Myanmar’s MI and the Kempeitai: a historical footnote

After the 1962 coup in Myanmar (then known as Burma), one of the first steps taken by General Ne Win was to “revamp and reorganise” the country’s military intelligence apparatus. According to the British writer Harriet O’Brien, the Directorate of Defence Services Intelligence (DDSI), widely known as the Military Intelligence Service (MIS, or simply “the MI”) was Ne Win’s “special creation”. A program was implemented to:

Expand and retrain the military intelligence forces … The MI became increasingly powerful and their operations gradually extended beyond merely gathering information to assist troops fighting the insurgent armies … They became a network of spies, a powerful secret police force monitoring the activities of ordinary people.

Ne Win’s inspiration for an expanded military intelligence organisation with a broader remit is popularly believed to be the Japanese Kempeitai military police, from which it is said the old dictator received intelligence and counter-espionage training during the Second World War.

Hard evidence to support this claim, however, is difficult to find. It raises the question of whether this is another case of the conventional wisdom with regard to Myanmar winning out over careful research. A quick historical survey might help clarify matters.

Colonel Keiji Suzuki, the Japanese spy sent to Rangoon in 1940 to recruit young Burmese nationalists for the coming war against the British, was assigned by the Second Bureau (Intelligence) of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) General Staff. According to Kyi Win Sein, Ne Win studied for a short period at the Nakano School in Tokyo with four other members of the group known as the “Thirty Comrades”. The Nakano School was the IJA’s main training centre for military intelligence, counter-intelligence and unconventional warfare. Also, in 1941 the group’s army instructors on the island of Hainan were usually Nakano School graduates.

This has led James McAndrew, Bertil Lintner and other Myanmar-watchers to assume that the Kempeitai trained Ne Win. The Japan-based scholar Donald Seekins also seems to have conflated the Nakano School with the Kempeitai. He has suggested that “the sophisticated Military Intelligence apparatus [Ne Win] established after Burma became independent may owe something to his Japanese teachers”. In his comprehensive biography of Ne Win, Robert Taylor does not refer to this reported intelligence training, apparently because he found no evidence to warrant mentioning it.

The issue is relevant as a number of scholars and other commentators have claimed that, after seizing power in 1962, Ne Win was keen to “break with the British tradition and turn the intelligence apparatus into a secret police along the lines of the Kempeitai or Germany’s efficient Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo)”.

According to Kin Oung, for example, in the early 1970s DDSI chief “MI” Tin Oo was encouraged by Ne Win not just to collect military intelligence, which had been the main focus of his predecessors, but to create a secret police force that could monitor and control the civilian population. Tin Oo was also charged with keeping a close eye on the armed forces (Tatmadaw), the loyalty and cohesion of which was crucial for the regime’s survival. Thus, wrote Kin Oung, “the Kempeitai tradition was reborn”.

Allusions to the DDSI’s supposed Kempeitai antecedents have also been made by sundry politicians, activists and human rights campaigners. They have been keen to blacken the name of Myanmar’s modern intelligence apparatus by linking it to the reviled Japanese military police force, which in 1945 was described by the US Office of Strategic Studies as “the most powerful, the most hated, and the most feared organisation in Japanese-occupied territory”.

The critical question here is whether the Burmese received intelligence training from the Kempeitai, or from members of the IJA’s intelligence corps. The latter seems to be the case. The Nakano School was not under the control of the Kempeitai, which had its own dedicated training facilities. The School taught courses in intelligence and counter-espionage, subjects that also fell within the responsibilities of the Kempeitai, but there is no evidence that Ne Win or any other members of the Thirty Comrades were trained in intelligence matters by the military police.

All that said, the Japanese roots of Myanmar’s military intelligence organisation remain unclear. Burmese servicemen received instruction in relevant subjects from Japanese officers after the creation of the Burma Independence Army (BIA) in 1941 and the Burma Defence Army (BDA) in 1942. After nominal independence was granted to Burma by the Japanese in 1943, the Burma National Army (BNA) too received training from the Japanese, both in Burma and Japan. During this time, Japanese military doctrine was doubtless absorbed by members of the nascent Tatmadaw, not always to their credit.

Also, until the mid-1970s, “almost all the directors of the DMT [Directorate of Military Training] and commandants of the Tatmadaw’s training schools were officers trained during the Second World War by the Japanese”, noted Maung Aung Myoe — though as his research explains, Burmese personnel also attended courses in other countries. Between 1948 and 1962, for example, 1,070 officers and 782 other ranks were sent abroad for training, to the US, UK, Australia, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, German Democratic Republic, Federal Republic of Germany, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, and the People’s Republic of China. Some of these courses covered intelligence and counter-intelligence.

To take the US as an illustration, training was provided at a secret CIA base on the Pacific island of Saipan, which had as its cover name the “Naval Technical Training Unit”. This facility conducted courses in intelligence tradecraft, communications, counter-intelligence and psychological warfare. Burmese officers also attended CIA training courses on Okinawa, most likely at the Army Liaison School, later renamed the US Army Pacific Intelligence School. Classes focused on combat intelligence and intelligence collection. Tatmadaw officers may have also received “covert training” on Guam, provided by the Defence Intelligence Agency.

These and other such contacts must be taken into account when considering claims that the Kempeitai was the ideological wellspring of, if not the practical model for, Myanmar’s dreaded military intelligence apparatus. At the very least, the wide diversity of policy approaches, methodology and experiences to which Burmese intelligence officers were exposed during this early period must raise questions about their personal and professional development, and thus the sources of the Tatmadaw’s intelligence traditions, tactics and techniques.

Enjoyed this article? Subscribe to New Mandala

Keep up to date with opinionated, informed and accessible commentary on Southeast Asia from leading researchers. Leave your email address in the field below and you'll receive new posts in your inbox as they are published.

Email Address

Subscribe