General Htun Aung ( my, ထွန်းအောင်; born 1967), also spelt Tun Aung, is a Burmese military officer. He currently serves as commander-in-chief of the
Myanmar Air Force
The Myanmar Air Force ( my, တပ်မတော် (လေ), ), known until 1989 as the Burmese Air Force, is the aerial branch of Myanmar's armed forces, the Tatmadaw. The primary mission of the Myanmar Air Force (MAF) since its inception ha ...
.
Military career
Htun Aung graduated from the 29th batch of the
Defence Services Academy
The Defence Services Academy ( my, စစ်တက္ကသိုလ်, ) located in Pyin Oo Lwin, is the premier military service academy of Myanmar, training future officers for all three branches of Myanmar military. The Ministry of Defence ...
. In 2020, he sat on the board of directors of
Myanma Economic Holdings Limited
Myanma Economic Holdings Public Company Limited ( my, မြန်မာ့စီးပွားရေးဦးပိုင်အများနှင့်သက်ဆိုင်သောကုမ္ပဏီလီမိတက်, abbreviated ...
, a military-owned conglomerate.
On 12 January 2022, Htun Aung was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the
Myanmar Air Force
The Myanmar Air Force ( my, တပ်မတော် (လေ), ), known until 1989 as the Burmese Air Force, is the aerial branch of Myanmar's armed forces, the Tatmadaw. The primary mission of the Myanmar Air Force (MAF) since its inception ha ...
, succeeding
Maung Maung Kyaw
General Maung Maung Kyaw ( my, မောင်မောင်ကျော်, born 23 July 1964) is a Burmese military officer who served on Myanmar's State Administration Council from 2021 to 2023. He previously served as Commander-in-Chief of t ...
, who was forced to retire from the military. Prior to his promotion, he served as Maung Maung Kyaw's chief of staff.
In the aftermath of the
2021 Myanmar coup d'état
A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw—Myanmar's military—which then veste ...
, the Burmese military has launched airstrikes against anti-regime resistance forces and civilians. On 30 June 2022, under Htun Aung's command, a Burmese fighter jet violated Thai airspace after flying into
Phop Phra district
Phop Phra ( th, พบพระ, ) is a district (''amphoe'') in the southwestern part of Tak province, western Thailand.
History
The area now Phop Phra was originally Tambon Chong Khaep of Mae Sot district. Due to the large size of Mae Sot and ...
in Thailand's
Tak province
Tak ( th, ตาก, , Burmese: တာ့ခ် pronounced ak is one of Thailand's seventy-seven provinces (''changwat'') and lies in lower northern Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are (from north clockwise) Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai, Lamphun, ...
.
Htun Aung subsequently issued an apology to this Thai counterpart,
Napadej Dhupatemiya
Napadej Dhupatemiya, also written as Napadej Thupatemi, ( th, นภาเดช ธูปะเตมีย์) is a Thai air force officer. From 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2022, he served as commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Air Force. A ...
.
The governments of the European Union, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom have sanctioned Htun Aung for human rights violations.
See also
*
2021–2023 Myanmar civil war
*
State Administration Council
The State Administration Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ; abbreviated SAC or နစက) is the military junta currently governing Myanmar, established by Comm ...
*
Tatmadaw
Tatmadaw (, , ) is the official name of the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include th ...
References
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Living people
Burmese generals
Defence Services Academy alumni
1967 births