British assasination in Burma revealed
Imagine how dreadful it must be, every day, for those in the South who
support the British. Filled with self-loathing, trying desperately to be
something that ceased to exist in the 1930s, having one's ideological
position shackled to Ulster Unionists, whose supremacy is so obviously
doomed, and whose culture of bigotry, misogyny and ridiculous garments
evokes mirth rather than pity in the rest of Europe.
But difficult as life has become for these unfortunates - especially now
that there is a ceasefire and they no longer have that ecstatic rush of
ritual condemnation - they can still usually rely on broadcasting
organisations to back their central argument, that Britain is the
peacemaker, preventing the `two sides' from killing one another.
Which must make last Saturday's extended edition of `East' (BBC2,
various times) all the more distressing. Because it demonstrated how
British intelligence - the same people running the loyalist death
squads here - murdered a prime minister in someone else's country.
Presented by a hyper-ventilating Fergal Keane, who at least knows a
story when he sees one, the programme opened with the 1988 street
protests in Burma.
``The demonstrators believed that if they carried pictures of Aung San,
no soldier would harm them. But they were wrong,'' he said.
In the bloody slaughter that followed, 10,000 people were killed. From
the ashes of this, arose Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, who
would win the Nobel Prize for peace in 1991.
Aung San is Burma's greatest hero. He formed the country's anti-British
resistance movement in the 1930s, then did a deal with the Japanese to
train and arm him and his colleagues.
The safari-suited colonial regime back in Rangoon eventually discovered
what was going on, and reacted in the best of British traditions.
``When the British heard about us, they sentenced us to death in our
absence. We changed our names, and after that the British didn't know
who was who,'' said Bohmu Aung, one of Aung San's colleagues.
The Japanese eventually invaded Burma, and thousands of nationalists
assisted them in turfing out the British. But Aung San, now in charge of
the country, learned soon enough that his newfound friends weren't much
different to the old rulers. As the tide of war turned, he did a deal
with the Allies.
With the British back in Rangoon, the Americans dropped the atom bomb.
Aung San saw in an instant that the war was over, and called a monster
rally in the centre of town. He passed a resolution by popular decree, that a civil government should be formed, and that it should be made up of members of the resistance movement.
This was unacceptable to the Governor-General, Sir Reginald Dormen-Smith (this really was his name!), who wanted his old toady, U Sau, back as prime minister. There was stalemate, with Sir Reginald trying to have Aung San arrested on a trumped-up murder charge.
Then Labour took power in Britain, and Sir Reginald was recalled. In
January 1947, Aung San went to London to seek independence for his
country. To the dismay of the Conservatives and British intelligence, the new prime minister Clement Attley agreed to grant his request within a year.
Sir Reginald and his cronies immediately set up a shadowy group, based
in London, to work against Aung San. In July, armed men booted down the door of the cabinet office and opened up on Aung San with a machine-gun.
U Sau, Sir Reginald's old chum, was found guilty of the crime, and
hanged. Near his house, a large stockpile of Bren guns and ammunition
was discovered. It looked like he had been planning a coup d'etat.
Before he went to the gallows, he sent out an increasingly urgent series
of messages to various British diplomats, but they were deaf to his
pleadings.
A British army officer, Capt David Vivian, was later discovered to have
provided the arms cache. Another, Major Henry Young, supplied the guns
that killed Aung San.
``The British government killed Aung San. It was their plot,'' said Chau
Zau, one of Aung San's colleagues, now exiled in China. ``Aung San was
the leader who could unite the whole country. They supposed they could
handle Burma more easily if they removed Aung San.''
British policemen like Carlyle Seppings, were told not to question any
British officers about the crime.
``This has got too big for both you and me,'' he was warned by his boss.
``And if you dig deeper, you're going to tread on some very important
corns.''
A secret telegram sent by the British ambassador in Rangoon to
Whitehall, and only declassified for the programme, quotes the British
chief of police in the Burmese capital: ``We're now virtually convinced
that there was British connivance in the assassination.''
He cited Sir Reginald as a suspect.
``I think if my father had lived, democracy would have worked, and it
would have lasted,'' said Aung San Suu Kyi. ``When we lost him, we lost
our chance to build a happy, democratic Burma. But of course, second
chances always come, and we have to grab them while we can.''
By Michael Kennedy
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