Myanmar Martyrs’ Day Ceremony 2012 is different than other years, more crowded and attended many big persons. You can enjoy with some photos.

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On July 19, 1947, at approximately 10:37 a.m., BST, several of Burma’s independence leaders were gunned down by a group of armed men in uniform while they were holding a cabinet meeting at the Secretariat in downtown Yangon. The assassinations were planned by a rival political group, and the leader and alleged master-mind of that group Galon U Saw, together with the perpetrators, were tried and convicted by a special tribunal presided by Kyaw Myint with two other Barristers-at-law, Aung Thar Gyaw and Si Bu.

In a judgment given on 30 December 1947 the tribunal sentenced U Saw and a few others to death and the rest were given prison sentences. Appeals to the High Court of Burma by U Saw and his accomplices were rejected on 8 March 1948. In a judgment written by Supreme Court Justice E Maung (1898–1977) on 27 April 1948 the Supreme Court refused leave to appeal against the original judgment. (All the judgments of the tribunal, the High Court and the Supreme Court were written in English. The judgment of the tribunal can be read in “A Trial in Burma” by Dr Maung Maung (Martinus Njhoff, 1963) and the judgment of the High Court and Supreme Court can be read in the 1948 Burma Law Reports.)

The President of Burma Sao Shwe Thaik refused to pardon or commute the sentences of most of those who were sentenced to death, and U Saw was hanged inside Rangoon’s Insein jail on 8 May 1948. A number of perpetrators met the same fate. Others, who had played relatively minor roles and were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, also spent several years in prison.

The assassinated were:

1. Aung San, Prime Minister
2. Ba Cho, Minister of Information
3. Mahn Ba Khaing, Minister of Industry
4. Ba Win, Minister of Trade
5. Thakin Mya, Minister of Home Affairs
6. Abdul Razak, Minister of Education and National Planning
7. Sao San Tun, Minister of Hills Regions
8. Ohn Maung, Deputy Minister of Transport
9. Ko Htwe, Bodyguard of Razak