Independence and Civil War
Burma declared independence from Britain in January 1948, and the CPB went underground the following March after U Nu ordered the arrest of its leaders for inciting rebellion. Other groups also soon dropped out of the AFPFL to join the rebellion, not only the White-band faction of the People's Volunteer Organisation (PVO) formed by Aung San as a paramilitary force out of the demobbed veterans, but also a large part of the Burma Rifles led by communist commanders calling themselves the Revolutionary Burma Army (RBA). The AFPFL government had plunged into civil war with not only Burman insurgent groups but also ethnic minorities including the Karen National Union (KNU), Mon, Pa-O, nationalist Rakhine and the Mujahid or Rakhine Muslims.
Read more about this topic: Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, independence and, independence, civil and/or war:
“During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.”
—Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (16891755)
“I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital [Paris].”
—Thomas Jefferson (17431826)
“The utter helplessness of a conquered people is perhaps the most tragic feature of a civil war or any other sort of war.”
—Rebecca Latimer Felton (18351930)
“We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.”
—Wilfred Owen (18931918)