Post-independence Burma (1948–1962)
The first fourteen years of post-independence Burma were marred by several communist and ethnic insurgencies. Prominent insurgent groups during this period include the Communist Party of Burma (CPB, "white flags") led by Thakin Than Tun, the Communist Party (Burma) ("red flags") led by Thakin Soe, the People's Volunteer Organisation (''Yèbaw Hpyu'') led by Bo La Yaung (a member of the Thirty Comrades), the Revolutionary Burma Army (RBA) led by communist officers Bo Zeya, Bo Yan Aung and Bo Yè Htut (all three of them members of the Thirty Comrades), and the Karen National Union (KNU). History Remote areas of northern Burma were for many years controlled by an army of Kuomintang (KMT) forces after the Communist victory in China in 1949. Burma accepted foreign assistance in rebuilding the country in these early years, but continued American support for the Chinese Nationalist military presence in Burma finally resulted in the country rejecting most foreign aid, refusing to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Yangon
Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the administrative functions to the purpose-built capital city of Naypyidaw in north central Myanmar. With over 7 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's most populous city and its most important commercial centre. Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in Southeast Asia, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centered around the Sule Pagoda, which is reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda – Myanmar's most sacred and famous Buddhist pagoda. Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia, such as Jakarta, Bangkok or Hanoi. Though ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
U Nu
Nu ( my, ဦးနု; ; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995), commonly known as U Nu also known by the honorific name Thakin Nu, was a leading Burmese statesman and nationalist politician. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the provisions of the 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma, from 4 January 1948 to 12 June 1956, again from 28 February 1957 to 28 October 1958, and finally from 4 April 1960 to 2 March 1962. Biography Nu was born to U San Tun and Daw Saw Khin of Wakema, Myaungmya District, British Burma. He attended Myoma High School in Yangon, and received a B.A. from Rangoon University in 1929. In 1935 he married Mya Yi while studying for a Bachelor of Laws. Political career Struggle for independence Nu's political life started as president of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU) with M. A. Rashid as vice-president and U Thi Han as the general secretary. Aung San was editor and publicity officer. Nu and Aung San were both expelled from the un ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Thirty Comrades
The Thirty Comrades ( my, ရဲဘော်သုံးကျိပ်) constituted the embryo of the modern Myanmar, Burmese army called the Burma Independence Army (BIA) which was formed to fight for independence from UK, Britain. This was accomplished just before the majority of the Thirty Comrades returned with the invading Japanese Army initially through Southern Myanmar, Burma in December 1941. In April 1941, small groups of Burmese youth left Burma secretly to obtain military training to fight the British Raj, British Colonists in the struggle for independence. Their leader was Thakin Aung San and they were sent by the Dobama Asiayone ("We Burmans Association") with the intention to get assistance from Guangzhou. By a quirk of fate, however, they ran into the Japanese instead in Amoy and arrived in Japan later to be flown to occupied parts of sanya, in order to receive military training by the Japanese Army. They were later moved to Formosa for security reasons and subs ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Thakin Soe
Thakin Soe ( my, သခင်စိုး, ; 1906 – 6 May 1989) was a founding member of the Communist Party of Burma, formed in 1939 and a leader of Anti-Fascist Organisation. He is regarded as one of Burma's most prominent communist leaders. Early life Soe was an ethnic Mon and was born in Moulmein (present-day Mawlamyine). He worked for the Burmah Oil Company. Movement Before independence Soe joined the nationalist ''Dobama Asiayone'' ("Our Burma" Association) in 1930s. Soe together with Thakin Ba Tin and other nationalists founded the Communist Party of Burma in 1939. Communist leaders Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Soe, and Socialist leaders Ba Swe and Kyaw Nyein and the Burma National Army (BNA) led by General Aung San founded the Anti-Fascist Organisation (AFO) in August 1944 at a secret meeting of the CPB, the PRP and the BNA in Pegu. The AFO was later renamed the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League(AFPFL). Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Soe, while in Insein pris ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Communist Party (Burma)
The Communist Party (Burma) ( my, ကွန်မြူနစ်ပါတီ (ဗမာပြည်)), sometimes referred to as the Red Flag Communist Party ( my, အလံနီကွန်မြူနစ်ပါတီ; RFCP), was a communist party in Burma. The party was formed after a more radical faction broke away from the Communist Party of Burma in 1946. In the same year, it began a protracted armed insurgency; first against British rule in Burma, British rule, then against the Burmese government. The party was led by Thakin Soe, a firebrand communist leader. In the mid to late 1970s, the party lost influence and was militarily defeated after the capture of Thakin Soe in 1978. Split The party emerged from a split in the Communist Party of Burma in February 1946. Thakin Soe, a former guerrilla leader, had staked claims for the leadership of the party. He denounced Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Thein Pe as 'Earl Browder, Browderists', charging that the two had taken a comprom ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Thakin Than Tun
Thakin Than Tun ( my, သခင် သန်းထွန်း; 1911 – 24 September 1968) was a Burmese politician and leader of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) from 1945 until his assassination in 1968. He was uncle of the former State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi. Early life Than Tun was born in 1911 in Kanyutkwin, British Burma. He married Khin Khin Gyi, the elder sister of Aung San Suu Kyi's mother Khin Kyi. Struggle for independence Than Tun worked as a school teacher after qualifying from the Teachers' Training School, Rangoon, and was influenced by Marxist writings. He joined in 1936 the nationalist ''Dobama Asiayone'' ("Our Burma" Association) and helped forge an alliance with Dr Ba Maw's Poor Man's Party to form the Freedom Bloc. He co-founded the ''Nagani'' (Red Dragon) Book Club with Thakin Nu in 1937, which for the first time widely circulated Burmese-language translations of the Marxist classics. He was imprisoned by the British in 1940 along with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Communist Party Of Burma
The Communist Party of Burma (CPB), also known as the Burma Communist Party (BCP), is a clandestine communist party in Myanmar (Burma). It is the oldest existing political party in the country. Founded in 1939, the CPB initially fought against British colonial forces before joining them in a temporary alliance to expel the invading Imperial Japanese Army from Myanmar during World War II. In the final years of the war, the CPB helped establish a leftist political and military coalition called the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL). However, the CPB fell out of favour with the more moderate socialists within the AFPFL due to differing views on how an independent Myanmar should be governed. The moderate faction of the AFPFL became the dominant political force in Myanmar's government following the country's independence in 1948. The CPB was subsequently expelled from the AFPFL and the government cracked down on the party's political activities, prompting the CPB's lea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ethnic Conflict
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within society. This criterion differentiates ethnic conflict from other forms of struggle. Academic explanations of ethnic conflict generally fall into one of three schools of thought: primordialist, instrumentalist or constructivist. Recently, some have argued for either top-down or bottom-up explanations for ethnic conflict. Intellectual debate has also focused on whether ethnic conflict has become more prevalent since the end of the Cold War, and on devising ways of managing conflicts, through instruments such as consociationalism and federalisation. Theories of causes It is argued that rebel movements are more likely to organize around ethnicity because ethnic groups are more apt to be aggrieved, better able to mobilize, and m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange which allocates products to everyone in the society.: "One widespread distinction was that socialism socialised production only while communism socialised production and consumption." Communist society also involves the absence of private property, social classes, money, and the state. Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance, but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a constitutional socialist st ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, John Wells explains, the English spellings of both Myanmar and Burma assume a non-rhotic variety of English, in which the letter r before a consonant or finally serves merely to indicate a long vowel: [ˈmjænmɑː, ˈbɜːmə]. So the pronunciation of the last syllable of Myanmar as [mɑːr] or of Burma as [bɜːrmə] by some speakers in the UK and most speakers in North America is in fact a spelling pronunciation based on a misunderstanding of non-rhotic spelling conventions. The final ''r'' in ''Myanmar'' was not intended for pronunciation and is there to ensure that the final a is pronounced with the broad a, broad ''ah'' () in "father". If the Burmese name my, မြန်မာ, label=none were spelled "Myanma" in English, this would b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Burmese Kyat
The kyat (, or ; my, ကျပ် ; ISO 4217 code MMK) is the currency of Myanmar (Burma). The typical notation for the kyat is "K" (singular) and "Ks." (plural), placed before the numerals followed by " /-" The term ''kyat'' derives from the ancient Burmese unit ''kyattha'' ( my, ကျပ်သား), equal to 16.3 (16.329324593) grams of silver. Current MMK exchange rates From 2001 to 2012, the official exchange rate varied between Ks. 5/75 and Ks. 6/70 per US dollar (Ks. 8/20 to Ks. 7/- per euro). However, the street rate (black market rate), which more accurately took into account the standing of the national economy, has varied from Ks.750/- to Ks.1,335/- per USD (Ks.985/- to Ks.1,475/- per EUR). The black market exchange rates (USD to MMK) decrease during the peak of the tourist season in Burma (December to January). On 2 April 2012, the Central Bank of Myanmar announced that the value of the kyat against the US dollar would float, setting an in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
1962 Burmese Coup D'état
The 1962 Burmese coup d'état on 2 March 1962 marked the beginning of one-party rule and the political dominance of the army in Burma (now Myanmar) which spanned the course of 26 years. In the coup, the military replaced the civilian AFPFL-government, headed by Prime Minister U Nu, with the Union Revolutionary Council, Chaired by General Ne Win. In the first 12 years following the coup, the country was ruled under martial law, and saw a significant expansion in the military's role in the national economy, politics, and state bureaucracy. Following the constitution of 1974, the Revolutionary Council handed over power to the elected government, consisting of a single-party, the Burma Socialist Programme Party, which had been founded by the council in 1962. The elected government remained hybrid between civilian and military, until 18 September 1988, when the military again took over power as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (then renamed the State Peace and Develop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |