Colonel Kyi Maung ( my, ကြည်မောင်, ; 20 December 192019 August 2004) was a
Burmese Army officer and politician. Originally a member of the military-backed
Union Revolutionary Council
The Union Revolutionary Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော်တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ), officially the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာန ...
that
seized power in 1962, Kyi Maung resigned from the ruling council in 1963 after a public disagreement with General
Ne Win, the leader of the council, on the military's long-term role in government.
[BNN 2011: 2–3] He joined the
National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanmar (Burma). It ...
, led by
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2 ...
, in 1988 and won a seat in the
Hluttaw
The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw ( my, ပြည်ထောင်စု လွှတ်တော် lit. Assembly of the Union) is the ''de jure'' national-level bicameral legislature of Myanmar (officially known as the ''Republic of the Union of M ...
from
Bahan Township
Bahan Township ( my, ဗဟန်း မြို့နယ်, ) is located in the north central part of Yangon. The township comprises 22 wards, and shares borders with Yankin Township and Mayangon Township in the north, Sanchaung Township and ...
in the
1990 general election. He was vice-chairman of the NLD from 1988 to 1997. He was imprisoned four times for a total of 12 years by successive military governments.
Early life
Kyi Maung was born on 20 December 1920 to Ngwe Khin and her husband Po Thein
[BNN 2011: 1] in
Rangoon (now Yangon),
British Burma to a family of Teochew-Burmese heritage. He enrolled in
Rangoon University
'')
, mottoeng = There's no friend like wisdom.
, established =
, type = Public
, rector = Dr. Tin Mg Tun
, undergrad = 4194
, postgrad = 5748
, city = Kamayut 11041, Yangon
, state = Yangon Regio ...
in 1936, and became a fervent anti-colonialist. He participated in 1938 nationwide strikes and rallies against the British colonial regime. He nearly died after he was severely beaten in his head by the police on 20 December 1938, which is now commemorated as
Bo Aung Kyaw Day in Myanmar. He was by his fellow student striker
Aung Kyaw, who was also severely beaten by the police, until Aung Kyaw's last breath.
[
]
Career
Kyi Maung was a final year student in 1941 when he left university to join the Burma Independence Army
The Burma Independence Army (BIA), was a collaborationist and revolutionary army that fought for the end of British rule in Burma by assisting the Japanese in their conquest of the country in 1942 during World War II. It was the first post-c ...
to fight the British colonial government. In 1943, he was sent to Japan for officer training school, from which he graduated in 1945. Upon return, he joined No. 5 Burma Rifles. He eventually rose to the rank of Battalion Commander when he was sent to the US for further training between 1955 and 1956. He was promoted to regional commander in 1960 when he became head of Yangon Command.[
Col. Kyi Maung was one of the 18 senior officers that seized power from the democratically elected government of ]U Nu
Nu ( my, ဦးနု; ; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995), commonly known as U Nu also known by the honorific name Thakin Nu, was a leading Burmese statesman and nationalist politician. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the pr ...
in 1962. Later that year, he was reassigned to Southwestern Command. In 1963, he was forced out of the army and the council after he disagreed with Gen. Ne Win, the leader of the council, regarding the military's role in government.[ The army continued to keep tabs on him when he retired and was put under arrest a couple of times. After being released from his seven years of confinement, he was selected to be part of the Executive Committee of the political party, ]National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanmar (Burma). It ...
(NLD), which was led by Aung San Suu Kyi until her house arrest in July 1989, after which Kyi Maung became its leader. Under his leadership, the NLD won a substantial majority in the parliament during the 1990 elections. The result, however, was not officially recognized by the ruling military junta then.
Kyi Maung went to prison four times. Gen. Ne Win sent him to prison twice for a total of seven years between 1963 and 1987. He was jailed for a month in 1988 and imprisoned for five years from 1990 to 1995.[BNN 2011: 4–5] He quit the NLD in 1997 over conflicting views within the party. Although the reason for his departure was never publicly made known, he reportedly "had sharp differences with Suu Kyi".
Personal life and death
Kyi Maung spent much time meditating Vipassanā
''Samatha'' ( Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' ( Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of t ...
style. He died on 19 August 2004 at his Yangon residence. He was married to Kyi Kyi and they had two children.[
]
References
Bibliography
*
* {{cite news , url=http://burmanationalnews.org/burma/images/Documents/kyimaungbiography2011.pdf , title=Ba Ba U Kyi Maung Remembrance (7th anniversary of his death) , language=my , access-date=2013-07-24 , work=Burma National News , date=2011-08-19 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304093134/http://burmanationalnews.org/burma/images/Documents/kyimaungbiography2011.pdf , archive-date=2016-03-04 , url-status=dead
1920 births
2004 deaths
Burmese military personnel
Burmese people of Chinese descent
Burmese politicians of Chinese descent
University of Yangon alumni
Burmese Buddhists
People from Yangon
National League for Democracy politicians
Burmese prisoners and detainees
Recipients of the Thiri Pyanchi