Bombed and Buried: The Tormented Story of Myanmar’s Martyrs’ Mausoleum

Few people today realize that the current red Martyrs’ Mausoleum was preceded by an earlier structure on the same site.

The original mausoleum was built in the 1950s during the AFPFL (Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League) era, but was destroyed in the 1983 bombing by North Korean agents.

Located at the northern entrance of the Shwedagon Pagoda, the first mausoleum was a modest one‑story wooden shrine housing the tombs of the nine martyrs. Visitors climbed five steps to pay their respects beneath a corrugated iron roof surrounded by waist‑high wooden railings.

It was a far cry from the enduring national monument envisioned by a grieving public after General Aung San—father of now detained Myanmar democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi— and his comrades were assassinated on July 19, 1947.

The original design approved by parliament called for a grand brick structure in the style of Yangon City Hall, blending Burmese motifs into a monumental form. Yet more than two years after Gen. Aung San’s death, construction had still not begun. The Hanthawaddy newspaper reported that building the mausoleum would cost at least one million kyats, but the poverty-struck nation could only muster about 600,000.

By the early 1950s, the grand brick design had been abandoned, replaced by a simple one‑story shrine. The Kyemon newspaper drew an unflattering comparison with the expansive and beautifully landscaped Htaukkyan War Cemetery, where Allied soldiers who fell during the Second World War are buried. It lamented that the two sites stood at opposite extremes: one serene and dignified, the other small and underwhelming.

hose with international exposure urged Prime Minister U Nu to build a proper mausoleum with exhibition halls, paintings, photographs, and statues to honor the martyrs, as was common in other countries.

But after General Ne Win’s 1962 coup and U Nu’s fall, the mausoleum remained a modest structure, resembling a rural resthouse from a distance. During Ne Win’s rule, only minor repairs were carried out to keep it tidy.

In 1973, veteran journalist and writer Zawana revived the calls for a “magnificent” mausoleum. Under Ne Win’s military dictatorship, a new design took shape that envisioned a massive brick structure to project permanence and authority.

Groundwork for the new structure was underway when the old mausoleum was destroyed in the 1983 bombing.

On October 9, 1983, South Korean President Chun Doo‑hwan was scheduled to pay respects at the mausoleum when North Korean agents detonated a bomb in the roof, killing 21 people.

Had the bomb exploded just minutes later, Chun would almost certainly have been killed.

Ne Win’s regime promptly ordered the new design to be altered, removing the roof and reshaping it into the flat, red concrete structure seen today.

The new mausoleum was opened in 1985, relegating the original timber structure to a footnote in history.

In the wake of the bombing, Martyrs’ Day ceremonies changed dramatically. Family members of the independence heroes later recalled that no minister dared to lay wreaths at the mausoleum, instead delegating the task to low‑ranking officials. Under Than Shwe’s dictatorship, the annual commemoration was pared‑down and stripped of dignity, while ordinary citizens were barred from entering the mausoleum altogether.

Family members of the fallen martyrs were forced to deliver their wreaths a day in advance to security guards on the pretext they might contain explosives – a humiliating experience recounted in a memoir by one of the victims’ relatives.

Only under the National League for Democracy (NLD) administration led by Aung San’s daughter, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, did the commemorations regain the dignity of national ceremonies. After taking office in 2016, her government ordered major renovations to the mausoleum. For the first time in decades, a president personally attended Martyrs’ Day ceremonies, and the public was allowed to pay their respects freely. Architectural elements that had been suppressed under military rule were restored: the star motif was repositioned, and the flagpole was relocated to align with the original design.

However, following the military takeover in 2021, Martyrs’ Day once again fell into darkness. The junta banned wreath‑laying, restricted mourning rituals, and prohibited the wearing of black T‑shirts. Security around the mausoleum has been tightened, inspections multiplied, and commemorations are now as subdued and repressed as in earlier military eras.