Army Career
After Burma gained independence in 1948, Kyaw Zaw became famous as the commander who fought and defeated the Kuomintang who had fled China after the Communist victory in 1949 and had established bases in Burmese territory in the early 1950s. The Kuomintang were supported by the United States and remained in Burma for a few years in the early 1950s making occasional forays into China to fight the Chinese communists. During the period of 1953 to 1955, under Brigadier General Kyaw Zaw's command the Burmese Army fought the Kuomintang and drove them out of Burmese territory into Thailand. Between 1954 and 1955, Brig.Gen. Kyaw Zaw also successfully led a campaign against the insurgent Karen National Union (KNU) and established central government control in the Karen State. The Prime Minister at the time was U Nu and the Commander in Chief of the Army General Ne Win. Kyaw Zaw was wounded by a shrapnel in his thigh in 1949 during the Battle of Insein when the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO) laid siege to the capital Rangoon. He was commissioned by Ne Win during the crisis as the commanding officer and Zaw rated this battle as the bitterest with the greatest loss of life in his military career.
Brig. Gen. Kyaw Zaw was forced to retire from the Army in April 1957 when papers recovered from raids of the Burmese Communist rebel strongholds located in central Burma indicated that Kyaw Zaw might have contacted and informed the Communists of the Army's movements. A Commission established to investigate "In Re the matter of Brig.Gen.Kyaw Zaw" (in Burmese Bohmu Gyoke Kyaw Zaw Keik-sa) found that a preponderance of the evidence showed that Brig.Gen. Zaw's role was suspect and recommended his discharge from the Army. He had joined the Communist Party in 1944 and was elected to the Central Committee the following year. He had however decided not to join the Army rebellion led by Communist commanders soon after independence in 1948; he was convalescing from tuberculosis.
Read more about this topic: Kyaw Zaw
Famous quotes containing the words army and/or career:
“My topic for Army reunions ... this summer: How to prepare for war in time of peace. Not by fortifications, by navies, or by standing armies. But by policies which will add to the happiness and the comfort of all our people and which will tend to the distribution of intelligence [and] wealth equally among all. Our strength is a contented and intelligent community.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)