CULTURE

RECOMMEND (155)

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

PLUSONE

MORE

E-MAIL

PRINT

TEXT SIZE

Khin Kyi’s funeral in 1988 inspired a political song about both Kodaw Hmaing and Gen Aung San.

 

These are the reasons why the four tombs are not o­n any officially protected monuments list, and why tourists are discouraged from seeing them. They are a source of embarrassment to a regime that fears they might become a meeting place for democracy activists. The tombs have fallen into a state of neglect.

 

“They do not want to recognize these tombs as historical sites, but at the same time they do not let [others] renovate them,” a lawyer based in Rangoon told The Irrawaddy. “They seem to prefer that these monuments disappear from public memory.”

 

The poet Tin Moe, who lives in exile in the US, has compared the way European countries protect their historical monuments with the Burmese regime’s approach. “It is the duty of the government. It is a shame not to protect these four tombs,” he has said.

 

By a macabre irony, it’s a wonder that Aung San’s neglected tomb exists at all. In 1983, a bomb planted by North Korean agents destroyed the Martyrs’ Mausoleum. The bomb exploded during a visit to the mausoleum by the then South Korean president, Chun Doo-Hwan, and his cabinet. Chun escaped, but four members of his cabinet, 13 other South Koreans and four Burmese were killed. Although rebuilt, it lacks the impressive style of the original..

 

The regime has dealt in like manner with Rangoon’s Kyandaw cemetery, where many political leaders, scholars, writers and artists lay buried. In 1996, the regime ordered the cemetery cleared, resulting in the destruction of many historical  tombs.

 

Burma’s most respected historian, Than Tun, who died last year, often said: “The purpose of learning history is to break free from ignorance.” But Than Tun’s words of wisdom fall o­n deaf ears as far as Burma’s military regime is concerned. In fact, he is so despised by them that a statue of him in Taung Lay Lone Monastery at the former royal city of Amarapura, south of Mandalay—a meeting place for literary and academic figures—was recently demolished.