Lt-Gen Than Hlaing was removed from his position this week as chief of the junta’s police force and deputy minister of home affairs—replaced by a lower ranking general, Myanmar Now has learned. 

The military council carried out the internal shuffle on Monday, sending 57-year-old Than Hlaing—who has been blacklisted by the EU and US—back to his previous army duties as an officer. Maj-Gen Zin Min Htet, the military’s Joint Adjutant General since 2019, will be taking over his post. 

In his senior role within the junta—which he was appointed to one day after the February 1, 2021 coup—Than Hlaing also oversaw the armed forces’ efforts to crush local defence forces in the resistance strongholds of Magway and Sagaing regions. He had previously served as the head of the military’s Eastern Central Regional Command in Shan State and the Northwestern Regional Command in Sagaing. 

Brig-Gen Phyo Thant, the junta-appointed head of the Northwestern Regional Command tasked with fighting guerrilla forces in the area, was also removed from his position in January. 

Than Hlaing’s replacement

A military source told Myanmar Now that Maj-Gen Zin Min Htet was a member of the Defence Services Academy’s (DSA) 32nd intake, graduating from the officer training school three years after Than Hlaing.

Although little is known about his duties between graduation and his assumption of the joint adjutant role, the source claimed that Zin Min Htet once served as the head of the Defence Services Computer and Technological University. 

In recent years, he organised and oversaw sports and music competitions, leading Myanmar’s military band in the International Army Games in Russia in 2018.

Zin Min Htet is in his early 50s and married to Dr Thazin Khin, a urologist from Naypyitaw’s 1,000-bed hospital, according to a friend who spoke to Myanmar Now on the condition of anonymity. 

The individual claimed that the new police commander comes from a family of civil servants, and has two daughters. 

Beginning in 1997, during an earlier military administration headed by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), Zin Min Htet served for six years as the personal staff officer (PSO) for Gen Kat Sein, the then minister of health.

“He wanted to be a military attaché,” the friend explained. “He was first transferred back to the military office after being a PSO and he became a major. Then he was deployed in Laukkai as a deputy battalion commander,” he said, referring to the ethnic Kokang region of northern Shan State, where the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army has been engaged in an armed struggle against the Myanmar military. 

The move is the latest sign of coup leader Min Aung Hlaing’s efforts to consolidate his control over Myanmar’s military

Wider internal shuffle

Commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing has removed several generals from their positions since the coup, despite indefinitely extending his own term as head of defence services. 

Days after his attempted seizure of power last year, he did away with an age restriction that would have required him to step down when he turned 65, which he did in July of last year.

Air force chief Gen Maung Maung Kyaw retired without notice in January, despite being eligible to keep his role for an additional two years until the age of 60. Junta spokesperson Gen Zaw Min Tun confirmed that Maung Maung Kyaw would remain a member of the military council, but he has not been seen publicly taking part in junta-related activities since the announcement. 

Gen Mya Tun Oo, seen as the third most powerful person in the military, was removed from his post as the chief of staff of the army, air force and navy immediately following the coup and re-appointed as defence minister. Meanwhile, Lt-Gen Aung Lin Dwe was made secretary of the military council after having previously served as the armed forces’ judge advocate general. Both moves were seen as demotions.

The navy’s chief, Admiral Tin Aung San, was also re-assigned to the role of transport and communications minister. He was replaced by Admiral Moe Aung, who, at 56, is Min Aung Hlaing’s junior by nine years.

It follows a larger pattern of the coup leader replacing the top leaders with younger generals.

Others include the junta’s joint secretary and chief of military security affairs Gen Ye Win Oo, army chief of staff Lt-Gen Moe Myint Tun and adjutant general Lt-Gen Myo Zaw Thein—all in their 50s and recently appointed by Min Aung Hlaing. 

Quartermaster general Lt-Gen Kyaw Swar Lin was just 49 years old when he was promoted in 2020 to become the youngest lieutenant general in Myanmar military history. 

Maj-Gen Zaw Hein, also in his 40s, is currently head of the Naypyitaw Regional Command, and graduated from the DSA’s 38th intake. Prior to his appointment as commander, he was the headmaster of the DSA, and once served as a PSO for Min Aung Hlaing. 

In an interview with Myanmar Now, the Karen ethnic armed organisation’s spokesperson Padoh Saw Taw Nee lauds public support for the resistance movement and condemns a junta-controlled election

Casino controversy 

More than 60 Karen civil society organisations, including the KWO, released a joint statement late last week calling for the resignation of all KNU central executive committee members with ties to so-called “new city projects,” including illegal casinos and other gambling businesses.

In response, the KNU released a statement on Sunday denying that it had issued any permits for illegal businesses in Karen (Kayin) State.

KNU congresses typically last about a month, and are attended by central executive committee members and representatives from each brigade.

Padoh Saw Liston, the district secretary for KNLA Brigade 6, said he didn’t expect the current congress to last any longer than usual, despite being the first to be conducted online—an innovation, he said, necessitated by the risk of airstrikes.

He added that the Karen public also hopes to see more “political integrity” in the group’s leadership.

“I think the public feels that the leadership’s behaviour should reflect the KNU’s political integrity, so I think there may be some changes. However, everything depends on the representatives’ skills,” he stated.

More than 50 representatives are slated to be elected as members of the KNU’s central executive committee during the congress. The elected representatives will then choose the group’s chair, vice-chair, and secretary general.

KNU territory is divided into seven districts, each one controlled by a different brigade of either the KNLA or the Karen National Defence Organisation, another armed wing under the KNU’s command.   

While discontent is rife within the ranks, few soldiers are willing to risk the consequences of defecting

Another retired soldier who served in the army for 40 years told Myanmar Now that among these new recruits, the reasons for joining were often rooted in pragmatism over patriotism.

“No one has joined the army because they love the country,” he said. 

Once provided with uniforms, weapons, and two weeks of combat training, family members of troops are often sent to reinforce weakened battalions and brigades nationwide, according to Cpt Zin Yaw, who left the Myanmar army after nearly 20 years to join the Civil Disobedience Movement. 

“The new recruits are often underage and not in a good mental state,” he said, citing sources still in the military. “They were kept at the base just for show. Some were so unstable that they couldn’t be trusted enough to have their guns loaded with real bullets.” 

He noted that this information came from an officer currently serving in the Southeastern Regional Command, active in Mon and Karen states, where intense fighting has taken place between the Myanmar army and resistance forces including the longstanding ethnic armed organisation the Karen National Union (KNU). 

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Children among troops

A former child soldier forcibly recruited into the military while on a Buddhist pilgrimage in 2019 affirmed that the Myanmar army resorted to unorthodox measures to bolster its troop numbers well before the coup. 

Hein Zaw Oo said he was 16 and had just visited the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda in Mon State when he was approached by a police officer he met on the train back to his native Yangon. The officer convinced him to enlist, and initially sent him to Infantry Battalion 30 in Bago Region’s Taungoo Township. He then attended six months of combat training in Thabeikkyin Township in Mandalay.

“There were many underage children among the troops,” he recalled. “Many of them were younger than me.”

Speaking to Myanmar Now on the condition of anonymity, another army captain who served for 10 years before joining the CDM said that Hein Zaw Oo’s experience was not uncommon, and that railway stations had long been known military recruitment sites, particularly for minors. 

“They target the boys who seem lost at the stations—naïve young boys are threatened and recruited into the army,” the captain said. “For example, they will accuse the boys of stealing, and after beating them, they will threaten them with prison if they don’t join [the army].” 

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Officers were under pressure to find two new recruits each month in order to secure their own promotions, he explained. Prior to the coup, they could expect to spend up to 2m kyat (nearly US$1,000) in “fees” to take credit for bringing on a new soldier. 

“Some bases sell their troops’ recruitment records to those officers. The military recruitment units also sell the names of the people they have recruited, and the officers [who want a promotion] will buy from them,” he explained. 

After he completed his training, teenager Hein Zaw Oo became a member of Light Infantry Battalion 2 under Light Infantry Division 44, and was—perhaps ironically—stationed in the Kyaikhto, the same township as the holy site he visited before he was recruited.

He was then deployed to Rakhine State to fight against the Arakan Army in 2020, and transferred across the country to Karen State one year after the coup. Looking for an escape, he contacted the Cobra Column—a combined force made up of KNU soldiers and members of the anti-junta People’s Defence Force—as they advanced along the highway connecting Myawaddy with Waw Lay along the Thai border in May 2022, and defected to the resistance.

Upon his arrival in liberated territory, Hein Zaw Oo told Myanmar Now that the “propaganda” spread by the military about the anti-junta armed groups turned out to be false. 

“The army says that deserters who join the CDM will be killed by [the resistance forces] after being fed for a day or two,” he explained, speculating that the regime is desperate not to lose more troops to the movement it is struggling to suppress.