Public holiday in Myanmar, July 19
Martyrs' Day
??????????
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Observed by
| Myanmar
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Type
| National holiday
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Date
| 19 July
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Next time
| 19 July 2024
(
2024-07-19
)
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Frequency
| annual
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Martyrs' Day
(
Burmese
:
??????????
,
pronounced
[?azani
n?]
) is a
Burmese national holiday
observed on 19 July to commemorate Gen.
Aung San
and seven other leaders of the pre-independence interim government, and one bodyguard ?
Thakin Mya
,
Ba Cho
,
Abdul Razak
,
Ba Win
,
Mahn Ba Khaing
,
Sao San Tun
,
Ohn Maung
and
Ko Htwe
?all of whom were assassinated on that day in 1947. It is customary for high-ranking government officials to visit the
Martyrs' Mausoleum
in
Yangon
in the morning of that day to pay respects.
Myoma U Than Kywe
led the ceremony of the First Burmese Martyrs' Day on 20 July 1947 in Rangoon.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
On 19 July 1947, at approximately 10:37 a.m.,
BST
, several of
Burma
's independence leaders were gunned down by a group of armed men in uniform while they were holding a cabinet meeting at the
Secretariat
in downtown
Yangon
. The assassinations were planned by a rival political group, and the leader and alleged mastermind of that group
Galon
U Saw
, together with the perpetrators, were tried and convicted by a special tribunal presided by
Kyaw Myint
with two other Barristers-at-law,
Aung Thar Gyaw
and
Si Bu
. In a judgment given on 30 December 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 8 March 1948. In a judgment written by
Supreme Court
Justice
E Maung
(1898?1977) on 27 April 1948, the Supreme Court refused leave to appeal against the original judgment. All the judgments of the tribunal, the High Court, and the Supreme Court were written in English.
[note 1]
Then-
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 8 May 1948. A number of perpetrators met the same fate, while minor players, who were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, also spent several years in prison.
The assassinated were:
[2]
- Aung San
, Prime Minister
- Ba Cho
, Minister of Information
- Mahn Ba Khaing
, Minister of Industry and Labor
- Ba Win
, Minister of Trade
- Thakin Mya
, Minister Without Portfolio, unofficially considered as Deputy Prime Minister of Burma
- Abdul Razak
, Minister of Education and National Planning
- Sao San Tun
, Minister of Hills Regions
- Ohn Maung
, Secretary of State Transport
- Ko Htwe
, Razak's bodyguard
Tin Tut
, Minister of Finance, and
Kyaw Nyein
, Minister of Home Affairs, were not present at the meeting. Additionally, one of the assassins, Ba Nyunt, went to the office of
Chamber of Deputies
Speaker
U Nu
, who was not present because of a leave of absence due to minor illness. Ba Nyunt could not find U Nu. Later Ba Nyunt became the government witness in the trial process.
Many Burmese believe that the British were somehow involved in the assassination plot; two British officers were also arrested at the time and one of them charged and convicted for supplying an agent of U Saw with arms and munitions. A large part of the stockpile, which was enough to equip a small army, was recovered from a lake next to U Saw's house in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
[3]
Soon after the assassinations,
Major General
Sir
Hubert Rance
, the last British
Governor of Burma
, appointed
U Nu
to head an interim administration and when Burma became independent on 4 January 1948, Nu became the first
Prime Minister of Burma
. 19 July was designated a public holiday known as Martyr's Day.
Commemorations
[
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]
Poem for Martyr's Day
[
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]
Aung San Zarni
Born on 13 February was he
Born in 1915, son of Lawyer U Hpa
Of Natmauk, in Magwe District
Mother's name was Daw Suu
The year 1947 he got assassinated
On 19 July everyone wept
He is the cause of our Independence
He is the father of this nation.
The blessings he had given us, the words he had uttered ...
How can we ever take
those out of our minds ...
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See also
[
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Notes
[
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]
- ^
The judgment of the tribunal can be read in
A Trial in Burma
by Dr
Maung Maung
(Martinus Njhoff, 1963), and the judgment of the High Court and Supreme Court can be read in the 1948 Burma Law Reports.
References
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]
External links
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