P'doh
Mahn Nyein Maung
မန်းငြိမ်းမောင်
Member of the State Administration Council
Assumed office
2 February 2021
Member of the Karen National Union's Central Executive Committee
Personal details
Bornc. 1947 (1947) (age 77)
Maungdaw, Rakhine State, Myanmar
Political partyKayin People's Party (2020–present)
Other political
affiliations		Karen National Union
OccupationPolitician

P'doh Mahn Nyein Maung (Burmese: ဖဒိုမန်းငြိမ်းမောင်, born c. 1947) is a Karen politician and former rebel leader. He is currently serving as a member of Myanmar's State Administration Council.

Mahn Nyein Maung was born between 1947 and 1949.[1]

Career

1960s–2020: Activism

After the 1962 Burmese coup d'état, Mahn Nyein Maung became involved in underground political activism.[2] He was arrested in July 1967 and imprisoned in the Coco Islands.[3] He escaped in 1970.[3] He was recaptured and imprisoned until April 1973, under a general amnesty.[2] During his time in jail, he became acquainted with Mahn Aung Kyi, the secretary of the All Burma Karen Organization, who would become his political mentor.[2]

In 2000, he published a memoir entitled Against the Storm, Across the Sea, describing his prison break from Coco Islands in the 1970s, a feat that earned him the nickname "Burma's Papillon."[3] In December 2011, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for "unlawful association" after being deported by China due to visa issues.[4] In March 2012, he was sentenced to life in prison for participating in acts of war against the ruling government, but was released on 19 March via presidential amnesty.[5][3] Mahn Nyein Maung became an admirer of Thein Sein, who had pardoned him.[6] Mahn Nyein Maung participated in negotiating the landmark Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, which was signed by KNU on 15 October 2015.[7]

2020–present: Entry into politics

He resigned from the central executive committee of the Karen National Union in July 2020, in order to contest a Pyithu Hluttaw seat in his hometown of Pantanaw, Ayeyarwady Region in the 2020 Myanmar general election, representing the Kayin People's Party.[8] He lost the election, placing third, with 8.83% of the votes.[9] Nyunt Thein, representing the National League for Democracy, won the race with 58.01% of the votes.[9]

He was appointed as a member of the State Administration Council on 2 February 2021, in the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.[10] Following his appointment, the KNU distanced itself from Mahn Nyein Maung, and reiterated its opposition to the military coup.[11]

References

  1. ^ "Burma-related Designations; Counter Terrorism Designations". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "Burma's "Papillon"". The Irrawaddy. May 1999. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d "Karen Leader's Tale of Escape From Island Prison Makes Burma Debut". The Irrawaddy. 26 August 2013.
  4. ^ "Burma 'jails' Karen rebel leader Mahn Nyein Maung". BBC News. 16 December 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  5. ^ "Myanmar frees rebel leader for peace talks – Myanmar". ReliefWeb. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  6. ^ "NLD 'Turncoat' Criticized After Being Named to Myanmar Military Regime's Cabinet". The Irrawaddy. 5 February 2021. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  7. ^ "Pado Mahn Nyein Maung will contest in the Myanmar general elections". Burma News International. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  8. ^ "KNU heavyweight prepares for election battle". Frontier Myanmar. 12 August 2020. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  9. ^ a b "ပြည်သူ့လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်လောင်း တစ်ဦးချင်းစီ၏ ဆန္ဒမဲရရှိမှုအခြေအနေ" (PDF). Union Election Commission (in Burmese). p. 81.
  10. ^ "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ အမိန့်အမှတ် ( ၁၄ / ၂၀၂၁) ၁၃၈၂ ခုနှစ်၊ ပြာသိုလပြည့်ကျော် ၇ ရက် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၃ ရက်". Tatmadaw Information Team (in Burmese). Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  11. ^ "Phado Mahn Nyein Maung not part of KNU". Eleven Media Group Co., Ltd. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
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