U Ne Win

U Ne Win (born May 24, 1911, Paungdale, Burma [Myanmar]—died December 5, 2002, Yangon, Myanmar) was a Burmese general who was the leader of Burma (now Myanmar) from 1962 to 1988.

Shu Maung studied at University College, Rangoon (now Yangon), from 1929 to 1931, and in the mid-1930s he became involved in the struggle for Burmese independence from the British. During World War II, after the Japanese invasion of Burma, he was one of the Thirty Comrades who, in 1941, went to Hainan province in China to receive military training from the occupying Japanese there. It was at that time that he adoped the name Ne Win. He subsequently served as an officer in the Japanese-sponsored Burma National Army from 1943 to 1945, but, becoming disillusioned with the Japanese, he helped organize the underground resistance. After Burma gained independence from Britain on January 4, 1948, he served as the second commander in chief of the army.

In 1958 Ne Win was asked to serve as prime minister in a caretaker government after the administration of former prime minister U Nu proved incapable of suppressing the ethnic insurgencies that were crippling the country. Ne Win held general elections in 1960, stepping down that same year after U Nu’s reelection and the restoration of parliamentary government. However, on March 2, 1962, Ne Win carried out a coup d’état, imprisoning U Nu and establishing the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma, whose members were drawn almost exclusively from the armed forces.

In his subsequent rule, Ne Win combined a repressive military dictatorship with a socialist economic program, the cornerstone of which was the nationalization of Burma’s major economic enterprises. His government broke the control of Indian, Chinese, and Pakistani traders over the country’s economy and embarked on an ambitious though unsuccessful program of rapid industrialization. Ne Win steered a neutralist course in foreign policy and isolated Burma from contacts with the outside world. His regime made Burma into a one-party state in 1964; the sole party permitted to exist was the Burmese Socialist Program Party (BSPP), which had been founded by Ne Win and which was dominated by military officers. Ne Win and his colleagues formulated a new constitution in 1972–73 that provided for a one-party state in Burma. A new government was elected in 1974 with Ne Win as president (1974–81). He subsequently retained the post of chairman of the BSPP, remaining the country’s preeminent leader.

By the late 1980s Ne Win’s socialist and isolationist policies had turned Burma into one of the world’s poorest countries. Governmental corruption and mismanagement had driven much of the country’s economic activity underground into the black market, and Burma, which had once been a leading rice exporter, was beginning to experience food shortages. In late 1987 widespread antigovernment rioting broke out in the major cities and was followed in the spring and summer of 1988 by even larger student-led protests. In both instances the government resorted to brutal measures to supress the uprisings that included killing hundreds of demonstrators and jailing thousands more.

The disturbances prompted Ne Win in July 1988 to resign from the BSPP chairmanship. The BSPP subsequently fell from power in the government and was replaced in September by the State Law and Order Restoration Council, which was also headed by military officers. Ne Win is largely thought to have remained active behind the scenes, at least into the 1990s. In March 2002, however, he was placed under house arrest following the imprisonment of several family members who were accused of plotting a coup against the country’s military junta. Although no charges were brought against Ne Win, he remained under house arrrest until his death.