Myanmar junta has destroyed or removed nine General Aung San statues since 2024

Mizzima

The Myanmar junta has destroyed or removed nine bronze statues of General Aung San, recognized as Myanmar’s architect of independence, over a two-year span from 2024 to 2026, according to a Mizzima tally.

Five of the nine statues were destroyed or removed after the junta formed a nominally civilian administrative body and junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing assumed the title of “president”.

In the most recent incidents, statues in Thumangalar Park near Padaytha Market in South Okkalapa Township and in Mya Kan Thar Park in Thaketa Township, both in Yangon Region, were removed on 1 July. A statue in Kyunpyaw Township, Ayeyarwady Region, was destroyed or removed on 2 July, following similar incidents in Ye-U’s Aung Mingalar Ward, Sagaing Region, on 27 June, and on Kan Road in Taungoo, Bago Region, on 9 June.

The junta first destroyed a General Aung San statue in Thazi, Mandalay Region, in October 2024. It went on to destroy statues in Naypyidaw on 28 July, in Bago on 7 August, and in Pathein’s Kan Thon Sint Union Ground, Ayeyarwady Region, on 1 November.

General Aung San led Myanmar’s independence movement and is widely recognized as the founder of modern Myanmar. His statues have been erected in towns across the country as national memorials. He was assassinated on 19 July, 1947 at The Secretariat in what was Rangoon.

Successive past military dictatorships preserved General Aung San’s statues, but the current junta may be seeking to erase his significance and diminish the political influence of his daughter, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, a CDM (Civil Disobedience Movement) captain told Mizzima.

“There’s a tradition of paying respect to General Aung San’s statue when cadets enter and graduate from the academy. This practice dates back to Than Shwe’s era at the military academy. Now, under Min Aung Hlaing, we’re seeing an effort to erase General Aung San’s significance and diminish his daughter’s role as well,” he said.

The junta has not officially explained its reasons for destroying or removing the statues to date.

The first General Aung San statue was erected on 13 February 1955 in Bogyoke Aung San Park on Natmauk Road in Yangon, and that statue remains standing today.

A statue in Kandawgyi Park in Loikaw, Karenni (Kayah) State, along with some others elsewhere in the country, is also known to remain standing.

The Myanmar Lawyers’ Council (BLC) has said General Aung San’s statues are national memorials and public cultural heritage that should be preserved, and that their deliberate destruction or removal is an act that could be subject to legal action.