Bo Mya ( my, ဘိုမြ ; born Htee Moo Kee; 20 January 1927 – 24 December 2006) was a Karen leader born in Papun District, which is in present-day Karen State,

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. He was a long-standing chairman of the

Karen National Union The Karen National Union ( my, ကရင် အမျိုးသား အစည်းအရုံး; abbreviated KNU) is a political organisation with an armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), that claims to represent the Ka ...

(KNU), a political organisation of the

Karen people The Karen, kjp, ပ်ုဖၠုံဆိုဒ်, my, ကရင်လူမျိုး, , th, กะเหรี่ยง ( ), also known as the Kayin, Kariang or Kawthoolese, are an ethnolinguistic group of Sino-Tibetan language ...

, from 1976 to 2000. He stepped down to become vice-chairman in 2004, and retired in 2004 from all public offices, due to poor health.

Early career

Bo Mya was among a significant number of Karens who joined the British — specifically in Bo Mya's case, Force 136 — during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, with whom he fought the Japanese from the East Dawna hills in 1944 to 1945. After the Karens declared independence from Burma in 1949, Bo Mya quickly rose to a position of pre-eminence in the Karen movement, earning a reputation as a hard and ruthless operator. Based at

Manerplaw Manerplaw ( ksw, မၤနၢၤပျီ; my, မာနယ်ပလော) was a village in Kayin State, Myanmar (Burma), on the Moei River. It was the proposed capital of an independent state governed by the Karen people, known locally as Kawth ...

("victory field") close to the Thai-Burma border, the KNU under his control, and its military wing the

Karen National Liberation Army The Karen National Liberation Army ( ksw, ကညီဒီကလုာ် တၢ်ထူၣ်ဖျဲး သုးမုၢ်ဒိၣ်, my, ကရင်အမျိုးသား လွတ်မြောက်ရေး တပ်မတ� ...

(KNLA), was probably the most successful of the ethnic rebel organisations fighting Rangoon in the

Karen Conflict The Karen conflict is an armed conflict in Kayin State, Myanmar (formerly known as Karen State, Burma). It is a part of the wider internal conflict in Myanmar, the world's longest ongoing civil war. Karen nationalists have been fighting for ...

in the 1970s and 1980s.

1990s

But by the mid-1990s, the tide was turning against him. A devout Christian of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Bo Mya had always risked antagonising elements from within the predominantly Karen Buddhist and animist KNLA ranks. Although his defenders say he treated both Christians and Buddhists equally, the fact that the top positions of the KNU were filled almost entirely by Christians seemed to confirm the impression that he promoted the minority Christians' interests at the expense of those of the Buddhists and animists. In late 1994, a group of KNLA soldiers broke away from the main army and formed the

Democratic Karen Buddhist Army The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA; my, တိုးတက်သော ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ ကရင်အမျိုးသား တပ်ဖွဲ့) was originally an insurgent group of Buddhist soldiers and officers in Mya ...

(DKBA). They allied themselves with the Burmese military, and led Burmese troops into Manerplaw in December 1994, leading to its capture — the biggest single setback to the Karens in their post-war history. Since then, the KNU and KNLA's effectiveness has gradually diminished. This was demonstrated at the beginning of 2004 when Bo Mya travelled to

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

(Rangoon), his first visit to the capital in 50 years, to hold peace talks with

Khin Nyunt General Khin Nyunt (; ; born 23 October 1939) is a Burmese military officer and politician. He held the office of Chief of Intelligence and was Prime Minister of Myanmar from 25 August 2003 until 18 October 2004. Early life and education Kh ...

, who was Prime Minister at the time.

Death

On 24 December 2006, Bo Mya died in a hospital in

Mae Sot Mae Sot ( th, แม่สอด, ; my, မဲဆောက်, ; shn, , ) is a city in western Thailand that shares a border with Myanmar to the west. It is notable as a trade hub and for its substantial population of Burmese migrants and refug ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

, near the eastern border of Myanmar. He had heart disease and

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...

and was unable to walk for three years before his death.

References

* Smith, Martin. ''Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity'' * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mya, Bo 1927 births 2006 deaths Burmese Seventh-day Adventists Civil rights activists Deaths from diabetes Generals Burmese military personnel Burmese people of Karen descent People from Kayin State