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<\/a>Aung San, 1940s [Public domain]<\/p><\/div>This week in the war, on 15 May 1945, Burmese\u00a0revolutionary leader\u00a0Aung San—who had previously sided with the Japanese—offered to help the British. The British welcomed him.<\/p>\n
Originally a communist,\u00a0he changed to being\u00a0a social democrat and later became Premier of the British Crown Colony of Burma.<\/p>\n
He dedicated his life to fighting for Burma’s independence but was assassinated several months before his country achieved self-rule.<\/p>\n
His daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, would follow in her father’s footsteps, suffering persecution (including 15 years of house arrest) as an advocate of democracy.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Aung San Suu Kyi and her staff at her home in Rangoon, 19 November 2012 [Public domain]<\/p><\/div>She would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Peace and become her country’s head of state as First State Counsellor of Myanmar<\/em> (Burma).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week in the war, on 15 May 1945, Burmese\u00a0revolutionary leader\u00a0Aung San—who had previously sided with the Japanese—offered to help the British. The British welcomed him. Originally a communist,\u00a0he changed to being\u00a0a social democrat and later became Premier of the … Continue reading