In 1947, as independence loomed, Burma’s prime minister-in-waiting, Aun San, was assassinated. Was it his political rivals, the military, or the British?
On 19 July 1947, a humid Saturday during the rainy season in Rangoon, Burma’s capital, Aung San was chairing a ministerial council meeting in the secretariat building.
Still formally under British rule, as it had been since the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885-86, Burma was just over five months from independence. Aung San was Burma’s prime minister-in-waiting. In April 1947 his party, the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL), won a commanding majority in elections for a constituent assembly.
On the agenda for the meeting was internal security. A black-market trade in arms and munitions left over from the Japanese war was flourishing. Threats from political opponents were rife and private armies operated in plain sight.
British soldiers were no longer on duty. A solitary peon stood outside the council chamber.
The meeting had barely begun when gunmen burst in and opened fire. First reports suggested Aung San had survived but he and six ministerial colleagues, one of them his brother, were killed, most instantly.
