Aung San Suu Kyi by Jesper Bengtsson

impressed by Aung San’s commitment and charisma, and he told the story of this event when he returned to England.
    If Aung San had implemented his idea about a guerrilla revolt, then he would probably have met the same fate as his famous relative in the 1880s. He would have been captured, executed, and would have disappeared into the oblivion of history. However, if there was one characteristic that was typical for Aung San, then it was the ability to accept the situation. He realized that such a vast and loosely formulated plan did not have the qualifications to succeed. A national guerrilla army would never have had the strength to conquer the well-trained and effective British military forces. The nationalists would take to arms, but in order to succeed, they would first be compelled to seek support abroad.
    After the protests in 1939, the British administration tightened up the reprisals against the nationalist movement. Several of the leaders were behind bars, accused of treason and agitation. Aung San managed to keep clear of the security police right up until June 1940. On his way from a meeting in the Irrawaddy Delta, he stopped to hold a speech in the village of Daung Gyi. The local police kept an eye on the situation, and just when Aung San was about to speak, one of the policemen held out a hand-written note: under no circumstances was he to mention the condition of the Chin population in western Burma. Aung San read the note, climbed up onto the podium, and declared that he was thinking of devoting his entire speech to the British violations against the Chin population in western Burma.
    The police immediately issued a warrant for his arrest, and after that Aung San was compelled to avoid public events.
    In this situation, when they were so severely pressed back, somebody suggested traveling to China to seek support from the Chinese communist party, and in August 1940 Aung San and Thakin Hla Myaing left Burma on the
Hai
Lee, a vessel sailing under the Norwegian flag. Their goal was the international enclave Amoy (today named Xiamen) in China. It is slightly unclear how they had imagined contact with the communists would reallybe established, and the journey was undertaken to the greatest possible degree on a win-or-lose basis. When they arrived in Amoy, they checked into a cheap guesthouse and began their long, hopeless wait. After a few weeks, their money started to run out. Aung San became ill with dysentery and lay in bed all day, every day. Just when the situation was at its most desperate, they were paid a visit by an agent from the Japanese security service.
    Japan had become interested in Burma as early as the mid-1930s. They had invited the right-wing nationalist U Saw to Tokyo in 1935, and when U Saw returned home he immediately bought up the newspaper
Sun
, probably with Japanese money, which thereafter carried on propaganda for the Japanese expansion in Asia. The same thing happened with the newspaper
New Burma
after its owner, the profascist politician Thein Maung, had made a similar journey in 1939.
    These right-wing nationalists did not have any sympathy for Aung San and his comrades in the socialist movement, but they realized that the Japanese would be able to benefit from his rather hare-brained journey to China. Going behind the back of the rest of the nationalist movement, they made a pact with Col. Keiji Suzuki from the Japanese security service. Suzuki had been sent to Rangoon disguised as a journalist but he was really the chief for Minami Kikan, a secret organization whose only task was to help the Burmese nationalist movement. Japan’s goal was to gain control over the so-called Burma Road, a transport corridor going right through northern Burma. The Allies used the road to send weapons and supplies to Chiang Kai-shek and his Chinese nationalist army, Guomindang (GMD). If Japan were to succeed in cutting off the Burma Road, then its chances of winning a final victory over Chiang