RESISTANCE: A BITTER EXPERIENCE FOR THE MON PEOPLE
(By Sunthorn Sripanngern)

Fifty-five years ago on the full-moon day of Khadosoi (Wagaung in Burmese)
the Mon political community in Burma transformed overnight into an armed
resistance organization and took up arms against the Burmese regime.

At 6:30 on the morning of August 19, 1948, 27 young men led by Nai Pan Tha
and Bo Thein looted a police station and grabbed 3 machine guns at Saplang
(Zarthabyin) village, in the east of Moulmein. It paved the way for the Mon armed struggle, a sometimes-troubled resistance movement; the event
marked the Mon National Resistance Day.

Following this triumphant occupation of Saplang, the militant group hijacked all passenger cars and boats from Moulmein to Kyonkado. Accordingly they continued to round up arms at different police stations throughout the region such as Koh Kun, Koh Panaw, Phaekata and Thon-Eing villages. On the next day they moved on to Koh Kyaik, Koh Hlaik, Majee-Kyun, Kin-Ywa, Wae Jee and Lat Pan Villages and seized all arms from the militias. The more they got the better; it was for reinforcement and they managed to get away with 250 weapons over two days. However, most of the Mon political leaders at that time, such as Nai Hla Maung, Nai Shwe Kyin, Nai Ngwe Thein, Nai Thein Maung and Ms. Mi Hongsar did not join in with the newly formed armed group.

Why did the Mon people take up arms and spend their lives in the jungle?
Successive Burmese governments have always accused the ethnic nationalities
of splitting up the union, but never accepted any of their own mistakes. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Moegote just a few days before she and her party members were violently attacked on May 30, 2003 said: "Wise people see their own faults, but the unwise don’t. Every people make mistakes, the matter is that when they see their mistakes they don’t hesitate to correct them right away." This is in accordance with Buddhist philosophy. Moreover, the Buddha taught us to see the cause of a problem and to solve or cease it from being.

The cultural, social and political problems in Burma today were years in the making, it all started in 1947 before the British granted independence; it sparked a liberation movement within the country that split the Burmese Army. In February 1947, a conference on drafting a constitution organized by Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) was held in which the United Mon Association (UMA) of the Mon and the Karen Nation Union (KNU) of the Karen people were excluded from participating. However, Mon Pho Cho, the leader of UMA officially requested at the following parliament assembly to spare for 6 constituencies and one minister to represent the Mon people, but it was refused by the AFPFL. So the UMA and KNU boycotted the April 9, 1947 election to the Constitution Assembly.

Even without ethnic Mon and Karen participation, the AFPFL faced conflict from within. After the election, competing power interests among the Communist Party of Thakhin Thein Pe Myint, Socialist of Kyaw Nyein and Pyithu-Yebaw led by General Aung San surfaced and challenged the stability of the party and the country. Eventually the Communist Party members of Thakhin Thein Pe Myint were forced to quit the AFPFL. Apart from the AFPFL, Galon U Saw's Party, a jealous government rival to General Aung San was also seeking to establish a power base. Despite the setbacks, the AFPFL successfully called for the First Parliament Assembly and adopted the Constitution for the first time in Burma’s history. Shortly after, Galon U Saw, was shot while driving his car in Rangoon and escaped with minor injuries, he later suspected General Aung San as shooting him to
counter his move to regain power. Galon U Saw was an educated lawyer who had been appointed by the British as interim Prime Minister of Burma, but was
succeeded by General Aung San. The attempted assassination on Galon U Saw
sealed the fate of Aung San.

Three months after the election, on July 19, 1947, at 10:37 in the morning Prime Minister Aung San was assassinated together with half of his cabinet members namely, Minister U Ba Khaing, U Ba Win, Thakhin Mya, Sao San Tun, U Razat, U Ba Cho, Secretary U Ohn Maung and a body-guard Ko Htwe. U Nu succeeded as the AFPFL leader and became the prime minister designate and formed the government comprised of Sao Shwe Thaike, Shan national, as President, U Nu as Prime Minister, Saw Kun Cho as Foreign Minister, U Kyaw Nyein as Interior, Gen. Hla Kyaw as Defense, Gen. Smith Dun as Army Chief Commander, Ministers of Chin Division, Kachin State, Shan State and Kayah State respectively.

When Burma achieved independence on January 4th, 1948 at 4:20 am, the U Nu
Government imposed a law of land reform titled "Myay-yar Thee-sar Chatharyay
U-Paday" (Land Reform Act). But it proved disappointing for the majority of the population; the farmers were allowed to have only 10 acres of land per family.The Board of Land Reform approved up to 50 acres only for its AFPFL members. The Communist Party condemned the law and organized a "Farmers Conference"
in Pyinmanar. In the Mon area, particularly in the Chaungzon and Paung Townships, the land reform board confiscated thousands acres of land from the farmers and allocated it to their party members, the Mons were pushed aside and left with 10 acres for each family without compensation.

To represent the farmers, the Mon activists formed Mon Affairs Organization; it held a conference in Pha-auk near Moulmein and attracted more than twenty
thousand people from as far as Mergui in the south and Rangoon in the north
that lasted for 5 days. The MAO received about one thousand letters from farmers complaining about land confiscation. In the paddy fields the farmers led by MAO faced off the authorities of the land reform board. This first confrontation was called "Tundong Taik Pwe" in Chaungzong Township in June 1948. It was expected that the government would plan systematically to suppress any protesting farmers particularly its leaders.

On April 28, 1948, the government announced that the Burma Communist Party
was an illegal party. As a result, Thakhin Soe moved underground in Phar Pon
and Day-Daye Township while Thakhin Than Tun was active in the north. Within the AFPFL government, tensions grew among the groups of Ba Swe, Kyaw Nein of the socialist Party, Thakhin Tin, Thakhin Kyaw Dun of Farmers Union, Thakhin Lwin, Thakhin Chit Maung of Workers Union and Bo Hmu Pho Kun, Bo Hmu Aung of Pyi-Thu Yebaw. It seemed flames of fire surrounded U Nu; however he was beloved by the majority of the Burmese population.Later on Pyi-Thu Yebaw split into two groups, led by Bo Hmu Pho Kun as Yebaw Byu (White Flag) and Bo Hmu Aung as Yebaw Waa (Yelow Flag).

The first group was an illegal group while the second group remained within the government. Members of the illegal group were fervent nationalists and dead set against the ethnic nationalities of ever having a share of power in Burma; they spread throughout the Mon area and waged a war over the Mon people. With gang-like behavior they killed many Mon activists and leaders who opposed the government's policy. Some were gunned down in the middle of town in broad daylight. In January 1949, the Socialist group in front of the post office in Moulmein gunned down Nai San Thu, who was in charge of the farmer affairs of Mon National Defense Organization (MNDO), while driving his horse cart. Nai Ngwe Gein was gunned down at the Mudon railway station.

There were three prominent Yebaw Byu leaders who committed various crimes in the Mon area, namely Yebaw Thein Pe in Moulmein area, Yebaw U Thwin in
Kyaikmaraw area and Yebaw Thein Zan in Mudon area. They not only killed the
local people, but also targeted foreigners especially nurses at the Moulmein
Hospital, government authorities accused the Mon activists for these crimes.
Nai Tun Thein (the present Chairman of MNDF, former Kyaikkhamee Provisional Education Director) had to join in with the Mon armed group in the jungle because he was wrongly accused of kidnapping a nurse from Moulmein Hospital, she was later killed at a forest place in Thar-yar Gon Village not far from Moulmein (which I will discuss below). This kind of action has never been in the past history of Mon State, so it left a saying among the local people as "pyan-bay asa Thein Pe ka” which means, "Kidnapping has begun by Thein Pe, the head of Yebaw Byu in Moulmein area”.

My father told me this cruel personal account. In February 1950, a group of
bandits had kidnapped Miss Sellma Martha Maxville (native of Mississippi, USA), the executive of Moulmein Hospital on her way back to Kamar Wet
Village. They brought her through the paddy fields far west and put her in a hut. During a dry season after harvest time, the farmers don’t stay in the farms. Unexpectedly, a cowherd came nearby the hut and saw Miss Maxville (also known as Bo-Ma) with iron chains locked around her wrists and fixed to the post of the hut, but the cowherd could not help as he had no tools to cut the post. So he rushed back to the village and informed the village headman (Nyaung Gon Village). Nai Pan Ja (uncle of Ven. Vedhanyana, the Abbot of Asia Buddhist Society, Canberra, Australia), then village headman accompanied by about two dozen villagers brought tools and two bullocks and rushed to the place. They arrived at the hut around midnight.

Bo-Ma said to the villagers: "Oh my dear sons, why are you so brave, you know they (bandits) all have machine guns, it is dangerous". (Miss Maxville spoke the Mon language). The villagers cut down the wooden post of the hut, then put Bo-Ma on a bullock cart and returned back to the village.

They arrived at the railroad at dawn where members of Yebaw Byu led by Thein
Zan were waiting; they fired machine gun rounds into the bullock cart carrying Bo-Ma and the whole group. It was on February 23, 1950, when Bo Ma died on the bullock cart with iron chains still locked on her wrists, along with 14 of herescuers, villagers, including the village headman, most were killed, but some were able to escape (some of them are still alive today).

Later on the local villagers decided to build a pagoda in front of their village, they named it "Lwun Zedee", which means Pagoda of Remembrance, in memory of those who were killed by the Burmese Yebaw Byu. The site is situated on the side of the main motor road, about 3 miles south of Mudon.

For future generations, we add to the memory of those who sacrificed their lives for social justice.Pyan-bay asa Thein Pe ka (Kidnapping has begun by Thein Pe);
Thein Zan tortured American lady;Than Shwe tortured Aung San Suu Kyi;The Mon people pray at Lwun Zedee for democracy in Burma.

Author’s Note:

In 1974, a young NMSP leader Nai Kyan Sein (elder brother of author) was killed during the four cuts operation by troops of the Ne Win government near the place where Miss Maxville was held. In a brutal act to intimidate the villagers, the Burmese soldiers then brought the head of the freedom fighter and showed it to public and his ailing father who was in detention at Mudon.