Bohmu Aung was a member of the association opposed to British rule in Burma in the 1930s. He was born in Pegu, near Rangoon, the third of eight siblings, and passed the scholarly Pahtamagyi examination to become a monk but joined the Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association), established in 1930 by Rangoon students and young urban intellectuals as a vehicle to express their wish for Burma’s independence.
Student street protests and university strikes brought about no change, but involvement of Burma in the European War, through the shipment of petroleum products to Britain, led to agitation in Rangoon. Sensing the time for action was approaching, the association’s chairman, Aung San (father of the leader of the National League for Democracy and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Aung San Suu Kyi) left the country in October 1940 to seek the help of Chinese communists. But on the Chinese island of Hainan, then occupied by the Japanese, he met an intelligence officer of the Imperial Army who persuaded him to make an alliance with Tokyo.
Aung San returned to Burma to select 30 young men to go with him to Hainan for military training, with a view to beginning an armed struggle against British rule. These became known as the Thirty Comrades, who swore a blood oath to fight for their country’s freedom. After training, which they found to be exceptionally harsh, they returned to Burma with the invading Japanese Army in December 1941, but subsequently became disillusioned with their allies of convenience.
Bohmu Aung was one among those who took the blood oath and travelled to Hainan. Although the Comrades’ self-styled Burma Independence Army gathered several thousand recruits on its march alongside the Japanese 15th Army from Bangkok to Rangoon, the majority were sent home after the capital was taken and the remainder kept under close surveillance by their Japanese instructors.
When Aung San saw that the war in the Far East was turning in favour of the Western Allies in 1945, he made contact with General Sir William Slim commanding the 14th Army and undertook to support his advance into Burma by guerrilla action on the Japanese lines of communication. Aung San led his country’s postwar negotiations with Britain and would have become independent Burma’s first prime minister in 1947, but was assassinated by a jealous rival.
Bohmu Aung served in various posts in the Cabinet of U Nu, designate Speaker of the Burmese Parliament, who took over as Prime Minister after the death of Aung San. Although a true patriot, U Nu was too much of a dreamer to lead a government with success and, as the country slid into economic and political chaos, General Ne Win — another of the Thirty Comrades — seized power in a coup d’état in 1962. He placed U Nu under house arrest and imprisoned most of his ministers, including Bohmu Aung.
After his release, Bohmu Aung went to Thailand to join the Burmese Parliamentary Democracy Party, working as a parliamentary opposition in exile. This had little impact in Rangoon, however, and Bohmu Aung took advantage of an amnesty to return to Burma in 1980. The amnesty obliged him to stay out of political life, but when the pro-democracy movement gained nationwide support in 1988 he became involved as a member of the “parallel government”. This led to him being held under house arrest for almost two years but he remained committed to the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
After the league won the general election of 1990, but was refused office, his group, known as the 23 Veteran Politicians, signed several public appeals urging the governing State Peace and Development Council to negotiate with the league, but without success.
Bohmu Aung is survived by four adult children. His death leaves only two of the original Thirty Comrades still alive: Bo Kyaw Zaw, who is thought to be living in Kunming, China, and Bo Ye Htut, who lives in Rangoon.
Bohmu Aung, Burmese independence campaigner and politician, was born in 1909. He died on November 9, 2005, aged 95.