Soe Win (general)

His Excellency
Vice-Senior General
Maha Thray Sithu
Soe Win
စိုးဝင်း
Soe Win in 2013
Vice Chairman of the State Administration Council
Assumed office
2 February 2021
ChairmanMin Aung Hlaing
Preceded byOffice established
Deputy Prime Minister of Myanmar
Assumed office
1 August 2021
PresidentMyint Swe (acting)
Prime MinisterMin Aung Hlaing
Preceded byTin Hla (2001)
Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services
Assumed office
30 March 2011
PresidentThein Sein
Htin Kyaw
Win Myint
Myint Swe (acting)
Preceded byMaung Aye
Personal details
Born (1960-03-01) 1 March 1960 (age 64)[1]
Mandalay, Burma (now Myanmar)[2]
CitizenshipBurmese
SpouseThan Than Nwe
Alma materDefence Services Academy
OccupationGeneral
Military service
Allegiance Tatmadaw
Branch/service Myanmar Army
Years of service1981–present
Rank Vice-Senior General
CommandsDeputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, Tatmadaw
Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar Army

Soe Win - (Burmese: စိုးဝင်း; pronounced [só wɪ́ɴ]; born 1 March 1960) is a Burmese army general and the current Deputy Prime Minister of Myanmar.[3][4][5][6][7][8] Appointed following the formation of the caretaker government on 1 August 2021, Soe Win hold essential roles, including Vice Chairman of the State Administration Council, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces), and Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Army.[9][10][11][12] He is also a member of Myanmar's National Defence and Security Council.[13][14] In May 2012, former President of Myanmar, Thein Sein appointed Soe Win to the working committee of the government team responsible for negotiating with Myanmar's many armed ethnic rebel groups. He is a close associate of former Vice Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Vice-Senior General Maung Aye.[13]

Early life and education

Soe Win was born on 1 March 1960 in Mandalay, Burma (now Myanmar), to Chit Sein and Kyin Htwe.[15] In 1976, he attended a cadet course at the Defense Services Academy, alongside Ye Htut, graduating with distinctions in military science and literature. Soe Win graduated as part of the 22nd intake in 1981.[16]

Military career

In 1981, Soe Win graduated from the Defense Services Academy (DSA) during its 22nd intake. In June 2008, he became the commander of the Northern Regional Command of the Myanmar Army in Kachin State. In August 2010, Soe Win became Chief of the Bureau of Special Operations-6 (BSO-6), overseeing military operations in Chin and Rakhine States and the Magwe Region.[13]

Soe Win had also pressured the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to convert into a "Border Guard Force" (BGF) under the control of the military. Despite numerous meetings between Soe Win and KIA leaders in July 2009 and August 2010, the KIA did not become a BGF.[13]

In September 2011, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) accused Soe Win of ordering Tatmadaw soldiers to attack KIA positions in Kachin State, thus violating the terms of multiple ceasefire agreements signed prior to the alleged attacks. Soe Win denied the claims, saying that neither he nor anyone else in the Northern Regional Command had ordered an attack on the KIA.[13]

Accusations of corruption

Soe Win has been accused of being involved numerous cases of corruption and extortion during his career as commander of the Northern Regional Command from 2008 to 2010. Soe Win has been accused of accepting bribes from companies dealing in jade, timber, and gold, in exchange for concessions from the profits. Soe Win was reported to have accepted a 150 million kyat ($149,254 USD) bribe from teak businessmen from China's Yunnan Province, in exchange for allowing illicit teak trade on the Myanmar-China border. In March 2010, he ordered Tatmadaw soldiers in Hpakant, Kachin State, to collect military taxes from local jade mining companies.[13]

Sanctions

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions on Soe Win since 10 December 2019, pursuant to Executive Order 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption. Soe Win has committed serious human rights abuse against members of ethnic minority groups across Myanmar. These US sanctions include a freezing of assets under the US and a ban on transactions with any US person.[17]

About one year later on 11 February 2021, Soe Win was also placed on the sanctions list of the OFAC pursuant to Executive Order 14014, in response to the Burmese military’s coup against the democratically elected civilian government of Burma.[18]

The Government of Canada has imposed sanctions on Soe Win since 18 February 2021, pursuant to Special Economic Measures Act and Special Economic Measures (Burma) Regulations, in response to the gravity of the human rights and humanitarian situation in Myanmar (formerly Burma). Canadian sanctions include a freezing of assets under Canada and a ban on transactions with any Canadian person.[19][20]

Furthermore, the Council of the European Union has imposed sanctions on Soe Win since 22 March 2021, pursuant to Council Regulation (EU) 2021/479 and Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/480 which amended Council Regulation (EU) No 401/2013, for his responsibility for the military coup and the subsequent military and police repression against peaceful demonstrators. The EU sanctions include a freezing of assets under member countries of the EU and a ban on entry or transit to the countries.[21][22]

Personal life

Soe Win is married to Than Than Nwe (b. 1954).[23][24]

References

  1. ^ "Issuance of Executive Order "Blocking Property With Respect To The Situation In Burma;" Burma-related Designations and Designations Updates". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Archived from the original on 11 February 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
  2. ^ "Soe Win has been the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces (Tatmadaw) since 2011. He is Vice-Chairman of the State Administration Council (SAC) and member of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC)". OpenSanctions.
  3. ^ "Vice-Senior General Soe Win comforts Tatmadaw members, MPF members, people's militia receiving treatments for their wounds in serving State defence and security duties". The Republic of the Union of Myanmar Ministry of Information. 17 December 2023.
  4. ^ "Soe Win has been the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces (Tatmadaw) since 2011". OpenSanctions.
  5. ^ "Vice-Senior General Soe Win boosts morale at Tatmadaw Hospital in Mingaladon". Ministry of Information. 27 December 2023.
  6. ^ Nabila Massrali (9 March 2021). "Myanmar: Phone call between Vice-Admiral Bléjean and Vice-Senior General Soe Win". European Union.
  7. ^ "Vice-Chairman of State Administration Council Vice-Senior General Soe Win visits Higher Military Command School". Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Moscow (Russia). 8 September 2021.
  8. ^ "Vice-Senior General Soe Win instructs members of Medical Corps to exchange experiences with international organizations". Global New Light of Myanmar. 3 October 2023.
  9. ^ "ကိုဗစ် - ၁၉ ရောဂါ ကာကွယ်၊ ထိန်းချုပ်၊ကုသရေးဆိုင်ရာဆဋ္ဌမအကြိမ်ညှိနှိုင်း အစည်းအဝေးပြုလုပ်၊ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အိမ်စောင့်အစိုးရ၊ နိုင်ငံတော်ဝန်ကြီးချုပ် ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီးမင်းအောင်လှိုင်တက်ရောက်အမှာစကားပြောကြား" (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 2021-08-02. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  10. ^ "SAC Vice-Chair Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services Commander-in-Chief (Army) Vice-Senior General Soe Win leaves for Russia". Myanmar National Portal. 27 August 2022.
  11. ^ "Vice-Chairman of the State Administration Council Vice-Senior General Soe Win arrives back from Russian Federation". Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Moscow (Russia). 8 September 2021.
  12. ^ "SAC Vice-Chairman DPM Vice-Senior General Soe Win inspects preparations for hosting dinner and entertainment programmes to honour 76th Anniversary of Independence Day". Myanmar Digital News. 3 January 2024.
  13. ^ a b c d e f "Tatmadaw Deputy Commander-in-Chief - Regime Watch - ALTSEAN Burma". www.altsean.org. Alternative ASEAN Network (ALTASEAN). Archived from the original on 19 October 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  14. ^ "Vice-Senior General Soe Win visits military commands in Pyin Oo Lwin | Ministry Of Information". www.moi.gov.mm. Archived from the original on 3 August 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  15. ^ "တပ်ချုပ် ဖြစ်လာနိုင်သူ စစ်သားကောင်း ဒုတိယ ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး စိုးဝင်း". ဧရာဝတီ. 2020-12-05. Archived from the original on 2020-12-06. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
  16. ^ "Min Aung Hlaing and His Generals: Some Biographical Notes". FULCRUM. 2021-08-04. Archived from the original on 2022-09-22. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  17. ^ "Treasury Sanctions Individuals for Roles in Atrocities and Other Abuses". U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. 10 December 2019. Archived from the original on 7 December 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  18. ^ "United States Targets Leaders of Burma's Military Coup Under New Executive Order". The U.S. Department of the Treasury. 11 February 2021. Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  19. ^ "Special Economic Measures Act (S.C. 1992, c. 17)". Justice Laws Website. 4 June 1992. Archived from the original on 7 May 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  20. ^ "Regulations Amending the Special Economic Measures (Burma) Regulations: SOR/2021-18". The Government of Canada. 18 February 2021. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  21. ^ "Myanmar/Burma: EU sanctions 11 people over the recent military coup and ensuing repression". The Council of the European Union. 22 March 2021. Archived from the original on 22 March 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  22. ^ "Official Journal of the European Union". 22 March 2021. pp. 15–24. Archived from the original on 26 March 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  23. ^ "Burma-related Designations; Iran-related Designations Removals; Non-proliferation Designations Removals". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Archived from the original on 2022-09-29. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
  24. ^ "ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်ရုံး(ကြည်း၊ ရေ၊ လေ)မိသားစုများ၏ ဒသမအကြိမ် မဟာဘုံကထိန် အလှူတော်မင်္ဂလာ အခမ်းအနားကျင်းပ". Tatmadaw Information Team (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 2020-12-04. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
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