Ne Win’s Political Ideology: One Culture, One Economy, One Military (1967–1989)

Abstract

This chapter summarizes Ne Win’s political ideology, which might be called “Ne Winism,” and describes how the ideology came to permeate Burma/Myanmar institutions. Ne Win’s philosophy emerged out of an understanding of Buddhist leadership, and Marxist doctrine, which in the hands of the army resulted in the violent Four Cuts campaigns in which the army sought to dominate highland areas. In response, ethnics developed their own doctrines emphasizing their own consciousness relative to the Tatmadaw and their policies. The odd result is two sets of doctrines, out of which a shared “cohesion in oppression” emerges, in which the dominated highlanders can define themselves only relative to Burmese military policies and vice versa.

Deny the water to the fish and the water buffalo swimming in the pool of water hyacinth.—General Ne Win

1 From Buddhist Destiny (Barami) to Four Cuts

1.1 One Culture, One Economy, One Military

In 1962, Ne Win named his military government the Revolutionary Council (RC) and assumed dictatorial political power. U Chit Hlaing, the Marxist, assisted him in presenting the philosophy known as Burmese Socialism a few short months later. Using the charts and graphs of central planners, Ne Win began constructing the ideological foundation for his regime. The short- and long-term plan was rooted in an identity that emphasized Bamar Buddhist and concentrated power in Rangoon in the military government. Administrators habituated to army discipline from their years fighting the British, Japanese, Communists, and Karen would run the civilian bureaucracies. From this leadership emerged policies emphasizing one culture, one economy, and one military. The specific policies for Burmese hegemony emphasized first ethnic assimilation, accommodation of modest differences among assimilated minorities, and alienation of those deemed unsuitable for accommodation in the new Burma.

1.1.1 Burmese Buddhist Cultural Identity and Burmanizing the Country

General Ne Win was a military man first, and a politician only later. He was also a man raised in the Burmese heartland, cultivated at the University of Rangoon, and then swept into an army established with principles established by the invading Japanese/BIA forces. In World War II as a commander under General Aung San, Ne Win made quick decisions about loyalty, trust, life, and death. The men he fought with, trusted, and promoted came from the same Burmese-speaking heartland and looked to him to recreate a world in which military discipline would protect not only themselves from enemies, but the nation as well. As veteran soldiers they were of course always careful of those they did not know—betrayal was always a danger—the remembered the British gallows were active during the colonial era Saya San rebellion of the 1930s. Ne Win’s soldiers and their Japanese Allies also drew the hatred of the Karen families they brutally massacred after 1942. And then in 1944–1945, they betrayed their Japanese patrons and entered into an alliance with the hated British, who at the end of the war betrayed Aung San and Ne Win by refusing to grant the independence they sought, and even briefly issued arrest warrants. As many as a million Burmese and invaders died in the three years that Burma was used as a battlefield by the Axis and Allied powers—fighting over British India. The level of distrust was so high that the Burmese were easily convinced that the assassination of Aung San and his cabinet was orchestrated by the British. And perhaps they were right at some level.

In this context, in 1948, the Karen military units, the Burmese Communist Party commanded by compatriots Thakin Soe and Than Tun, and other ethnic units turned on Ne Win and his Tatmadaw, pushing them into Rangoon. The war turned, and in 1950, the government of U Nu created a semblance of control, particularly over the areas of the central plains in the Bamar-speaking heartland. Such was the crucible of betrayals in which Ne Win created policy following the 1962 coup. At the heart of this first was a Burmese Buddhist identity, sons of the soil, born to rule in the militant traditions of great kings of whom the martyred Aung San was the most recent. English, Karen, Kachin, Communist, Indian, and other identities would be eliminated. All would be Burmese. Burmese identity and their Bamar language would dominate schools, and implementation for all policies would be brought under the direct command of trusted military officers, The military would effectively command politics.

1.1.2 Ne Win’s Nation Building Begins: Buddhism Plus Politics

To put a softer face on the military’s tactics, Ne Win used Buddhism to further his political aims after 1962, even though he did not have the personal commitment to Buddhist practice of his civilian predecessor U Nu. So while borrowing U Nu's plan for building the country with Buddhist identity (U Nu 2012: 198–199), General Ne Win, announced a proposal that Buddhism would be combined with socialism as a basis for government policy (Taylor 2009: 297). It was convenient too that conservative strains of Buddhism legitimated the power of kings and the importance of authority.

Ne Win started his nation-building project by modifying the country's map, creating seven “states” each assigned to a particular “national race,” and seven “divisions” covering much of the central part of the country where just the Bamar population lived. This was putatively a nod to federalism, but in fact, it was a deceptive move, with six of the seven “races” assumed under the principle of Taingytha to be variatiations of the dominant Burmese race. The capital of Rangoon remained at the center of the country, and power flowed to and from the army headquarters there. The state governments remained under military rule, and Ne Win reserved to himself the power to appoint the ethnic governors, who were typically assimilated army officers.

Notably, there was no formal Bamar state even though Ne Win claimed that Bamar nationality was only one nationality of eight. But in the Bamar center of the country, over 60% of the population remained at the center of the dictatorship. The seven states and seven divisions gave the illusion of federalism (Khine Lin 2015: 73). The seven states gave the illusion of autonomy and were mainly on the frontiers surrounding the seven divisions. The new map reflected the essence of “we-ness” of the Bamar vs. the others who were ethnic (see Winichakul 1994: 169).

Economic and political nationalization followed as the second step after the coup; The existing ethnic, and national institutions, including those in the new states, were nationalized. Under the centralized Ministry of Education in Yangon, Ne Win Burmanized all the schools with Burmese-language instruction (Taylor 2015: 275–276). The Burmese language became the medium and was an official language in both education and government offices. All the government school textbooks were based on Burmese culture; and ethnic cultures were accommodated only as appendages of the Burmese culture (Yay 2018: 201). Burma’s nationhood was re-imagined as a Bamar-centric with no other salient identity or essence. Ne Win asserted he was “decolonizing” and restor ancient unitary essence as rooted in the new narrative. The assertion was that Burma had been “one race” before the British arrived in 1824, and would once again be one people after the British departed. The English language was de-emphasized, and ethnic language instruction was discontinued.¹ To implement the Burmese Way to Socialism, they promoted Burmese from the first grade, irrespective of mother tongue brought to first grade, as Saw Eh Htoo himself recalled.

The socialist regime also eliminated English and the ethnic languages from their administrative system. Henceforth, all government documents were to only be in Burmese. In this fashion, General Ne Win reformed the systems that were inherited from the colonial system.

1.2 The Monkhood

Ne Win asserted control over the monkhood, with its potential for revolt. The Burmese monkhood was a large institution scattered around the country and which received loyalty from the masses. Indeed the army and the monkhood were the only national institutions, at independence, and both were potentially powerful. During the British colonial time, the monkhood was the earliest source of revolt against the colonial authority. During the U Nu years, the monkhood had an elevated status due to U Nu’s personal interest in Buddhism; indeed, U Nu had entered the monkhood several times by the time of the 1962 coup and was known for taking extended religious retreats from his government duties.

But for Ne Win, the monkhood was also a threat to his legitimacy, which is why he sought to control it. Ne Win attempted to register all monks in the 1960s in an attempt to institutionalize and centralize the monkhood (Charney 2009: 119). Sects that sustained themselves outside this structure were quickly labeled heretical (Aung-Thwin and Aung-Thwin 2012 253; Taylor 2009: 357–360). But Ne Win also saw Buddhism as a counterbalance to that too (Ministry of Defense 1994: 4; Charney 2009: 102). Thus, even though he preferred to build a secular state, monks were a political opportunity as well. Monks played their role as the sons of Buddha, who protected and carried out the teaching of Dhamma and guided the Buddhists on how to live their lives spiritually, particularly with respect for government authority.

Embedding Burmese Buddhism into the national identity reunited the Bamar Buddhist community, creating a sharp demarcation between “us and them.” In this world, the “we” became the people who lived under the light, a legal people. The insurgents were living in the darkness, whether they were of a different ethnicity or Communist origin; they were the illegal people. The division of this territory between states and division, in fact, gave advantages to the Bamar population; their areas were larger than their presence on the ground, and the non-Bamar group was hemmed in by the artificial borders of the new states, which were called Shan, Kachin, Karenni/Kaya, Mon, Karen/Kayin, Chin, and Rakhine/Arakan.

1.3 Barami

Burmese Buddhists believed in Karma, which is the doctrine of cause and consequence in the life cycle and is linked to Sakyar Wada (Nyo Mya 2003:146–158). A ruler is assumed to have completed their good actions in previous lives and advanced to a higher level in their afterlife, in preparation for kingship. This legitimizes ruler, and it becomes the duty of the people to accept the ruler as the one pre-destined to the task. Finding the next leader is done by recognizing the context of personal virtues, heroism, observing bloodlines, and the emergence of personal leadership qualities that reflect virtues cultivated in previous lives.

The leader himself comes forth as a result of Barami, which is the personal quality of one who commands. Sometimes this is translated as “charisma,”² but this is not quite enough. Barami is a personal power that emerges as a result of Karma, and in Buddhist art appears as a halo around the head of the leader. The point was that Barami, assumes to be a unique capacity to lead and make final decisions is not learned through training or study in the current life, such as is found in a Master’s in Public Adminitration Program, or even a military academy. One is born with Barami, and in Burmese tradition, this is where the power of the king came from. For General Ne Win, he assumed that he had inherited it from the previous Kings. In more recent decades, it can perhaps be said that Aung San and his daughter Aung San Suu Kyi were born with the power of Barami. Recognition of Barami, and whoever holds it, leads to a stable but conservative governance.³

1.4 Burmese Way to Socialism and Centralized Economic Reform

During U Nu's first AFPFL government (1948–1958), state policy encouraged foreign investment and private ownership of property, in a nod to laissez-faire capitalism. Foreign-owned companies ran their business in post-independent Burma as a legacy of British colonialism, particularly those dealing with rice production, teak production, gems, oil, and natural resources exploitation. State-controlled economic activities were limited. Ne Win nationalized every foreign company under his economic plan (Mya Maung, 1991: 118; Myat Khine, 2009: 35; Kyi Sein Win 2020: 232). Among the giants nationalized were Steel Brothers Company, East Asiatic Burmah Oil Company, the banks, and trading houses (Holmes 1967: 190).

Finally, mass repatriations of foreigners began, particularly of Indians brought by the British to manage businesses and operate the colony's administrative apparatus, Chinese businesspeople, Anglo-Burmese, and European Christian missionaries. The population of Indians was substantial; before World War II, Indians dominated Rangoon trade, and even in 1962, they still controlled a large share. In this context, strong distinctions between Burmese, foreigners, and ethnics emerged. Ne Win framed this as a citizenship issue, in which there was a binary opposition between Burmeseness and non-Burmeseness.

The nationalization of Burmese socialist economic reform did not stop with appropriating Indian and Chinese business activities; relentlessly nationalized were any institutions supported by foreign countries, including Christian missionary schools and hospitals, social service agencies, and religious organizations. For ethnics, the nationalization of the schools sponsored by Protestant missions and the Roman Catholic Church was particularly traumatic, because it effected the mother-tongue-based ethnic schools which after 1962 were moved to the Bamar-dominated Ministry of Education in Rangoon. The new policies meant that these schools became Burmese medium schools. Government subsidies and recognition of Karen, Shan, Kachin, Mon, and other ethnic curricula were withdrawn.

General Ne Win and his military officers actually began implementing these economic policies after conducting the first coup in 1958. Colonel Aung Gyi, who was the Army's deputy commander, designed the economic planning during that short period (General Maung Maung 2018: 224–249). When U Nu returned in 1960–1962, he reversed Ne Win’s decisions. But after Ne Win’s second coup in 1962, the military resumed the program of economic nationalization. Brigadier General Tin Pe planned these efforts, which included a focus on the nationalization of the private sector, placing them into administration by military-dominated ministries. Military officers who owned the remaining private companies were favored for contracting and stock options (Charney 2009: 123).

The social and economic reforms began in Rangoon’s ministries. This exacerbated animosity between ethnic Bamar and the remaining ethnic people. Burmese cultural, belief systems, and social practices were privileged above others. Everywhere, Ne Win put ethnic Bamar at the center, resulting in a Bamar chauvinism known as “Maha Lu Myo,” which means superior race. If anyone did not support the newly nationalized economic system, access to business opportunities became difficult. The Chinese and Indians remain were compromised and assimilated in the neo-Burmese.

1.5 Burmese Military Doctrine as Driving Force for Burmanization

When Ne Win assumed state power, he applied what he knew from the military command structure across the bureaucracy. He did not want a multiparty system with competition for power which he viewed as inefficient, and made achieving his political goals more difficult. Ne Win’s one-party government system was rooted in an assumption of military-like command and obedience Ne Win first learned about from the Japanese during World War II. Militaries have a fundamentally different way of approaching tasks—there is a military mindset, as Eh Htoo used to tell me, which means that the officers do not readily seek diverse voices, and then consensus. That is what democratic parliamentarians seek, not military officers protecting national sovereignty. Almost every cabinet member Ne Win appointed had a military service background, and a mindset created in the fulcrum of military academies, and military campaigns in the hostile highlands of Burma (Kyi Sein Win 2020: 140–145).

Callahan (2003: 8) emphasized that post-war Burmese regimes were made up of warfighters who never mastered the art of politics well enough to win a single free election, a record they continued to maintain by losing in 1960, 1990, 2012, 2015, and 2020. In spite of electoral defeat and widespread domestic and international reprobation, military rule endured. The military pushed through plans they believed would restore the glory of the Burmese kingdoms of the past, while eliminating enemies which threatened those plans. They continue to see only the military as the single institution capable of protecting national sovereignty.

Ne Win described the role of Tatmadaw in “The Policy Declaration of the Revolutionary Council,” in which the role of defense service is as follows:

The existing Defense Services will also be developed to become national armed forces which will defend our socialist economy. (BSPP 1964b: 48)

Beginning about 1959 after the 1958 semi-coup, the military junta began calling itself “the guardian government,” and the military published an instructional book called “The National Ideology and The Role of the Defense Services.” It was written that the Burma Army (Tatmadaw) will not allow any party dictatorship or rebels to harm the Constitution of the Union (Ministry of Defense 1959: 12). Money from the government coffers poured into the development of military training facilities, weapons procurement, and offensives against remote ethnic armies.

1.5.1 Anti-insurgency Doctrines

After the 1962 coup, Ne Win strengthened the military authority and redesigned it to become the backbone of politics. His military modernization started with national armed forces, also known as the People’s Army (Pyithu Tatmadaw) and Socialist Army. He declared that this Tatmadaw would protect the Burmese Way to Socialism (Pyithu Tatmadaw Book series 5905, 1974: 177). Transforming the Burma Army to the “People Army,” the Ne Win government educated the military officers; and they began incorporating political training programs into the military curriculum (Maung Aung Myoe 2009: 24; Pyithu Tatmadaw 1974: 178).

In the “Affairs of People Army,” which was published in a restricted edition, it was declared that the People Army's fundamental objective was to protect the socialist life of the people against invaders, whether they were from the inside or outside (Tatmadaw Information Committee, n.d.: 7). The transformation of the State Army to Pyithu Tatmadaw (People Army), the following basic logic was understood (Pyithu Tatmadaw Book, pp. 183–184).

• 1. Our Pyithu Tatmadaw was born from the people.

• 2. Our Pyithu Tatmadaw always put people’s interests first place.

• 3. Our Pyithu Tatmadaw always follows the political leadership of BSPP.

• 4. Our Pyithu Tatmadaw always upgrades our political beliefs and our ability.

• 5. Our Pyithu Tatmadaw is mature in political and revolution transition and will stand as a People’s Army in the Burmese Socialist transition.

• 6. Our Pyithu Tatmadaw was built for and stands with the people’s interest.

• 7. Our Pyithu Tatmadaw will always protect and give life for the country and people.

The basic philosophy of Pyithu Tatmadaw was merged with the BSPP's philosophy. Ne Win spread “Burmese Socialism” throughout the defense organization and cultivated his military officers to run the country using these ideologies. Admission to the Burmese political sphere implied coming of age through the Tatmadaw’s training system, inherited from the Tatmadaw of the revered Aung San’s Thirty Comrades, the 1942 invasion of Burma, and the doctrines taught in physically and mentally demanding military academies. Becoming a military officer implied commitment to the Blue Book and the Burmese Way to Socialism.

Ne Win's Tatmadaw also sent military officers to study counterinsurgency with the goal of eliminating Communist rebels and ethnic rebels. Ne Win's army sent their officers all over the world seeking to modernize his Pyithu Tatmadaw. The military doctrine changed from fighting conventional warfare to fighting a “people's war,” and became accepted as military doctrine in 1965 (Maung Aung Myoe 2009: 23–25). People's war doctrine was later known as Four Cuts doctrine (Phyet-Lay-Phyet), which would terrorize the country for the next decades, and indeed continues to define Tatmadaw goals in the 2020s. The Four Cuts sought to cut food supply to the insurgents; to cut financing from villagers and the insurgents; to cut contacts (intelligence) between the people and the insurgents; and to make the people “cut off the insurgents” (Maung Aung Myoe 2009: 26).

General Saw Maung wrote a Burma Military History (Kyi Sein Win 2020: 564). This history emphasized that the ideal military soldier was the heir to traditions stretching back to the eleventh century. Being proud of Burmese history linked them to the Burmanized national unification project. Burmanizing the non-Burmese, continued as a mission as a military legacy. No one was above the military.

Those deemed to be rebels against the government were imprisoned arbitrarily. Political prisoners were sent to a prison colony in the Andaman Sea (Ko Ko Island) for a life sentence in prison (Kyae Mone U Thaung 1991: 91). Those released from the prison were under surveillance, and their livelihood activities restricted. The government created a system requiring recommendations for “good politics” from a local village leader known as “the quarter headmaster,” who was an officer in the military government who represented a block of about 300 families or the township headmaster. Such a recommendation was necessary for any government or private job. Without those recommendations, it was difficult to survive in the government-centralized economic system; private business was not allowed. Moreover, they created jus sanguis law to define Burman citizens and foreigners; people with foreign ancestry were not eligible for full citizenship; they were ineligible only for a temporary residence card (Khin Maung Kyaw 1971: 114–119). Most affected by this law are Pakistani and Indian descendants who came to Burma with the British and a few Chinese from the mainland (Khin Maung Kyaw 1971: 28, 43).

1.5.2 Four Cuts Military Doctrine

Ceasefire and peace agreements were the carrot for EAOs under Ne Win, but the harsh alternative was the counterinsurgency doctrine known as Four Cuts, which was designed to isolate civilian populations supporting Ne Win’s enemies. Four Cuts doctrines emerged from the attempts by central governments around the world to control restive rural populations. The British had conducted similar operations in Malaysia. The Yugoslavs successfully resisted invasions from Germany and Italy in World War II using such tactics, and the Israelis had by the 1960s seemingly pacified the Palestinian population with anti-insurgency programs.

The Tatmadaw’s Four Cuts campaigns are notorious within Burma. They began in the 1960s, and to a large extent are the military doctrine shaping Tatmadaw since.⁴ The Four Cuts reflect counterinsurgency policies developed by British and American forces seeking to neutralize rural areas in Malaya, the Philippines, and later Vietnam. Villages under the control of the rebels are isolated, and they denied the four things needed to sustain insurgent operations: money, recruits, food, and intelligence. In practice, what this means is that civilian populations are attacked, so mass arrests can be made of males, villages burned, and civilian populations moved out of areas, and into displaced person camps, “strategic hamlets,” inside Burma, or in the case of Burma, refugee camps in Thailand and Bangladesh.

Four Cuts became necessary, the Tatmadaw believed, in the 1960s following increased activities on the Thai border by Karen and Shan groups, and along the northern Chinese border where the Burmese Communist Party, Kachin Independence forces, Shan forces, and others controlled territory. As Lintner (1999: 210–337) describes, the rebellious groups generated income from a range of activities, including jade production, opium production, and teak. Ethnic organizations like the KNU, and SSA taxed trade in such commodities at the Thai border, from where it left Burma for the world markets. Taiwanese and American aid to the Nationalist Chinese forces also continued and even involved reinforcement of the old Nationalist forces from Taiwan in the late 1960s. Chinese support was also provided to the Burmese Communist Party.

Callahan (2003: 223–224) wrote that the main goal of the Tatmadaw’s Four Cuts policy was to effectively depopulate the border regions by driving villagers into IDP camps inside Burma, or into neighboring Bangladesh or Thailand. Ne Win's Tatmadaw launched such operations against the Communists and ethnic armed organizations’ operation in 1960, but the major operations had been held in the 1970s. His military strategies included the Burmese metaphor: “deny the water to the fish and the buffalo swimming in the pond of water hyacinth,” which became known as people's war (Maung Aung Myoe 2009: 22). That strategy successfully eliminated the Burmese Communist Party (Major General Than Tin 2009), at least temporarily.

The story of the Burmese Communist Party, the main threat to Ne Win’s government from the 1960s until its collapse in 1989, has been well-told by Bertil Linter (1999) in English. The Party survived the deaths of its charismatic founders. A well-known Communist leader (BCP), Thakin Than Tun, died in 1968, and another Communist leader, known as Thakin Soe, surrendered in 1970 (Ministry of Defense, Military History 1994: 88).⁵ The ultimate demise of the BCP though was not due to Four Cuts policies. Rather it was due to a more traditional reason: infighting between factions, and reorganization into new armed “pocket armie”s in 1989. Anti-insurgency policies like Four Cuts did not particularly work in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Afghanistan where the Americans tried them. They did not work well in former British and French colonies either. The only places where they did work were perhaps in Thailand, Malaya, and a few other places where the harshest policies were abandoned, and replaced with large development programs, amnesties, and integration of rebels into the fabric of the nation.

Instead, Ne Win's military operations targeted civilians living in a rebellious area, reasoning that if there is water, there will be fish. With that tactic, the military relocated many villages to relocation sites; some fled from the military operation to the border areas, and many others to refugee camps on the Thai border.

2 The Ideological Response from the Ethnics

2.1 The Uses and Misuses of Ceasefires, 1962–1988

The Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) launched wars of resistance beginning with the Karen in 1948. But these EAOs did not conduct offensive wars. Rather they waited for the Burmese army to arrive in the highlands before striking. Such “self-defense” wars and restoration of the military government's political rights broke the Panglong agreement, leading to Ne Win’s insistence on forcible unification. Military governments starting with Ne Win offered peace pacts, but they did so while always seeking a way to eliminate the EAOs.

The quest to eliminate the EAOs was rooted firmly in Ne Win's nation-building plan which emphasized discipline, unification, sovereignty, and national solidarity. Ne Win's government collapsed in 1988, but his successors were still military generals from the culture of Myanmar’s military. They modified Ne Win's Burmese Socialist policies but continued to emphasize Burmanization and military control. As in the past, the combination still did not lead to peace and negotiation in Burma's politics.

Trust-building efforts between government and ethnic armed organizations did not typically last more than about three years during Ne Win’s time, and it became dogma to the EAOs that the government used peace negotiation as a strategic plan to dilute ethnic armed group activities, and disarm EAOs, rather than seek compromise (Win Tint Tun 2017: 357). It seemed that whenever peace talks were initiated, the government offered verbal promises to build peace, but the status quo deteriorated for the ethnic armed group. It became widely assumed that peace talks were merely military strategies for defeating the Ethnic Armed Organizations.

2.2 Identities: Burmese and Karen Political Counter-Grievance Narratives

The future Burmese nationalists witnessing King Thibaw's 1885 capture in Mandalay, and subsequent captivity in India established the Burmese identity. For them, the promotion of Burmese identity started with “Burmeseness” and was in contrast to the Karen, Muslims, Indians, and other plausible identities. Burmeseness was constructed with tangible and intangible artifacts. Historians and Burmese nationalists in colonial times constructed historical facts supporting the Burmeseness as a response to disgust with British rule (Maung Maung Gyi 1983: 72–74). As Anderson (1983/1991: 12–22) wrote, the roots of such nationalism come from such cultural roots, including religion and memories of ancient glorious kingdoms.

The intensification of Burmese identity and the reactive ethnicity of the non-Burmese ethnics created new identities which would have implications beyond independence. The Burmese considered the non-Burmese—especially the Karen, Kachin, and Chin—as British stooges. Thus, Tatmadaw nationalists sought to suppress the ethnic Karen, implementing Four Cuts campaigns beginning in the 1960s. The Karen living isolated in the highlands developed counter-narratives which were introduced in the KNU school system, and in the school systems established in the refugee camps in Thailand (see Thako and Waters 2023).

Recall that when Burma Independent Army (BIA) arrived in Burma with the Japanese, they crossed the Thai border and the Karen villages in Hpapun area, where they conducted massacres which today would be judged war crimes. The first massacre occurred in early 1942. They murdered the Karen villagers without mercy (Morrison 1947: 70–71). A second massacre took place in the Myaungmya during the Japanese imperial occupation (Maung Sin Kyae 2016: 53). Different narratives also emerged among the Karen and Burmese societies regarding the British colonial times, and Japanese occupation. These narratives underlie the seventy years of civil war in present-day Burma. But as Boulding (2000: 116–122) points out it is not surprising that the two different narratives both support violent culture. The rival narrative between Karen began in colonial times and continues post-independence.

Later, this narrative led to the demand for political rights and recognition of the Karen state. These followed what the Karen viewed as a betrayal by the British for an independent “Karenistan,” massive demonstrations for Karen independence, and the establishment of a formal Karen military independent of the new Tatmadaw. There four Karen political demands emerged including:

• 1. Establish Karen State immediately.

• 2. No Civil War.

• 3. No Ethnic Conflict.

• 4. Show Karen 1 Kyat-Burmese 1 Kyat (political equality between Karen and Burmese).

The fledgling independent Burma was vulnerable to mistrust, armed control, and ethnonationalism. As Ashley South (2008: 37) points out, the militant and secessionist Karen nationalist movement dominated discourse regarding Karen's place and future in Burma. This Karen liberation movement drew on San C. Poe's (1928) political narrative of the Karen people. San C. Poe (1870–1946) was educated by American missionaries in Burma and the United States distrusted the Burmese and anticipating Ne Win’s Burmanization policies, said “The Burmese people can never be a great nation, nor can they expect other nations to co-operate with them wholeheartedly unless and until they can eliminate the idea that they are superior in every respect to other nations and races” (San C. Poe, 2001: 19, p. 19). San C. Poe's Karen nationalism emphasized the need for the Karen to live free from Burmese domination and longing for the Karen Country (San C. Poe 2001: 77–84).

The post-independence period with Karen revolution started to demand political rights under the leadership of Karen National Union (KNU). Shortly before he was assassinated on August 12, 1950, by the Tatmadaw, Karen leader Saw Bao U Gyi asserted the following nationalistic principles, each of which reflected his view that the British had betrayed the Karen and the Burmese could not be trusted:

• 1. For us surrender is out of the question.

• 2. The recognition of Karen State must be completed.

• 3. We shall retain our arms.

• 4. We shall decide our own political destiny (Maung Sin Kyae, p. 119).

Such proclamations were dogma among the rebellious Karen in the 1960s–1980s justifying the KNU’s fight for self-determination and were a strong rebuttal to government claims to sovereignty.⁶ The demand continues today.

But, the national narrative of the first independent government, that of U Nu, still denounced the KNU as a rebel organization, after fighting between the KNDO and U Nu’s government led by the AFPFL party broke out in 1949. However, the AFPFL offered peacetalks with KNU three times. Each time, they did not reach an agreement. The AFPFL requested surrender and collaboration with the KNU. The KNDO leaders, KNU’s military wing, dismissed this demand, and the civil war started again. After the reply from the KNDO, the government started to open fire again, and the civil war continued, and more grievances were cultivated.⁷

Karen communities were divided into at least two groups: people living in the government control area and people living in the KNU-controlled area. The fear of imprisonment cut the communication between some families. However, Ne Win’s military did not achieved the acquiescence they sought, so repeatedly returned to the military means they knew and developed to a high level.

2.3 Other Ethno-nationalist Narratives and the Failure of Federalism: Shan, Rakhine, Mon, and Kachin

In Chapter 2, we wrote about the types of history. There are

• a. the official national narratives which tend toward hagiography, and

• b. more social histories written by academics, which rely more heavily on archival material, and step back from politics.

The story that the Burmese government created to justify Four Cuts and other policies is clearly the first type. For that matter, so are the ethnic histories that are created in the context of nationalism as expressed in ethnic institutions like the Karen National Union, Kachin Independence Army, and so forth.

Interactions between Bamar and non-Bamar peoples, particularly Shan, Rakhine, Mon, and Kachin were based on a plethora of ethno-nationalist narratives, resulting in parallel political aims and interests (see Gervais and Metro 2012). Bamar leaders from Ne Win’s Education Ministry never acknowledged the counter-narratives and pointed only to assimilation policies. But of course, the Karen, Kachin, Mon, Chin, Shan, and others non-Bamar refused to recognize the Bamar authorities’ identification of them as people with common origins with the Bamar, created as “separate” by the British.

The Shan princes whose ancestors arrived in northern Burma about the same time the Burmese arrived, remembered themselves as a great Buddhist civilization, which balanced loyalties at different times between great powers from Mandalay (Burma), Chiangmai (Thailand), Ayuddhaya and Bangkok (Thailand), and southern China. In Shan historical traditions, they were not necessarily the content subjects of the Bamar monarchs, which is how the Burmese remembered them.

As for the Karen, Kachin, Chin, Mon, and others, they viewed themselves as indigenous, having arrived before the Burmese intruded from the north in the tenth century CE. In their view, these non-Bamar peoples had a culture that the Bamar rulers absorbed, both in terms of governance and Buddhism.⁸

The Bamar, on the other hand, outnumber non-Bamars, resulting in their political strength in the modern era. These opposing narratives increased the tension between Bamar and non-Bamar ethnic groups after independence, particularly in a democratic world, where ethnic identity is equated with votes; the Bamar with  over 60% of the population saw themselves as the rightful majority with a right to rule. Bamar leaders lost confidence in non-Bamar ethnic groups during World War II and vice versa.⁹

Still, the division was not inevitable. The divided politics of the Burmese and non-Burmese were not apparent in the beginning when there was great excitement about independence. The Burmese leader, General Aung San, persuaded the ethnic leaders to unite for independence. Aung San’s wanted a united people to attain independence and began to create a new narrative for reflecting what can only be called a moral imagination by reframing old enmities (Lederach 2005: 13–19; 1999). Aung San’s definition of “Race and Nation” was mentioned in his speech in preparing the PaSaPaLa ( ) AFPFL Conference in 1947. Aung San thought other ethnic people could not build their own states, and the only thing was to collaborate with the Burmese.¹⁰

All seemed to agree with the principle of federalism at the time of Panglong, as the Chin leader Lian H. Sakhong (2010: 14–122) makes clear. However, in 1962, Ne Win still used as a reason to conduct his coup to end all such discussions, claiming that federalism was a threat to national unity. Ethnic armed organizations emerged from the catastrophe of the coup to resist the centralization of power in the hands of the military.

The Mon restarted the revolution with Mon National Defense Organization in 1949, later changing its name to the New Mon State Party (NMSP). NMSP later allied with other ethnic armed organizations to resist the Ne Win army with its Burmanization program (Nai Pan Tha 2014: 161–197). Mon politicians fought to revive the federal principle proposed in Panglong Conference, from which they wanted to build the nation with federal values (Nai Ngwe Thein 2015: 113). Mon also sought recognition of their identity and believed that their autonomy was justified as the heirs to the ancient Mon kingdom which had brought Buddhism to Burma. The Mon believe that the Bamar had destroyed their kingdom and their polity in 1757, a tyranny from which they were released by the initial British conquest of their homeland in 1825, and the final British conquest of Burma in 1886. Mon national celebrated a national day which assumes their kingdoms were established in AD 573. Juajan Wongpolganan (2007: 59) argued that Mon national created their cultural identity as a vision for self-determination.¹¹

Rakhine was also a marginal area dominated by Burma for only a short time before the arrival of the British in after the first Anglo-Burmese war of 1824–1825. They too resisted Ne Win’s Burmanization program, even though the Rakhine and Burmese have mutually intelligible languages. The Rakhine remember also suffering under Burmese monarchical rule; the oppressions of the Burmese kings are central in their narratives. Indeed, Burmese kings invaded Rakhine repeatedly, and conquered it finally only in 1784, a situation which was then reversed by British colonization in 1824–1825 (U Myint Saw 2018: 81–82). British rule continued until 1948.

The Rakhine leaders agreed to federalism in 1948 only as a way to bring autonomy and peace (Aye Thar Aung 2016: 174). In the context of Ne Win Burmanization policies of the 1960s, became impossible. The post-2021 rebel Arakan Army is among the strongest in Myanmar today. The new generation presumably prefers to have their own Rakhine army to save their nation (Maung Maung Soe 2020: 14–20). After a decade-long civil war between Arakan Army and Burmese Tatmadaw, Major General Tun Myat Naing, Arakan Army (AA) commander in chief, concluded, “We prefer [a confederation of state] like Wa state, which has a large share of power in line with the Constitution. And we think it is more appropriate to the history of Rakhine state and the hopes of the Arakanese people” (Nan Lwin Hnint Pwint 2019).

The Chin people live in the western part of Burma, near India. Their narratives emphasize their service with the British Army throughout the British colonial period. The British recognized the Chin of the King’s Chin Rifles, such as Won Thu Maung as particularly noteworthy. After independence, unlike the Karen, they became soldiers of the Burma Army and assisted the new Burmese government.

The Chin languages officially include more than fifty dialects. Many became Christian and a Christian education system was developed. The result was that their state was the least developed in post-1962 Myanmar. They were disappointed when the Burmese did not give them federal rights, and they formed their own army, The Chin National Front (CNF) which took up arms against the Tatmadaw in 1988. Thomas Tang No (2013: 109) asserted that Chin needed their own army to resist the Burmese army.¹²

2.4 The Victory of the Drug Traders

Ne Win would rule personally for 26 years. During that time, the Burmese economy retreated from the world stage, and as foreign researchers repeatedly noted, became one of the poorest in Asia and the world. Politically the Burmese Way to Socialism was ridiculed internationally, while also becoming embedded in an isolated Burmanized population which grew ever-fearful of outsiders.

As Ne Win’s supporters contended, this meant that the country never experienced the catastrophes of the post-colonial wars in Indochina, the massacres in Indonesia, the calamitous collapse of India at independence, or the misery of the Bangladeshi Revolution in 1971–1972. But it also created an isolated and fearful pariah state never able to achieve any of its ambitious  social and political goals, as it remained under the harsh rule of the highly centralized military government. Pariah status though was to be used as a response to the economic malaise in a strange way. Myanmar would become one of the most important sources of illicit opiate and methamphetamine production.

There was a strange kind of economic success in the north, which was in the rapid expansion of the economy and that was in the trade in opiates, heroin, and methamphetamine. Production of illicit products soared in both Burma and Afghanistan, despite American efforts to combat drug production. And each internal political crisis seemed to result in a further expansion. Ne Win’s 1962 coup led to aggressive attacks against rebels, and in turn, the expansion of poppy fields, and the creation of new heroin production labs. A major market of course was Vietnam where it was believed 10% of the US soldiers used heroin.¹³ The attempts of the DEA to control the drug trade led to the dubious honor of US indictments Khun Sa and Lo Hsing Han for drug dealing. In the early 1990s, Lo was the “Godfather of Heroin,” as the wanted posters put it.

The indictments though were never served, despite decades of cooperation between the US Drug Enforcement Agency, and the military government in Yangon. In the end, both Khun Sa and Lo Hsing Han died after long quiet Yangon retirements.

Chaos in the 1990s led to the establishment of methamphetamine labs in the places where opium and heroin production earlier had been so important. The pills spilled out of Myanmar feeding illicit markets wherever they appeared. The drug itself also funded new opposition to the Tatmadaw which, when not sponsoring drug smuggling itself, fought northern separatists and “drug dealers” for control of territory. The United States in particular became involved in these efforts, supporting the regime with helicopters, arms, and DEA agents.¹⁴