(Later part of this post is direct translation from the EMG and
other Burmese blogs.)
It was the very first and also the last marching parade for young
BNA. A week later the whole army took to the jungle secretly to revolt against
their Japanese masters.
In
his parade speech to his army General Aung San commanded them to find the
nearest enemy and ruthlessly eliminate them. For the group of
senior Japanese officers standing behind the podium the nearest enemy was to be
the advancing British 14th army on the western front. But for the
Burmese troops on the parade ground it was a code word for their Japanese
masters.
The long-awaited
rebellion had started and that day of March 27 had later become the celebrated
Armed Forces Day of the Union of Burma. This year Burmese Army has a show of
its latest hardware in addition to the traditional marching parade of the
columns from army and air force and navy.
Burmese
Are So Proud of Their Army Since Then
 |
| Former Senior General Than Shwe in Nyapyidaw. |
But anyway having their own army is one of the proudest achievements for a people and us Burmese are no exception. I have a personal story for that.
When I was still at RIT one of my friends
once invited me to his house and at his house I saw an old photograph enlarged
and framed and proudly hanging on the wall of their lounge room. It was a photo
of young Burmese woman trying to give a bouquet to a mounted Burmese officer
participating in that March 1945 parade.
My friend’s mother came in and saw me staring
at the photo and proudly recalled for me the photo’s background and told me that
the young lady was she. She was so pretty and the young officer so handsome on the large horse that a newspaper
reporter happened to be nearby took the photo and published it in his newspaper
next day.
Now she and her whole family had proudly
cherished the historic photograph. One thing she didn’t know then was that I
knew the photo very well as I had seen it so many times before. But I didn’t tell
her that day.
And I didn’t tell her also that the handsome Burmese
officer sitting tall on the big Japanese horse was my father Bo Htun Hla
leading his recently-formed battalion of young officer-cadets from the Mingaladon
Military Academy.
Burmese
Army Shows Off Their Latest Hardware?
 |
| New Senior General Min Aung Hlaing inspecting the troops. |
After the
national capital was moved from Rangoon to Naypyidaw in 2005 the celebrated tradition
continued on. But this year a new show parading the latest military hardware
was included in addition to the traditional march of three armed-forces
columns.
The most
notable among the military hardware was the Russian-made Pechora M125 air-defense
missile systems. Burmese army was known to have possessed the Pechora missiles
but never publicly admitted that and this is the very first time they let the
world know that they have them deadly missiles.
Especially to Thailand
which used to send their latest US-supplied fighter-jets into Burmese airspace
whenever they felt like it. Now Thai generals have to think carefully before
violating Burma’s airspace again as these Pechoras were famous for dropping a
few NATO fighter jets off the sky during the 1999 NATO’s invasion of then
Serbian-controlled Bosnia and Kosovo.
 |
| Mobile Pechora SAM missiles in the parade. |
 |
| Burmese Armed Forces Chief SG Min Aung Hlaing giving speech. |
 |
| ARMY's newly-built APCs. |
 |
| Newly-built mobile howitzers. |
 |
| Mobile Pechora Missile Control Radars. |
 |
| Pechora Missile Mobile Control Stations. |
 |
| Mobile Pechora missiles. |
 |
| Daw Aung San Suu Kyi attending the Parade. (Proof of thawing of her formerly tense-relationship with the Army.) |
To be continued……
