Min Aung Hlaing

In this Burmese name, the given name is Min Aung Hlaing. There is no family name.
His Excellency[1]
Senior General
Maha Thray Sithu
Thiri Thudhamma
Min Aung Hlaing
မင်းအောင်လှိုင်
Min Aung Hlaing in 2021
Chairman of the State Administration Council
Incumbent
Assumed office
2 February 2021
PresidentMyint Swe (acting)
Himself (acting)
DeputySoe Win (general)
Preceded byAung San Suu Kyi
(as State Counsellor)
Acting President of Myanmar
Incumbent
Assumed office
22 July 2024
Prime MinisterHimself
Vice PresidentMyint Swe
Preceded byMyint Swe (acting)
12th Prime Minister of Myanmar
Incumbent
Assumed office
1 August 2021
PresidentMyint Swe (acting)
Himself (acting)
Deputy
See list
Preceded byThein Sein (2011)
Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services
Incumbent
Assumed office
30 March 2011
PresidentThein Sein
Htin Kyaw
Myint Swe (acting)
Win Myint
Myint Swe (acting)
Himself (acting)
DeputySoe Win (general)
State CounsellorAung San Suu Kyi
Preceded byThan Shwe
Joint Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces
In office
June 2010 – 30 March 2011
Commander-in-ChiefThan Shwe
Preceded byShwe Mann
Succeeded byHla Htay Win[2]
Personal details
Born (1956-07-03) 3 July 1956 (age 68)
Minbu, Magway Region, Burma[3] (now Myanmar)
CitizenshipBurmese
SpouseKyu Kyu Hla
ChildrenMultiple, including:
Aung Pyae Sone
Khin Thiri Thet Mon
Alma materRangoon Arts and Sciences University (LL.B)
Defence Services Academy
Websitewww.seniorgeneralminaunghlaing.com.mm
Military service
Allegiance Tatmadaw
Branch/service Myanmar Army
Years of service1974–present
Rank Senior General
Battles/warsInternal conflict in Myanmar

Min Aung Hlaing (Burmese: မင်းအောင်လှိုင်; pronounced [mɪ́ɰ̃ àʊɰ̃ l̥àɪɰ̃]; born 3 July 1956) is a Burmese army general who has ruled Myanmar as the chairman of the State Administration Council (SAC) since seizing power in the February 2021 coup d'état. He additionally appointed himself Prime Minister of Myanmar in August 2021, and assumed presidential duties in July 2024.[4] He has led the Tatmadaw (armed forces of Myanmar), an independent branch of government, as the Commander-in-chief of Defence Services since March 2011, when he was handpicked to succeed longtime military ruler Senior General Than Shwe, who transferred leadership over the country to a civilian government upon retiring.[5][6][7] Before assuming leadership over the Tatmadaw, Min Aung Hlaing served as Joint Chief of Staff from 2010 to 2011. Min Aung Hlaing is the first Defence Services Academy (DSA) graduate in Myanmar to lead a military coup as well as the first DSA graduate to become Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services.[8]

Born in Minbu, Magway Region, Burma, Min Aung Hlaing studied law at the Rangoon Arts and Science University before joining the military. Rising through its ranks, he became a senior general (five-star general) by 2013.[9][better source needed] During the period of civilian rule from 2011 to 2021, Min Aung Hlaing worked to ensure the military's continued role in politics and forestalled the peace process with ethnic armed groups. A United Nations fact-finding mission found he deliberately perpetrated the Rohingya genocide. He maintained an adversarial relationship with democratically-elected State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, though she defended him against genocide charges.[10]

Min Aung Hlaing baselessly claimed widespread voting irregularities and electoral fraud in the 2020 Myanmar general election, in which Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide re-election. He then seized power from her in the 2021 coup.[11][12][13] He had been expected to run for President of Myanmar had the military proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), won enough seats in parliament to elect him, and would have been required to retire as Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services due to a statutory age limit.[14] With the outbreak of mass protests against his rule, Min Aung Hlaing ordered a clampdown and suppression of demonstrations,[15] sparking an ongoing civil war.[16]

Min Aung Hlaing's forces have employed scorched earth tactics in the civil war, including airstrikes on civilians.[17][18] He has ordered the execution of prominent pro-democracy activists, the first use of the death penalty in decades.[19][20] In February 2024, he activated Myanmar's conscription law to draft 60,000 young people into the Tatmadaw.[21] In foreign policy, he has resisted influence from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and relied on greater cooperation with Russia, China, and India.[22][23] In response to his human rights abuses and corruption, Min Aung Hlaing and his government have been subjected to an extensive series of international sanctions, returning Myanmar to its former status as a pariah state. The Economist Intelligence Unit's 2022 Democracy Index rated Myanmar under Min Aung Hlaing as the second-most authoritarian regime in the world, with only Afghanistan rated less democratic.[24]

  1. ^ Press Release - Congratulatory Message of His Excellency Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (Published on August 22, 2023)
  2. ^ Wai Moe (24 May 2011). "Bangladesh Army Chief Visits Burma". The Irrawaddy. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  3. ^ "တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ် ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး မင်းအောင်လှိုင် Asian Fame Media ၏ ပေါ်ပြူလာနယူးစ်ဂျာနယ်မှ မေးမြန်းမှုများအား Video Teleconference မှတစ်ဆင့် လက်ခံတွေ့ဆုံဖြေကြားမှုများအပိုင်း(၁)". cincds.gov.mm (in Burmese). 4 November 2020. Archived from the original on 3 January 2022. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  4. ^ "The leader of Myanmar's army government is named acting president so he can renew state of emergency". The Independent. 22 July 2024. Retrieved 23 July 2024.
  5. ^ "Myanmar army ruler takes prime minister role, again pledges elections". Reuters. 1 August 2021. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
  6. ^ "Who is Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing? 5 things to know," Archived 19 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine 6 February 2021, Nikkei Asia, retrieved 28 December 2021
  7. ^ "Myanmar coup: Aung San Suu Kyi detained as military seizes control". BBC News. 1 February 2021. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference rector19 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Myanmar coup: Who is army Chief Min Aung Hlaing?". The Business Standard. 1 February 2021. Archived from the original on 13 August 2021. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  10. ^ Faulder, Dominic (1 February 2023). "Myanmar's iron-fisted ruler Min Aung Hlaing fights to stay on his throne". Nikkei Asia. Bangkok, Thailand. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  11. ^ "အရေးပေါ်ကာလ ဆောင်ရွက်ပြီးစီးပါက ရွေးကောက်ပွဲ ပြန်လည်ကျင်းပ၍ အနိုင်ရပါတီအား နိုင်ငံတော်တာဝန်ကို လွှဲအပ်ပေးနိုင်ရေး ဆောင်ရွက်မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း တပ်မတော်ထုတ်ပြန်". 7 Day Daily (in Burmese). 1 February 2021. Archived from the original on 6 February 2021.
  12. ^ "Myanmar military seizes power, detains elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi". Reuters. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
  13. ^ Goodman, Jack (5 February 2021). "Myanmar coup: Does the army have evidence of voter fraud?". BBC News. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  14. ^ Rasheed, Zaheena (1 February 2021). "Why Myanmar's military seized power in a coup". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  15. ^ "Two people in critical condition after police shoot peaceful protesters with live bullets in Naypyitaw – doctor". Myanmar NOW. Archived from the original on 5 December 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  16. ^ Tharoor, Ishaan (21 July 2022). "Myanmar's junta can't win the civil war it started". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 16 August 2022. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  17. ^ Ratcliffe, Rebecca (31 January 2023). "'Monster from the sky': two years on from coup, Myanmar junta increases airstrikes on civilians". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 6 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  18. ^ Sidhu, Sandi; Yeung, Jessie; TZ, Salai; Watson, Ivan (1 February 2023). "'Mom, please just kill me': A world looks away from Myanmar's descent into horror". CNN. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  19. ^ "Myanmar: Who are the rulers who have executed democracy campaigners?". BBC News. 25 July 2022. Archived from the original on 5 January 2022. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  20. ^ "World condemns Myanmar junta for 'cruel' execution of activists". Reuters. 25 July 2022. Archived from the original on 14 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  21. ^ Peck, Grant (14 February 2024). "Myanmar says newly activated conscription law will draft 5,000 people a month. Some think of fleeing". Associated Press. Bangkok, Thailand. Retrieved 14 February 2024.
  22. ^ "China, Russia, India enabling Myanmar's military rule: Report". Al Jazeera. 2 November 2022. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  23. ^ "Myanmar warns ASEAN that pressure would be counterproductive". Al Jazeera. 28 October 2022. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  24. ^ Campbell, Joshua (13 April 2023). "Min Aung Hlaing". The 100 Most Influential People of 2023. TIME. Archived from the original on 16 April 2023. Retrieved 16 April 2023. Min Aung Hlaing has returned Myanmar to a pariah state and made it the world's second most authoritarian regime, per the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2022 Democracy Index. Only Taliban-ruled Afghanistan ranked worse.