'Bloodless coup' in 1962
74 Kokine Road, Rangoon March 2, 1962
It is claimed that the Commander-in-Chief of the Burma Army, General Ne Win, launched a ‘bloodless’ coup when he seized power on 2 March 1962.
During the coup, Burma Army troops surrounded the Rangoon home of Sao Shwe Thaike, first President of the Union of Burma (1948-52), former Speaker of the Chamber of Nationalities of the Union Parliament (1952-1960), last hereditary ruler of Yawnghwe (1936-62), and alleged leader of the ‘Federal Movement’ to amend the Union Constitution, in order to take him into ‘protective custody’.
It is also claimed that Burma Army troops had to open fire in self-defense when the guards in Sao Shwe Thaike’s home fired on them. The return fire accidentally killed his son.
Sao Shwe Thaike's Kokine house, taken from Kaba Aye-Kokine road side.
Golden
Duck restaurent, built almost exactly where Sao Shwe Thaike's house
was. Condominiums in the background are also built on his old compound.
(Photo: HY)
I am now writing this account to set the record straight because a noted Shan historian, Sai Aung Tun, has given the account below in his book, The History of the Shan State: From its Origins to 1962 (Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, 2009; pp. 484-485). Please note that this is not an attempt to discredit Sai Aung Tun or his scholarly work on the Shan. In his book, he was quoting official accounts of what happened on the night of 2 March 1962 at the residence of the Yawnghwe family. Unfortunately, the official accounts he relied on for this event are inaccurate.
But when army units arrived at the
residence of the Saopha of Yawng Hwe, Sao Shwe Thaike, at the corner of
Kokine and Goodliffe Roads in Yangon, they met with gunfire. Upon their
arrival the troops shouted out in the Shan language to the security
guards not to resist. But as guards opened fire, the troops returned
fire, and Sao Shwe Thaike‟s seventeen-year-old son, Sao Myee Myee
Thaike, died from bullet wounds in the head and leg. There were no other
casualties. Concerning Sao Myee Myee‟s death, his elder brother Sao
Tzang (Eugene Thaike) went to report to the Yankin police station that
at about 2 am on March 2, 1962, that unknown men in uniform had entered
their house and opened fire, killing Sao Myee Myee Thaike alias Sao Hom
Hpa (sic). The Yankin police station opened a murder case under section
302 of the Penal Code.
***********
My brother Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (a.k.a. Sao Tzang and Eugene Thaike) in his book, The Shan of Burma: Memoirs of a Shan Exile (Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore, 1987, 1990, p.9), stated:
I was rudely awakened at about 4 am on
the morning of 2 March 1962, by sounds of gunfire, faintly at first but
growing louder as I grew more awake. The gunfire was directly outside
the home, and bullets smashed through window panes and frames, thudded
against or ricocheted off walls. A military unit had crept up to our
home in the dark, surrounding it on two sides, had opened fire. My
younger brother, Chao Mee who was only seventeen years old was killed
“while resisting the armed forces in its performance of duty”, according
to the authorities concerned.
At 2:00 am Tzang marked his last exam
paper for the night. Exhausted, he threw himself on his bed. Within
moments, he was in deep sleep. It was still dark when Tzang awoke. He
looked at his clock: 4:00 am. Something had wakened him. Then he heard
it again, in the distance. Gunfire. There was no mistaking the sound. He
lay listening, eyes still closed, unable to put his tired mind in gear.
The sound drifted in and out. Then two short, sharp cracks jolted him
to consciousness. What was happening? He heard voices in the garden,
feet running, someone shouting in Burmese. Heart pounding, Tzang bounded
to his feet and ran out into the hallway. The rest of the family was
already awake and gathered in the large entrance hall. They looked at
each other in confusion but there was no time to talk. The men outside
opened fire…
… When the shooting stopped, they
heard heavy boots outside the door. Prince Shwe Thaike stepped out from
behind the books. Tzang followed his father outside under the portico,
where the air smelled of cordite. From the darkness, two men dressed in
Burma Army uniforms stepped forward and leveled their bayonets at the
prince. Then they marched him across the garden, Tzang hurrying behind
them…
…Next, the soldiers searched the
house. Tzang led them from room to room. All they found was a pistol in a
fancy case, a gift to his father when he was president. It had never
been used. Outside, a gray dawn streaked the sky. As the soldiers made
their exit, Tzang saw a figure lying in the grass beside the portico. It
was his younger brother Myee, face down with a Naga lance in one
outstretched hand. The family kept the lance, another souvenir gift, in
the main hall for decoration; Myee must have grabbed it for protection
before going outside to investigate the first furtive noises. Tzang
leaned over the boy. He saw a small rifle wound in his ankle. It was
just a tiny hole, but there was blood everywhere and Myee wasn‟t moving.
Then Tzang saw the large execution-style bullet wound in the back of
Myee‟s head. His little brother was dead.
**********
In a letter to the Editor of the New York Times published on 13 August 1988, my sister, Sao Ying Sita, wrote:
Ne Win‟s coup in Burma 26 years ago
was not “bloodless,” as stated in your news accounts of July 24
following his departure from power. My 16-year-old-brother, Prince Myee
was killed on the day of the coup, March 2, 1962, when Mr Ne Win‟s elite
troops riddled him with bullets. I saw his body afterward.
My brother was unarmed and in his
pajamas. He had been awakened by noise (of the troops) outside our
Rangoon mansion, and he went out to investigate. Afterwards, Burmese
soldiers who mowed him down were overheard saying gleefully, “It felt
very good to shoot.”
Armored cars and heavily armed units
had opened fire in dead of night on a defenseless house (and its
sleeping inhabitants, myself included) in the heart of the capital city.
Ostensibly their mission was simply to arrest my father…
**********
Many years later, some of our Burman
friends were surprised to learn that the army had attacked my father's
house on false information, and had shot my brother, mistaking him for a
rebel. These friends had been told by the authorities that our house
was being guarded by a rebel force and was full of men and ammunition.
When we told them that what they had been told was a total fabrication,
they were taken aback. The military had done their work well in
convincing our friends that my father was a rebel.
What actually happened was that when
the soldiers went to arrest my father, they surrounded the house and
began to open fire. The shooting went on for a long time. My young
brother Harn, who was only fourteen then, remembers the ferocity with
which the firing continued. The soldiers were crying out at the same
time saying "Shan ma, (Shan woman), come out!, Come out! Open up or we
will shoot with cannons!" Incidentally, Shan ma in Burmese is a
derogatory term applied to Shan women. It is indeed incredible that, if
they thought there were only Shan women in the house, they went on
shooting, or even began shooting in the first instance.
Of course, when the soldiers entered
the house, they were to find only one man – Sao U Hpa, alone with a
group of women and children. Instead of guns, they found pile upon pile
of the Tripitaka books, the Buddhist scriptures, which my father had had
translated into Shan from the Pali. These books were what saved him
from being shot, as the thick volumes took the impact of the bullets.
Myee Myee, his favourite son, was not so lucky. He was shot down, when
he opened the front door hoping to go for help. Our Burman friends could
hardly believe that Myee Myee's death was in vain and that my father
was not leading a rebellion. Of course, no apology was ever given for
coming and shooting up the house.
***********
For some reason, we as a family have never collectively discussed our personal experiences of that night. Maybe the grown-ups did, but I was never part of such a discussion. My mother was not in Rangoon at that time. She was receiving medical care in England. My oldest brother Chao Hso Khan Hpa or ‘Tiger’ Yawnghwe was studying in the UK. Chao Tzang (Elephant) who was there, died of a brain tumour on 24 July 2004 in Vancouver. Sao Sanda was in Laos with her husband Peter Simms at the time. And given that my two sisters, a half-sister, and an adopted sister who were all there in Rangoon on the night of 2 March 1962, have not spoken about their experience (other than the letter in the New York Times by Sao Ying Sita in 1988), I feel the obligation to recount my experience for future generations. The following is an account I wrote in 1989 about that night:
An Awakening
Myee and I were fooling around with
our father‟s two new automatic pistols, when one of them accidentally
fell to the floor. The impact set the firing mechanism off and the
pistol started firing wildly in all directions. I screamed, “Myee, get
down. You will get hit!” and woke from my dream into a real life
nightmare.
Bullets were flying everywhere. The
deafening noise of automatic weapons being fired at close range had
awakened me. Through the windows, I could see the bullets streaking up
and lighting the night sky. Instinctively, I dove off my bed and crawled
to Myee‟s. But his bed was empty. Realizing that I was alone in the
room, I crawled behind the headboard of the bed to at least put
something between me and the bullets ricocheting off the walls.
Although I was just about to turn
fourteen, I was familiar with guns. But being helpless at the receiving
end of a machine gun was something I had never contemplated. I found
myself trembling uncontrollably. I was not afraid. I was angry and
wanted to fight back but I could not stop myself shaking.
“Myee, Myee, are you there? They are
shooting at us.” It was one of my sisters – perhaps Ying or Htila,
calling softly but urgently from outside our bedroom door. I quickly
crawled out into the huge upstairs hall in the middle of the house. Most
of the household were already there taking cover. But no one knew what
was going on and where Myee was. I then found out that my father had
gone downstairs and we settled down to wait for his return. Little did I
know then that I would never see him again – alive.
I was indignant that the robbers were
so bold as to be attacking us in the middle of the capital, Rangoon.
“Where are the police?” was my first question. It did not make sense. As
the firing continued, I could hear the noise of engines and some
traffic on the road outside. Surely, the police can hear the gunfire and
would arrive soon, I thought. I was also certain that the neighbours
must have alerted the police. My impression that we were being attacked
by robbers was reinforced by the wild yelling in Burmese that
accompanied the shooting. “Young Shan girls, come on out. Come out. Open
up or we will shoot with cannons,” and a number of other unintelligible
shouts. I was eager to defend ourselves and said, “Let‟s get the Czech
pistols out”. They were locked in a cupboard in my father‟s bedroom. But
fortunately, wiser heads prevailed and we hugged the floor in the huge
central hall and waited for the police to arrive. The shooting seemed to
go on forever. At one point there was a thud under my body and the
floorboard lifted slightly. But I did not pay it much attention until we
found out in the morning that a bullet had penetrated the ceiling
downstairs near the spot where I had lain. I was shocked and grateful
that the bullet had lost its momentum just then.
Suddenly, the shooting ceased. We
heard someone say in Burmese, “This is the Tatmadaw. There has been a
coup.” We were so relieved that it was not robbers after all. But then a
long uncertain silence followed, and we waited, not daring to move.
Eventually, Tzang who slept downstairs told us to come down. As I came
down the broad front stairs with my younger sister, a soldier lifted up
his Bren gun, cocked it, and pointed it at me yelling, “Put up your
hands and come down one at a time.” I was both shocked and angered. How
could he behave so rudely towards me? I don‟t think I have ever felt
more humiliated. But I quickly obeyed and raised my hands. We were all
herded onto the front lawn and told to sit on our haunches with our
hands on our heads. I wondered if we would all be shot and killed since
some of the soldiers were very rough and callous. One of them even said
loudly, “It was great fun to shoot.”
As all the children and women folk
came out of the house, the soldiers seemed surprised that there were no
men in the house other than my 66-year old father and Tzang, then 23.
The MIS (military intelligence) man in civilian clothes asked, “Where is
the Mahadevi (my mother)?” And he seemed equally surprised to learn
that she was in England.
The soldiers searched the house and
finally went away at daybreak. We were told that my father had been
arrested and taken away but no one knew where Myee was. The children
were told to go inside while the grown-ups searched for Myee. He was
soon found. I was curious and went upstairs to peep out of a window
overlooking where Myee had been found. I don‟t know what I was expecting
to see but when I saw the white sheet covering his body just by the
side of the house, I quickly withdrew in fright. Over the years, I have
often wondered if Myee had been shot at the instant I was trying to warn
him in my dream.
*********
I am quite sure that there were no police guards at the gate. I remember it was the driver who slept there. He was Karen.
I will never forget that night. I
could have been the first person to die. I stayed up late to study for
my exams. It was hot and I got up to open the window and all of a
sudden, there was a loud bang and I felt something pass by my right ear.
Then more gunfire.
After that I heard Daw Daw
(stepmother) come running from Sao U Hpa's room. Leun was beside me. We
tried to crawl under the bed but it was too low and we could not get
under so we huddled together, shivering, our teeth clattering so loud.
After that I think you and Pi Ying came crawling from Sao Mae‟s (my
mother) room. Then Myee appeared with a spear in his hand. He said he
was going down to find out what was happening (he must have thought it
was burglary). I heard Daw Daw say, “Don't go".
There was more gunfire and the sound
of the chandeliers breaking downstairs. Someone said (I don't remember
who) “Let escape from the back stairs,” and you (Harn) said, “No, it‟s
not safe”. Thank God we didn't. They would have shot us… It's so depressing to think about it.
I must admit I was choked and reduced
to tears to read your summary of that dreadful day of Mar. 2/62. The
memories are very painful but it was real and still stays with me today.
No one can erase that memory from me until the day I die.
Unfortunately, I still have so much hatred and venom in me for those
responsible but, I try to live with it…
What can I remember? Apart from what you remembered which is factual, not much.
It was like yesterday, the shooting and loud noises surrounding our house, crawling on my belly to Daw Daw's room where we all gathered, afraid to get hit by the bullets. I will never forget fearing for our lives. My teeth could not stop chattering and I was consumed by fear. At first we thought we were being robbed, but the firing of guns and the noise of people shouting orders were strange. My first thought was, „Where is Daddy?” and “Where is Sai Tzang?” as his bedroom was downstairs.
It seemed like eternity when finally
everything quieted down, and I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, my
thought was that we were going to die by the hands of whomever it was
that was shooting at us. Then it was Sai Tzang who came up to tell us
that we were surrounded by soldiers. It was a military coup d'etat and
that Dad had been arrested and taken away.
All this time we had no light, it was
like a power outage. We were all scared to death when Sai Tzang got us
all to go downstairs to the main hall and sit down in the dark and then
there was a commotion where we were told by the soldiers to come out
with our hands up like we were criminals, they had guns pointed at us
and ready to shoot. I was shaking in my shoes.
The military asked if there were
anyone else in the house as we were all women and children. We said all
was present except for a brother who was missing. The military ignored
this question until we found out later that our brother Sao Myee was
shot to death and lying in the front yard.
Words cannot describe the pain and
sorrow of that day. It was the end of the world for me. Our mother had
the courage to flee the country and give us a new lease on life when she
decided to take her children and escape to Thailand. For that I am
forever grateful.
No, there were no armed police guards at the gate on Mar. 2/62. Just the regular unarmed guard who manned the gate as usual.
That is all I can remember. The fear was the greatest.
**********
The other retired Shan bodyguard lived at the far end of the compound where we kept our milk cows, and made a living selling coffee and tea. Again, anyone could enter our compound at anytime by visiting his tea shop. The third bodyguard, at retirement, had gone back home to his village. Not far from the tea shop lived our Gurkha cowherd and his family.
He fed and milked our twenty or so cows and sold their milk for us to our neighbours and in the market.
The only other building in our compound was the three-storey building at the back where my half-sister Sao Sanda lived on the top floor with her journalist husband Peter Simms. They were away in Laos. The ground floor was occupied by their employees and their families as well as our drivers and their families – most of them were Karen. Only the maids who were distant relatives of my mother lived with us in the big house.
On the night of the coup, Burma Army troops detained everybody living in our compound before advancing on our house. From a distance of less than 100 feet, they indiscriminately opened fire with automatic weapons from all directions. The confused gunfire continued for a time – I do not know exactly how long but at that time I thought it was for 45 minutes to an hour. I could be wrong. It may have been for a shorter period. But no one to this day knows exactly why the troops opened fire and why they just as suddenly stopped. It is possible that my brother Myee heard the soldiers creeping up on the house. He had complained of stomach trouble before going to bed the night before. It may have kept him awake. He might have taken the spear to defend himself when he went out to investigate. The nervous soldiers may have seen him, panicked and opened fire, setting off a chain reaction. Or my brother could have been killed as the troops opened fire according to a pre-determined plan.
At the first sound of gunfire, Chao Tzang rolled off his bed and crawled out of his bedroom into the main hall. His bed was directly in front of an open window. Had he sat up instead of rolling off the bed, he too would have been killed. His white mosquito net was riddled with bullet holes. As he crawled into the front hall, he found the front door wide open. My father who had learnt that Chao Myee was not in the hall upstairs with the rest of the family, had gone downstairs to look for him. He found Chao Tzang by the open front door. Together they shut the door, and locked and bolted it. In the morning, we found the front door riddled with bullet holes. How my father or Chao Tzang managed to escape being shot is a mystery.
When the shooting stopped, the soldiers brought Gopal, an Indian, employed by my half-sister Sao Sanda, to the front door. He told my father in Burmese that it was the Tatmadaw. There had been a coup and the officer in charge ordered the door to be opened. My father did so and was arrested. He and Chao Tzang were then escorted through a field to the opening the soldiers had made in the high hedge surrounding our compound. My father was taken away in a car and my brother was brought back to the house. An officer told Chao Tzang that they had shot somebody and that maybe the victim was Chao Tzang’s brother.
We were all told to come out of the house and sit on the front lawn in rows with our hands on our heads. The soldiers then started a search of the house. But one of their bullets had hit the fuse box and much of the house was in total darkness. Fearing an ambush, the soldiers made Chao Tzang enter each room ahead of them. They found nothing except for the two automatic pistols. They were both locked in a cupboard in my father’s bedroom for safety.
While we were waiting, an officer ordered the soldiers to pick up their spent cartridges. Later in the morning, after the soldiers had left, we kids went searching and found over a hundred empty shells that had been overlooked by the soldiers in the dark under some bushes and trees. After the soldiers had completed their search, we were allowed back into the house.
As the day broke, the soldiers left and a search began for Chao Myee. His body was found in a flower bed to the left (as you exit the house) of the front porch. He had been shot in the head and foot. A ceremonial Naga spear was found near his body. Chao Tzang went to the local police station to report a murder. The police said that they had been prevented from coming by soldiers who had taken over the police station. They filed a murder case and came over to investigate.
Everyone who saw the damage to our house agree that my whole family could have been killed. The shots were not fired into the air with the intention of scaring the inhabitants. The soldiers shot to kill. The shots fired at the ground floor were horizontal and anyone crouching or standing would have been hit. The shots fired at the upper floor had the intended trajectory of penetrating the upper walls of the ground floor and hitting anyone hiding on the upper floor. We did not repair the bullet holes assuming that at a later time, a proper investigation could be carried out. Unfortunately, shortly after we escaped to Thailand in 1963, a fire broke out in the vacant house and destroyed everything. The Ne Win regime then confiscated the 9-acre property and divided it up amongst the top generals who built houses on it. Since then houses have been built on our property and sold numerous times. Today, Saya San Road cuts through the property and the giant modern Pearl Condominiums stands on it.
The press also arrived. They were shown around the house and were fully informed about what had happened. But when they got back to their offices, they were prevented from reporting the true story. Instead, the Revolutionary Council issued a statement that said troops carrying out their duty had met with armed resistance and had been forced in self- defense to open fire, accidentally killing one of Sao Shwe Thaike’s sons.
A version of this last narrative above was reported by U Kin Oung in his book Who Killed Aung San (White Lotus, Bangkok, 1993, pp.71-72).
Harn Yawnghwe
saoharn1@gmail.com
February 2010
Montreal, Canada
Tags: Opinion
