WANT TO STAY BRITISH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 35, 30 May 1947, Page 7

WANT TO STAY BRITISH

HILL TRIBES OF BURMA Something is going on in Burma almost as surprising as the European “Displaced Persons” trying to get into Britain. In Burma several million people already in the British Empire are actually trying to stay in. They are the warrior hill tribes who inhabit that great horseshoe of jungle mountain which forms most of Burma’s land frontier. They are the Karens, Shans, Kachins, Chins, and Nagas. In the war against Japan they were our firm and faithful friends.

They fought valiantly on our side, while the Burmese were at best benevolently neutral. Often they and their families were tortured, flogged and killed by our ferocious enemy, but they never wittingly gave us away. Different Stock

They number, altogether, about 7,000,000 of Burma’s 17,000,000 people. They do not want to be placed under any “Independent Burmese Republic,” they just want to stay “British.”

Racially, there is no reason why they should be Burmesed. They are not sprung from the same stock. The Karens, for example, are the Ancient Britons of South-East Asia. They are of Mongol origin, like the Gurkhas. Successive waves of Burmese drove them into their wild and beautiful hills. They have preserved their own language and culture and have never accepted the ways of the Burmese. •

Now the Burmese political parties, loosely united in the “Anti-Fascist People’s League” want to set up an Independent Burma, including the hill tribes. They have sent a delegation to London to demand it.

Shrewd Leader It is led by Aung San, a shrewd and determined character-of 33 who was trained by the Japanese before the war to lead a rebel Burmese movement. I do not doubt his own sincere desire to see this country rise to nationhood. When the British retreated from Burma in 1942 Aung San’s guerillas rose and fell upon our stricken rearguards. The Japanese conferred on him the ranks of major general of the “Burma Inedependence Army.” Half-way through the war Aung San saw the truth—that in the British, and not the Japanese lay the real hopes of his country’s progress. He came secretly and bravely, across the lines to the Fourteenth Army H.Q., and there covenanted to rise at a given signal and set fire to the Japanese rear.

This he did as the British rushed on Rangoon. It was useful aid, though to represent it as being decisive is to exaggerate its undoubted value. The New Army Now the resolute Aung San is the foremost political figure in Burma. He has his finger on the pulse of the new Burma Army. So, also, have the Hillmen. Half of the present Burma Army are recruited from among them. They are willing to enter a Federated Burma (though they would prefer to remain directly under the British Crown.)

They ask only for a measure of autonomy, with certain safeguards such as access to the sea. I think Aung San is willing. I hope the British Government will draw the proper treaty which may indeed unite Burma as our own good friend.

If not, the Jameson Raid may come again. This time on Rangoon.