Both within and outside of Burma, Burmese people, friends and family marked the centennial celebration of the birthday of former United Nations Secretary General U Thant on 22 January.
In Burma's capital Yangon, the Burmese national hero, U Thant's 100th birthday commemoration was held at the Inya Lake Hotel on Thursday evening.
The birthday anniversary celebration was organized by the U Thant Institute and Aye Aye Thant, daughter of U Thant, who is also the president of the Institute.
NLD party members, UN representatives, and foreign diplomats attended to the events. Mr Bishow Parajuli, the resident UN humanitarian coordinator, read out a message from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the ceremony, sources said.
U Thant was born in Pantanaw, Burma (Myanmar) on 22 January 1909.
When U Nu became the Prime Minister of the newly independent Burma, he asked Thant to join him in Rangoon and appointed him as Director of Broadcasting in 1948. In the following year he was appointed Secretary to the Government of Burma in the Ministry of Information. From 1951 to 1957, Thant was
Secretary to the Prime Minister, writing speeches for U Nu, arranging his foreign travel, and meeting foreign visitors.
During this entire period, he was U Nu's closest confidant and advisor.
He also took part in a number of international conferences and was the secretary of the first Asian-African summit in 1955 at Bandung, Indonesia which gave birth to the Non-Aligned Movement.
From 1957 to 1961, he was Burma's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and became actively involved in negotiations over Algerian independence. In 1960 the Burmese
government awarded him the title Maha Thray Sithu as a commander in the order of Pyidaungsu Sithu.
He was the first Asian Burmese diplomat and the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971. He accomplished many great things.
During the first term he was widely credited for his vital role in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis and for ending the civil war in the Congo.
During the second term, he established many of the UN's development and environmental agencies, funds and programmes, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN University, UNCTAD, United Nations Institute for
Training and Research (UNITAR), and the UN Environmental Programme.
He had also led many successful though now largely forgotten mediation efforts, for example in Yemen in 1962 and Bahrain in 1968. In each case, war would have provoked a wider regional conflict, and it was Thant's quiet mediation which prevented war.
U Thant retired after ten years, still on speaking terms with all the big powers. In 1961 when he was first appointed, the Soviet Union had tried to insist on a troika formula of three Secretaries-General, one representing each Cold War bloc, a self serving plan which would have maintained equality
in the United Nations between the superpowers.
By 1966, when Thant was re-elected to a second term, all of the big powers, in a unanimous vote of the Security Council, affirmed the importance of his tenure as Secretary-General
and his good offices, a clear tribute to Thant's outstanding work.
The Six Day War between Arab countries and Israel, the Prague Spring, and subsequent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 leading to the birth of Bangladesh all took place during his tenure as Secretary-General.
On January 23, 1971, U Thant emphatically announced that he would "under no circumstances" run for a third term as Secretary-General. For weeks, the UN Security Council was deadlocked over the search for a successor before
finally settling on Kurt Waldheim to succeed U Thant as Secretary-General on December 21, 1971—Waldheim's 53rd birthday—and just ten days before U Thant's second term was to have ended.
U Thant Crisis:
U Thant died of lung cancer in New York on November 25, 1974. When his body was brought back to Yangon, then called Rangoon, for burial, former military dictator General Ne Win refused it national honours.
On the day of U Thant's funeral on December 5, 1974, tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Rangoon to pay their last respects to their distinguished countryman whose coffin was displayed at Rangoon's Kyaikasan race course for a few hours before the scheduled burial.
The coffin of U Thant was then snatched by a group of students just before it was scheduled to leave for burial in an ordinary Rangoon cemetery. The student demonstrators buried U Thant on the former grounds of the Rangoon University Students Union (RUSU), which Ne Win had dynamited and destroyed
on July 8, 1962.
During the period of December 5–11, 1974, the student demonstrators also built a temporary mausoleum for U Thant on the grounds of the RUSU and gave anti-government speeches. In the early morning hours of December 11, 1974, government troops stormed the campus, killed some of the students guarding
the make-shift mausoleum, removed U Thant's coffin, and reburied it at the foot of the Shwedagon Pagoda, where it has continued to remain to this day.
Upon hearing of the storming of the Rangoon University campus and the forcible removal of U Thant's coffin, many people rioted in the streets of Rangoon. Martial law was declared in Rangoon and the surrounding metropolitan areas. What has come to be known as the "U Thant Crisis" — the
student-led protests over the shabby treatment by the Ne Win government of U Thant in memoriam — was crushed by the Burmese government.
Recently, the "Myanmar Thit" monthly magazine was rejected for putting a portrait of former UN Secretary General U Thant on the cover. The military's junta censor board also rejected two articles written by U Thant.
Unlike Burma's junta, the United Nations is planning to issue commemorative stamps in honour of U Thant on 6 February. U Thant is worthy to be honored, in fact revered as one of Asia's most venerable diplomats.
The Buddha also said in the Mangala Sutta, "Puja ca pujaneyyanam," which means to give honor to whom honor is due. The New Light of Myanmar, daily news paper run by the ruling junta is covering this sutta everyday, but they
don't know it exactly, nor do they ever follow the teachings of the Buddha.
Family:
U Thant was married to Daw Thein Tin, and is survived by a daughter, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. His only grandson, Thant Myint-U, is a historian and a senior official in the UN's Department of Political Affairs and the author of The River of Lost Footsteps, in part a biography
of U Thant.
Named for him
The U Thant Peace Award acknowledges and honours individuals or
organizations for distinguished accomplishments toward the attainment of world peace.
The embassy road, Jalan U Thant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is named after him. A tiny island in the East River opposing the headquarters of the United Nations, U Thant Island, is named for him.
U Thant Honorary Lecture Series has been held regularly at the United Nations University (UNU) Headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.
United Nations University (UNU) Headquarters in Tokyo, Japan has named their premiere conference facility after him.
The United Nations International School faculty votes to elect a Junior as the U Thant Scholar, equivalent to valedictorian. The 2008-2009 scholar is Maya Kurien.