Bo Mya

Bo Mya ( Burmese : ဘို မြ, [ bò mya̰ ]; * January 20, 1927 as Htee Moo Kee in the Papun district in what is now Myanmar (Burma); †  December 24, 2006 in Mae Sot , Thailand ) was a politician in Myanmar who from the Karen people .

Bo Mya was President of the Karen National Union (KNU) from 1976 to 2000 , then Vice President of the KNU until 2004. During World War II, Bo Mya fought first on the side of the Japanese against the British colonial administration as a military policeman . But he soon changed fronts and fought on the British side in Force 136 in 1944 and 1945 .

After the founding of the KNU in 1947 and Burma's independence from Great Britain in 1948, Bo Mya quickly made a career in the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the military arm of the KNU. From his headquarters in Manerplaw on the Saluen River, he was considered a successful guerrilla leader in the 1970s and 1980s. But at the beginning of the 1990s his luck seemed to be running out.

The KNU got involved in internal battles. Karen Buddhist beliefs split from the Christian-dominated KNU and founded their own organization, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). That was the greatest disaster for Bo Mya. Thanks to their knowledge of the defenses and the location of the minefields, the DKBA rebels were able to lead the Burmese army into the heavily fortified headquarters of the KNU in Manerplaw. Since then, the KNU has not been able to hold fixed areas. His formerly organized army had become a "guerrilla gang".

In 2004 Bo Mya traveled to the Myanmar capital, Rangoon , to negotiate a ceasefire with Khin Nyunt , then Prime Minister of Myanmar. There was no written contract, but a gentlemen's agreement was reached . This oral contract was never seriously observed by the government. On the contrary, the Myanmar army used the ceasefire to penetrate far into Karen territory, build roads and set up advanced posts. In October 2006 the KNU declared the ceasefire ineffective.

In recent years, Bo Mya was seriously ill and could only move in a wheelchair. He spent his final years in exile in Mae Sot, Thailand. He was last seen in public on the 57th "Karen Revolutionary Day" in 2006 at a secret base near the village of Mu Aye Puu on the Saluen River. There he was buried with 10,000 mourners, including members of the Myanmar military government and Thai politicians.

swell

1. ↑ Former Burmese rebel leader died - tagesspiegel.de ( Memento from August 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

literature

• Phil Thornton: Restless Souls . ISBN 974-8303-91-8 .

Web links

• Short portrait at The Irrawaddy (in English)