seminary area that lies some three-quarters of a mile to the north of Thamaing, and the Nanthagon-Taungthugon Karen village in the north and north-east part of the town. The Nanthagon-Taungthugon was the largest Karen quarter, about a mile to the north of the Gyogon-Seminary hamlet.

The Levies, sometimes in conjunction with armed Burman inhabitants of Insein town, had been firing off and on into the Thamaing and Nathagon Karen quarters for several weeks already. During that time, responsible local Karen and Burman elders, including Police and paramilitary officers, with the blessings of some of U Nu’s government officials in Rangoon, had endeavored to stop the impending conflict. We will never know the sincerity on U Nu’s side, although some of the local Insein Burman leaders had been quite serious in trying to contain the deteriorating situation.

No matter how the situation is now viewed, the fighting started, undeniably, as a communal strife between the Burman and Karen peoples, even while there were countless mutual close friends on both sides. It took a little while longer before the fighting evolved into a rebellion by a minority ethnic political group, the KNU, against the government of the AFPFL (Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League) party that was dominated by the majority ethnic Burmans.

As January 31st dawned, Saw Ba U Gyi was in Insein, by this time married to a daughter of U Zan, a retired Karen official of the Burma Civil Service. Ba U Gyi evidently failed to get hold of his erstwhile friend, U Nu, by telephone. The day fighting started in Insein, regular Chin troops were ordered to search the Rangoon Karen quarters at Ahlone and were able to confiscate five shotguns, legally licensed and two Army rifles, unlicensed.4 That very night of January 31st, that Ahlone Karen quarter, also known as Th’taygon village, was attacked and torched by irregular Burman troops, killing a few people in the process. According to U Nu, he, Brig. General Ne Win, the deputy C-in-C of the Burma Army, and the Police Commissioner hurried over to the Ahlone Karen quarters in the morning, but it was too late to do any good for the Karens there who became instant refugees at their own doorstep.5

January 31st, 1949, is therefore recognized as the official date when the KNU began their revolution against the Union of Burma government, the armed insurrection in their attempt to obtain a separate state for the Karen people.

THE KAREN PEOPLE AND THE KAREN NATIONAL UNION (KNU)

According to the March 31, 1992, census of the Burmese military government, the Karens, numbering some 2,630,000 out of the countrywide total of 41,880,000, is the largest minority ethnic group in Burma, making up slightly over 6% of the entire population.6 That figure of the Karen population is disputable since many Delta Karens, the majority of them being Buddhists, are usually counted as Burmans. The Shans, at 2,220,000, came in second, but they also claim that there are a lot more of them than this number that the military government has shown. Be that as it may, there is a consensus that the Karen and Shan people are the largest minority ethnic groups in Burma.

Unlike the Shans who have had their chieftains or Sawbwas, ruling different states, throughout historical time, including the somewhat unique semi-autonomous status under the British in the mid-1850’s to the time of the Second World War which reached Burma in 1942, the Karens have never been known to have a separate state or region of their own even though they, together with the Shan, Mon, Pyu (precursors or part of the early Burman) people, have been the earliest settlers in the land of Burma. This was mainly because, with the exception of the Hill Karens, a large percentage of them have made their home in the low valleys, flat terrain and the Delta region, having been pushed down from the north by the Pyu/Burman people until they ran out of land and had to yield to the mixed situation that ensued, living and working the land, more or less side by side, with the Burmans. The lowland Karens have somehow retained their separate identity even while many of them, for generations, having accepted the majority religion of Buddhism.

There are two main branches, namely, the Sgaw and Pwo Karen, each making up approximately 30 to 35% of this ethnic group in Burma. Subsequent to the conquest of Burma by the British, starting with the 1st Anglo-Burmese war in 1824-26, the Karens were able to assert themselves and augment their identity as a distinct minority ethnic people. It was at about this time that many Karens, due mainly to their oral traditions, including that of a ‘white’ brother bringing back to them a Book (the Bible), began to accept the Christian faith. Protestant Christian evangelical work in Burma, was actually begun before the turn of the 19th century, with little or no success, by the well-known English Baptist William Carey and his son Felix Carey. Only after the ardent and persevering American, Adoniram Judson, and his co-workers came on the scene in the early1800s that Christianity was planted firmly in the country. The first person to be converted to Christianity in Burma was a Buddhist Burman by the name of U Naw, and this was in 1819, after almost seven years of Judson’s arrival. And, curiously, it was also a Burman, Maung Shwe Bay, the fourth person to have accepted Christianity in Burma, who was responsible for the conversion of a first Karen, Ko Tha Byu, a murderer and slave, to become a Christian. Ergo, the Burman, Maung Shwe Bay, was the first Christian missionary among the Karens.7

By 1881, the Karens, usually depicted as a meek and docile ethnic group without any ambition to asseverate themselves or desire to stand up against hostility, had organized themselves into a party called the Karen National Association (KNA){Daw-Ka-Luu, in the Sgaw Karen language}, the founding father and first President being Dr. T. Than Bya, M.A., D.D., probably one of the earliest individuals, if not the very first person, from Burma who acquired a higher western academic degree. Successive presidents included (Sir) Dr. San C. Po, M.D., Kt., C.B.E., Saya U San Baw, O.B.E., K.I.H., and attorney Saw Ba Maung, Bar-at-Law.8 The KNA was the organization that represented the Karen people in British Burma until World War II. In 1943, during the Japanese occupation of Burma, the KNA was temporarily replaced by the Karen Central Advisory Board (KCAB) with the former KNA presidents as board members. By the end of WW II, the KCAB was renamed the Karen Central Organization (KCO) with Saw Tha Din as President and Treasurer, Mahn Ba Khin, Secretary, Saw Tha Htoe, Associate Secretary, and Executive Members of Saw Ba U Gyi, Saw San Po Thin, Saw Myat Thein, Mahn James Tun Aung, Mahn Shwe Tun Kya, Saw Ba Maung, James Tahpa, and Sidney Loo Nee.9 With the Burmese leadership under General Aung San trying to win independence of Burma from Britain, the Karens felt that they needed to remind the British of their help during the latter’s reign in Burma, and also the possibility of their being mistreated by the Burmans once independence was won. The KCO therefore sent a Good Will Mission represented by Saw Tha Din, Saw Ba U Gyi, Saw Po Chit and Sidney Loo Nee, to the United Kingdom in July-August, 1946, to discuss the Karen people’s situation in post-war Burma, and also look into a provision for a Karen State.10

By this time, there were other organizations among the Karens and this included the KNA which has not been quite eclipsed by the KCO. The other major organizations were the Buddhist Karen National Association (BKNA), and the Karen Youth Organization (KYO). In February of 1947, these four organizations were united to become the Karen National Union, the KNU. The first President of the KNU was Saw San Po Thin, and the Central Executive Members included Saw Tha Din, Saw Ba U Gyi, Mahn Ba Khaing, Mahn Win Maung (later to become the last President of the Union of Burma government of constitutional democracy), Mahn Ba Zan, Saw Hunter Tha Hmway, Saw Sankey, and Saw Aung Win. At the KNU conference of Feb 5 – 7, 1947 held in the Pegu Karen High School compound, Ahlone, Rangoon, a decision was made that they could not accept, and actually opposed, the Aung San-Atlee (British Labor Party Prime Minister) Agreement for Burma’s Independence, and submitted their own proposals for allotting representatives proportional to the Karen population in the new country’s parliament, with electoral ballots in areas with predominantly Karen population; to allow the Karens to continue to form class battalions, i.e., military units of battalion-size comprising exclusively Karens, and to form a separate Karen state. These proposals were wired to the British Prime Minister on Feb 17, 1947, with the request of a reply for compliance by March 31st. Failure to hear from the British PM by that date would be a signal to the Karens to boycott the impending general elections in Burma.11

Major grievances for the Karens were that, although two prominent Karens, Mahn Ba Khaing as Minister of Labor and Industry, and Saw Ba U Gyi, as Minister of Information, were representatives in the British governor’s ruling Council, not only that a Karen leader was not included to present the Karen’s cause and aspiration during the London negotiations for Burma’s independence, there was also no mention in the Aung San-Atlee Agreement (January 27, 1947) of the establishment of a separate Karen State that had been contemplated for quite a while already. It must be noted that at the oft-quoted Panglong Conference (February, 1947) where Aung San and his AFPFL (Ant-Fascist People’s Freedom League) managed to show the British authorities who were concerned about the fate of the Frontier area ethnic minorities that they (Aung San et. al.) could win their trust and cooperation, particularly the Shan, Chin and Kachin representatives, other minority groups such as the Karenni(Kayah), Arakanese and Mon were absent. The Karens (KNU) only sent four observers who did not take part in the proceedings of that conference.

Having failed to receive any reply from the British PM by March 31st, as previously agreed upon, Saw Ba U Gyi resigned his Information Minister position. Unfortunately, with Ba U Gyi’s resignation, Saw San Po Thin, the KNU President, together with other KYO members of Mahn Win Maung, Mahn Ba Khaing, Mahn Kyaw Sein and Saw Sein Tin, left the KNU organization. On April 10th, the KNU convened an emergency meeting of Central Executive Committee members and elected Saw Ba U Gyi as the new President, Mahn Saw Bu as Vice President, Thra Tha Htoh as Secretary, and Saw Tha Din became Treasurer.12 It is this superseded KNU that was later to be described as ‘a most anti-Burman organization’ by U (ex-Army Brig. Gen.) Maung Maung.13

On Feb 11th, 1948, the KNU staged a peaceful demonstration that was nationwide with over 400,000 people, the largest mass concentrated in Rangoon, setting forth four thematic slogans:
1- immediate creation of a Karen State;
2- demand of equity - one kyat for the Burman and one kyat for the Karen;
3- the undesirability of civil war; and
4- objection to communal conflict.
Points 1 and 2 was to indicate the Rights to National Equality and Self-determination, and 3 and 4 was to emphasize the sentiment against the dominance by the major ethnic people and the detesting of communal antagonism that would be created by the ruling majority group. In other words, the demand was within the political and democratic principles.14

While the KNU was able to organize the majority of the Karen mass and democratically made known their demands, the KYO members such as Saw San Po Thin, Mahn Win Maung, Norton Bwa and others, with considerably less followers, were able to strike a deal with the fledgling Burmese government led by U Nu, giving the impression that the Karens did not really want a state of their own.15

The area that the Karens, represented by the KNU, indicated as desirous for their state, was indeed large, including the Tenessarim division, Toungoo district, Irrawaddy division, Hanthawaddy division, Insein district, and Nyaunglebin subdivision. This, according to unofficial accounts, was meant only as a starting point for negotiation to obtain a Karen state. The KYO, on the other hand, objected to this seemingly unreasonable and, obviously, unrealistic demand, and pointed out, undoubtedly in consultation with the ruling Burmese government, that if the Karens must have a state, they should claim only the Salween district, the Karenni (Kayah) state and adjacent areas to be called “Kawthulay (Kawthoolei)”16

The area of Lower Burma that includes the fertile Irrawaddy delta was first inhabited by the Mons and Karens but ruled by Mon kings for centuries. It was then known as Hanthawaddy Kingdom. The Burmans took Hanthawaddy in 1757 after defeating the Mons and ruled it for 95 years until the British conquered this land in 1852(the end of the Second Anglo-Burmese War). The British returned Burma to the Burmese people in 1947, thus ending their rule, including this part of the country, after another 95 years. The Karens, in demanding this part of Burma, were supposed to have an agreement with Mon leaders to make it a Mon-Karen State once it came into existence. Why the Mons were not actually involved as much as the Karens in this struggle at that time may never be verifiable although small units of Mon troops (the MNDO or Mon National Defense Organization) did fight alongside the KNDOs in the Insein battle and, later, in other parts, particularly in the eastern region, of the country.17

There is also the fact that the majority of the Mons in lower, southeastern and the Tenasserim regions of Burma have had, for centuries, assimilated themselves with the Burmans and, basically, their common Buddhist religion has facilitated them to be melded into one ethnic entity.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (Synopsis)

There is a general consensus that the Karens, along with the Mons and Shans as well as the Pyus, later Burmans, have migrated down the Irrawaddy and Salween river valleys from the north, presumably from Tibet or western China, since much more than a millennium ago. Until the Burmese kings were eventually defeated by the British who came to rule the country for about three-quarters of a century, the ethnic Karen people were practically unknown. First, the Mon kings, and later the Burmese kings, who dominated the country apparently ignored the Karens, particularly those who lived near and among them in the lowland and delta areas of Burma, never really bothered to make friends with this traditionally aloof people or tried to incorporate them into their societies, except, perhaps, when they needed slaves or recruits into their armies. That the Karens, despite living side by side with these relatively advanced peoples, the Burmans and Mons, and yet having been able to keep to themselves, speaks for their ability to preserve their identity for many centuries. The hill Karens were of course quite isolated which made them easier to retain their distinctiveness to relatively recent times.

For the Karens in the days Burmese and Mon kings who wanted to get anywhere at all, there seems little doubt that they would have to relinquish their identity and became part of the major ethnic society, the Mon or Burman Buddhists. This is true of the Karen people and other ethnic minorities who have lived in Thailand for countless generations and who always have had to simply identify themselves as Thais.. Another point of note is that the Buddhist Karens were still distinctive, decades after the British came to Burma. For example, Mahn Ba Khaing, the Karen leader who was assassinated along with General Aung San and other cabinet members in 1947, came from a staunch Buddhist family, even though he himself became a Baptist Christian after attending the American Mission School at Henzada.

The worst situation came when the British, with strong urging by a very limited number of enthusiastic but somewhat misguided American missionaries, including J. B. Vinton, used Karens trained as policemen or soldiers to suppress the Burman resistance movements, most of which were euphemistically called dacoities or armed robberies, during the first few decades of British rule in Burma (“True Love and Batholomew”, J. Falla, Cambridge University Press 1991, pp. 21-22.). The Karen ethnic cause also gained passionate support from at least one 19th century British colonial official, D. M. Smeaton, who quite eloquently tried to promote the Karen people as loyal subjects of the British empire.(“The Loyal Karens of Burma, by Donald Mackenzie Smeaton, Bengal Civil Service., Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., I. Paternoster Square, London, 1887). Actually, Indian, Punjabi, Gurkha or Nepalese, and other minority (Kachin and Chin) troops were also employed to subdue the Burmans, especially in large uprisings, including the 1930 Saya San rebellion. Particular resentment, especially toward the lowland Karens, may have focussed on the fact that they had always been neighbors of the Burmans for many generations without any serious conflict between the two ethnic peoples. These ‘peaceful’ pre-colonial days of course represented the time when the Burmans would always have had the upper hand, until the arrival of the British (rulers) and Americans (missionaries) who managed to win the allegiance of the Karens and used them in their nefarious (in the eyes of the Burman) service to suppress the Burman nationalist activities.

. Things came to a head during World War II when the Japanese invaded Burma in early 1942 with the help of the BIA (Burma Independence Army) headed by Bogyoke (the Burma Army’s designation of Major General) Aung San. By the time the British were driven out of Burma and the Japanese had control of the country, former Karen soldiers in the Burma Rifles and the Burma Military Police battalions who did not follow the British to India, had already deserted and returned to their villages, many of them taking their rifles, to be hidden and used against enemies. Needless to say, these enemies at that time were mainly the BIAs who made no pretense about targeting the Karens as British lackeys. The BIA invasion of Myaungmya, culminating in the massacre of Saw Ba U Gyi’s cousin, Saw Pe Tha, a Cabinet Minister in Colonial Burma, his British wife and all but one of their children, was a blow to the Karens. The BIA also managed to imprison and kill off a few dozen Karen males before the Japanese authorities learned about the situation and put a stop to it.

By the time the British and the Allies drove the Japanese out of Burma in mid- 1945 (the Japanese evacuated Rangoon by May 1st, 1945), Karen levies of Force 136 in the eastern hills, led by British officers and NCOs, had been instrumental in wiping out at least 12, 500 Japanese troops.18 This help rendered by the Karens, together with other loyal deeds toward the colonial power, should earn for them, so they thought, some gratitude from the British government who would lend a good ear when they asked for a separate state to be created for them. What the Karens were little aware of was that the British were at the end of their tether at the close of World War II, and were already contemplating ways to relinquish their colonies as gracefully as possible, without having to contend with rebellions from their former subjects, particularly those in Southeast Asia who had seen them humiliated by their Axis enemies, and in Burma they happened to be the Japanese. In short, when the Karen leaders broached the subject of a separate state for themselves, the British Labor Party government referred them to the British sponsored post-war Burmese government, now led by younger Burman politicians and soldiers trained by the Japanese.

Burma’s independence was granted from the British in January 4, 1948, and shortly after that, chaos began to reign. Small units and, sometimes, whole battalions of the Burman Regiments in the Burma Army began to desert and went underground, simply because they were loyal to their political leaders, including Communists, who apparently felt that they did not get the correct pieces of the pie when the country gained her freedom. The Communists were of course aiming for dominance of the entire country. The new government led by Prime Minister U Nu had to rely on ethnic minority troops such as the Karen, Chin, Kachin and Burmese Gurkha, most of them from the class battalions. They apparently saved Rangoon, and the government, in July of the year 1948, from falling into the hands of the Communists and Burman Army deserters who closed in on the city.19

During this turmoil, the Burman leadership was always on the alert, anticipating a possible solidarity among the minority Karens, Chins and Kachins. Burman troops loyal to the government were ordered to try and disarm Karen irregulars who stood guard in their own villages. There was a questionable Burmese government order known as “Operation Aung San” that called for ‘the elimination of the Karens first and then other hill people’. When the Kachin-Karen troops ‘captured’ Maymyo in February 1949, Captain Naw Seng (more about this officer in the following) is reported to have found the document in the Commandant’s office, [purportedly] a Col. Maung Maung (most probably the author of BURMESE NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS, 1940 – 1948), whose signature was on the order. Although some doubt has been expressed as to the existence of this order, the intent of it could well be judged from an exchange between Karen elders and U Nu at Thaton in May 1949, where U Nu was reported to have angrily told this gathering that he would “personally see all Karens in Burma were killed.”20

The Burman government also formed their own irregular force, the Levies (Sit-wun-htans), designed to reach the strength of 50 battalions.21 Meanwhile, the Karen regular troops, scattered all over the country, did not help matters when they committed excesses during their government-sponsored operations against the rebel Burman Communists, themselves former Burma Army comrades. This played well into the hands of the Burmese government that was able to readmit Burman deserters into the fold of the army, the feeling of kinship undoubtedly stronger, and ethnic animosity (against the Karens) already much exacerbated.

In late August of 1948, the Karen Armed Police, part of the Union Military Police (UMP), moved in and took Thaton and Moulmein without any resistance after a series of arrests of Karen and Mon leaders by the Burmese authorities. Shortly after, at the urging of KNU leaders and Karen general staff of the Burma Army, Lt. General Smith Dun and Brigadier General Kyar Doe, the cities were returned to the government, specifically to the Kachin troops loyal to the Burmans, under the command of Major Naw La. In no time, Major Naw La was transferred and replaced by Lt. Colonel Hting Nan who, obviously at the urging of Premier U Nu and his Ministers, promptly arrested Karen leaders in Moulmein, such Saw Tha Din, Saw Po Chit, Saw Tha Hsay, etc., the very people who returned the city peacefully to the government.22

Responding to the request by the Burmese government to return the cities was clear evidence, at least in the eyes of the Karens, that the KNU leadership was indeed sincere to reach a settlement by peaceful and political means, while there was also the understanding that the Burmans promised to give the question of Karen State first priority. Sir Ba U who headed the committee to look into the creation of a Karen State had, by this time, agreed, in principle, that the Karens should have a state within the Union of Burma. The Burmese government, meanwhile, kept up their efforts to disarm Karen villagers throughout the country, in spite of the fact that the whole country was in turmoil, and the Karens needed to have their weapons to guard themselves against myriad unknown enemies. The climactic point came on Christmas eve of 1948 at Palaw village, between Tavoy and Mergui, when the villagers gathered at their church just before midnight to celebrate Christmas with bells, carols and worship. Worship had just begun when grenades thrown in by the Burmese Police exploded inside the church. The Burmans had completely surrounded the church and those who did not die inside were shot down with machine guns as they fled the church. The whole village was also torched and set ablaze. As it turned out, the villagers had been disarmed earlier by the Burmese Police, using a trusted Karen officer who accompanied them as a ruse, with assurances given and fully endorsed by the latter, apparently in good faith. The elders conceded and handed over all their arms and ammunition. A very tragic mistake that cost over 300 lives.23

THE BATTLE OF INSEIN

(Part of the following is taken from an unpublished account titles “Three Months and Twenty Days Plus”, by the writer.)

As is true of any conflict, it is impossible to say who fired the first shot. At this point in time, top KNU leaders including President Saw Ba U Gyi, Saw Hunter Tha Hmwe, Mahn Ba Zan, Saw Sankey, and a few others were in Insein with their headquarters presumably at U Zan’s house on the eastern edge of Taungthugon, and also at Saw Sankey’s hilltop home at the Gyogon-Seminary Karen quarter. The Nanthagon-Taungthugon KNDO and local village defense troops were under the command of Skaw Maw Lay, hitherto known as Maung Maung Than, an energetic man in his late twenties-early thirties who had earlier resigned as a Preventive Officer from the Customs Dept.

According to the then Prime Minister U Nu’s version of what happened just prior to the Insein battle, “About the middle of January 1949, Karens from KNDO headquarters in Insein began disarming government officials stationed in Insein, Gyogon, and Thamaing. Since this was taking place only seven miles out of Rangoon, government troops were dispatched to restrain the Karens. On 31 January fighting broke out and the KNDO overran Insein. The gates of Insein Jail were opened and two thousand prisoners set free, and all the money in the Insein treasury was looted.”24

The author was a native of Gyogon-Seminary Karen quarter of Insein and a seventeen year-old freshman at the University of Rangoon during that time. Completely apolitical and though worried about the deteriorating conditions, but paying little attention to them at that stage, he could have easily heard of the Karens disarming of government officials, if that had really taken place, since such news would have surfaced and passed along swiftly in those days. The late U Nu’s statement about these disarmed officials was too general and glib to be taken even as part of the explanation for events leading to the Insein conflict. The author knew of momentary blunders when the KNDOs took up positions at the Gyogon junction on the Rangoon-Insein highway and conducted inspection of passing vehicles. There was a distinct possibility that a few Burman government officials ended up as victims of those illegal inspections, which the KNU leaders put to a stop almost immediately after learning about what certainly could be construed as seditious activities.25 Details of attempts to prevent the Insein Karen-Burman clashes from becoming a full-fledged armed altercation can be seen in depositions by the two Karen elders, Saw Bellay, erstwhile Customs official, and Saw Po Tu, Police ADIG, already mentioned before. Their statements suggested that at least a few of the Burman military and Police officials were sincere in their combined efforts to forestall the outbreak of conflict.26

The day the fighting started in Insein, January 31at, 1949, Lt. Gen. Smith Dun, the then Commander-in Chief of the Burma Army wrote: “Early that morning Dun received a telephone call from one of the elders from Thamaing about the incident and the catastrophe that was taking place. Dun at once phoned up the Premier U Nu (hitherto known as Thakin Nu), who was also Defense Minister, requesting him to intervene, not knowing under whose orders and directions this was done, although he was a supreme of all Burma’s Armed Forces. The Prime Minister replied that he would and that he was going to contact someone whom he named, who was no (sic) other than Dun’s deputy. So it must be presumed that Dun’s deputy was actually conducting that particular operation which started the wholesale shooting war between the Karens and the Burmese.” No guessing needed as to who Dun’s deputy was, – Ne Win, of course. Just a day or two earlier, Gen Smith Dun was to call a conference of all his senior officers, battalion commanders and above, to brief them about the seriousness of the situation and to keep the army impartial and stay above the communal clash between the Karens and Burmans, the flames having already been fanned by several vernacular newspapers. That evening, while he was talking to his two Brig. Generals, Let-ya and Kyardoe, his then Deputy came in. Dun briefed him about the conference that was to take place. His Deputy listened quite attentively, but at the end he got up and said, “If only the Karens had started two months ago it would be alright for them, not now.” And he left. Both brigadiers, Let-ya and Kyadoe, were stunned and dumbfounded by Ne Win’s attitude and behaviour.27

In the early morning hours of January 31st, 1949, the very day that KNU President Saw Ba U Gyi and Prime Minister U Nu were to meet at noon, the Burman irregular troops, the Levies (Sitwunhtans) concentrated their fire, including mortar rounds, toward the Thamaing Karen quarter, from the south, and by 6:30 or 7:00 AM, they have already overrun a few houses and started torching them. The Thamaing Karen village did not have any KNDO troops and was defended entirely by its able-bodied men in the village. By mid-morning, nearly one/fourth of the Thamaing village on the southern side had fallen into the hands of the Levies who, in the northern part were lined up against the Ka-weh-gyan railroad bund, using it as cover and firing at will toward the village without yet rushing the defenders. It was at this critical point that units of the Burma Artillery, comprising almost exclusively Karens, arrived at the scene from the north. They were able to easily rout the Levies lined along the bund, shooting them unexpectedly from their rear and killing or wounding quite a few of them. This timely arrival of regular Army Karen troops saved the village from falling into the hands of the Levies.

The two artillery-cum-infantry regular Karen companies were under the command of Major Aung Sein, a career soldier who at this very point had looked forward to going abroad for further training in the UK, scheduled within a month or so. It must have been a weighty decision on his part to come over with his troops.

The Thamaing Karen quarter defenders gained a respite for after the arrival of Major Aung Sein’s companies who, naturally, were the best troops on the Karens’ side in the entire Insein area. There were a company-size KNDOs in the Nanthagon-Taungthugon Karen area and about a platoon-size KNDO force in the Gyogon-Seminary area. The Thamaing Karen defenders, all local villagers, could not have numbered more than a few dozen. These, together with just about every able-bodied native Karen villager drafted into the defense force in the Nathagon-Taungthugon and Gyogon-Seminary Karen quarters, might have totaled no more than 400, a best guess at that point. The local or native irregulars were much less adequately armed, some of them with just pellet air rifles. Military .303 Lee-Enfield rifles were almost unknown in the hands of these local, ill-trained or untrained young people. Some of them might have been lucky to be armed with .22 rim-fire rifles and 20- or 12-gauge shotguns.

At this point on the side of the Burmans, hence government forces, were UMP (Union Military Police) units, the Police, Levies, and armed Insein Burman civilians, numbering several hundred, but probably less than a thousand. The Insein Railways Station was guarded by a platoon of UMPs, with additional dozens of armed Burman employees of the Railways Workshop, located next to the railroad station.

By noon of January 31, indiscriminate rifle and Bren (machine) gunfire came from the Burma Railways station as well as from the railroad area to the Gyogon-Seminary hill. Intense gunfire and mortar rounds were also directed and lobbed against the Nanthagon-Taungthugon Karen quarters from the District administrative buildings and the adjoining Insein Police Station by the Burman UMP, Levies and Police troops. The Nathagon-Taungthugon KNDOs by this time managed to occupy the two-story Insein High School building, separated from the government buildings and Police Station by a mere football (soccer) field. Meanwhile, the Thamaing Karen quarter was barely holding on against the Levies.

It was on the second day, February 1st, that some of the KNDOs from the Nanthagon-Taungthugon village and a detachment of Karen regulars from the former Artillery force overran the Mingaladon Branch of the Ordinance Depot. They brought back a truckload of rifles, automatic small arms, a few Brownings, the .303 machineguns used on Spitfire fighters, .50 caliber heavy machineguns and 20 mm Oerlikons. The 20-mm cannons were, unfortunately, without automatic components, thus not quite effective as single-round weapons. Another truck brought back the much-needed ammunition. This was a lucky stroke for the Karens who by now would not just be able to defend themselves, but to begin to repulse their attackers and think about commencing offensive operations of their own. The Karens later could ill-afford the use of the every effective Browning machineguns since their extremely rapid fire consumed too inordinate an amount of the much-needed common .303 ammunition, also used by the Lee-Enfield rifles, and the more sedate and rather versatile Bren guns.

By nightfall of the second day, the Karens increased their fire on all fronts, the frontline being roughly the Thamaing Karen quarter’s southern edge, the area west of the Rangoon-Insein road along the Gyogon-Seminary Karen quarter, and the area west of the Insein High School in the Nanthagon-Taungthugon village.

Just before dawn on the third day, February 2nd, the Karen Artillery troops were able to overrun the Railway station and had to shout to their comrades in the rear to cease covering fire. The District administrative offices and the Insein Police station were also overrun by the Nanthagon-Taungthugon KNDOs at about the same time. By mid-morning, the Insein Prison, the largest incarcerating institution in Burma at that time, fell into the hands of the Karens and the doors were thrown open, with the result that all the inmates were freed. Just about all the Burman convicts very rapidly escaped with a mixture of fright and glee, literally vaporizing into thin air. There might have been a few of them who had served life sentence or confined in death row and they may have fought, perhaps momentarily, with the Insein Karens. Karen convicts joined their brethren and formed a platoon-size unit under one Seaplane, an assumed nom de guerre; his real was either Tin Maung or Khin Maung. Seaplane, orphaned after all his parents and family members had been killed during the war by the BIA troops, was barely into his teens when he was sentenced to life imprisonment for having robbed and murdered countless Burmans. He was still in his late teens when he came out of the prison. His later exploits as a KNDO leader were somewhat legendary.

By this time, the Karens occupied practically all of Insein town and its environs, a piece of real estate totaling approximately 10 square miles. They were surrounded on all sides by the Government forces which by now included non-Karen elements of the 4th Burma Regiment that was until that time commanded by a Karen major who was disarmed and interned in Rangoon, together with all the Karen military personnel from various units scattered in the Rangoon-Mingaladon area. The 4th regiment troops on the government side were mostly Burmese Gurkhas (Nepalese).

The Karens made their only serious offensive attempt toward Rangoon about a week after they secured Insein. Two companies, one the regular Army troops and the other comprising the KNDOs, were used. On a Wednesday morning, they started their attack with the regular company on the west side which was mostly open ground, and the KNDO company on the eastern, mostly along a rubber plantation with more tree cover. By midmorning, the regular troops almost reached their objective which was the Thamaing road junction, nearly a mile from the south end of the Karen village. By this time, all the government troops, presumably UMPs, a few assorted regular units and Levies, had withdrawn from the junction leaving three or four armored cars that were already disabled by 20 mm Oerlikon fire from the Karens. Meanwhile, the KNDO company, advancing from the east side, had faltered. There were a few casualties, one or two dead and half a dozen wounded in each of the companies. These were indeed light casualties, considering that they were on offensive operation. Apparently, the regulars were well prepared for this whereas the KNDOs, whom the regulars refused to be amalgamated with even before their attack began, seemed to have been discouraged and demoralized after seeing just a few of their comrades killed or wounded. As it turned out, at the point of disarray and hasty withdrawal of the Burman government troops, the timely arrival of the Burma Navy’s jeep mounted 40 mm Bofers, firing rapid rounds toward the Karens, particularly to the KNDOs in the rubber plantation, became the turning point that put an end to the Karen offensive. Thus, the only organized Karen attempt to invade Rangoon resulted in complete failure.

Also at about this time, it was believed that the whole battalion of the 5th Burma Rifles was hastily air-lifted back from the Arakan region where they had been fighting the Mujahids, the Moslem Arakanese rebels. The 5th Burif, one of the remaining very few battalions loyal to the government, comprising almost exclusively Burmans, was a seasoned unit and, in the Insein fighting, did excel themselves. They were, however, attacking the Karen perimeter manned by equally well-trained regular troops of the Artillery force that already had enormous infantry experience. Within a month or so, although the Karen perimeter kept shrinking slowly, it was obvious that the government had to have additional help should it wish to see the Karens driven out of Insein.

The KNU leadership had already requested the Second Karen Rifles, now stationed at Prome, about 190 miles north of Insein/Rangoon, to rush down to the aid of Insein. The 2nd Karen Rifles, after reassembling their units that had been dispersed fighting the Communists (including elements of the 1st Burma Rifles) in outlying districts, apparently moved down almost immediately after receiving the urgent message from the Insein KNU Headquarters. To do so, however, they had to bring their entire family members and dependents, and they used all the means, legal or otherwise, to obtain necessary vehicles and supplies, much to the distress of local residents. The logistics of moving the whole battalion with all the dependents and also fighting their way through government road blocks along the Rangoon-Prome trunk road were too much to cope with. Unspecified Burman troops which the government was still able to muster, under the famed Bo (probably Colonel in rank) Sein Hman, effectively ambushed and defeated the 2nd Karens in the vicinity of Zigon, some 40 miles south of Prome, aided by bombing and strafing from the Burma Air Force. By the usual battle standards, casualties were indeed light, and yet the element of surprise and aerial attack were too terrifying for the families with the result that just about all of them surrendered, along with their battalion commander, Lt. Col. Mya Maung. Small units of the 2nd Karen managed to filter through into Insein a few weeks later, travelling on foot via jungle trails. Others were able to head eastward across the Pegu Yoma to join other Karens in Toungoo.

News of the defeat of the 2nd Karens was dropped by air in Insein. The leaflets gave the true situation of the surrender of this battalion, complete with the CO’s (Lt. Colonel Mya Maung’s) signature. The Insein Karens refused to believe the bad news and yet it was true, and a real setback for the well-informed KNU leadership who had been banking on the speedy arrival of this reputable battalion.

It may have been around the early part of March that a large column of battalion-strength troops, rumored to number 700+ (perhaps an inflated figure), arrived from Toungoo under the command of one S’kaw Tawbloh. His given name was Saw Richmond Tohkut and he came from a very prominent Toungoo Karen family. In his mid-thirties, his name Tawbloh referred to his relatively towering stature, close to six-feet which would be unusually tall for a Karen, although literally, Tawbloh means long backbone. This brought some relief to the much tired out Insein defenders and, for a short while, there seemed to be a bit more effective resistance against the government troops which, by now, included a Chin battalion, the 1st Chin Rifles. For the most part, Kachin troops were also loyal to the Burmese government, but it is understood that they were not really involved in the Insein battle. It was quite some time before the Thakin Nu government was able to persuade the two major ethnic class battalions to fight against the Karens whom both the Chin and Kachin peoples regarded as their co-ethnic brethren, not to mention their gratitude toward the Karens to bring the Christian faith to them. The last, of course, applied to the more educated and Christianized leadership of these ethnic peoples.

It was at the beginning of April that the Burmese government made overtures to the Insein Karens for a cease-fire and invited the KNU President Saw Ba U Gyi to Rangoon for peace talk. According to one source, the cease-fire was arranged through the intercession of the British and Commonwealth ambassadors in Rangoon. The intermediary was Bishop West, a trusted figure in the Christian Karen community in Insein.28 The invitation was brought over to Insein by the late U Ba Tun Tin, a prominent Karen official in the Burmese government service who, as Assistant Director of Public Instruction, was the second highest ranking government education officer.

What truthfully occurred was that during the three-day truce, the Burmese military moved their companies and platoons boldly in the open, and in broad daylight, to positions, especially on the west across the Hlaing river, where they had never been able to deploy their troops before. The Insein Karen defenders, knowing that their top leader and his party were still in Rangoon for peace talks, had to look on helplessly without being able to stop these deceptive maneuvers by the Burmese government.

The peace talks having ended in fiasco, the Insein Karens resigned themselves to enfeebled attempts of repulsing the once or twice a week offensive actions that came almost rhythmically from government forces, and with no hope of further reinforcements, ammunition and supplies in sight, they had to yield ground more often than they wished to. The regular former Artillery troops were very tired by now, their ranks thinned out when many of them departed for their own homes, and this particularly applied to those who came from the delta area. Real estate held by the Karens in Insein had by now shrunk to less than five square miles.

By the second week of May, the entire civilian population of the Insein area except, perhaps, less than half a dozen families, had prudently moved into the Insein Jail (Prison). This was more for safety to themselves since the high walls were good protection against strayed bullets and shells. Many KNDO units had already taken off, sometimes deserting their posts without the knowledge of higher command.

In the last few weeks, the Insein Karen forces were said to be commanded by S’kaw Tawbloh who tried hard to prevent the desertions. His efforts were almost in vain since more Karen troops disappeared and the Insein defense perimeter was indeed getting to be very porous. This, fortunately, escaped the attention of government troops. The most disappointing news was the departure of the KNU chief Saw Ba U Gyi to the west of Hlaing river. The remaining Karen officials made every attempt to quash rumors that their leader was evacuating a town of imminent defeat. They issued bulletins that Ba U Gyi, in fact, went to contact one Bo Gamanni, a PVO (People’s Volunteer Organization) commander who was then still in revolt against the government. Bo Gamanni’s previous overtures to ally his sizeable troops with the Karens had been spurned. Now the Karens appeared to have changed their mind, obviously out of dire necessity. Whether Ba U Gyi was actually to meet with Gamanni or moved his headquarters to a safer place is unclear. His departure preceded the fall of the town by only a few days.

The final night of May 20th came merely as an anticlimax. On the full moon night all the fighting units of the Insein Karen defenders plus a good number of civilians managed to cross the vast Hlaing river, swollen by high tide, at the northwest end of the town. Ironically, with the dozens of army and assorted civilian vehicles moving from the center of town to the northwest had apparently alarmed the government troops who also noted the silence on the Karen frontline side with hardly any return gunfire. They may have believed that the Karens were being reinforced and were on the verge of a counter-attack. When the next day dawned, it took several hours by the remaining Karen civilian elders, including the writer’s eldest brother, to contact the government troops who had previously withdrawn from their frontline positions by several hundred yards, and only in mid-afternoon did some Gurkha, Burman and Chin soldiers cautiously entered the town. Some people witnessed unusually wary Burman troops driving herds of cattle in front of them to make sure that there were no KNDO snipers nor booby traps and mines on the roads.

To make certain that the Karen civilians and wounded KNDO personnel left in Insein prison, now totaling several hundred, were not mistreated by the Burman units of the victorious troops, the government, probably by the order of Premier U Nu, basically a very decent man, has the Insein prison guarded by the 1st Chin troops in the beginning few weeks of reoccupation.

During the whole Insein fighting that lasted three months and twenty one days, counting the 31st of January as the first day, casualties on the Karen side may have exceeded the thousand mark, of which fatalities, unofficially, numbered between 350 and 400. A little more than 50% of this death toll involved civilians hit by strayed bullets, 25-pounder shells or 3-inch mortar bombs.

Thus came the end of the very first and, perhaps, most important phase of the Karen struggle.

ELSEWHERE IN THE COUNTRY

Among the top leaders and advisors to Saw Ba U Gyi were U Zan,, his then father-in-law, Mahn Ba Zan, Mahn James Tun Aung, Saw Bellay, and Saw Hunter Tha Hmwe. According to Mahn Ba Zan, after the evacuation of Insein, Mahn James Tun Aung, Saw Bellay and U Zan became disenchanted with the Karen cause and left the KNU.29 Top leaders who left Insein and met at Kya-Inn-Haung village of Tantabin Township in Insein District comprised Saw Ba U Gyi, Mahn Ba Zan, Saw Sankey, Saw Hunter Tha Hmwe and Skaw Maw Lay. It was decided that Saw Ba U Gyi, Saw Sankey and Skaw Maw Lay were to proceed to Toungoo and set up the KNU Central Headquar-ters there. Mahn Ba Zan and Saw Hunter Tha Hmwe would remain in the Delta area and be responsible for the organization and tactical activities of the KNU and KNDOs in that part of the country.

According to one source, by January 27, 1949, Toungoo fell to the First Karen Rifles commanded by Lt. Col. Min Maung.30 The C.O. was a veteran of both of the famed World War II Wingate Operations in 1943 and 1944, and winner of the British M.C. (Military Cross). (He was later ambushed and killed in March 1961.)31 What may have happened during those confusing days was that Toungoo, which at that time was defended by a garrison comprising Civil Police, Union Military Police (UMP), and Sitwunhtans (B.T.F.or Burma Territorial Forces), mostly or all Burmans, was easily defeated earlier by the KNDOs, made up of battle-tested ex-soldiers and levies who had fought the Japanese during World War II. It was not clear whether or not the 1st Karen Rifles were in collusion with this KNDO force.

The First Karen Rifles and the First Kachin Rifles, stationed further north in Pynimana, were then ordered by the Rangoon authorities to retake Toungoo.32 Lt. Gen. Smith Dun who was the C-in-C of the Burma Army, himself a Karen, was about to quit his job which was made untenable by the KNU-KNDO activities, but still felt that the two battalions, the 1st Karens and the 1st Kachins were absolutely loyal to the Burmese government.33 After reassembling the units that had been dispersed in the district fighting assorted Burman rebels, including Communists, the 1st Kachin troops moved down from Pyinmana, led by Captain Naw Seng, a somewhat dashing military leader, and also winner of two Burma Gallantry Medals in the Wingate Operations (mentioned above). He met the 1st Karens at Yedashe, some 20 miles north of Toungoo, and decided that he would rather join the Karens. He then returned to Pyinmana to bring back almost the entire 1st Kachin battalion and joined the Karens in Toungoo.

Meanwhile news reached them that most of the troops of the Third Karen Rifles and other Karens in different auxiliary units as well as Karen civilians in the Mandalay and Maymyo area to the north had been disarmed and imprisoned. This was disturbing news to the Karens in Toungoo, and the memory of the Palaw massacre where the entire village of wiped out atrociously by the Burmans during Christmas, just a few months earlier, was still very fresh. A meeting of the leaders of KNU, KYO (the Karen Youth Organization still operative in Toungoo), and the Kachins was held to decide whether to go north and rescue the interned Karens, or to fight their way south to Insein and try and capture Rangoon. A combined Karen and Kachin troops of brigade strength, plus the still capable Insein defenders, would certainly have a good chance of overpowering the Burmese government defenders in Rangoon. But concern for the fate of the Upper Burma Karens in Mandalay and Maymyo was more imminent and Naw Seng agreed to dash to the north with a column of Karen and Kachin troops to attempt what they believed was their first call of duty.34

As it turned out, one company of the 3rd Karen Rifles was out on operation in the west, in the Pakokku area, and was the only unit of this battalion to later join the KNU. Lt. Col. DeeHtoo, an individual known to be sympathetic and loyal to the Burmese government, commanded the 3rd Karen Rifles.

In their dash to the north to Mandalay and Maymyo, the motorized column of combined Kachin and Karen troops under the command of Naw Seng went through the large towns of Pyinmana, Yamethin and Pyawbwe with virtually no resistance, and when they reached Meiktila, they discovered that two civilian aircraft had just landed (Cathay Airways Dakotas [DC-3s]).35 In a daring and somewhat brilliant maneuver, Naw Seng promptly commandeered the two aircraft, loaded two platoons of Karen and Kachin troops and ordered the British pilots to fly them to Maymyo. (Before flying back to Rangoon, the British pilots asked Naw Seng how to explain themselves to the Burmese government authorities. The reply was that they should report everything exactly as happened. What the pilots did not know was that when they landed back in Rangoon, orders were already given to Burman troops at the airfield to open fire on the planes as soon as any green uniform-clad person appear at the door of the aircraft.)36 They were able to take the Maymyo defenders by surprise although it was a while before they could drive off the Burman troops, largely irregulars, and managed to free all the Karen prisoners. Many of them joined them but some remained on the side of the government, or stayed neutral, as did General Smith Dun who happened to be there at the time. The Karens and Kachins held the town throughout March and part of April.

By mid-April, the Third Kachin Rifles, under the command of Colonel Lazum Tang, were ordered to come down from Myitkyina, some 200 miles to the north, and retake Maymyo. Meanwhile, Naw Seng and a large combine Karen-Kachin force of 2000-strong departed Mandalay to drive to the south. One of the objectives was to capture Thazi, an important railroad junction, where they intended to acquire rail transportation to enable them to rush down to Rangoon. Naw Seng figured that they could capture Rangoon by May 1, 1949.37 Thazi was defended by a Chin battalion, the Chins generally remaining loyal to the Burmese government in those crucial days. Several unsuccessful offensives were launched from Meiktila, a mere 20 miles to the west. After having lost the lives of over 50 soldiers and several precious days, the Kachin and Karen troops bypassed the railroad junction town and traveled down the Rangoon-Mandalay trunk road and went through Toungoo on their way south to the capital.

By the time they reached Nyaunglebin, some 80 miles south of Toungoo and about halfway to Rangoon, they encountered fierce resistance by elements of the Second Burma Rifles. The 2nd Burif was known to be a mixed battalion of each company of Burman, Karen, Kachin, and Chin. All the Karens from this battalion, probably including the commanding officer who was purported to be a Karen, had long since deserted or been interned by the government. It took three days of intense fighting. The first day’s attack was made by the Karen troops, the second by the Kachins, and it was only on the third day, by a combined Karen-Kachin assault against fierce resistance, including hand-to-hand combat, that the town fell. No less than 40 of Naw Seng’s Kachin troops were killed.

After Nyaunglebin fell, Naw Seng and his combine Karen-Kachin troops pushed down further south as far as the hamlets of Payagyi-Payagale, not far beyond Daik-U, ten to fifteen miles short of Pegu, where they ran into a very determined defense by the better prepared government troops. By this time ammunition and ration supplies were running extremely low which compelled Naw Seng to withdraw on May 1, 1949, to Toungoo.

THE TOUNGOO INTERLUDE

Saw Ba U Gyi arrived in Toungoo in early June and called a meeting on the 14th of that month, attended by KNU delegates from Thaton, Nyaunglebin and Toungoo. Naturally, those in the Delta could not attend. The KNDO was renamed the Kawthoolei Armed Forces, and organized into two divisions, the Delta and Eastern, under General Min Maung. Following the meeting, the Free Karen radio station at Toungoo broadcast an announcement to the world about the establishment of a provisional Kawthoolei government with Saw Ba U Gyi as the first Prime Minister.

Karenni or Kayah State was already in the hands of the KNDOs and Kayah nationalist forces under Sao Shwe, a Sawbwa family member. Taunggyi, an important large town in the Southern Shan State, was captured on August 13, 1949, by a combined force of Karen, Kayah, PaO and Kachin troops. From here on, Naw Seng who may have felt the jealousy and covert discrimination by his Karen military colleagues whom he believed were deliberately keeping him and his troops short of arms and ammunition, became disaffected with them and parted company. He went to the Northern Shan State, and eventually into China as already mentioned. There were about two platoons of Karen troops who followed Naw Seng to the north, and even into China. Naw Seng later returned as a Communist commander of the CPB (Communist Party of Burma). Before he departed, he left a young lieutenant, Zau Seng, and some Kachin soldiers with his Karen allies. It was Zau Seng who formed the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), more than a decade later, and became its first president.38

For a while, a CAS-K (Civil Affairs Service-Kawthoolei), patterned after the post-WW II British CAS-B (Civil Affairs Service-Burma), was established to administer the KNU-controlled areas. Political organizations were abolished or not recognized under the Kawthoolei Military Administration, as this provisional government was then known. J (Joshua) Poo Nyo, whose house and the entire Thamaing quarters had long since been reduced to ashes at the inception of the Insein battle, and who had also been a very high ranking Karen official in British Burma as well as in the post-war government of independent Burma, the latter as Secretary of the Karen Affairs Ministry, became the Administrator, and signed all temporary standing orders. Since the KNU organization itself had never been effectively formed except in the areas of Rangoon, Bassein and a few other localities in the country, the civil administration was not really in functional mode, and the civilian officials were not exactly prepared for the ongoing war that took priority on almost everything.

Without Naw Seng’s dashing thrusts and military achievements, roughly a mini-scale success of the U.S.General George Patton of World War II fame, the KAF or Kawthoolei Armed Forces could not sustain the ‘spectacular gains and losses’ of territory formerly demonstrated by this brave young Kachin officer; he later met a mysterious death in 1972 in the Wa hills, but not before he made his mark again in a stream of victories as a commander of the NEC (North-East Command) of the CPB under vice-chairman Thakin Ba Thein Tin.39 The KAF units of usually company size and lesser were spread over a distance of 300 miles from Bassein in the western part of the Delta to the eastern hills of Loikaw and Myawaddy, and although radio contact could be maintained between all of them, no tactical plans were possible with gaps and stretches filled by Burmese government troops in between. With no way nor hope of replenishing the dwindling stocks of weaponry and ammunition, conventional warfare of holding and defending territories by the usually small KAF garrisons was fast diminishing as an option, and the KNU leadership was duly warned of this by respective military commanders.

Nyaunglebin fell to the hands of the Burmese government in February of 1950 and shortly after, Toungoo itself was lost on March 10. And Pyinmana, some 60 miles north of Toungoo, which had been hitherto occupied by the CPBs, was recaptured by the government just a few days later.40

PAPUN AND THE DEMISE OF SAW BA U GYI

After the fall of Toungoo, the KNU headquarters was moved to Papun, some 90 miles to the southeast. Papun has always been a subdivision town that was dominated by Karen people since the time of the British raj. It is situated on Yunzalin river, a small tributary that flows south into the mighty Salween, itself only 20 miles to the east where, for a winding stretch of over 70 miles, forms the international border between Burma and Thailand. At that time there was only a fair-weather dirt road that reached the town from Kamamaung, another small town in the south, some 60 miles away, at the Yunzalin-Salween junction.

Once at Papun, Saw Ba U Gyi, the KNU President, educated in England with a law degree and in his late thirties, began to draw up plans for restructuring the KNU. A full KNU Congress was convened on July 17, 1950 in Papun.

From the Delta came S’Gaw Ler taw, a.k.a. Thra Taw Yay, Major General Saw Sankey, and Officer Rolly (Mika Rolly). The Toungoo area was represented by General Min Maung, Thra (Teacher or Professor) Paul Paw, Htoo Ra-Oo, and A. Soe Myint. From Nyaunglebin district came Zu Maung Pu, and a few others. Representing Thaton were Colonel Saw Ohn Pe, Saya Ohn Pe Nyunt, and Saw Bala. There were delegates from Nyaunglebin, Moulmein, and Tavoy and Mergui districts. The Mons sent a group comprising Naing Ngwe Thein, Naing Thein Maung, Naing Tun Thein and Naing Hseik Noek. Also invited were representatives from Karenni State and the Indian community. Attending as observers were Mrs. Ba U Gyi (U Zan’s Daughter), P’doh (meaning government Official) U Tauk, Wareegyaw, Colonel Tahkapaw. P’doh Willy Kaw, Saya Baldwin (probably Rev. Baldwin, a Karen-speaking Seventh Day Adventist missionary, who had been deported from Burma by the British shortly before the country’s independence, probably for having been too vociferous for the Karen cause), Sayama (meaning Lady Teacher) Edna May, and others.41

In his opening statement, Saw Ba U Gyi pointed out that for the Karens, this would be the first and last revolution. He also emphasized that the Karen revolutionaries could never expect to all travel to Rangoon and slit the throats of the enemies. Two speeches followed, one by General Min Maung on the improving the organization and training of the KAF, and by P’doh Rawley Pokee from the Moulmein district on the enhancement of the civil administration. On one of the most important motions, if not the most, for the Congress, which was the reorganization of the KNU and presented by Saw Sankey, and seconded by S’Gaw Ler Taw, there was vehement objection from some delegates, particularly the Toungoo military representative A.(Alfonso) Soe Myint . After rather patient explanations and discussions that ensued on this point, A. Soe Myint’s strong opposition, using somewhat unseemly expletives, forced Saw Sankey to withdraw his motion.42

This one and only KNU Congress that Ba U Gyi led ended inconclusively and although no substantial decisions and achievements were made during the meetings, the three ways of gaining a Karen autonomous state advocated in his opening speech were discussed and adopted; these were: (1) voluntary gift of what was rightfully deserved that would never happen, (2) to fight for it, and (3) to obtain it by means of prevailing or surrounding circumstances. It seemed that, Mawchi in the Karenni (Kayah) State, had been chosen as the capital of Kawthoolei, probably through expedience, and at the meeting, one of the decisions was to move the capital to Papun. The KAF reorganization included the forming of the Thaton force into two brigades, one to be called the Thaton Brigade on the western side of Sittang river under Colonel Ohn Pe (formerly a high ranking Forest official in British Burma and a veteran of Force 136 during WW II), and the Takapaw Brigade on the eastern side of Sittang river, under Colonel Takapaw. Decisions were also reached on setting up successive political training classes, and on opening cooperatives in villages under the KNU Territory (Kawthoolei). General Saw Sankey was also appointed as P.A.(Personal Assistant) with the formal designation of Private Secretary to Ba U Gyi, the KNU President.43 Also adopted were what have since become known as Saw Ba U Gyi’s “Four Principles of the Karen Revolution”, which are:
There shall be no surrender.
The recognition of the Karen State must be completed.
We shall retain our own arms.
We shall decide our own political destiny.
At the close of the Congress, these were broadcast in Karen, Burmese and English over the Free Karen radio on July 31st to August 2nd, 1950. Although the Congress fell far short of Ba U Gyi’s expectations, according to meeting notes, he had privately assigned the tasks of the reorganization of KNU in the east to three of his most trusted men, Saw Sankey in Thaton and Moulmein, S’Gaw Ler Taw in Nyaunglebin, and Mika Rolly in Toungoo, Thaton and Mawchi.44

In early August, Ba U Gyi and Saw Sankey with a small party set out to the Moulmein area, purportedly to reorganize the KNU and improve on the revolution activities.45 According to another source, the Congress minutes show that Saw Ba Gyi’s last words were, “I am now going to pull a political stunt.”46 There was speculation that Ba U Gyi might have been on his way to Thailand to meet a foreign contact. Near Tahkreh village, Karen elders tried to persuade them to wait for the heavy rains to slacken, but the two leaders insisted on continuing their journey, saying that it was extremely important for them to keep their mysterious appointment. When they reached Tokawkku village, the village headman assigned them to a small bamboo hut in the field near a swollen river to wait for the water to subside before crossing it.

It is widely believed that there was an informant, a dissident Karen in that village, who contacted the nearby Burmese troops at Nabusakan. Ba U Gyi and party also stayed more than one night at that emergency camp waiting for the rains to stop. In the early hours of August 12th, 1950, the rains still pouring down, a young Burman lieutenant (or captain - said to be Sein Lwin, the same man who became General Sein Lwin, or Butcher Sein Lwin, as he was later known when he ordered the killing of several hundred students and civilians on 8-8-88) and his troops crept up on the camp before dawn, surrounded it and demanded Saw Ba U Gyi and his party to surrender. Of course there was no surrender, and Ba U Gyi, together with everyone else in his party, was killed. Ba U Gyi’s body was brought to Moulmein, put on public display, and later transported four miles into the sea and was thrown overboard. For him there would be no martyr’s grave, and he did not deserve to be buried in Burma’s soil.47,48 It turned out that the Burmese troops did not recognize Saw Sankey. He and the others were disposed off in the nearby river, according to unconfirmed eyewitnesses.

TRANSITION PERIOD

At the KGB (Kawthoolei Governing Body) meeting in April of 1951, August 12th, the day Saw Ba U Gyi, Bogyoke Saw Sankey and others who gave up their lives was designated as Martyr’s Day.

Even though on the Burma Broadcasting Service announced that they captured Saw Ba U Gyi dead on August 12, 1950, which was repeated three times daily, the whole Karen populace found the news hard to believe and even refused to do so for a while. It was five days later when Mrs. Ba U Gyi sent out radio messages about his demise, and also wishing to know who would be taking his place. At first, nobody knew that Saw Sankey was with Ba U Gyi when he was ambushed, which prompted a radio message be sent out all over to the effect that Bogyoke Saw Sankey had been appointed as the new KNU President. Only when messages were received that Saw Sankey also died along with Ba U Gyi, then the problem of selecting a new President arose.

Among the contenders, Thaton U Hla Pe, a pre-WW II ethnic PaO member of parliament and who had served as Minister of Forestry in Dr. Ba Maw’s wartime Cabinet, and J. Poo Nyo received the nod from most of the dispersed Karen leaders. Not long after that, a meeting was called by Mrs. Ba U Gyi and General Min Maung on September 24, 1950 at Mawchi Lehyalo. At the meeting, it was decided that the first choice was Thaton Hla Pe, and an urgent message beseeching him to accept the Presidency of KNU was sent to him in southwest Shan State where he was organizing a fast-spreading PaO revolution. He sent back a reply regretting that he had to decline the offer. J. Poo Nyo, the second choice, became interim KNU President and moved to Papun. It was at this juncture that Hunter Tha Hmwe who was one of the two leaders (Mahn Ba Zan was the other) in the Irrawaddy Delta sent a congratulatory message to J. Poo Nyo, who happened to be related to him as a second cousin. In that message, Hunter Tha Hmwe also requested him to reorganize and restructure the KNU in order that the Karen revolution could improve and become more effective. The somewhat autocratic J. Poo Nyo, for reasons best known to him alone, was so enraged by this request and sent back a reply to his cousin that if his acceptance of the leadership would also involve the restructuring of the KNU, he could never take the position. He left Papun and settled down in Hsamupeh village.

Back to square one; the Karens went without a new KNU President for another three months. On January 8, 1951, General Min Maung called a meeting at Swallow, Toungoo district which was attended by many leaders, including U Saw Lone and Thra Paul Paw from Toungoo, Zu Maw Lwi from the Nyaunglebin Brigade, and S’Gaw Ler Taw from the Delta. January 8 being the Karen New Year day, the meeting began only on the next day, January 9th. Before the meeting started, the Toungoo delegation attempted to have U Saw Lone elected as the KNU President.

The meeting, chaired by Gen. Min Maung, considered two options: to elect a President or to form a Committee. They settled on the Committee, and now came the part of giving a name to the Committee. The choice was between the Kawthoolei Supreme Council (KSC) and the Kawthoolei Government Body (KGB). Again, the latter received more votes and thus the KGB replaced CAS(K) as the governing arm of the KNU, more or less skirting the question of having a President of the KNU. It was also decided to have a Chairman of the KGB, and three names appeared as candidates: U Saw Lone, Thaton U Hla Pe and J. Poo Nyo. Meanwhile, it was recognized that U Hla Pe’s return from the southern Shan State would be difficult, and J. Poo Nyo seemed to have already become disaffected with the revolution. Nonetheless, they had enough supporters and thus their names, along with U Saw Lone, were on the ballot. There was also a provision for electing a co-Chairman of the KGB, and for this, a motion to nominate Gen. Min Maung was made by U Saw Lone, who pointed out that the general deserved the position since he was the C-in-C of the KAF and it was war conditions, and thus everyone seconded it. The KGB members were elected according to the respective military areas, such as: U Saw Lone for Toungoo, Thra Marshall Shwin for Nyaunglebin, P’doh Lawry Po Kee for Moulmein, and S’Gaw Ler Taw for the Delta. Added later were P’doh Gilbert Kyar Soo for Karenni, and Naing Thein Maung for the Mon area.

A fervent request to U Hla Pe to accept the KGB chairmanship was radioed to him at the end of the meeting, signed by all the attending leaders. In February, U Hla Pe sent back a reply, expressing his deep apology for not being able to accept the position, and suggested that co-Chairman Gen. Min Maung might be elevated to the Chairman of the KGB. Gen. Min Maung, on his part, pointed out that he was a soldier and had no knowledge of politics or political organization and related civil administrative duties, and thus had to refuse the full time chairmanship. Eventually, Hunter Tha Hmwe in the western Delta area was called upon to take up the Chairman position. His radio reply was that he would not refuse to act as KGB chairman, but because of his reorganizing work in the delta, he suggested Thra Taw Yay (Skaw Ler Taw) to act on his behalf until he could head back to the east. On March 10, Skaw Ler Taw met with Gen. Min Maung, at the latter’s request and was shown Hunter Tha Hmwe’s radio message. Although declining at first on the grounds of not wishing to be made a fool of since he lacked the skill of a politician, at the insistence and encouragement of the western Delta leader, he accepted to act as interim KGB Chairman.

The first KGB conference was convened on April 4 at Papun with interim Chairman Skaw Ler Taw, and other attendees that include P’doh Lawry who acted as Secretary, Thra Marshall Shwin from Nyaunglebin, Pu Pway Htaw from Thaton, and Major Johnny Htoo of the Takapaw Brigade. Thus almost eight months had elapsed after Ba U Gyi’s death before the KNU leadership began to function again.

It was at the meeting of November, 1953, in Papun when the KGB was dissolved to make way for the Kawthoolei Government administration.49

In December, 1954, Hunter Tha Hmwe arrived from the western Delta area to take up his post as head of the Kawthoolei government. S’Kaw Ler Taw who had been overseeing the day-to-day KNU central political organization as interim Chairman had a very difficult task of integrating the various Karen subgroups, numbering over 20, and this had never really been attempted before. On the military side, the KAF was about 15,000 strong in 1950, counting also guerrilla troops. There had always been clashes between the KNDOs and ex-Burma Army Karens troops, and in local territories, armed clashes between Karen forces were not unusual. The KNU areas, like other Burmese rebel groups, including the CPB, were also rife with banditry. Skaw Ler Taw noted that, “Of all the problems the KNU faced (military, political and financial), “warlordism” was the greatest.” 50

KARENS INSIDE BURMA PROPER

For the Karen population at large, both supporters and opponents of the KNU, the outbreak of rebellion was nothing short of catastrophic. Besides the many killed, wounded or made homeless, thousands of Karen civil servants, soldiers and policemen were arrested and interned. Many others lost their jobs. Only in 1951 did the government feel confident enough to start reinstating a handful of Karens into the police and, in 1952, into the army, but the Karen community never regained its former influence in the military or government bureaucracy.

By this stage three main parties had emerged: the Union Karen League (UKL), president, Mahn Win Maung, based largely in the plains, included former KYO supporters, affiliated to the AFPFL; the Union Karen Organization (UKO), president, Dr. Hla Tun, based in the eastern hills; and the Karen Congress, which included ex-KNU supporters who has either not gone underground or later given themselves up. In 1951 the Karen Congress briefly won control of the Karen Affairs Council, but later withdrew leaving the UKL and UKO to contest the field. By 1956 both had virtually ceased to exist. That year, with the final abolition of the Karen reserved seats in the national parliament, the AFPFL convinced the UKL leaders to dissolve their party and stand as AFPFL candidates in the general election. Meanwhile in the Karen State to the east the KYO formally merged with the AFPFL.

RAPPROCHEMENT WITH THE CPB AND THE ZIN-ZAN AGREEMENT

The KNU’s claim for Karen State territory in the Delta, initially begun as a casually played bargaining chip, was now elevated into a basic political demand; many leaders argued that force was the only way to achieve a solution. The American missionary, Dr. Gordon Seagrave, whom the AFPFL government had briefly imprisoned in 1951 for his alleged support for the Karen cause, made this somewhat redundant remark: ‘The trouble was that the Karens demanded just too much.’

In 1951, the KNU still controlled, albeit loosely, the majority of Karen populated areas in the countryside, both in the Delta and in the east. Both ‘Tatmadaw’ (the Burma Army) and KNU leaders recognized that the Delta would be the strategic battleground for the long-term success of the Karen rebellion and it was here that both concentrated their early efforts. By December 1950, with the capture of Einme and Pantanaw, the government had retaken the last major towns under KAF control, though the situation was still rather one of stalemate. The KAF units roved freely from Henzada to Pyapon in the Lower Delta.

It was always the KNU’s Delta leaders who led the way with reform. In December 1949 they made their first moves towards reorganizing the KNU on a revolutionary footing. At a meeting called by Mahn Ba Zan at Ywathagone village near Bassein, it as agreed to divide the Delta Division into seven military brigade districts; Henzada-Tharrawaddy, Myaungmya-Pyapon, Maubin-Twante, Labutta-Bassein, Bogale and south to the sea, Insein-Prome and the western Pegu Yoma, and Bassein (extended to eight in 1956 when the Pegu Yomas were organized under a separate command); and to set up a civilian KNU administration in each district. In early 1952, taking advantage of a steady decline in CDB activity in central Burma, Ne Win launched a major offensive, throwing in planes, gunboats and tanks against the KAF No. 1 brigade in Tharrawaddy district, 60 miles north of Rangoon. Government troops began to burn down Karen villages and destroy paddy fields in a severe but effective scorched earth policy which forced Gen. Kaw Htoo(a.k.a. Kyaw Mya Than), the brigade commander, to order the main body of his troops to pull back into the Pegu Yomas. The government then immediately switched the offensive to KAF No. 7 brigade in Bassein district and the No. 2 around Myaungmya. Again KAF troops were forced to pull back, some to the Arakan Yomas, some into the Pegu Yomas, and others into the empty grasslands and mangrove swamps to the south. Hounded night and day by government troops, several leaders, including Hunter Tha Hmwe and Mahn Ba Zan, were lucky to escape with their lives.

As KNU units retreated deeper into the more remote forests and foothills they increasingly came into contact with small CPB units taking shelter in the districts; faced with a common enemy, military commanders on both sides immediately recognized the futility of fighting each other.

From the earliest days of the insurrections, even before the Karen uprising, there were infrequent clashes between KNU and CPB supporters. Nonetheless, during the April 1949 peace talks, KNU President, Saw Ba U Gyi, demanded that all armed opposition forces, including the KNU and CPB, be admitted to government. After the fall of Insein, in June1949, the KNU sent an emissary, Saw Maung Lay, to the headquarters of the People’s Democratic Front in Prome to discuss the formation of a joint anti-AFPFL front. But Than Tun denounced Ba U Gyi as a ‘lackey of imperialism’ and the KNU as the ‘running dogs of imperialism’. It was a critical error. A joint KNU/CPB/PVO offensive at this stage might well have led to the capture of Rangoon.

In