Bo Kyaw Zaw on the Karen-Burman riots (2)

This post covers page 2 of part 2 of Brigadier General Bo Kyaw Zaw's Biography (it's actually an autobiography), printed in 2007. The book can be accessed in full here on the Communist Party of Burma's website.

Vocabulary:

အကြီးအကဲ ။ leader; chief; person in authority
ရာထူး ။ official position or appointment; designation
လဆန်း ။ waxing of the moon
ချုံခိုတိုက် ။ to ambush
အလောင်း ။ corpse
သဂြိုဟ် ။ cremation pier; cremate
လက်စားချေ ။ to avenge
အထိနာ ။ to suffer a serious set-back
ကြွား ။ to boast; brag; be prominent
အငြိမ့် ။ anyein: non-dramatic performance where a female artiste dances and sings to the accompaniment of light music and is usually supported by comedians.
ချောက်ချ ။ to get into trouble
အမြောက် ။ cannon; field-gun; artillery piece

Translation:

(I knew in about 1990 that Thakin Bo had been one of the people included when in August 1939 General Aung San with four or five leaders started to form the Communist Party of Burma.)

I pulled out from my unit an appropriate group (about 30 people) and gave an official designation as lieutenant to a university student from my officer training class and appointed [him] as head of the army group and released Thakin Bo according to the plan to follow with Sayadaw U Pannatawa those Karen areas. [The monk] made the rounds of the villages and preached. In that interval the rebel leader Shwe Htun Kya called to say that he wanted to speak with the commander and sending two soldiers to follow [the commander] was killed. The next time another person was killed in this way. The Sayadaw without being discouraged continued to preach. Therefore, the situation was made quite peaceful. At that time, Bo Mo Kyo's Japanese from Minamiki came to know about that issue and [decided that] they would conduct this peace matter and a colonel with the official BIA designation of lieutenant who had not been our instructor on Hainan Island left for the areas where the sayadaw had gone to preach peace but with the sayadaw no longer included.

One night during the waxing of the moon in the month of May 1942 as I was sleeping, two Japanese who Bo Mo Kyo from Miniki had sent, forcefully pulled away my house guard and woke me and said:

"Colonel Ijima who had gone to patrol in the Myaung Mya area has been killed, and because the New Delhi radio broadcast that the covert Karen who rely on the British while ambushing a Japanese Army unit killed a Japanese colonel, Tojo has, via the relevant person, ordered Colonel Suzuki (Bo Mo Kyo) to quickly take up this matter with importance and tomorrow Bo Mo Kyo will go to this area. You must follow. You must do [what needs to be done] in order for your units to be able to immediately leave tomorrow." Because he said this I prepared about over three of my army sections and the next day had to follow.

After going to Myaung Mya I went to look at the area where there had been a battle. I looked for and brought back the corpse of the Japanese Colonel who had been killed and [after] cremating took the old bones. After that Bo Mo Kyo marched for as much as two weeks to the area of the villages where the Karen rebels were based in order to fight in revenge. At that time, my little group that was doing peace activities suffered a serious set-back and the young leading officer was killed

Bo Mo Kyo forcefully ordered the conquest of those villages where rebels were presumed to be, and if they fought back, he directly gave orders to my commanders to attack and kill them all.

With this [order] there was a massacre lasting about a week long. I told the commanders to fight only those villagers who resisted. If they did not resist, preach the Dhamma and order them to hand over their weapons and confiscate [the weapons].

I did not think that there would be so many massacres. Later, some months after I returned to Yangon I heard that many villagers had died.

Being like that, although it was because of Bo Mo Kyo's order, I think that it was worse because at that time nearly all of my unit could not speak Myanmar language and were still quite inexperienced and unpracticed.

At that time Bo Mo Kyo became a senior commander and made me a kind of head officer of his. At that time he became the general of the BIA. That year, at a time period over 50 [?], I was just a 32-year-old revolutionary nationalist student. Being a soldier, just accepting orders was the essential aspect.

However, I did not refuse responsibility. At that time, amongst the many kinds of political knowledge that I had, I was capable of stridently avoiding that matter.

In order to not reach the point were the villagers who resisted were killed [and] in order for Bo Mo Kyo to be pleased, if I showed that I was burning down some villages, it could be finished.

That was the issue of Karen nationals being killed in the delta. At that time I held an official rank as military commander.

In that place, there is still an affairs of that time that I want to speak of.

Bo Zeya spoke about a matter from before he become a Communist Party member. He told me that, while going on a trip in an area with his boat he saw a Japanese officer on a boat coming towards him. That military officer, being in a position of displaying pride, grabbed a female dancer on his boat and embraced her waist. Upon passing by his boat, the person who he had thought was a Japanese officer, since it was General Aung San, he got into trouble.

Before entering the Communist Party Bo Zeya had been a person who enjoyed living like that. Later, after becoming a Burma Communist Party member his life chaged extensively and for the better. Being a Burma Communist Party leader, after he fled to the forest [and joined the rebellion] in 1948 in accordance with the instructions of the Party, he died as a People's Leader fighting with government army units on April 16th 1968 at a location in the forests of Burma.

While we were living in Pyinmana Town I heard that one day Bo Myint Aung's old mother came to the place where Bo Myint Aung Gyi was an aeroplane artillery battalion commander and visited him. Formerly Bo Myint Aung had spoken to me about his mother and since I knew about his mother, that son's mother fed me dinner and I...