towns. Aung San and others subsequently began negotiations with Mountbatten and officially joined the Allies as the Patriotic Burmese Forces (PBF) in 23 June 1945. At the first meeting, the AFO represented itself to the British as the provisional government of Burma with Thakin Soe as Chairman and Aung San as a member of its ruling committee. Aftermath The Japanese were routed from most of Burma by May 1945. Negotiations then began with the British over the disarming of the AFO, which earlier in March the same year had been transformed into a united front comprising the Patriotic Burmese Forces, the Communists and the Socialists, and renamed the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL). Had the British Governor of Burma, Reginald Dorman-Smith, still in exile in Simla, and General William Slim gotten their way, the BNA would have been declared illegal and dissolved. Aung San would have been arrested as a traitor for his cooperation with the Japanese and charged with war crimes. However, Supreme Allied Commander Louis Mountbatten was anxious to avoid a civil war and to secure the cooperation of Aung San, who had authority over thousands of highly politicised troops. When the British noticed with alarm that PBF troops were withholding weapons, ready to go underground, tense negotiations in a conference in Kandy, Ceylon, were held in September 1945. Aung San, six PBF commanders and four political representatives of the AFPFL met with the Supreme Allied Command were Lord Mountbatten acknowledged the BNA's contribution the victory in Burma to ease tensions. The British offered for around 5,000 veterans and 200 officers of the PBF to form the core of a post-war Burma Army under British command into which colonial Karen, Kachin, and Chin battalions would be integrated. In the end, only a small number of PBF troops were selected for the army, with most being sent home with two months pay. Aung San was offered the rank of Deputy Inspector General of the Burma Army, but which he declined upon the return of Governor Dorman-Smith's government. Bo Let Ya instead got the position while Aung San became a civilian political leader in the AFPFL and the leader of the People's Volunteer Organisation (PVO), ostensibly a veterans organisation for ex-BNA, but in reality a paramilitary force who were openly drilling in uniform with numbers eventually reaching 50,000. It was to replace the BNA as a major deterrence against both