Memoirs of Khun Thawda

Generals

Memoirs of Khun Thawda

Khun Thawda a.k.a Pichai Khunseng, who died on 30 May, had left an unfinished recollection of his life, a copy of which S.H.A.N. received last week.

Incomplete as it was, I found it intriguing nevertheless. The description about how hard it was for a city-bred aristocrat to conform himself to a life of a resistance fighter among hitherto-unfamiliar surroundings left a deep impression on myself.

I dearly hope therefore his journal will prompt some of you to share some of your experiences with the rest of our readers too.

FYI, Khunseng, whose name Khun Thawda had adopted as his surname, was the prince of Hsipaw at the time of British annexation of Shan State. __ Editor

I was born in Hsipaw on 30 October 1925, which coincides with the Full Moon day of Leun Hsipsawng or Loy Kra Thong day in Thailand.

My mother was a scion of one of the oldest ruling family of the principality of Hsipaw (Thibaw, in Burmese), which was in existence since A.D.78 according to Chinese annals, when their Prince Lei Lao failed to assert independence and was defeated in a great battle where many of his people migrated to the region now known as the Northern Shan State.

The line of succession to the Hsipaw throne was never threatened by outsiders or was usurped by an adventurer.

Hsipaw State, with 4,951 sq miles is about the size of Connecticut, a New England state of the United States. For centuries its Sao Fa (the head of the ruling family) had been inadvertently embroiled in Burmese power politics for the supremacy of the fertile Irrawaddy River valley, generally known as Burma.Hsipaw sometimes became a nominal vassal of Burma but it controlled its own finance, levying its own army and managing its own internal affairs, undoubtedly it was a feudal kingdom. Burmese chronicles mentioned that in the late 16th century, the Prince of Hsipaw, Khun Muang Luang (Khun Maing Gyi, in Burmese) was cordially invited to rule Burma as King because the Burmese were frightened the Shans would take revenge for killing Hso Harn Fa (Tho Harn Bwa, in Burmese) the son of the Sao Fa of Muong Yang (Mo Nyin, in Burmese).

The Ava Dynasty, strictly was not a Burmese ethnic Kingdom but a Shan-Burmese one. The struggle between the powerful Mon King Rajadirit and the Ava King Minghaung who was of Shan descent and his son, Min ye Kyaw Swa, whose mother was a Shan princess, was a hero in the Burmese history that died in the battlefield fighting the Mons. Mingaung died in 1421.In short, Burmese Chronicles recognized Ava as a Shan Dynasty, which ruled Burma for nearly 200 years. Its downfall could be attributed to the Shans lack of cohesion. Their intense individuality has prevented the formation of a strong Tai State.

However, the Tai states, although no more powerful, survived simply by doing what other Tai tributary states have been doing all along, that is, by appeasing its aggressive Chinese and Burmese neighbours, whoever was stronger at that time, playing off one against the other, at the same time never failing to assert total Independence once Burma or China plunged into chaotic confusion of palace intrigues or became weakened by rival factions engaged in a deadly, mutually destructive war fighting against each other. It was the forte of the spent force Tai States to use the art skillfully against its adversaries to preserve their freedom and identity.

The Tai Principalities at times collaborated, for instance, with the invading Kublai Khan’s Chinese Army, which swept into Southwest China and conquered Yunnan in 1253 then invaded Burma in 1284 and with the help of the Shans sacked the Burmese capital of Pagan. The Burmese King, Tarok pyay Min [the King who fled the Chinese as he is known in Burmese history] deserted his capital and one of his sons later poisoned him to death. Needless to say, Burma broke up into many independent States.

A second significant major collaboration by the Shans occurred in the 18th century, when they supported the Burmese Army during the Alaungpaya dynasty or commonly known in Burmese History as Kon-baung Dynasty founded by a hunter of Mok Soe Bo village, 60 miles north of the Ava capital.

U Aung Zeya, the Burmese strongman rallied behind him followers to resist the rampaging Mon troops from the South. He defeated the Mon forces and recaptured the old Burmese capital of Ava from them and then in a few years time he gave the Mons a terrible beating that the mighty Mons were forced to take refuge in Thailand, never to rise again as a power for the Burmese to reckon with.

It was during Alaungpaya’s son Sinbyushin’s (meaning, the owner of the white elephant) reign in the 18th century that a second major collusion by the Shans occurred when the Tai Principalities supported the Burmese Army against the invading Chinese troops. The Prince of Mongmit contributed a Calvary and the Prince of Kengtung an Elephantry. The joint military operations gave the Chinese invaders a crushing defeat at the battle of ‘Nga-saung Gyan’ near Bhamo when the superior Chinese Army, out-maneuvered and logistics cut off, was forced to negotiate a Peace Accord on 24th Nov.1769.

My father, Dr.Ba Nyan had asked me to accompany Khun Kya Nu, one of his favorite nephews to the Thai border to join the ranks of the N.S.H. and Khun Kya Nu’s father, my uncle, U Kya Bu was worried because his Shan language was rather poor at that time.

When my cousin Khun Kya Nu and I left our Taunggyi home on April 8,1959, he was a political activist in the university of Rangoon campus wanted by the Burma Army’s notorious Military Intelligence Service (MIS) whereas, I was an ex-teacher of Kambawza College, formerly known as a Shan Chiefs’ school, my old school, and was waiting for a new job as a bank manager of the Agricultural Bank. Sometime after April, the political situation in Shan State was becoming “explosive” as disgruntled youths were flocking to join scattered resistance groups fighting the occupation Burma Army. Captured enemy weapons helped the militants to form new guerrilla units.

The entire country was extremely agitated, and for all we knew, the movement was growing and gaining ground. It was my first experience what a popular war was.

My mother, a scion of the hereditary aristocracy class of Hsipaw State, pronounced Thibaw in Burmese, told me bluntly “Go my son, join other patriots in the noble struggle for freedom. I hate to see you being killed by these Burmese soldiers here (sic).” I was already 33 years and six months old, admittedly no more a young man. I had graduated from Rangoon University in 1956 with a Bachelors degree in the modern greats that is, Politics Economics and Philosophy (Metaphysics and Ethics). Eastern and Western Philosophy was my own choosing when I re-entered the University of Rangoon in 1952 after a hiatus of six years.

I had disappointed my adopted father a medical doctor for not becoming a physician like him and my uncle (Prince Sao Kya Seng) for not becoming an engineer.

My uncle, the head of the ruling family of Hsipaw State graduated out from a tough school with an E.M (Engineer of Mines) degree from the prestigious Mining & Metallurgical Engineering school of Colorado.

It was an object lesson that when you are not given freedom to choose what you want to be but let your life run by someone, it would ruin your life.

I never regretted that I did not listen to them. It was my “Free” choice to shape my own future. Indeed I was a rebel.

At any rate, it was a trauma for my mother as I went down on my knees to prostrate both hands clasped to supplicate as a good Buddhist would to my mother. She however avoided my stare but I noticed tears had welled up her eyes and I was choking myself to keep from breaking down. She told me to solemnly promise to take refuge in and accept the Tri-Ratana (Triple Gems) the Buddha, Dhamma (The Universal Truth) and the Sangha the clergy and with Karma permitting we will meet again.

Of course, I never saw her again, she died of terminal cancer and my uncle, Sao Kya (pronounced Ja) Seng, my benefactor, dropped in to visit my mother, his ailing sister before leaving for Rangoon where he was to attend a parliamentary meeting. The 88th Celestial Prince disappeared. During an early morning 2 March 1962, a military coup was staged by Gen. Ne Win who toppled the civilian government of Premier U Nu and seized power.

The two of us with our own connections then joined another group who were also heading for the “Noom Suk Harn” or the “The Young Warriors” guerrilla camp at the Thai-Burma border.

We were traveling in two trucks and one World War II vintage jeep. Out of a total 90 or so would be guerrillas only about 30 were equipped with leftovers of old US 101 Ranger weapons which operated behind enemy lines during World War II.

Although most of us were youths, some were high school students and “raw” farm boys who had left their ploughs. None had gone through the basics of a military boot camp.

We were encouraged and felt safe by having co-traveler veterans of World War II. We were following closely with the machine gunner who was carrying a “Johnson” light machine gun produced for the CBI theater (China-Burma-India), which was light, and need no special training to handle it.

We also had Johnson rifles which a raw guerrilla could stuff the .30 caliber ammo into the magazine-like pouch near the trigger guard. It was a semi-automatic gun extremely favored by the guerrillas.

There were also two M-1 Garand rifles which was heavy but reliable. We had some Japanese made sniper rifles and a few .303 MK II British rifles and some hand grenades which at one time scared the daylights out of me when a comrade in front accidentally dropped from his belt during a skirmish alert. Fortunately, there was no firefight but the grenade broke into two during the bid to take cover in the dried-up ravine. The grenade was too old and rusted to be of any use.

Everybody laughed at the incident but I could only responded it with a nervous grin. A few months later, we lost the light Johnson machine gun and the gunner “Mawk Kham” a 101 guerrilla veteran and his second man “Gandama” a good cook during a firefight with the enemy at Mae-Ken, near Muong Tone now a Burma Army Garrison.

Our band walked and walked. We were goaded to march during the daytime in the teak forest near Kengtawng - Kengkham a government forest reserve to avoid premature hostilities.

The forest in Shan State at this time of the year was blooming with thousands and thousands of orchids during the month of March and April. It helped me forget my weariness, my aching foot and hunger by observing and counting the myriads of yellow, purple and white orchid sprays that hung from the moss and lichen-covered branches. The sweet and scented smell of the flowers in the air during a slight breeze wafted over our noses surprisingly gave us more physical energy to push us forward.

At one time I remembered walking the whole night until the next morning and only stopped to have breakfast at noon. We were told to finish our food within 10 minutes or continue eating while walking.

Since the food consists of sticky rice which town folks like us not used to the country people’s cuisine was an agony. We had to eat it whether we liked it or not and was warned there will not be any if we did not fill up our tummies now for in the next leg of the journey we may find nothing to eat because of “uncertainties” of a country at war. The enemy would drag away the people to be porters or there was not enough food around to share with us that was the impression I got from our guide.

Our rice tubes which all of us were obliged to carry wrapped around our waists was emergency rations when marching through thickly-forested mountains where no villages could be found for days on end.

Then only I realized that armed struggle indeed was ultimate in patriotism and that a revolution means we had to “suffer” and “sacrifice” all the comforts of a sheltered life, however, at the same time I began to have an awful feeling that the bid to struggle for freedom was not going to be short and easy.

I also stopped nursing illusions that the country’s national liberation perhaps depended on persons living abroad or sophists who practice clever spacious reasoning. Unfortunately they have become a breed detached from realities.

After twenty days of “forced” marching we were told to take a day off of resting, we were told that we were nearing our destination after we crossed the swift flowing Salween River.

I remember a Shan village of about 50 households where we were given the meal of an astringent tasting Pak-Hi vegetable which was tasteless. The meal was the worst I had tasted in my life.

We went to a Buddhist monastery resided by a fresh-faced rather than a wizened old abbot, apparently the villagers could not find yet a replacement for the dead monk.

The village was near the Salween River crossing as we were walking down the slope to the ferry. Here a white shirted man greeted us but he had a pistol tucked into his belt. He introduced himself as “Narsata” the Officer-In-Charge of the outpost on the eastern side of the bank.

His two green uniformed N.S.H. guerrillas followed him everywhere. I noticed they were equipped with two rifles, one a British Enfield 303 MK II and the other a short-barreled Japanese rifle. They were short of ammo, I was told.

We crossed the Salween River after our morning meal, which comprised of the usual sticky rice but with fried cicada with a little salt sprinkled over it. It was delicious but some lucky comrades found even more palatable meat with crunchy bones in their teak leaf-wrapped food packet. It was a chopped giant land lizard spiced with condiments.

The land lizards and the deafening chirping cicadas in the hot season was abundant in the teak and broad-leafed Tong Tung forests near the Salween River.

We took our time to cross the river with dugout boats under the watchful eyes of N.S.H. guerrillas outpost on the opposite bank.

I was so happy to see their green uniforms and needless to say “proud” to be in the liberated zone.

The guerrillas smiled at us from a camouflaged “Bren gun” positions strategically placed to cross fire at enemy boats trying to cross the river.

None of them could speak the Burmese language as we spoke to them before climbing the 60-degree embankment. The partisans were from Mongpan and people from the eastern side of the river.

We climbed the steep bank and those coming down encouraged us to reach the camp before dusk. I had a shoulder bag, a plastic water bottle, which smelled, horribly of chemical also serves as a pillow when sleeping in the jungle or in a cave.

We arrived at the camp thoroughly exhausted but happy and relieved that we are not looking at a Burmese face and speaking their language as it is in the occupied Shan towns.

We slept in the bamboo barracks. The next morning we were startled to meet Sao Kyaw Htun, whose nom de guerre was Sao Hso Won, who wore a Burmese Army bush jacket and a peaked officer’s cap apparently a booty he picked up in an ambush on a Burmese Army convoy.

He was extremely nervous and was ready to fire his WW II sten gun at anyone who looked like a Burmese and speaking the language.

He had seen me at the University of Rangoon campus but was not close although his father Sao Naw Mya was my school mate but senior to me in the Shan Chief’s school.

He said hello to my cousin Khun Kya Nu and then hello to me later. He was followed by an aide with a Gurkha sword “Kukri” tucked to his belt. He was nicknamed “Kukri” but everybody discussed this short soldier. His name was Khun Htun, a former batman of the Burma Army Colonel Chit Myaing, the then commander of the Lashio Burma Army garrison.

“Kukri” was notorious for chopping off heads of the enemy spies and soldiers and Sao Hso Won was known to threaten anyone who did not favor him as saying “I’ll let you have Kukri Khun Htun take care of you!”

We rested at the Salween base camp for three days. It was the first time in days that we had Indian lentil with beef or pork for a change for our meal. Naturally we enjoyed the food after the monotonous vegetable and sticky rice.

When we continued our journey we found we were fresh and vigorous, unlike the Western Salween however the Eastern Salween was mountainous and thickly wooded. We had to climb one mountain and then after reaching the top we had to descend.

Climbing down was more difficult and saps your energy. It hurt our leg muscles and I suspect was the cause of our aches and pains when we retired for the night.

The region was also sparsely populated, inhabited by hill tribesmen, mostly Lahus and a few Palaung tribemens.

There was no food package so we had to cook ourselves. Our rice tubes now became our “life savior”. We organized in units of ten and one where we all would help each other by gathering fire woods and gathering a kind of bamboo which is used for cooking rice and searching for edible mushrooms or bamboo shoots.

Shans know of course which kind of vegetable is edible and which ones are poisonous.

Since most carry in bamboo pipes a powdered Soya bean paste mixed with chili and salt we could prepare delicious soups made from herbs or edible ferns, which is abundant at the camp, near a stream. The sticky rice cooked in “Khao Lam” bamboo was superb.

I marveled at my people for the know-how to survive in a thick jungle. They could live off the land without the life-supporting supplies which city dwellers would need every day. The encouraging thought of every step that we climbed up or down the mountain trail was worthwhile came, as we knew we were nearing our destination.

The aura of arriving at the Resistance Head Quarters, which we had never seen in our lives and to meeting the “mysterious” leader who led the resistance, was extremely exciting.

We arrived at the foot of a steep hill that was part of the mountainous region inhabited by Lahu tribesmen. We were told there were two large “Christian” villages and smaller three “Animist” Lahu villages in this area.

We were elated to the very thought of seeing a human face, since we had been walking days without meeting a human soul.

It was about six in the evening and we were so exhausted that we decided to rest at the foot of a hill which had a stream but our guide told us to make our last effort to reach at the top of a hill where a Lahu village was waiting to relieve us with hot food.

The thought of a hot food gave us strength to climb the hill, even if we have to crawl up the last obstacle. A few of our comrades who were too exhausted did not make it and decided to sleep at the foot of the hill.

It took us about two hours to reache the Lahu village and we put up at the first house we saw. There were about 15 of us some tried to start fire at the fireplace.

The hostess did not speak Shan so with sign language we could help ourselves to cook rice in a provided aluminum pot.

Some comrades got hold of the edible ferns near a brook we had passed and we just cooked with the powdered Soya bean which all of us carried in a pipe-like bamboo pouch.

Hot chili was available but we were careful not to use the water too much as we knew the tribes woman had to fetch from the streams at the foot hills everyday with bamboo pipes which was a back breaking job. We marveled at their strength and the stamina to endure hardships without any complaint whatsoever.

The host had three dogs. They were not fierce. After the rice was cooked, the Lahu tribeswoman then told us to help ourselves with the white enamel plates stacked high and placed near the fireplace. All of us were so hungry we grabbed at the plates and heaped fern soup and the usual soybean paste mixed with garlic and chili.

We enjoyed the hot meal tremendously. After that we were ready to wash our plates and was going to apologize the host for the precious water we knew we had to use.

The host however told us to leave the plates with some leftovers and shouted in her language at which the dogs climbed the stairs in a hurry and headed for the used plates, which they licked clean.

No water was used. Then she picked up the plates and stacked it as before some of us who saw the incident began to throw up. I was philosophical enough though somewhat queasy to the realization that the plate I had just used was “licked clean” by the same mongrels before using it!

The tribeswoman then got a handful of water soaked rice and placed it on the split bamboo floor the dogs ate it. Tough dogs indeed I admired unlike their racial cousin, the Kaws or “Akhas”. The Lahus are not known to eat their dogs. However other tribes in Shan State love dog meat. The Wa and even Chinese liked to eat jet-black dogs spiced with herbs in the cold season. They believed, and supposedly, dog meat delicacy combats the cold weather. For some reason, the Shan people abstained from eating dog meat, however.

We slept well and were not in a hurry to continue our trek. We could see a big Lahu village in the distance and was told they were “Christian”. When we got there we saw it was quite different from the “Animist” Lahus. Their houses were kept clean and they had a church adjacent to a basketball field. It was Sunday and some of our Christian Kachin soldiers even attended the services of the church. They say the Lahus were Baptists.

The next day we continued our journey it was the same and monotonous task of the going up the hill and then descending to the foot only to start climbing up another hill again. The only thing that broke the monotony was the scenery of the mists hanging in the valleys, which somehow relieved our minds of the rigors.