Bo Kyaw Zaw on the Karen-Burman riots (1)

This post covers page 1 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:

ဗိုလ်ချုပ် ။ general
ဗိုလ်မှူးချုပ် ။ brigadier general
ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီး ။ colonel
နောင် ။ word indicating future
တပ်စွဲ ။ to position or station (troops)
အလုပ်ကြွေး ။ work left undone
ဖြစ်ပွား ။ to happen; occur, take place
ထိုးစစ် ။ offensive action; offensive
ဝါဒဖြန့် ။ to propagate
လှုံ့ဆော် ။ to stimulate, exhort
ပုန်ကန် ။ rebel against established authority or government
ပူပန် ။ be worried or anxious about sth
တပ်မဟာ ။ brigade
တပ်ရင်း ။ battalion
တပ်မ ။ division
တပ်ခွဲ ။ company; squadron
တိုင်ပင် ။ to consult, ask for advice or opinion

Translation:

Biography of Former Brigadier General Kyaw Zaw

Section 2

The Japanese Fascist Revolution

(16)

In Yangon General Aung San reconstituted the BIA military. Colonel Zeya was given the lead of BIA Division #1, and Colonel Ne Win was given the lead of Division #2, and Division #2 was formed and General Aung San's Central Command took the lead and joined with the Japanese Army and followed after and fought with the English Army units which had retreated to Upper Burma. My soldiers were left behind in Yangon to take control of the BIA units in lower Burma. In Yangon I opened an officer training class and trained future military officers and gave responsibilities in order to gather so that there would be future officers during [the time of] organising future soldiers.

General Aung Saw and the BIA units [of] Division #2 led by Colonel Zeya and Colonel Ne Win marched to chase after the English to Upper Burma.

I had to position my army unit to defend the security of the city of Yangon.

I opened a Lower Burma BIA office in Yangon and on one side on Gawra Hill opened an officer training class and taught. At that time a Japanese [officer named] Bo Mo Kyo (Suzuki) was also in Yangon.

At that time I had a lot of work. At morning time I personally taught in the future military officer training class and at noon time and in the evening I gathered the BIA and had them do administrative duties [pertaining to] the Lower Burma BIA units. At night time, having to prepare the collections of notes to teach in the officer training class the next day and doing work that had been left undone, there was quite a lot of duties for which I was not free. In that time period in the lower Burma delta there emerged the issue of the BIA units killing the Karen. As much as I remember of that issue I will now write.

In this matter, I, Bo Kyaw Zaw, was without responsibility. The area where it occurred was in southern Burma on the Irrawaddy Delta in Myaung Mya District. The time period was about the middle of 1942 and because of the military offensive of the Japanese Army unit and BIA units, the English army had units retreated to India at full speed.

The aforementioned [English] in propagating their ideology in order to get help for their retreat they exhorted [to the Karen] "We must retreat because we're just not able [to stay]. Within three months we will return. During this time fight back against the Japanese as much as you can." They said "And we'll bring out and give you some guns." Therefore, there as there were many Karen nationals who needed and depended on the British a Karen rebellion started to occur in the Irrawaddy Delta.

At that time there were I think about 100 of Shwe Htun Kya's Kayin rebels 100 holding arms. There was no Japanese Army unit in Myaung May Town. There was only a small local BIA unit. They could not go and fight with the Kayin rebels. And some Burman villages were scared that they would be attacked. Later, in Myaung Mya Town many Myanmar were worried that the Kayin would come and attack. And a small group of Kayin in the town said that the Myanmars were going to come and attack them. Those holding administrative duties and those holding military duties in the Myaung Mya BIA asked me for help.

Although I was a called a brigade I only had one battalion. And my unit, which was almost complete, was [composed of] Thai-Shan and Thai-Burman descendants who had formed and come from the Thailand border and could not completely speak the Myanmar language. Only the company commanders were able to speak Myanmar language. At the time I was considering whether I should I let them help or not help I met with Thakin Bo So who often came to my office and gave much help and advice and consulting with him about that issue he advised that "It would be good not to let this kind of unit [go to Myaung Mya] and [instead] peaceful resolve this issue. There is a Kayin Monk named U Pannatawa in the Yangon Mango Grove Monastic Complex. He understands politics and is a Kayin national and has a lot of influence on the Kayins. It can be peaceful if a small army unit is provided to protect that abbot and he travels around in that area and preaches peace." At that time, although the Thakin leaders had arrived in prison Thankin Bo Ha had been left outside [of prison] because he was not well known, and because I knew that would have important duties [he] often gave me assistance.