Kyaw Zaw (Burmese: ကျော်ဇော, [tɕɔ̀ zɔ́]; 3 December 1919 – 10 October 2012) was one of the founders of the Tatmadaw (the modern Burmese Army) and a member of the Thirty Comrades who trained in Japan in the struggle for independence from Britain. He was also one of the leaders of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), and had lived in exile in Yunnan Province, China, since 1989 after retiring from politics.
Born Maung Shwe in a village called Hsaisu near Thonze in Tharrawaddy District, British Burma, Kyaw Zaw was educated in the traditional manner, mainly in monastic schools often becoming a novice monk during the Buddhist lent, until the final year when he went to the Pazundaung Municipal High School in Rangoon. There he met teachers who were members of the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association) who made him become politically aware and soon joined the Yè tat (The Braves - Dobama militia). As he was educated only in the vernacular and had no knowledge of the English language required for university, he went on to the Highergrade Teachers Training School where English was not required.
The Great General Strike of 1938, known as Htaung thoun ya byei Ayeidawbon (the "Revolution of 1300" named after the Burmese calendar year), saw him as one of the student protesters successfully picketing the Secretariat, the seat of the colonial government, on 20 December. As the students left in triumphant procession, they were confronted by the British mounted police who charged into the students from Rangoon University at the head of the procession beating them with their batons and killing one of their number called Aung Kyaw. Kyaw Zaw saw this and was himself slightly injured trampled by a horse.
When the strike came to an end, a disappointed Kyaw Zaw joined the Dobama Asiayone and became Thakin Shwe before he returned to Thonze to become a schoolteacher but still active in the political struggle for independence and involved in organising and training the local militia. Here he met his future wife Ma Than Sein, but he still had his mind set on learning English, and so at the beginning of 1941 Kyaw Zaw found himself back in Rangoon. He was however soon to be recruited by the Thakin leaders for military training as the struggle for national liberation gathered momentum, and in April 1941 Kyaw Zaw, aged 21, joined a group of young men who would go down in history as the Thirty Comrades and left Burma secretly smuggled aboard a ship bound for Yokohama, Japan. They were then flown to Hainan Island, China where they received military training before they returned to Burma as the Burma Independence Army (BIA) led by Aung San with the invading Japanese Army in December 1941. Thakin Shwe was now known by a nom de guerre Bo Kyaw Zaw (Commander Fame).
After Burma gained independence in 1948, Kyaw Zaw became famous as the commander who fought and defeated the Kuomintang who had fled China after the Communist victory in 1949 and had established bases in Burmese territory in the early 1950s. The Kuomintang were supported by the United States and remained in Burma for a few years in the early 1950s making occasional forays into China to fight the Chinese communists. During the period of 1953 to 1955, under Brigadier General Kyaw Zaw's command the Burmese Army fought the Kuomintang and drove them out of Burmese territory into Thailand. Between 1954 and 1955, Brig.Gen. Kyaw Zaw also successfully led a campaign against the insurgent Karen National Union (KNU) and established central government control in the Karen State. The Prime Minister at the time was U Nu and the Commander in Chief of the Army General Ne Win. Kyaw Zaw was wounded by a shrapnel in his thigh in 1949 during the Battle of Insein when the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO) laid siege to the capital Rangoon. He was commissioned by Ne Win during the crisis as the commanding officer and Zaw rated this battle as the bitterest with the greatest loss of life in his military career.
Brig. Gen. Kyaw Zaw was forced to retire from the Army in April 1957 when papers recovered from raids of the Burmese Communist rebel strongholds located in central Burma indicated that Kyaw Zaw might have contacted and informed the Communists of the Army's movements. A Commission established to investigate "In Re the matter of Brig.Gen.Kyaw Zaw" (in Burmese Bohmu Gyoke Kyaw Zaw Keik-sa) found that a preponderance of the evidence showed that Brig.Gen. Zaw's role was suspect and recommended his discharge from the Army. He had joined the Communist Party in 1944 and was elected to the Central Committee the following year. He had however decided not to join the Army rebellion led by Communist commanders soon after independence in 1948; he was convalescing from tuberculosis.
After his discharge from the Army, Kyaw Zaw contested as an independent candidate for Parliament in the multiparty general election of February 1960 but was unsuccessful. In April 1963 the Revolutionary Council (RC) led by General Ne Win invited the various armed rebel groups for negotiation in peace talks to be held in Rangoon. During "the peace parley" Kyaw Zaw became an active supporter of the People's Peace Committee along with another veteran leader, the venerated elder politician and writer Thakin Kodaw Hmaing (1876–1964). Many armed groups came to Rangoon, under the promise of a safe passage by the RC which it did honor, for the negotiations. The Communist Party of Burma (CPB), also known as the "White Flag" Communists, which went underground on 28 March 1948 and had since been active as a clandestine party led by Thakin Than Tun, sent a delegation though Than Tun himself remained in the jungle. The "Red Flag" Communists, a Trotskyist group that went underground in October 1946 even before independence from Britain was declared on 4 January 1948, and led by Thakin Soe, also joined the peace talks headed by the flamboyant Soe himself. The peace parley with the various armed groups, with the exception of the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO, the military wing of the KNU) with whom the RC did sign a cease-fire and an armistice agreement, broke down in June 1963, and the representatives of these rebel groups were allowed a safe passage back to their jungle strongholds.
Though Kyaw Zaw was not arrested after the breakdown of the peace talks, in June 1963 dozens of Burmese politicians and writers who were suspected of having "Communist sympathies" were arrested and jailed without any charge or trial by the RC for several years. Among the detainees in the immediate aftermath of the failed peace parley were Aung Than, older brother of Aung San and a leader of the above-ground political party National United Front (NUF), and the writer Dagon Taya (real name U Htay Myaing, b. 9 May 1919).
In late July 1976, the Socialist Burmese government announced in newspapers and on state radio that Kyaw Zaw's, son Aung Kyaw Zaw and daughter Dr. Hla Kyaw Zaw had disappeared from their homes and requested the public's assistance in finding them. Within several days on 10 August 1976 the clandestine Communist Party of Burma (CPB) radio station based at that time in Kunming, China, announced that "former Brigadier Kyaw Zaw has arrived in the liberated area" i.e. the areas under the control of the CPB. The same day Kyaw Zaw broadcast an appeal on CPB radio to the people and especially requested the Burmese Army personnel to join the CPB and "the mainstream of the People's Democratic Forces". Among others, in his appeal to the Burmese Army personnel, Kyaw Zaw stated that he was one of the founding members of the Burmese Army. He rhetorically asked the troops what would have happened to the Army and the country if he had, like Ne Win, then President and long-time dictator of Burma, "acted and cavorted like a feudal play-boy prince". He also revealed for the first time that Aung San and others among the Thirty Comrades had once seriously considered removing Ne Win from the military as he had shown "fascist" tendencies under the Japanese. Kyaw Zaw stated that the plan of Aung San and other leaders to remove Ne Win from the military was unsuccessful due to Ne Win's "cunning" (kauk-kyit hmu), pleasing both sides (hna-phet myet hnar loke-hmu) and the conditions pertaining at that time i.e. during the war and immediate post-war years. Kyaw Zaw claimed that the unsuccessful and ostensible attempts to remove Ne Win from commanding the Burmese military was a "historical lesson". He exhorted the government troops not to continue as assassins and murderers in the service of the "power-mad and evil king ( min-hsoe min-nyit) Ne Win". Kyaw Zaw stated that the "most important aspects of the Army's history such as the Resistance against the Japanese March to May 1945 and the immediate post-war years were co-terminous with my personal life". Giving the examples of China and "what had happened only very recently in Indochina (i.e the Communist victories in Kampuchea, Vietnam and Laos in April and December 1975)" he requested the Army personnel not to be hesitant to "join the armed revolution led by the Communist Party of Burma".