The Karen-Burman riots of WWII (3)

This post continues with the translation of chapter 5 of the text ပြည်တွင်းသောင်းကျန်းမှုသမိုင်း (အပိုင်း-၁) (The History of Revolt within the Country - Volume 1), published by the Myanmar Ministry of Information in 1990. The chapter runs 8 pages from page 21 to page 28. The translation below covers the third page (page 23) of the chapter. The complete chapter is available in PDF form here.

Vocabulary:

သိမ်းသွင်း ။ to win over
ကျိုးနွံ ။ be humble and obedient
ပြုစု ။ to look after; take care of; attend to
ပျိုးထောင် ။ to nurture
တောပုန်း ။ outlaws or brigands who hide in the jungle
ရက်စက် ။ be cruel; be pitiless; be ruthless
နှိမ်နင်း ။ to put down; suppress (rebellion); subdue (the enemy)
လက်ပါးစေ ။ personal servant; lackey
သန်းခေါင်စာရင်း ။ census
ကျယ်ပြန့် ။ wide (of knowledge, views, etc)
တသီးတခြား ။ seperately
တပ်ဆင် ။ to arm (a group of men with weapons)
ကွပ်ကဲ ။ to manage; supervise; administer
သိမ်းပိုက် ။ succeed to; take over an office or position
စစ်ကြောင်း ။ column deployed for battle
တပ်မ ။ division (of troops)
သေဝပ် ။ to be disciplined
ခွာစစ် ။ withdrawal
ထိန်းသိမ်း ။ observe (precepts)
စွန့်ခွာ ။ to leave; abandon; forsake
ခဲယမ်း ။ ammunition

Translation:

The British Imperial government systematically worked to win over the Kayin people so that they would become an ethnic group that would give protection to the English people. The Kayin peoples were simple and obedient and being an ethnic people that were able to accept orders the British gradually inserted them and got them to work in the military police, the army and the forestry department. Some Kayin nationals participated and fought in the First World War. Because ethnic Kayin school teachers, preachers, doctors and nurses attended to and nurtured the British, [they] gradually developed. When the nationalists emerged as result of the whole of Myanmar being oppressed under British rule, since the Kayin ethnic peoples had not experienced oppression, they were not among the nationalists. And the British government used Kayins who held weapons to mercilessly suppress [the rebels] during the incidents of the Saya San rebellion and the outlaw San Pe. Therefore some narrow minded Myanmar politicians came to see the Kayins as imperialist lackeys.

According to the 1931 census the population of Kayin nationals was 1,367,673. Within that figure there were 1,049,613 Buddhists, this was 75 per cent [of the population]. Those who held traditional spirit beliefs were 99,270, this was 10 per cent [of the population]. However, before the Second World War the population of Kayin Christians increased a lot.

The conflict of the BIA and the Kayin militias

The British government divided to the Kayin indigenous people from the Myanmars and were able to organise them broadly. The religion, economy, society, etc. of the indigenous Kayin became arranged separately and there were not many [Kayins] amongst the political activists. The British government armed the indigenous Kayin with weapons and formed them into Kayin armed militias and military police. When the BIA military units and Japan military units entered Myanmar the British military units retreated to India.

General Ne Win arrived in Yangon on February 27th 1942 and conducted the work of supervising domestic anti-imperialist insurgent groups. After the Burma Independence Army Tavoy column conquered Bago town, they marched on and conquered Yangon together with Japanese Army Division #55 on March 8th 1942.

Although the British Army units were able to successfully withdraw with discipline, the Kayin armed militias were not able to systematically retreat. Because many of the Kayin armed militias were unable to abandon their place of origin, and because they were unable to follow [the British] to India, they were separated from the British and left behind. Some Kayin armed militias followed up to India but most headed towards and withdrew to the base(s) where there was ammunition. Many Kayin holding arms deserted from the delta, Papun and the Taungoo region and went to Kayin villages together with ammunition. Japan...