Kyaw Nyein

This article contains Burmese script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Burmese script.

Kyaw Nyein (Burmese: ကျော်ငြိမ်း; pronounced [t͡ɕɔ̀ ɲeɪɴ]; 19 January 1913 – 29 June 1986), called honorifically U Kyaw Nyein (Burmese: ဦးကျော်ငြိမ်း;pronounced [ʔú t͡ɕɔ̀ ɲeɪɴ]), was a Burmese lawyer and anti-colonial revolutionary, a leader in Burma’s struggle for independence and prominent politician in the first decade after the country gained sovereignty from Britain. He held multiple minister portfolios in the government of Prime Minister U Nu, served as General Secretary of the ruling political alliance, Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), and was joint General Secretary of the Burma Socialist Party (BSP).

Born in Pyinmana, in Upper Burma, Kyaw Nyein received his higher education at the college in Mandalay and the University of Rangoon. During the university strike of 1936, he became known as member of a group of anti-colonial student leaders that included Aung San and Nu. In support of an armed struggle against British colonial rule, he built an underground organization while Aung San went abroad seeking help from the Japanese. During the Second World War and the Japanese occupation of Burma, he served in the government of Dr. Ba Maw and later became active in the anti-Japanese resistance. A close adviser to Aung San in the final struggle for independence and during the negotiations with the Attlee government in London, he was appointed as Minister of Home Affairs in the Governor's Executive Council.

Kyaw Nyein helped to shape the decolonization policies of post-independence Burma, from an active neutral foreign policy to the building of a welfare state, and was particularly focused on the economic development and industrialization of Burma. A moderate Socialist, he supported a Third Force position of post-colonial countries during the Cold War and was an architect of Burma's non-alignment policy. He established special relations with Yugoslavia and Israel and together with his co-leader of the Burma Socialist Party, Ba Swe, initiated the Asian Socialist Conference in 1953. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he achieved in 1954 a breakthrough in negotiations with Japan on war reparations, which set a model for the Philippines and Indonesia that were in a deadlock with Japan over the same issue.

A rift between him and Prime Minister Nu in 1958 led to a split of the AFPFL that destabilized the government and ushered in a military caretaker regime. In the 1960 General Elections, his party was defeated by U Nu’s Pyidaungsu party. After the coup d’etat of General Ne Win in 1962 and the dismantling of the parliamentary democratic system in Burma, he spent five years in jail. His last public political role was the participation in an advisory committee on constitutional reforms, where he and other veteran politicians of the democratic era recommended to reinstate parliamentary democracy, an advice that went unheeded.

Kyaw Nyein's political life was not without controversies. Recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern Burma, a skilled diplomat, socialist theoretician and one of the most dynamic and brainy politicians in the country’s democratic era, he drew criticism for his law and order policies as home minister at the height of the insurgencies. Burma's communists hold him responsible for their failed revolution and to this day claim he pushed them "into the jungle".