The Beginning of Myanmar's Civil War Myanmar's civil war cannot be blamed on one person, or on a single day. It is a chain of causes — roots, causes, and a spark, linked step by step. 1. The Root — Panglong Was Incomplete At the Panglong Conference on 12 February 1947, the signatories were Shan, Kachin and Chin leaders, together with the Burman delegation led by General Aung San. The Mon and the Rakhine were not there. Under British administration they were not in the "Frontier Areas" but in "Ministerial Burma", already counted as part of Burma proper. That classification was older than British rule. Before the British arrived, the Mon region had already been conquered by Alaungpaya in 1757, and the Rakhine region by Bodawpaya in 1784–85. So in the British view they were already "inside Burma", and did not need separate negotiation at Panglong. But from the Mon and Rakhine nationalist point of view, this was not joining — it was conquest. That diff...