Burma National Army: Encyclopedia II - Burma National Army - Allied Cooperation

Burma National Army - Allied Cooperation

Force 136 had issued Aung San along with others a safe pass, and on May 15 he met with General Slim commanding the British Fourteenth Army in Burma. Thakin Soe and Aung San hoped for the BNA to be accepted as allied forces and the Anti-Fascist Organization to be acknowledged as the provisional government of Burma. Slim refused to accept the AFO as a government and insisted that the BNA submit to being disarmed by British forces in areas where the fighting was over. The AFO agreed to this in return for recognition as a political movement and promises that the officers and men of the BNA would be incorporated into the new Burma Army. The BNA was renamed the Burmese Patriotic Forces, and cooperated in driving the Japanese from Southern Burma.

Eventually, the AFPFL (political party successor to the AFO) was brought into the Civil Government of Burma. The BPF was disarmed after much negotiation and its personnel were recruited to form the basis for three new battalions of the reconstituted postwar Burma Army. Other ex-BPF/BNA soldiers were formed into Aung San's PVO party militia organization.

SEAC saw the alternative to cooperation with the AFPFL to be a difficult counterinsurgency campaign in Burma at a time when British resources were at a minimum and the Indian Army could no longer be counted on to impose British rule in places like Burma. The structures they put in place while allowing the British a graceful exit from Burma set the stage for insurgencies in 1947 and then a full civil war in Burma in 1949.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Allied Cooperation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki