U Saw
British Burma | |
|---|---|
| In office 1940 – 19 February 1942 | |
| Preceded by | Maung Pu |
| Succeeded by | Paw Tun |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Saw 16 March 1900 Daw Pann (mother) |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Galon Army |
in January 1948. He was executed by hanging for this assassination.
Early life and education
U Saw was born on 16 March 1900 in
Political career
A lawyer by training, U Saw first made his name by defending
Upon his return to
U Saw had attended, with
In January 1947, U Saw and the Socialist leader Thakin Ba Sein were the only members of the delegation to London, headed by Aung San, to negotiate with the British government for Burmese independence, who refused to sign the Aung San-Attlee Agreement.[1] Also by 1947, political parties had set up their own militia including Aung San's Pyithu Yèbaw Tat (People's Volunteer Organisation or PVO; ပြည်သူ့ရဲဘော်တပ်), and U Saw too formed his own pocket army called the Galon tat (Garuda Militia, ဂဠုန်တပ်) to commemorate his defence of the Galon rebel prisoners.[1] The former British Governor Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith had appeared to favour older pre-war politicians such as U Saw and Sir Paw Tun, whose popularity was now at a low ebb.[1] The new Governor, Sir Hubert Rance, along with Lord Mountbatten of Burma, however, decided to back Aung San and the AFPFL, inviting them to join the Executive Council in order to calm the post-war political unrest.[1]
Crime and punishment
On 19 July 1947, a gang of armed paramilitaries broke into the Secretariat Building in downtown Rangoon during a meeting of the Executive Council (the shadow government established by the British in preparation for the transfer of power) and assassinated Aung San and six of his cabinet ministers; a cabinet secretary and a bodyguard were also killed. The evidence clearly implicated U Saw as the ringleader. U Saw and eight others behind the incident were arrested by the British authorities, and tried before a special tribunal set up by Sir Hubert Rance, the British colonial governor. U Saw was found guilty and sentenced to death on December 30, 1947. After Burma became independent in January 1948, the Burmese authorities decided to carry out the verdict of the British court, and in March 1948, the Rangoon High Court rejected his claims that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction and requests for a new trial, and upheld the death sentence.[3] He was executed by hanging at Insein Jail on 8 May 1948. U Saw was buried, according to custom, in an unmarked grave within the prison.
Many mysteries still surround the assassination. There were rumours of a conspiracy involving the British — a variation on this theory was given new life in a documentary broadcast by the BBC on the 50th anniversary of the assassination in 1997. What did emerge in the course of the investigations at the time of the trial, however, was that several low-ranking British officers had sold guns to a number of Burmese politicians, including U Saw. Shortly after U Saw's conviction, Captain David Vivian, a British Army officer, was sentenced to five years imprisonment for supplying U Saw with weapons. Captain Vivian escaped from prison during the Karen uprising in Insein in early 1949. Little information about his motives was revealed during his trial or after the trial.[4]
See also
- Burmese Martyrs' Day
- History of Burma
References
- ^ a b c d e f Martin Smith (1991). Burma - Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. London and New Jersey: Zed Books. pp. 91, 73–74, 77, 92, 65, 69.
- ^ ISSN 0026-749X.
- ^ U Saw Must Die, Burma Court Rules
- ^ "Who Killed Aung San? - an interview with Gen. Kyaw Zaw". The Irrawaddy. August 1997. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
- Maung Maung, A Trial in Burma: the assassination of Aung San
- Kin Oung, Eliminate the Elite - Assassination of Burma's General Aung San & his six cabinet colleagues. Uni of NSW Press. Special edition - Australia 2011. ISBN 978-0-646-55497-6
- Politics in Late Colonial Burma: The Case of U Saw
External links
- Who really killed Aung San? Vol 1 on , 19 July 1997
- Newspaper clippings about U Saw in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
