Aung San

Aung San (1940s)

Statue of Aung San on the north bank of Lake Kandawgyi in Rangoon

Bogyoke Aung San ( Burmese ဗိုလ်ချုပ် အောင်ဆန်; born February 13, 1915 in Natmauk (today Magwe Division , Myanmar ), British India ; † July 19, 1947 in Rangoon ) was commander of the Burma Independence Army (BIA) and president of the Anti- Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL). Today he is a Burmese national hero. His title is Bogyoke , which means Supreme Military Leader .

Aung San became known as a radical student leader during the 1930s. In 1939 he founded the Communist Party of Burma (Communist Party of Burma). A year later he went to the Republic of China to study the Communist Party there. He arrived in the Japanese- occupied Amoy , from where he was sent to Tokyo and received the hospitality of the military government. In 1941, Aung San secretly returned to Burma to win like-minded people for military training in Japan.

Thirty young men who came to be known as Thirty Comrades went to Japan under Aung San's leadership and received military training there; Among them were the future Prime Minister U Nu and the later ruler Ne Win . With 28 of them, Aung San returned via Thailand in December 1941 . He set up an army to fight for Burmese independence, which initially fought alongside the Japanese, who had promised Burma independence in August 1943. When the Japanese promises turned out to be false, Aung San and his army switched sides and in March 1945 declared war on the Japanese. This aroused the interest of the Allied Commander-in-Chief in Southeast Asia , Lord Louis Mountbatten .

After the end of World War II in Asia , Aung San led the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL). In the political struggle for independence he was supported by a paramilitary force as well as by Mountbatten, who got the British government to make concessions to the young politician. Aung San negotiated several key treaties that led to Burma's independence from Great Britain on January 4, 1948. However, he did not live to see it again: on July 19, 1947, he and six other members of the Executive Council, including his older brother U Ba Win, were shot during a cabinet meeting in Rangoon. The five riflemen and the ringleader U Saw , Prime Minister of the former colonial government, were hanged in January 1948 . U Nu succeeded Aung San as AFPFL party leader.

Aung San married Daw Khin Kyi in 1942. Her daughter Aung San Suu Kyi , the youngest child from this marriage after her brothers Aung San Oo (lives in the USA) and Aung San Lin (died at the age of eight), is the best-known fighter for democracy in Myanmar. In 1991 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment . In 2016, after more than 50 years of rule by various armed forces, she finally managed to lead a democratic government together with the new President Htin Kyaw as state advisor and foreign minister.

Web links

Commons : Aung San  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Aung San in the catalog of the German National Library
• Aung San of Burma - website with photos, speeches, résumé (English)