U Maran Bawk La passed away this morning the 23rd of January in Myitkyina, Kachin State at the age of sixty.

U Bawk La graduated from Rangoon University in 1973 with a B.A. and subsequently practiced law, completing his MA in 1979.  He was a member of the Myitkyina Bar Association until his license was revoked in 1988.

Bawk La was a steadfast political activist throughout his life.  In 1963 he joined the Kachin Independence Organization until he was arrested for his underground activities in 1965 and imprisoned for sixteen months.  In 1971, he was again imprisoned for eleven months for his participation in the underground student union at Mandalay University.

In 1988, Bawk La led strikes in Myitkyina and was elected as the vice-chariman of the Strikes Committee and Kachin State delegate to the General Strike Committee, Rangoon.  He was subsequently an organizer in Kachin State, and was the first member of National League for Democracy from the Kachin State.  On 18 October, U Bawk La was arrested and imprisoned in Myingyan Jail under the Emergency Act section 5(j) for three and one half years.  Upon his release the government expelled him from the NLD and revoked his license to practice law.  He was arrested again on 3 June 2003 and served a six month sentence for acting as an accomplice of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

U Bawk La remained steadfast in his determination to stand for justice and remained an active member of the NLD despite repeated pressure from the military government to resign.  Although many encouraged him to find exile abroad he remained in Burma due to a deep sense of commitment to the Kachin youth whom he felt he had an obligation to serve.

U Bawk La served actively on several Kachin cultural organizations including Kachin Manau Committee in Myitkyina.  A deeply patriotic Kachin, he believed the only way forward for the Kachin people was through their inclusion in a democratic federal Union of Burma.

U Bawk La was an avid writer.  He wrote extensively for the Mandalay Hanthawadi Newspaper from 1969, and published four books  including A Political Biography of Sama Duwa Sinwa Nawng, Dr. Sun Yet Sen and the Chinese Revolution, Kachin Short Stories, and Advanced Viewpoints of Kachin Culture.  Bawk La also wrote the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) Military Act and Rules, a Burmese-Kachin-English dictionary, translated the Declaration of Human Rights into Kachin, and translated into Burmese “The Moral Foundations of Politics” by Professor Ian Shapiro of Yale University.

U Bawk La was recently awarded a one year fellowship-in-residence at Yale University. Unfortunately he passed away before he was able to realize his dream to travel to the US for one year of intensive
study.

U Bawk La is survived by his wife, two daughters and grandson.

[Courtesy of KNO News & Information Department]