Kyaw Nyein (; ; 19 January 1913 – 29 June 1986), called honorifically U Kyaw Nyein (;), 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, Nu and Raschid. 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".
Early life and education Kyaw Nyein was born January 19, 1913, in Pyinmana, British Burma as third child to Daw Thon and Po Toke, a lawyer and leader of the General Council of Burmese Associations. He attended the King Edward Memorial School in Pyinmana where he befriended Than Tun, who would later become chairman of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB). In 1930, he entered Mandalay College to study science and became engaged in university politics. Together with Thein Pe Myint, U Tun Ohn and other students, he fought against the closing down of Mandalay College. After passing the Intermediate exam in 1933, Kyaw Nyein and Thein Pe Myint transferred from Mandalay College to Rangoon University, where he joined the English Honors program. Following his graduation in 1936, he entered law school and received his law degree in 1939.
Independence Movement (1933-1947) Student activism Kyaw Nyein became involved in student politics at Rangoon University in the academic year 1933/34. While hospitalized in the university infirmary in 1933, he met and befriended freshman student Aung San and later introduced him to Thein Pe Myint and Than Tun. In the same year, he ran in the elections for the executive council of the Rangoon University Student Union (RUSU) together with Thein Pe Myint and Aung San, and after being elected became editor of the RUSU Bulletin. By the end of 1935, the RUSU executive council was dominated by political students and presided over by Nu, a senior law student and friend who described Kyaw Nyein as "an easy conversationalist with a good sense of humour.”
During the university student strike of 1936, Nu, Raschid, Aung San and Kyaw Nyein formed a strike council and set the strike strategy and objectives. As the protests persisted and spread to other schools and colleges in the country, they wrested major concessions from the university administration. Raschid recalled that „the burden of negotiating and operational leadership fell to Aung San, Kyaw Nyein and myself." After the strike, he and the other strike leaders established the All Burma Student Union (ABSU) to organize students nationwide.
In 1937 or 1938, while preparing for his law degree, Kyaw Nyein began to work at the customs department to provide for his parents and support himself and his political friends. In 1939, he founded together with Thakin Mya, Aung San, Ba Swe and Thakin Chit the People's Revolutionary Party (PRP), which organized clandestine activities for a planned armed struggle against the British.
Second World War and Japanese Occupation Aung San left Burma in 1940 and established contact with Japanese army intelligence officer Suzuki Keiji. In early 1941, the PRP leadership embraced Aung San's plan for an armed uprising supported by the Japanese intelligence unit Minami Kikan (ja). Kyaw Nyein and other PRP members selected and sent young nationalists -later to be known as the Thirty Comrades- to Japan for military training. In February 1942, he recruited over 200 Burmese soldiers of the Burma Rifles and took them in pilfered trucks to Tharrawaddy where they were supposed to foment a local rebellion together with Ne Win and Bo Yan Aung of the Thirty Comrades before the Japanese troops arrived. The plan failed, and Kyaw Nyein and Ne Win reportedly had to walk back to Yangon by foot.
During the Japanese occupation of Burma, Kyaw Nyein was Cabinet Secretary in the Civil Executive Administration under Prime Minister Dr. Ba Maw, and later served as Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. In August 1944, he participated in negotiations between members of the Communist Party of Burma, the PRP and the Burma National Army that led to the founding of the anti-Japanese resistance organization, Anti-Fascist Organisation (AFO), which later became the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL). Kyaw Nyein was a member of the AFO Supreme Council, the Military Council, and the executive committee and assigned as Political Commissar to Division (6), Pyinmana.
Struggle for Independence After the war and the return of the British colonial administration, Kyaw Nyein, Thakin Mya, Ba Swe and other AFPFL members founded the Burma Socialist Party (BSP) to counter the growing influence of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) within the AFPFL, by now the major political alliance and umbrella-organization in Burma's struggle for independence. Thakin Mya became the chairman of the BSP while Ba Swe served as general secretary and Kyaw Nyein as joint secretary. Amidst growing tensions within the AFPFL, Than Tun from the CPB resigned in June 1946 as General Secretary of the AFPFL. In August 1946, Kyaw Nyein was appointed as new General Secretary by the AFPFL Supreme Council presided over by Aung San.
He was an advisor to Aung San in the London Talks with Prime Minister Clement Attlee on Burma's independence in January 1947. Upon his return from London, he was handed the portfolio of Minister for Home and Judiciary in the Governor's Executive Council. He accompanied U Nu in July 1947 to London for further negotiations with Prime Minister Attlee, and on the way back, visited Yugoslavia to study the country's constitution and socialist system as a member of the Special Committee of Burma's Constitutional Assembly. Certain features of the Yugoslav Constitution, particularly those relating to minorities, were eventually incorporated in Burma's 1947 constitution.
Government under Prime Minister U Nu and Civil War (1948-1949) Kyaw Nyein served as the first post-independence Minister of Home Affairs and in September 1948 assumed additionally the positions of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister U Nu.
Forced Resignation and Defense of Burma's Neutralism In March 1949, at the height of the communist insurgency, Kyaw Nyein and five fellow socialist ministers resigned from the government under unclear circumstances. According to the autobiographical account of one of the ministers, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Ne Win had forced their resignation. Ne Win had entered a cabinet meeting alleging that he had struck a deal with the communists who were ready to join the government under the condition that all socialist ministers resigned. Kyaw Nyein and the other socialist ministers stepped aside but demanded that Prime Minister U Nu should remain the head of government. Although Ne Win's overture to the communists eventually failed, he assumed the civilian positions of Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister in Nu's government until September 1950 while remaining the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. During his time in the cabinet, Ne Win tried to tackle the domestic conflicts by getting assistance from the United Kingdom and United States. Together with the Minister for Foreign Affairs E Maung, he visited London and Washington in June 1949 signaling Burma's willingness for a possible Pacific area security pact. At the same time, Prime Minister U Nu suggested in parliament that Burma should enter into economic and defense treaties with countries of economic interest. The reversal of Burma's avowed neutralism since independence was vigorously opposed by Kyaw Nyein. As Secretary General of the AFFPL and majority leader, he led the response in parliament warning in his speech of the dangers of becoming associated with power blocs. In the end, Washington and London sent a small supply of arms but otherwise were reluctant to assist Burma's government in its domestic conflicts. Later in the year, U Nu reaffirmed Burma's neutralism declaring that he was neither interested in anti-Left nor anti-Right but only anti-aggression pacts.
Political Role and Initiatives under the Government of Prime Minister U Nu (1951-1958) Economic Initiatives and Industrialization Kyaw Nyein returned to U Nu's cabinet in 1951 and set up the Ministry of Cooperatives, which he handed over to U Tun Win in 1954 to create the Ministry of Industries. In 1956, he became Deputy Prime Minister of National Economy to oversee and coordinate the industrialization of Burma.