Battle of Insein

{{see also|Karen conflict}}

During the leadup to Burma's independence from Britain, Karen groups were unwillingly to be in a Bamar-dominated country but faced internal divides over the territory of a Karen state and the extent to which they should respect Bamar demands. With this context, the KNU headquarters ordered the establishment of Karen defence militias, known as Karen National Defence Organisations, on 17 July 1947. In October 1947, the dominant political party of Burma- the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), asked the KNU to create a Karen state within Burma, but the KNU refused, demanding more territory.{{sfn|Smith|1999|p=85-6}}

Following independence, intercommunal violence grew in the Irrawaddy Delta. This violence was blamed on the KNDO by official government accounts, but such incidents were likely carried out by other Karen militias. Prime minister U Nu and Karen leader Saw Ba U Gyi attempted to de-escalate by touring the delta. To build newfound trust, U Nu allowed the KNDO to recapture Twante near Yangon from the Communist Party of Burma. The KNDO successfully took the Twante canal back but Bamar news organisations were badly informed about this operation, leading to many in Yangon to panic about an impending Karen insurrection.{{sfn|Smith|1999|p=111-2}}

On 1 September 1948, joint KNDO and ethnic Karen military police seized control of Thaton and Mawlamyine. This first move was poorly coordinated and would eventually spark the Karen conflict. Just four days later, the KNDO allowed central government forces to land in Mawlamyine before handing the city back.{{sfn|Smith|1999|p=112}} While the government had doubted the intentions of the KNU, this occupation increased their fears. Conflict increased as a series of retaliatory incidents and massacres escalated following a Bamar militia killing 200 Karens during a Christmas Eve service in a Palaw church.{{sfn|Smith|1999|p=117}}

On 31 January 1949, the KNU formally declared war on the government and the KNDO was outlawed just four days afterwards. U Nu set up Sitwundan militias who began to demand the KNDOs and ethnic Karen military police to surrender their arms before engaging in battle. The Sitwundans surrounded the KNU headquarters in Insein where local KNDOs had raided the armoury earlier. Nearby KNDOs were called in to defend the quarters with the garrison reaching over 400 members.{{sfn|Smith|1999|p=116-7}} The KNDO successfully infiltrated Mingaladon airport four miles from Insein, but chose only to capture ammunition.{{sfn|Smith|1999|p=138}} Indian diplomats negotiated a ceasefire between the KNDO and the Burmese military in early February, but it only lasted for three days. The central government attacked Insein with the frigate UBS Mayu from the Hlaing River.{{cite web |title= ကေအန်ယူနဲ့ ကော်သူလေးအရေး |url= https://www.bnionline.net/mm/news-69023 |access-date=14 February 2024 |language=my|first1= Mahn Htein Win Aung|last1=Sein|work=BNI|date=29 October 2019|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20240214045702/https://www.bnionline.net/mm/news-69023|archive-date=February 14, 2024}}{{sfn|Smith|1999|p=112}} During this time, certain portions of the countryside were under KNDO control, including Hinthada District in northern Ayeyarwady Region. KNDO forces also captured Mandalay, Pyin Oo Lwin, Meiktila, Toungoo, and Mawlamyine. The KNDOs in the delta attacked Pyu and Pathein as a distractionary attempt but ultimately failed to do anything but escalate tensions further.{{sfn|Smith|1999|p=118}}

With aid from ethnic Chin, Karenni, Shan, Gurkha, and even Communist fighters, the Battle of Insein eventually ended in the Burmese government's favour. As KNDO positions north of Yangon fell day by day, KNDOs quietly retreated across the Hlaing River and escaped into the countryside. {{sfn|Smith|1999|pp=140}}

No. (2) Karen Rifle Battalions (Pyay) trying to link up with KNDO was defeated by No. (3) Burma Rifle Battalion at Wet Kaw Bridge, Zigon and advances from No. (1) Karen Rifle Battalion (Taungoo) was also blocked by government forces {{Cite news |title=အင်းစိန် တိုက်ပွဲထဲက "တံမြက်စည်း" |url=https://burma.irrawaddy.com/news/2014/02/10/54672.html |quote=KNDO ဘက်မှ ကူညီမည့် ကရင်သေနတ်ကိုင် တပ်ရင်း (၂) သည် ဝက်ကော်တံတားတွင် ဗမာ့သေနတ်ကိုင်တပ်ရင်း (၃) ၏ ချေမှုန်းခြင်းခံရ။ |trans-quote=No. (2) Karen Rifles trying to link up with KNDO was defeated by No. (3) Burma Rifles at Wet Kaw Bridge}}{{Cite news |title=အင်းစိန်တိုက်ပွဲနိဂုံး |url=https://burma.irrawaddy.com/on-this-day/2019/05/21/191967.html |quote=ပြည်မှ ရန်ကုန်သို့ ချီတက်လာသည့် ကရင်သေနတ်ကိုင် တပ်ရင်း ၂ မှာ ဇီးကုန်မြို့ ဝက်ကော်တံတားတိုက်ပွဲတွင် ချေမှုန်းခံရခြင်း၊ တောင်ငူမှ ရန်ကုန်သို့ ဆင်းလာသည့် ကရင်သေနတ်ကိုင် တပ်ရင်း ၁ ၏ ထိုးစစ်များကိုလည်း အစိုးရ တပ်က တားဆီးလိုက်နိုင်သည့် အတွက် KNDO တို့အဖို့ အင်းစိန်ကို လက်လွှတ်ကာ မြစ်ဝကျွန်းပေါ်သို့ ဆုတ်ခွာခဲ့ရခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ |trans-quote=No. (2) Karen Rifles marching from Pyay to Yangon were defeated at Battle of Wet Kaw Bridge. Advances from No. (1) Karen Rifles at Taungoo were blocked by Government forces. Thus, KNDO was forced to abandon Insein and retreat to Irrawaddy region}}

Shortly after the battle, the Burmese Army's commander-in-chief, Smith Dun (an ethnic Karen), resigned. [https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/forgotten-general-burmas-army.html The Forgotten General of Burma's Army]. The Irrawaddy. November 12, 2013. Yan Pai. {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230203073526/https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/forgotten-general-burmas-army.html|date= February 3, 2023}} The Burmese Army initially being on the verge of total defeat also led to hardline militarists demanding Ne Win to start a coup d'état, which he eventually did in 1962

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Category:Karen history

Category:Internal conflict in Myanmar

Category:History of Myanmar (1948–present)

Category:1949 in Burma

Category:20th century in Yangon

Category:Conflicts in 1949

Category:Attacks on military headquarters

Category:Arsenal raids

Category:Attacks on military installations in Myanmar

Category:Attacks on military installations in the 1940s

Category:Battles involving airports

Category:Battles involving Myanmar