BURMA CHAOS MENACE TO S.E. ASIA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22868, 11 February 1949, Page 4

BURMA CHAOS MENACE TO S.E. ASIA

THE bitter struggle for power in Burma has not only brought chaos to that country, but its continuance also threatens the stability of South-East Asia. Recent events are of particular interest to Britain because they are partly the result of the failure of British officials, in preparing Burma three years ago for self-rule, to provide adequately for the special position long occupied by the hill tribes. Of immediate importance, however, is the possible impact of the present revolt upon the new Dominions of India and Pakistan and on the Chinese rebels in Malaya. There have been at least five or six separate armed factions contending for supremacy in Burma. The Communists are divided into two factions known as the Red Flag and the White Flag groups. The People’s Volunteer Organisation, formerly Aung San’s private army, lias split into two factions known as the White Bands and the Yellow Bands. Another group is called the Communist Unity Party and yet another faction has developed from army elements. To survive, the Burmese Government has been compelled to rely mainly on military units drawn from the non-Burmese peoples who have naturally taken advantage of the situation to assert in practice an autonomy going far beyond what was intended for them in the recently adopted constitution.

The Karens, numbering about 2,500,000 strongly autonomist tribesmen, formed the backbone of the Government’s forces’against the Communist insurgents. Last September the Government set up a commission, which included representatives of the Karens, Mons, Arakanese, Ivachins, Karennis, Chins and the Shan States, to inquire into and make recommendations on the claims of racial minorities. An accompanying official announcement stated that while the Government was “in full sympathy with the aspirations of the minorities for regional autonomy, in the form of autonomous States or otherwise,” any reforms would be carried out in conformity with the Government’s “determination to establish in strength and unity a sovereign, independent State” as laid down in the constitution. Good intentions, however, have been frustrated by official Burmese ineptitude and strong men whom the hill tribes trusted have been assassinated. Their patience exhausted, the Karens are now in open revolt and threaten the capital, Rangoon. The issue in Burma, ns in China for many years, will no doubt be settled by the political or tribal faction which can muster the greatest strength, governing as a dictatorship. The Burmans, it would appear, are still a long way from exchanging the rifle for the ballot box. In the meantime, the former “rice howl” of SouthEast Asia is prevented by strife from contributing to the economic prosperity of that area. Millions of Asians are short of food, providing a fertile breeding ground for communism. Only the return of law and order to Burma will check these far-reaching repercussions.