Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vpsfw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T16:26:51.845Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Failure of U Nu and the Return of the Armed Forces in Burma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Frank N. Trager
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Unu, in 1947, became the Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of Burma. He retained that post after independence in 1948 and, except for seven months in 1956–1957, he had been the duly elected Prime Minister until he gave up office in September, 1958, after the serious split in the ruling party, the Anti-Fascist Peoples' Freedom League (AFPFL). From then until the third national elections of February, 1960, General Ne Win, Chief of the Burma Defense Forces, held the reins of what was called a “caretaker government”, in which he proceeded strictly according to the constitution adopted in 1947. U Nu's Party won an overwhelming victory at the polls in 1960 and once again, with almost 80 per cent parliamentary backing in the 250-man Chamber of Deputies, the more powerful chamber in the bicameral parliament, he set about to govern Burma. On March 2, 1962, General Ne Win staged a coup. He took over the government in the name of a military Revolutionary Council, arrested the previous cabinet members, and set aside Burma's constitution.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 1963 , pp. 309 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1963

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See the author's “The Political Split in Burma”, Far Eastern Survey, XXVII (10, 1958), 145–155Google Scholar; “Political Divorce in Burma”, Foreign Affairs, (January, 1959), pp. 317–327; and Thomson, John S., a “Supplement on the Ne Win Administration, A Second Chance for Burma: The Interim Government and the 1960 Elections”, in Furnivall, J.S., The Governance of Modern Burma (New York, 1960), pp. 133–154Google Scholar.

2 All quotations from “Crusade for Democracy”, Speech, April 5, Chamber of Deputies, Burma Weekly Bulletin (Rangoon), 04 7, 1960Google Scholar. See, ibid., September 1, 1960, for substantial repetition of same themes at the August meeting of parliament.

3 The Guardian (Rangoon), 02 7, 1961Google Scholar. Some less senior officers also “decided…to retire…and take up business”. See, also, The New York Times, February 19, 1961.

4 The Guardian, December 23, 1960.

5 Ibid., March 3, 1961.

6 Ibid., March 17, 1961.

7 U Nu, Speech, Chamber of Deputies, March 13, Burma Weekly Bulletin, March 23, March 30, and April 6, 1961. In this speech U Nu lauded the Army for its role against the Kuomintang “aggressors”, upbraiding the latter for joining forces with the Shan and Karen rebels and insisted that the United States put a stop to the Kuomintang activity in Burma.

8 The Guardian, October 20, 1960.

9 Ibid., February 13, 1961.

10 The Nation (Rangoon), 08 28, 1960Google Scholar.

11 The New York Times, November 9, 1960.

12 The Guardian, January 22, 1961.

13 See editorial, “Shan Rebellion”, The Nation, August 27, 1959.

14 See The New York Times, February 12, 1960; The Nation, March 7, 1960; The Guardian, April 19, 1960.

15 The Nation, August 27, 1960.

16 “Elusive Peace”, editorial, The Guardian, December 28, 1960.

17 Burma Weekly Bulletin, March 2, 1961. The Burmese press unanimously condemned the United States and KMT throughout January and February. During March–April, the United States and Thailand again helped to evacuate considerable numbers of KMT's. The first group numbered about 1200 (The New York Times, March 15, 1961). They were to be followed by about 4 to 5,000 more (The Guardian, March 17, 1961).

18 The Guardian, April 1, 1961.

19 Burma Weekly Bulletin, March 8, 1962.

20 The most recent and fullest account of the KNDO-Shan-KMT combination, known as the National Liberation Alliance will be found in The Guardian, June 18–20, 1962.

21 This will be found in Is Trust Vindicated? A Chronicle of the Various Accomplishments of the Government Headed by General Ne Win During the Period of Tenure from November 1959 to February 6, 1960 (Rangoon, 1960), pp. 534–541Google Scholar. All other reference to the policies, decisions, and acts of the Revolutionary Council noted above are taken from the Burma Weekly Bulletin, March 8 to May 31, 1962. The Burmese Way To Socialism has since been followed by the Philosophy or ideological statement of the Revolutionary Council and its Party. This statement is a composite of Kropotkin (mutual aid) Marx, Engels, and Buddhism in fairly classical and simplified versions. The text was published in The Nation, January 18, 1963. For a recent review article see, von der Mehden, Fred R., “The Burmese Way to Socialism”, Asian Survey, III (03, 1963), 129–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 See Editorial, “Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia”, The Nation (Rangoon), 03 11, 1963Google Scholar, for a typical expression, appearing frequently, if irregularly, over the years, of Burmese caution about Communist China's “aggressive policies”.

23 Even a casual reading of Johnson, John J. (ed.), Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar reveals the extraordinary number of variables, including the unpredictability of individual leaders, which at this stage points up the gaps in our knowledge. The easy generalizations in this volume concerning modernizing effects, substitute bureaucracies, failure of civilian authorities, and the like, merely give names to the problems to be studied and even these names contain many patent and latent ambiguities.