Dr. Than Tun - Crying (Moe Kyaw Shwe Gyen)

Government in exile

India did not accept the thousands of refugees who came to India in 1942 after the Japanese invasion. India also had its own problems. So it could not welcome the millions of visitors. And the visitors were all broken, disillusioned, and poor. Most of these refugees were their own people. It was a one-sided claim that the Indian government should take responsibility for these refugees.

Some Europeans treat these refugees, who are their own kind, as strangers. What they do is not expel them. This is a real incident in the Far East. The people in Calcutta, concerned about the situation, do not want to help the refugees. Some of them actually expel them.

Doreen was lucky. When she arrived in Calcutta, she held the baby in one hand and drew a long Japanese sword in the other and looked for the man with her name on it. The man was a wealthy man. He was looking for a wealthy man who could help him find a job. The others were not so lucky. It was a very hot time in Calcutta when they arrived, so they packed enough clothes for their little boy in a week and left for Sinhala. That city was a summer camp and the place where the Indian government used to move its offices until the war. It was the place where the Governor-General's office was located in the summer.

This is a good thing. The Indian government has allowed the government in exile from Burma to set up its headquarters in Sinmai. It is to be based in Sinmai and continue its administration. The Indian government is no longer using Sinmai as a summer camp. So it can easily rent buildings for official residences and offices in this city. I went to Sinmai and joined the Burmese government in exile. I had malaria. I also had severe dysentery. At that time, (the powerful) sulfa drugs were not yet available, so I was hospitalized and treated to kill the dysentery bacteria. At that time, the newly opened Secretariat of the Burmese government was given the post of Assistant Secretary-General.

Despite the impressive title and position, there is no real responsibility. Are the documents related to the cases received complete, are they organized in a coherent manner, can you make your own observations and conclusions, do you have to report them to your superiors, and since it is a government in exile, nothing is done - it is still not a smooth process. It is a very different story from when Eric Arnault was appointed as Assistant Secretary-General in Yangon. He was young, energetic, and energetic. The day he took office, he ordered all the unfinished cases to be sent to me. The next day, when he went to his office, the whole room was overflowing with cases. Some of the cases were from ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago. I had to tell him to hang them up now, and I will bring them up again next year (without losing my composure).

When the Burmese government was officially established at Sinma, Europeans, Anglo-Burmese, Blacks and Burmese who had fled Burma came to this office to report their arrival and to continue their duties. Some came in person. The assistant secretary told him what he should do with the minor officials under his authority. If he thought it was not his right (he had to report it to the governor or other senior officials). The senior officials were now ordered to stay at Sinma, so they had to go around the city and rent houses for a short or longer period. It was not easy to find suitable housing. What happened was that the senior officials often refused to accept anything that others offered them, and instead took bribes. But they were content with what they got.

We had only one room to work in at first, and after three or four weeks, we got a room in the Elysium Hotel, and then a two- and three-room apartment. The hotel was full of people like us who had fled Burma. The room was comfortable. The location was good. So we had company and stayed here. Since we had a small child, we spent the evenings (we couldn’t have time for parties or dinners) in our own room. When we wrote, we wrote, when we played chess, we talked to people we liked, and we rented a bed for Richard. We were afraid that if he grew up with a bed, he would lose his parents, so we stayed with him while drinking tea. The view in the area where we were now was amazing, the snow-covered Himalayas. I must have come here to console myself for the hardships we had faced during the past few months. If we crossed the mountain range, we would reach Tibet.

The senior officers of the administration thought they had taken early retirement. Some of them had left Burma by air and were sharing the remaining power with the Secretary-General. The loss of Burma was only a temporary setback. In this war, the Allies were the only ones who could win. So we had to prepare for what we were going to do when we returned to Burma. There were middle-ranking officers who had stayed in Burma until the last day and then left. They had come the more difficult way north of Tamu. These people had to do the planning. If we could do the planning, we would do it. Don't say that to the princes. The Governor-General, Sir Dorman Smith, was himself a cabinet minister. He was called by the War Cabinet in England and told that the most important Allied task for the Far East was the reconstruction of Burma. He returned to Singapore and appointed Eric Arnault as the reconstruction secretary.

The first record of the Department of Rehabilitation was the Governor’s order appointing Eric to the position. The second was the announcement by Eric that I was appointed Assistant Secretary-General of the Department of Rehabilitation. This small office, which had started out like this, was to plan how to complete the government department in the next two years, and to take into account all the issues (that could arise) in Burma that could be saved from the enemy’s hands. It took a large trainload of goods to Yangon.

We opened our office in a Greek hotel on the slopes of the lower Jakob. There was a deep valley. On the other side of the valley were monkeys - very numerous. We had iron bars on the windows. Every day a monkey would come and sit on the window sill and watch what the people and animals in the house were doing on the benches. We would watch back. So he would get into a mood, and he would ring a bell, and he would hang on to the branches with his hands and go away.

Eric is the department manager. It's the same as the department model. How are we going to organize all the government departments, what are we going to do, and who are the resettlement officers for each department? We have extensive experience in running departments and have had extensive discussions with people. We are going to draw up a "blueprint" for the future. I am the assistant secretary-general, and I am the secretary to each of the committees I mentioned earlier. I have to consult with the chairman and write the final report.

Before the Japanese invasion, Burma was not as complete as the big dominions like Australia and Canada, but it had a lot of independence within the Commonwealth. When we had to leave Burma, we also thought about how to achieve Dominion status. Now, in other words, we should stay in the Commonwealth and give Dominion status. The Resettlement Department also had this idea. I think it would be good if we could announce the exact date when Dominion status would be given. We would have to help rebuild the war-torn area. I think it should take between three and seven years. We presented this idea clearly in London. It was not accepted, because Churchill said, “I do not want to be a big man in the dismantling of empires.

At the beginning of the story, the people who will participate in the resettlement are chosen by the people who will return to Myanmar. They must also be willing to give the Burmese the self-government they want. That is why we do not employ people who believe that they should continue to rule in a fanatical manner. But we also allow them to express their ideas freely. That is why they also question and condemn the department that has just opened.

Soon after the department was opened, two prominent Burmese came to the Myanmar Commission. U Tin Htut was a man who had joined the Indian Indentured Servants (ICS) in 1921. He had passed a competitive examination in England to get the position, which was an overseas allowance (extra pay) given to Englishmen who came to Burma to serve. He became the General Counsel. A year later, U Kyaw Min joined and appointed him as the Chairman of the Department.

U Saw, the former minister of the Burmese government, took U Tin Htut as his secretary and went to England towards the end of 1941 as a delegation. He was well received. But he did not get a promise from Churchill that Burma would declare independence as soon as the war was over (or if the fighting ceased). So the group continued on to America. When they returned to Burma from Hawaii, the Japanese had bombed the port of Palu, so they had to change their route. They had to turn around in Lisbon. When they arrived in Lisbon, U Saw alone met with the Japanese ambassador and promised that if the Japanese entered Burma, Burma would take Japanese help and wage a revolution against the British. (This meant that the British would be driven out of Burma.) They continued their journey there and at the next camp, Haifa, they were arrested. U Saw was kept in Uganda until the war was over. U Tin Htut was allowed to return to Sinma La (as he was not part of U Saw's plan) and continue to serve in the government-in-exile.

U Tin Htut, a Burmese patriot, did not seem to have much faith in the Rehabilitation Department at first. But gradually his prejudices subsided and he believed that he could truly serve his people and joined our work. He had a painful experience when he was a young officer. After playing cricket, when he went to the Bago Club to take a shower and change clothes, he was not accepted and went to a poor place. In India and Burma, the British did not treat the ethnic groups as equals, but spoke to them in a superior manner, which was more painful to the ethnic groups than it was to win them over in real administrative matters. This kind of thing caused more resentment than taking advantage of them in politics and economics. (U Tin Htut) was a very qualified person. He could safely entrust the administration to him. He also advised that the British should temporarily hand over Burma to the United Nations before they really gave independence. He seemed to be warning that if they did not do this, the whole situation would be ruined.

Another Burmese who came out with the Burmese government was Sir Paw Htun. He was the chief minister who succeeded U Saw after his arrest. When he was far away, the chief minister often invited people involved in the Burmese administration to tea parties. The topic he often talked about was how Sir Paw Htun was very good. He himself would tell them how to get a case done quickly. As his health deteriorated, he stopped attending these meetings.

Our department initially worked with expectations and was very active. The officers were asked what they were doing in their respective departments -