Bo Mya

Who was Bo Mya?

Bo Mya 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, 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 close to the Thai-Burma border, the KNU under his control, and its military wing the Karen National Liberation Army, was probably the most successful of the ethnic rebel organisations fighting Rangoon in the 1970s and 1980s.

But by the mid-1990s, the tide was turning against him. A devout Christian of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Bo Mya had always risked antagonising elements from within the predominantly Karen Buddhist and animist KNLA ranks. Although his defenders say he treated both Christians and Buddhists equally, the fact that the top positions of the KNU were filled almost entirely by Christians seemed to confirm the impression that he promoted the minority Christians' interests at the expense of those of the Buddhists and animists.