United Frontier Union

   (UFU)

   A post-World War II proposal made by H. N. C. Stevenson, director of the Frontier Areas Administration, to establish a province under British rule, including the Frontier Areas but excluding most of Burma Proper. Based on the belief that the ethnic minority peoples, who had been loyal to Britain during the war, did not want to live in a Burman (Bamar)-dominated state, the UFU would have joined together what are now Chin State, Kachin State, the Shan and Karenni States, Karen (Kayin)-inhabited parts of Toungoo (Taungoo) District and the Salween District, and what are now Mon State and Tenasserim (Tanintharyi) Division. Stevenson organized the March 1946 Panglong Conference (known as the First Panglong Conference) to introduce the idea to Frontier Area leaders, but it aroused the implacable opposition of Burmese nationalists, who accused him of following a colonial "divide and rule" policy. Although Stevenson lobbied for the United Frontier Union in London, the proposal was rejected by the Labour government of Clement Attlee, which promised Aung San that Britain would adhere to the principle that Burma Proper and the Frontier Areas would form a single independent state.

   See also Aung San-Attlee Agreement; Panglong Conference.