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HISTORY OF MYANMAR:

There are traces of some form of settlement in Burma as far back as 2,500-2,000 BC. The Pyus were the first settlers and occupied the upper Irrawaddy River. The early Pyu city of Sri Kshetra, near present day Prome, was enclosed in a massive wall and was possibly even bigger than the later Burmese cities of Bagan and Mandalay. When the Pyu capital was captured and the people enslaved by the neighboring power in Yunnan, the Burmese moved into the power vacuum in the Irrawaddy area. The Burmese came to dominate both the Ryu and the Mon. The Mons settled in the lower Irrawaddy delta region around Thaton and were the first people to establish Buddhism in Burma. Little is known about the earliest phases of Mon art - although their artistic and architectural skills were obviously coveted and their works have been unearthed not just in Burma, but also in Thailand and Cambodia. The great King Anawrahta brought Mon craftsmen to Bagan where their temple and stupa designs characterized the first recognizable architectural 'period' - the Mon Period. The last group to migrate from China were the Tai, who fled the Mongul invasions from the 9th-11th centuries and settled in the hills on the present Thai-Burma border. Burma is well hidden from its surrounding lands - protected on three sides by mountains and jungle, and on the fourth by the sea. People who found their way in came upon a fertile country with a hospitable climate and saw no reason to leave. Early kingdoms were formed and reformed, until the nation finally coalesced in its present shape. The Burmans established themselves as a major power in the Bagan region in 108 AD, in control of the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) valley and the trade routes between China and India. While the Pyus, Shans and Mons in time founded their own capitals and struggled for supremacy, the Burmans remain today the largest and most dominant ethnic group.

The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma (a 19th century historical mythology) claims that the Burmese kings were descendants of the Buddha's family but historians have found no evidence of any ruler before the 1th century King Anawrahta of Bagan. From the 10th century on, the Burmans were the largest group; they were also the most important in terms of their historical, cultural and political contribution to Burma's heritage.

Burma's history, even to the present day, has been a struggle for supremacy between warring peoples. Almost all of the country's citizens can trace their roots back to tribes that invaded their resource-rich land.

First came the Mons who probably originated in Central Asia, who established the Buddhist tradition in Burma. In the 3rd century BC, they cultivated close ties with India through the port city of Thaton. The Pyus, refugees from Tibe settled in upper Burma in the 1st century. The Burmans from the borders of China and Tibet, and then the Shans (also known as Tais), immigrants from Thailand in the 8th century who invaded Upper Burma, attacking the capital Halin in 832 and enslaving the population. Very little mention to be found of the Pyus from this point onwards. In the 9th century, Mramma people (also known as the Bamars) moved down the Ayeyarwady river from the China-Tibet border and established themselves as the major power in the rice-cultivating region of the north. They fortified Bagan from which they could control the Ayeyarwady River and trade-routes between China and India. The Mons occupied the lower portions of the Irrawaddy basin, while the Burmans had established themselves on the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy. Burma's subsequent violent history largely concerns the struggle between these 2 predominant racial groups. Kings fought wars in order to carry off slaves from the kingdoms they conquered; it was important to have a large labor force to build temples and pagodas and to grow rice.

Bagan was the first established centre of Burma; it was founded in 849 at a strategic location on the banks of the Irrawaddy. It was also close to the mystical Mount Popa, the most significant centre of nat (spirit) worship in Burma, which pre-dated the arrival of Buddhism. In 1044, King Anawrahta, 42nd ruler of the Bagan dynasty, seized the throne at Bagan. Twelve years later, he was converted to Theravada Buddhism by Shin Arahan, a missionary-monk from the Mon court at Thaton; he immediately set about building the Shwezigon temple. In 1057, Anawrahta declared war on the Mons to capture the Tripitaka, the Buddhist scriptures, which the Mon King Manuba refused to give up. Anawrahta beseiged the Mon capital of Pegu for months until Manuba surrendered and the city was destroyed. Anawrahta returned to Bagan with the Mon royal family, 32 white elephants (each of which was laden with the sacred books of the Tripitaka) and Thaton's remaining 30,000 inhabitants - including craftsmen and builders. The Mon king was dedicated to the Shwezigon as a pagoda slave. But despite their inglorious defeat, the sophisticated Mons proceeded to dominate Bagan's cultural life for the next century - many of the thousands of pagodas at Bagan are Mon in style and the Burmans evolved their script from Mon. Anawrahta also succeeded in breaking the power of the Shan states. Despite his war-like tendencies, Anawrahta is said to have been a very religious man. He is believed to have dispatched a ship laden with treasure to Bodhgaya in India, where the Buddha gained enlightenment, to pay for the restoration of the Mahabodhi temple. Anawrahta was killed by a wild buffalo in 1077, but by then he had already put in place the foundation of the First Burmese Empire. During his son, King Sawlu's, reign (1077-1084), the kingdom continued to expand. It grew even bigger under King Kyanzittha's reign (1084-1113), when parts of the S Tenasserim region came under the control of Bagan. Kyanziftha began the construction of the Ananda pagoda - the most famous temple on the Bagan Plain. The 12th century was Bagan's Golden Age, when it was known - rather optimistically - as 'the city of 4 million pagodas'. The Bagan civilization is believed to have been supported by rice cultivation, made possible by a highly developed system of irrigation canals. It is also during this period that the Mon language replaced Pali and Sanskrit as the dominant language.
 

In 1248 King Narathihapati came to the throne; he is reputed to have been a hedonist who enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle. He completed the lavish Mingalazedi pagoda at Bagan in 1274-but appears to have gone bankrupt in the process. Bagan's economy fell apart and no more pagodas were built. In 1287 Kublai Khan led a Mongul invasion which captured the city and brought the First Burmese Empire to an undignified end. The king fled to Bassein earning the title Tarakpyenrin (meaning the 'king who fled from the Chinese'), leaving the Monguis in his beautiful royal capital. The Mongul military campaign against the Burman kingdom of Bagan was recorded in the diary of Venetian merchant Marco Polo when he visited the Imperial Court of China 5 years later. After 5 months exile in Bassein, the Burmese king tried to return to Bagan but made it only as far as Prome, where his eldest son was a governor. He murdered his father by forcing poison down his throat and then battled with his 2 brothers for the throne. He succeeded- but was deposed in 1298, marking the end of the Anawrahta Dynasty.
 

During the period 1300 - 1500 there were frequent conflicts between the Shans and the Mons as the kingdom broke into a number of smaller states. From 1298-1364 the Shans established power in Upper Burma, with their capital at Ava (founded 1364/5), near modern Mandalay. From 1364-1554, the Shans dominated the Irrawaddy rice growing area and expanded into what is now Kachin state and along the Chindwin River. The Shans did not manage to amalgamate into a single powerful empire - but remained split into small kingdoms, frequently feuding against one another. Only the western kingdom of Arakan remained completely independent and spread north into Chittagong (in present-day Bangladesh). The Arakanese capital was at Wethali until 1433 when they moved it to Mrauk U (Myohaung).
 

The Mon kingdom prospered as a trading centre, exporting rice to India and Malaysia. Queen Shinsawbu (1453-1472) raised the height of the Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon. The queen went so far as to donate her own weight in gold to gild the outside. The Second Burmese Empire Many Burmans fled south from Shan domination and established a centre around Toungoo and the Burmese and the Shan kingdoms remained in a permanent state. The kingdom survived, sandwiched between the Shans to the north and the Mons to the south. When King Minkyino came to the throne in 1486 there was a revival of the Burman national spirit and the Toungoo Dynasty was founded. In 1530, the 16-year-old Tabengshweti succeeded his father and decided to re-unite Burma. He captured the Mon port of Bassein in 1535 and then went on to attack Pegu. He stormed the city 3 times, succeeding in 1539. With Bassein and Pegu under his belt, he then captured Prome and was recognized as the undisputed king of Lower Burma. Meanwhile, to the north, the Shan King of Ava was gaining notoriety for persecuting monks and plundering pagodas. Kings who engaged in such activities never lasted long in Burma, and, sure enough, his actions prompted a conspiracy to overthrow him. When he was successfully ousted, the Shans united and took Prome and then besieged the strongly fortified capital of Arakan, Myohaung. While besieging the city the Shans heard word of a Siamese invasion from the east. The Shans had expanded their empire too quickly and were unable to control such a vast swathe of territory. As the Shan kingdom began to disintegrate, Bayinnaung (Burman King Tabengshweti's son-in-law) inherited the throne in 1550 and re-established Burman control over Lower Burma. He attacked Pegu 3 years later and the Mons fled to Prome; Bayinnaung then targeted Prome and the city was starved into surrender in 1542. Bayinnaung crowned his successes with the capture of Ava in 1555. In doing so, he destroyed the power of the Shan states and laid the foundations of the Second Burmese Empire. But Bayinnaung was not content to stop there and turned his attention to neighbouring Siam. First, he captured Chiang Mai, then set his sights on Ayutthaya. The King of Ayutthaya was known to have 4 white elephants which Bayinnaung coveted - white elephants had great religious significance as they were (and are) believed to symbolize an earlier incarnation of the Buddha. On the pretext of a manufactured border dispute, King Bayinnaung launched a successful attack on the Siamese capital in 1564. The Siamese king, queen and youngest son were taken prisoner and the heir to the throne was left to govern as a tributary king. In Burma, the deposed king of Ayutthaya became a monk and his younger son died. King Bayinnaung, in a compassionate moment, then allowed his widow and children to return home to Ayutthaya - a move which proved to be a tactical error as their return prompted the tributary king to re-assert his independence. Bayinnaung was furious and launched a fresh Burmese invasion of Siam. He left with 200,000 troops, many of whom died during the subsequent 7-month siege of Ayutthaya. The Burmese finally captured the city however and the belligerent King Bayinnaung went on to attack Vientiane in Laos. But King Razagyri of Arakan took advantage of the depleted Burman army and attacked Toungoo, taking the white elephants as booty. From then on the King of Arakan had the title 'Lord of the White Elephant'. For all his warmongering, Bayinnaung seems to have been a model Buddhist: he forbade the sacrificing of slaves, horses and elephants and sent brooms of his own hair (and that of his wives) to sweep the Temple of the Sacred Tooth in Kandy, Ceylon. He eventually died in 1581, apparently leaving 97 children, and was succeeded by the eldest, Nandanaung, who ruled from 1581-1599. King Nandanaung did not have his father's force of character, military skills or administrative ability. In 18 years, he lost nearly everything his father had fought for and the empire broke up again due to internal feuding. In 1636 the capital was moved to Ava, but by then the empire was in decline. While it was disintegrating, the Mons were once again becoming increasingly assertive; they re-established their kingdom in the S, with Pegu as the capital. Avawas recaptured by the Mons in 1752, with the help of French arms. The king was taken captive back to Pegu and the Second Burmese Empire floundered as the toungoo Dynasty dissolved. The Mons then shifted their capital back to Ava. The Mon conquest of Ava was short-lived. The Southerners were unpopular and within a year of taking the city, they had a revolt on their hands. Alaungpaya, a local official from the nearby town of Shwebo, refused to swear allegiance to the Mons and with the help of a large following he recaptured Ava in 1753. Within 4 years, Pegu had also fallen to Alaungpaya's forces; the Mon fled to the small town of Dagon, to the SW. Three years later, Alaungpaya sacked the town, renaming it Yangon -'the end of war'. But it was not the end of war, having conquered the Mons, Alaungpaya attacked Ayutthaya. He was fatally wounded in the process, in 1760. But in his few short years as King of Burma, he had founded the Konbaug Dynasty, and with it, the Third (and final) Burmese Empire. The dynasty lasted for over a century (1752-1865), during which time the capital - which was first at Shwebo - shifted between Ava (1765-1783, 1823-1837) and Amarapura (1783-1823, 1837-1857) before moving to Mandalay in 1857. Alaungpaya's second son, Hsinbyushin, came to the throne after a short reign by his elder brother, Naungdawgyi (1760-1763). He continued his father's expansionist policy and finally took Ayufthaya in 1767, after 7 years of fighting. He returned to Ava with Siamese artists, dancers, musicians and craftsmen who gave fresh cultural impetus to Burma. The Mons had been crushed and the Shan Sawbwas (feudal lords) were made to pay tribute to the Burmese. The kingdom's northeastern borders came under threat from the Chinese - they invaded 4 times between 1765 and 1769 but were repulsed on each occasion. In 1769 King Hsinbyushin forced them to make peace and the 2 sides signed a treaty. Bodawpaya, Alaungpaya's 5th son, came to the throne in 1782. He founded Amarapura, moving his capital from Ava. Bodawpaya conquered Arakan in 1784 and recovered all the Burman treasures taken by the Arakanese 2 centuries before, including the Mahamuni image. Burmese control over Arakan resulted in protracted wrangles with the British, who by then were firmly ensconsed in Bengal. Relations with the British deteriorated further when Bodawpaya pursued Arakanese rebels seeking refuge, across the border - this was not to be the last time refugees flooded over the border. Conflict ensued; the British wanted a demarcated border while the Burmese were content to have a zone of overlapping influence. to add to their annoyance, British merchants complained about being badly treated by the king's officials in Rangoon. The British decided enough was enough and diplomatic relations were severed in 1811. Bodawpaya turned his attention to the administration of his empire. He investigated the existing tax systems and revoked exemptions for religious establishments which incurred the wrath of the monk hood - as did his claim to be a Bodhisattva. Bodawpaya died in 1819 at the age of 75 and was succeeded by King Bagyidaw. The Maharajah of Manipur (a princely state in the W hills to the S of Nagaland) who previously paid tribute to the Burmese crown, did not attend Bagyidaw's coronation. This resulted in the subsequent expedition that took the Burmese into British India. The expansion of the British into Burma This intrusion was used by the British as a pretext for launching the First Anglo-Burmese War. The British took Rangoon in 1824 and then advanced on Ava. In 1826, the Burmese agreed to the British peace terms and the Treaty of Yandabo was signed. This ceded the Arakan and Tenasserim regions to the British -which were ruled from Calcutta, headquarters of the British East India Company. Manipur also became part of British India. But the peace treaty did little to ease relations between the British and Burmese. The Burmese kings felt insulted at having to deal with the viceroy of India instead of British royalty In 1837 King Bagyidaw's brother, Tharrawaddy, seized the throne and had the queen, her brother, Bagyidaw's only son, his family and ministers all executed. He made no attempt to improve relations with Britain, and neither did his successor to the Lion Throne, Bagan Min, who became king in 1846. He executed thousands - some history books say as many as 6,000 - of his wealthier and more influential subjects on trumped-up charges. During his reign, relations with the British became increasingly strained. In 1852, the Second Anglo-Burmese War broke out after 2 British shipmasters complained about unfair treatment. They had been imprisoned having been charged with murder and were forced to pay a large 'ransom' for their release. British military action was short and sharp and within a year they had taken control of Rangoon and Prome and announced their annexation of Lower Burma. Early in 1853, hostilities ceased, leaving the British in full control of trade on the Irrawaddy. The same year - to the great relief of both the Burmese and the British - Bagan Min was succeeded by his younger brother, the progressive Mindon Min. The British were amazed at life in the Burmese court: the strict rules of protocol prompted much debate, particularly 'the shoe question”. The British where indignant at having to take off their shoes on entering pagodas and while having an audience with the king. They were amused by the ritual quandary surrounding the decision of which umbrella the king should use, but nothing bemused them more than the status accorded the white elephant. The 'Lord White Elephant'- or Sinbyudaw- commanded social status second only to the king in the hierarchy of the royal court. Sinbyudaw were treated with reverence and had white parasols held over them wherever they went. Young white elephants were even suckled by women in the royal court who considered it a great honour to feed the elephant with their own milk. A new king moved the capital to Amarapura and then to his new city of Mandalay. The move was designed to fulfill a prophesy of the Buddha that a great city would one day be built on the site. Court astrologers also calculated that Mandalay was the centre of the universe - not Amarapura. King Mindon attempted to bring Burma into greater contact with the outside world: he improved the administrative structure of the state, introducing a new income tax; he built new roads and commissioned a telegraph system; he set up modern factories using European machinery and European managers. He also sent some of his sons to study with an Anglican missionary and did all he could to repair relations with Britain. A commercial treaty was signed with the British, who sent a Resident to Mandalay. King Mindon hosted the Fifth Great Buddhist Synod in 1872 at Mandalay. In these ways he gained the respect of the British and the admiration of his own people. The Burmese found the foreign presence in Mandalay hard to tolerate and with the death of Mindon, the atmosphere thickened. King Mindon died before he could name a successor, and Thibaw, a lesser prince, was manoeuvred onto the throne by one of King Mindon's queens and her daughter, Supayalat. (In his poem The Road to Mandalay, Rudyard Kipling remarks that the British soldiers referred to her as 'Soup-plate'.) In true Burmese style, the new King Thibaw proceeded, under Supayalat's direction, to massacre all likely contenders to the throne. His inhumanity outraged British public opinion. London was becoming increasingly worried by French intentions to build a railway between Mandalay and the French colonial port of Haiphong in Annam (N Vietnam). When Thibaw provoked a dispute with a British timber company, the British had the pretext they needed to invade Upper Burma. In 1886 they took Mandalay and imposed colonial rule throughout Burma; Thibawand Supayalat were deposed and exiled to Madras in S India. Supayalat was eventually buried at the foot of the Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon as the British feared nationalist rebellion if the funeral took place in Mandalay. British colonial rule Burma was known as 'Further India' and was run on the principle of 'divide and rule'. The colonial administration relied heavily on Indian bureaucrats and by 1930 - to the resentment of the Burmese - Indian immigrants comprised 1/2 the population of Rangoon. The British permitted the country's many racial minorities to exercise limited autonomy. Burma was divided into 2 regions: Burma proper, where Burmans were in a majority - which included Arakan and Tenasserim - and the hill areas, inhabited by other minorities. The Burmese heartland was administered by direct rule. The hill areas - which included the Shan states, the Karen states, and the tribal groups in the Kachin, Chin and Naga hills - retained their traditional leadership, although they were under British supervision. These policies gave rise to tensions that continue to plague today's government. The colonial government built roads and railways, and river steamers, belonging to the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, operated between Rangoon and Mandalay. The British brought electricity to Rangoon, improved urban sanitation, built hospitals and redesigned the capital on a grid system. While the British set about building and modernizing, they benefited greatly from an economic boom in the Irrawaddy delta region. When they first arrived in Burma, much of the delta was swampland. But under the British, Burmese farmers began to settle in the delta and clear land for rice cultivation. In 1855, paddy fields covered 400,000 ha; by 1873 the forests had been cleared sufficiently to double the productive area. Land under rice cultivation increased by another 400,000 ha roughly every 7 years, reaching 4 million ha in 1930. Population in the area - which was about 1.5 million in the rnid-1 9th century- increased more than 5-fold. Initially the rice paddies were farmed by Burmese smallholders but as rice prices rose, larger holdings were bought up and large tracts of land cleared by pioneers from central Burma. The agricultural economy in the delta region was dependent on complex credit facilities, run by Indian Chettiars - S Indian money-lenders - who extended credit to farmers at much lower rates than Burmese money-lenders. The Chettiars grew into a very prosperous community. Land rents had risen dramatically during the boom years and when the world economic depression set in in the 1930s, rice prices slumped and small-holders went bust. Between 1930 and 1935, the amount of land owned by the Chettiars trebled in size due to foreclosures, leaving them with well over a 1/4 of the delta's prime land. The agrarian crisis triggered anti-Indian riots, which started in Rangoon in May 1930 and then spread to the countryside. From the beginning of the colonial period, the British stressed the benefits of education, and formal Western-style schooling replaced the traditional monastic education system. Rangoon University was founded in 1920 and a new urban 61ite evolved. They attempted to bridge the gap between old and new Burma by calling for the reform of traditional Buddhist beliefs and practices. In 1906, the Young Men's Buddhist Association was established in an effort to assert Burmese cultural identity and remain distinct from their colonizers. In 1916, the YMBA objected to the fact that Europeans persisted in wearing shoes inside religious buildings, which was considered disdainful. After demonstrations in over 50 towns, the government ruled that abbots should have the right to determine how visitors should dress in their monasteries - a ruling hailed as a victory for the YMBA. Following the introduction of greater self-government in India and the spread of Marxism, the YMBA renamed itself the General Council of Burmese Associations and demanded more autonomy for Burma. A strike was organized at Rangoon University the year it was founded, and this spread across the country as schools were boycotted. The most serious uprising was initiated by a monk called Saya San; it represented the first concerted effort to expel the British by force. From 1930-1932, during what became known as the Saya San Rebellion, 3,000 of his men were massacred and 9,000 taken prisoner, while the government suffered casualties of only 138. Saya San was hanged in 1937. The underground nationalist movement also gained momentum in the 1930s and at the University of Rangoon the All-Burma Student Movement emerged. The colonial regime was clearly shaken by the extent of the unrest and the level of violence and in 1935 the Government of Burma Act finally granted Burma autonomy. In 1936, the groups' leaders - Thakin Aung San and Thakin Nu - led another strike at the university. They called themselves Thakin as it was previously an honorific only used to address Europeans. In 1937 Burma was formally separated from British India. It received its own constitution, an elected legislature and 4 popular governments served until the Japanese occupation. During World War II, the Japanese invaded Burma in 1942, helped by the new burmese independence army (BIA) - a band of men secretly trained by the Japanese before the war and led by Aung San, who had emerged as one of the outstanding leaders during the student riots in Rangoon. The BIA grew in number from 30 to 23,000 as Japan advanced through Lower Burma. The Burmese saw the Japanese occupation as a way to expel the British colonialists and to gain independence. The British were quickly overwhelmed by the rapid advance of the Japanese 15th Army and fled to India. Their scorched earth policy - which involved torching everything of value and sabotaging the infrastructure they had built up over decades - left total devastation in their wake. Fierce guerrilla warfare erupted between the British and the Japanese and BIA, in which casualties were high - as many as 27,000 may have died. Many of the British and Allied troops who died - most in the hand-to-hand combat - are buried at the Htaukkyan cemetery near Rangoon. The war produced many heroes. Stilwell, an American, having retreated through the jungle into India with 114 men, retraced his steps (through Assam, across the Chindwin River to Myitkyina, and down the Irrawaddy to Mandalay) and helped recapture Rangoon in May 1945. Wingate, a British war-hero, used guerrilla tactics to successfully penetrate the Japanese lines. His men were known as the Chindits - after the mythological Chinthes, the undefeatable temple lions. Chennault was another hero, who led the airborn division - nicknamed 'the Flying Tigers' - who were feared by the Japanese. US ground forces in Burma were known as 'Merrill's Marauders' and consisted of about 3,000 men, of which all but a handful were killed. The 800km -long Ledo Road -from Assam to Mong Yo, where it joins the Burma Road (see page 368) - was built during the war by 35,000 Burmese and several thousand engineers, to enable a land force to enter Burma from India. But on 19 July, a few months before Burma was to be granted full independence, Aung San and 5 of his ministers were assassinated while attending a meeting in the Secretariat in Rangoon. U-Saw, a right-wing prime minister in the pre-war colonial government was convicted of hatching the plot, and executed; he had hoped to create a leadership role for himself. It was a tragedy for Burma as Aung San seemed best equipped to unite the many different factions and minorities; had he lived, post-war Burmese history may have taken a very different course. Independence On 4 Jan 1948 at 0420 - an auspicious hour determined by Burmese astrologers - the Union Jack was lowered to the strains of Auld Lang Syne and U Nu, one of the early leaders of the student movement, became the first Prime Minister of independent Burma. It fell to U Nu to attempt to forge a national identity, build political institutions and rebuild the war-shattered economy. But Burma plunged immediately into chaos. Within 3 months, the Communists were in open revolt. The People's Volunteer Organization, a key component of the AFPFL split in 2, with the majority siding with the Communists. Muslim separatists rebelled in Arakan and the Karen National Union (KNU), upset at the prospect of Burman domination, refused to be a part of independent Burma and unilaterally declared their own independence on 5 May 1948. A large number of Karen had converted to Christianity during the 19th century and sided with the British before and during the war. Other ethnic groups also revolted: within the first year U Nu's government faced 9 separatist insurrections. Gradually the government regained military control - aided by the fact that the rebels were busy fighting each other as well as the government. By 1951, U Nu was finally in control of the situation. He set about building a socialist state, nationalizing former British companies and expanding the health service and education. Elections were held in 1951 and 1956; both were won by U Nu's faction of the AFPFL. But in 1958 the party formally split and to avoid open revolt, U Nu invited his defence minister and army chief-of-staff, General Ne Win, to form a military caretaker government until elections could be held. When elections were finally held in 1960, U Nu won an overwhelming victory again - despite the split in the AFPFL. But rebel insurrections confounded his plans for a second time: by 1961 minority revolts by the Shans and Kachins were in full swing. Tensions were exacerbated when U Nu pushed a constitutional amendment through parliament making Buddhism the state religion, which alienated the Christian hill tribes, like the Karen, still further. On 2 Mar 1962 the military engineered a surgically efficient-and almost bloodless - coup d'etat, under the leadership of Ne Win. Government ministers and ethnic minority leaders were arrested: they had all been in Rangoon attending a conference aimed at resolving the insurrections. The constitution was swept aside and a 17-man Revolutionary Council (hand-picked by Ne Win) began to rule by decree, ending Burma's 14-year experiment with parliamentary democracy. The ideology of the military government - called the 'new order' - was set out in a communiqué entitled The Burmese Way to Socialism, published the month after the coup. The other seminal document of the regime was published in 1964: The correlation of Man and his environment, which was an eccentric mix of Marxism-Leninism and Theravada Buddhism. State control was gradually extended over most aspects of Burmese life: industries were nationalized and the economy collapsed. The country entered a state of self-imposed isolation and the military government - which maintained rigid internal control - faced insurrection after insurrection from hill tribes and Communists. To mobilize popular support the Revolutionary Council formed the military Burma Socialist Programmed Party (BSPP or Lanzin). Five months after the government was installed, students protested against the military dictatorship. The next day the student union building was blown up by the army. Ne Win imprisoned all opposition politicians. U Nu was released in 1968 and demanded a return to democracy; he then travelled around the world, denouncing the Ne Win government before accepting asylum in Thailand where he formed the National United Liberation Front (NULF). The NULF rebels launched a series of raids across the Thai border - but in 1972 U Nu resigned from politics altogether. This came as a great relief to the government as the former Prime Minister had provided a focus for countless opposition groups. In 1971 the Revolutionary Council announced plans to draw up a new constitution aimed at transferring power to civilian politicians. The following year Ne Win and 20 of his senior commanders in the military 61ite resigned their army posts and declared themselves the civilian Government of the Union of Burma. The Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma came into existence on 3 Jan 1974, following the promulgation of a new constitution. Burma became a unitary state with effective power in the hands of the Burman majority at the centre and lip service was paid to minority rights. Political power was vested in the BSPP which was the only recognized party in the country; as its chairman, Ne Win became the head of the Council of State and the new President of Burma. Discontent with the state of the economy triggered a coup attempt in Jul 1976, led by junior military officers. Everyone who did not turn state evidence was shot and General Tun U, the chief-of-staff was sentenced to 7 years' hard labour for failing to forewarn Ne Win. Because of growing political unrest, the BSPP was reorganized and tens of thousands of party members were expelled for being out of touch'; more than half the central committee was forced to resign. Over the course of the next year, the vacant places were gradually filled again by retired military officers. Despite continued dissatisfaction and ongoing insurgencies (about 40% of the country was outside government control), Ne Win managed to bring the Buddhist sangha (order of monks) under his control, giving Ne Win the confidence to declare anamnesty which allowed dissidents like U Nu to return to Burma in 1980. Ne Win resigned as president in 1981 but remained chairman of the BSPP and retained his grip on the leadership. By the mid-1980s his once self-sufficient country was on the verge of bankruptcy and in 1987 was conferred 'least-developed nation' status by the UN and international aid agencies. Economic mismanagement, poverty and the devaluation of the kyat helped spark the pro-democracy demonstrations of 1988.
 

During the period of 1498 - 1613, the Portuguese discovered sea routes from Europe to India and established trading posts in the region and settled in the area for over 100 years. It was Nicoto di Conti, a Venetian, who was the first European to encounter Myanmar. Di Conti visited Bago in 1435 and stayed for four months. In 1498, the Portugeuse Vasco de Gama found a sea route to India, opening wide the path to Asia. Soon the Portugeuse had a colony in India at Goa, which they used as a base for eastern trade. De Gama's countryman Anthony Correa made the first trade agreement in Myanmar with the viceroy of Martaban in 1519. The viceroy's king, Tabinshweti, disapproved of the agreement, which was settled without his consent. Tabinshweti attacked Martaban in 1541, and, surprisingly, 700 Portuguese fought on his side. The Loyalist Portuguese retreated to Rahkine, another of the region's kingdoms, and allied themselves with the monarch of Myohuang. In 1600, a Portuguese cabin-boy named Philip de Brito y Nicote came to Myanmar, beginning one of the most legendary tales in Burma's history. De Brito took a job with the king of Rahkine, who had by that time conquered Bago, and soon started constructing forts in the city. De Brito then took a trip to Goa, married the viceroy's daughter, and returned to Bago with men and weapons. As a wedding present to himself, he conquered Myanmar, declared himself king, and set about destroying Buddhist temples. De Brito ruled for 13 years, until the locals finally laid siege to his fortress. After 34 days the bastion fell, and the foreign tyrant was coolly impaled on a wooden stake, his grueling execution lasting three days. Despite the fall of De Brito's personal kingdom, the European presence in Myanmar was there to stay, especially that of the British. From 1752 to 1823, the British, French and the Dutch built a trading presence. In 1752, financed by the French, the Mons took Ava as their capital, but were later defeated by the Bamars who also attack foreign trading posts. In 1824 - 1826, the First Anglo-Burmese war ends with Burma ceding territory to Britain and in 1852, the Second Anglo-Burmese war saw Lower Burma conquered by the British and made a province of British India. King Mindon came to power in 1853, introducing enlightened ideas. He reformed government, allowed people to be educated in Europe, and took the first steps towards industrialisation. He built the walled city of Mandalay and transferred his court there, in 1861 to commemorate the 2,400th anniversary of the preaching of the Buddha's first sermon. By 1886, King Mindon had been succeded by his son King Thibaw who alienated the British. A dispute between the Burmese government and British timber company led to an invasion by British troops. Come 1886, Burma was no longer an independent kingdom with the whole country finally being annexed as a province of British India. Although the country prospered under British rule the Burmese nationalist movement gathered strength. In 1935 the Government of Burma Act formally separated Burma from the Indian colony. During the Second World War, Burmese generals, including Aung San fought and defeated the British with Japanese assistance. When Japan then renegade on promises to grant Burmese independence, Aung San established contact with the Allies and transferred the support of his 10,000 strong army. Following a conference in London, Burma was granted independence. National elections in April 1947 returned Aung San with an overwhelming majority. Tragically, while the new constitution was being drawn up Aung San, aged just 32, and six of his ministers were assassinated by a political rival. U Nu took over following Aung Sans assassination. The first years of independence were marked by economic disaster and fierce factional fighting. General Ne Win took control of the government in 1958, and following elections in 1960 which returned U Nu, just two years later in 1962, General Ne Win returned after a near-bloodless coup. A military-dominated regime led by the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) held power for the next 26 years. There were no free elections, and freedom of expression and association were almost entirely denied. Resistance to the regime occasionally flared, and student and worker demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s were brutally crushed. Torture, political imprisonment, and other human rights abuses were common. Throughout this period, costly guerrilla wars with ethnic opposition groups along the country's frontiers continued. The Revolutionary Council which General Ne Win had established in 1960 was disbanded in 1974 to be replaced by the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma. Under the BSPP's isolationist "Burmese Way to Socialism," the country's economy steadily deteriorated, and by mid-1988, rice shortages and popular discontent reached crisis proportions. The police slaying of a student sparked demonstrations by university students that were soon joined by monks, civil servants, workers, and even policemen and soldiers in cities and towns all over Burma. On the eighth of August - "8-8-88''- hundreds of thousands of people nationwide marched to demand the BSPP regime be replaced by an elected civilian government. Soldiers fired on crowds of unarmed protesters, killing thousands. In 1988, civilian Dr Maung Maung was appointed to take charge. On 18 September 1988, the army finally responded to calls for democracy by announcing a coup by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) (renamed the State Peace and Development Council in November 1997). The junta's next action was to open fire with machine guns on demonstrators in Rangoon and other cities. The carnage was immense. While the exact number will never be known, it is estimated that as many as 10,000 people were killed. Thousands more were arrested. Many were tortured. Amnesty International reported in December 2000 that about 1,700 political prisoners still remain jailed under harsh conditions, and that torture "has become an institution" in Burma. The SLORC pledged that elections would be held after "peace and tranquillity" were restored in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Aung San, had returned to Burma in 1988, and assumed leadership of the National League for Democracy (NLD). But the run-up to the elections inspired little confidence in the process. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in July 1989. Many other senior NLD officials were jailed. The NLD had little access to media and few resources compared to the SLORC-backed National Unity Party (NUP). To most observers' surprise, a free vote did take place on 27 May 1990. Of 485 parliamentary seats contested, the NLD won 392 (over 80%). Ethnic minority parties opposed to the SLORC won 65 more seats. The army-front NUP won only ten seats, a resounding rejection of military rule that demonstrated not only the depth of the Burmese peoples' alienation from the military regime, but also the failure of the generals to recognize their own unpopularity. The junta's response to this overwhelming defeat was simply to change the rules. It declared the election was not for a parliament, but for some members of a constituent assembly to consider a new constitution. Repression intensified. Many NLD elected representatives were arrested. Some have died in prison. Others fled into exile. An elected opposition member of parliament, Dr. Sein Win, is Prime Minister of the government-in-exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), which is among the many pro-democracy Burmese groups working internationally for change in Burma. In 1999-2000, the junta widened its campaign of intimidation against the grass roots of the NLD, as well as its leadership. State media reported almost daily the "resignations" of thousands of NLD members around the country. Many NLD leaders were put under house arrest or detained. Today, the junta rules by decree. Any return to civilian rule will possibly be under a new constitution. The NCGUB and the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB), comprised of several ethnic groups and others who have been fighting against the military regime, have jointly produced a draft democratic constitution. A military-controlled "National Convention" has been charged by the junta with promulgating a new national constitution. The draft document, which enshrines military dominance of any future government and marginalizes Burma's ethnic minorities, has already been rejected by the democratic opposition. The NLD withdrew from the National Convention in November 1995, and the charter drafting process has remained stalled since. There are indications that the military regime is laying the ground for a return to some form of elections. One sign is the increasing prominence of the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a nominally non-partisan civic mass organization created by the SLORC in 1993. The USDA may be converted to a front political party for the military if the generals finally seek to put a civilian face on their rule. After six years of house arrest, during which she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was released in July 1995. Early in 2001, she is again under de facto house arrest after repeatedly being blocked from visiting NLD supporters outside Rangoon. She continues to defy military intimidation and military decrees by speaking out against the dictatorship. In late 2000, junta generals and NLD leaders began the first substantive discussions in over a decade. While welcomed by all sides, their progress is uncertain. Burma's struggle for democracy, sadly, is far from over. Between 1996 and 2000, a semi-enforced boycott has prevented loans being given by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. However some investment by China, France, America and South East Asian has helped the economy to grow.

 
Along the with French and Dutch, the British had colonies in Myanmar by the mid-17th century, although a Bamar king named Alaungpaya kicked out both the French and the British later in the century. Alaungpaya conquered Rahkine, extending his border all the way to the Bengal border, until the British Raj in nearby India decided that he had come too close for their comfort. The British invaded Burma in 1819, conquering Rahkine, Tanintharyi, Assam, and Manipur. In 1852, they extended their control to Lower Burma. By 1886, they had annexed the entire country as a province of India and ruled it through the Raj. As Asian independence movements began to cause problems for the British empire around the turn of the century, the British decided that it might be wise to grant some degree of autonomy in Burma. The symbolic gesture was unsurprisingly insufficient, and in 1930 a Burman named Saya San led a major armed rebellion against the British. The revolt was quashed and San executed, but the experience did inspire Britain to make Burma a separate colony. This slight rise in status was not enough, however, for Thakin Aung San, a student leader who spoke out eloquently for independence. San was eventually arrested for his statements, but he escaped to China, where he collaborated with the Japanese. The Japanese made him promises of independence, provided he help them oust the British. In 1941, the Japanese and San did exactly that. In a legendary retreat, the British lost thousands of men, vowing to return. The allies were eventually able to take Burma back, but only after four years of incredibly arduous and deadly fighting. Aung San, who realized that the Japanese had their own imperialistic interests in his country, eventually sided with the allies. The British granted independence to Burma in 1947, though they were worried that local fighting would erupt soon afterward. Aung San, who was ostensibly to have been the new leader, was assassinated the same year, and his colleague Thankin Nu became president. Thankin Nu stayed in power only briefly, asking General Ne Win to assume control as soon as the first signs of civil unrest erupted in 1958. Nu returned to power in 1960, partly because he promised the Mon and Rakhine semi-autonomy. Nu's refusal to grant the same status to the Shan and the Kayins prompted another rebellion in 1962, and this time General Ne Win assumed control without waiting to be asked. Ne Win, a radical communist, had Nu arrested and isolated the country, at the same time declaring the tatmadaw, or military government. After Nu was released in 1966, he fled the country and began to organize a rebellion. His forces managed to hold some land in 1971, but they were eventually thrown out. In 1981, Ne Win stepped down, granting amnesty to all political enemies. Nu returned home and died peacefully.