General Bo Mya, Chairman of the Karen National Union from 1976-2000, with a KNU flag background.

General Bo Mya, Chairman of the Karen National Union from 1976-2000, with a KNU flag background.

Bo Mya (born Htee Moo Kee; 20 January 1927 23 December 2006) was a Karen rebel leader born in Papun District, which is in present-day Karen State, Myanmar. He was a long-standing chairman of the Karen National Union (KNU), a political organisation of the Karen people, from 1976 to 2000. He stepped down to become vice-chairman in 2004, and retired in 2004 from all public offices, due to poor health. Bo Mya was among a significant number of Karens who joined the British - specifically in Bo Mya's case, Force 136 - during World War II, with whom he fought the Japanese from the East Dawna hills in 1944 to 1945. After the Karens declared independence from Burma in 1949, Bo Mya quickly rose to a position of pre-eminence in the Karen movement, earning a reputation as a hard and ruthless operator. Based at Manerplaw ('victory field') close to the Thai-Burma border, the KNU under his control, and its military wing the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), was probably the most successful of the ethnic rebel organisations fighting the Yangon / Rangoon government in the 1970s and 1980s.

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