Martyrs' Day

On July 19, 1947 Burma's Independence leaders were gunned down by a group of armed men in uniform while they were holding a cabinet meeting at what was known as 'The Secretariat' in downtown Yangon. The assassinations were planned by a rival political group, and the leader and alleged master-mind of that group Galon U Saw, together with the perpetrators, were tried and convicted by a special tribunal presided by U Kyaw Myint with two other Barristers-at-law, U Aung Thar Gyaw and U Si Bu. In a judgment given on December 30, 1947 the tribunal sentenced U Saw and a few others to death and the rest were given prison sentences. Appeals to the High Court of Burma by U Saw and his accomplices were rejected on March 8, 1948. In a judgment written by Supreme Court Justice U E Maung (1898-1977) on April 27, 1948 the Supreme Court (the highest court under the 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma) refused leave to appeal against the original judgment.

The President of Burma Sao Shwe Thaik refused to pardon or commute the sentences of most of those who were sentenced to death, and U Saw was hanged inside Rangoon's Insein jail on May 8, 1948. A number of perpetrators met the same fate. Others, who had played relatively minor roles and were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, also spent several years in prison. The assassinated cabinet members were General Aung San, Thakin Mya, Dedoke U Ba Cho, Abdul Razak, U Ba Win (oldest brother of Aung San and father of the leader of the National League for Democracy government-in-exile Dr Sein Win), Mahn Ba Khaing and Saopha of Mong Pawng. Cabinet secretary U Ohn Maung and a bodyguard called Maung Htwe were also killed in the shooting.



Photos: MrYoda (myanmarcupid community forum)
Ref: wikipedia.org