Twan Mrat Naing

Twan Mrat Naing
General Twan Mrat Naing during an interview with Voice of America in 2024
Native name
ထွန်းမြတ်နိုင်
Born (1978-11-07) 7 November 1978
Akyab, Arakan State, Burma
Allegiance Arakan Army
Branch
 Arakan Army
Service years
2009–present
Rank
Major General
CommandsCommander-in-Chief, Arakha Army
Conflicts
Internal conflict in Myanmar
SpouseHnin Zar Phyu (2005- present)

Major General Twan Mrat Naing (Burmese: ထွန်းမြတ်နိုင်; also spelled Tun Myat Naing) is an Arakanese revolutionary and commander in chief of the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed organization based in Myanmar's Rakhine State (formerly Arakan).[1][2][3]

Twan Mrat Naing has led the Arakan Army since its founding in 2009, and maintains the rank of Major General. Twan Mrat Naing is of Rakhine descent and commanded the Army from Laiza, Kachin State, where the Arakan Army's "temporary headquarters" were. After the Arakan Army occupied 70% of the Rakhine State, he returned to his homeland in June 2025.[4]

Early life

Twan Mrat Naing was born in Akyab (now Sittwe), the state capital of Rakhine State, on 7 November 1978.[5] He began law studies in Sittwe, but did not complete the course. He was active as a student leader and had a confrontation with the military while in grade 9.[6]

Career

He previously worked as a tour guide in Yangon.[7] In 1998, he planned to join the National United Party of Arakan but their general was killed in action.[8]

He began crossing the border into Bangladesh in the late 1990s. His first crossing was in 1998, following the death of several Arakan revolutionaries during Operation Leech. Until 2006, he worked toward the idea of unifying various Rakhine groups. By 2006, he traveled to India by crossing the borders into Manipur, where he stayed in Imphal, Guwahati, Assam and Delhi. He interacted with several leaders and attended the meeting of Arakan National Congress in Vikaspuri. Afterwards, he began considering building connections with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and other organizations in Myanmar. Through contacts at Yangon University, he succeeded in establishing links with the Karen National Liberation Army.[6]

In 2004, he collaborated with Nyo Twan Awng, a surgeon doctor who is currently a Vice Commander in-Chief of Arakha Army. In 2009, they founded the Arakan Army.[9][8] The group began in Kachin and found support from the Kachin Independence Army.[10]

Twan Mrat Naing giving a speech in 2016

In June 2022, military spokespeople from the State Administration Council said that provocative rhetoric from Twan Mrat Naing, as the leader of the Arakan Army was inviting conflict.[11] The informal ceasefire between AA and the junta would breakdown after an junta airstrike on an AA base in Kayin State.[12]

In September 2024, he declared that Rakhine State will be governed under a unitary state system.[13]

In September 2025, he met with Kim Aris, son of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, where he expressed deep respect for her and concern for her recent health. Kim Aris honored the resilience of the Rakhine people and their achievements.[14][15]

Views

Twan Mrat Naing has stated that Rakhine State would be established as a confederated region where the Rakhine people have the right to decide for themselves and create their own destiny.[16]

War crime allegations

According to activists such as Nay San Lwin and organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the Arakan Army allegedly committed multiple war crimes against the Rohingya people.[17][18] The Burmese Rohingya Organisation of the United Kingdom requested a federal court in Buenos Aires, Argentina to issue arrest warrants against Twan Mrat Naing and Nyo Twan Awng on 3 September 2025.[19]

Twan Mrat Naing has denied allegations that he ordered war crimes against the Rohingya and other Muslim populations in Rakhine State. He claimed that fighters who commit war crimes are seriously dealt with once credible evidence is revealed.[20] He further dismissed allegations of human rights violations against minorities by AA as "accusations [that benefit the narratives of particular groups, especially diaspora activists, who weaponize human rights]."[6]

Personal life

Twan Mrat Naing is married to Hnun Zar Phru (Hnin Zar Phyu in Burmese). The couple has two children, a daughter, Saw Prae Shun, and a son, Mrat Lurn Zan.[21] Twan Mrat Naing's father-in-law is San Kyaw Hla, the speaker of the Rakhine State Hluttaw and an Arakan National Party (ANP) politician.[21]

Arrests of family members

On 10 July 2019, Aung Mrat Kyaw, Twan Mrat Naing's younger brother and five other Arakanese were detained by the Singaporean government and deported to Myanmar, where they were arrested shortly after arriving. Singapore's home ministry said the detained individuals had organized and mobilized some members of the Myanmar community in Singapore to support the Arakan Army, and its political wing, the United League of Arakan.[22][23]

On 18 October 2019, the younger sister of Twan Mrat Naing, Moe Hnin Phyu and her husband, Kyaw Naing, were arrested at the Yangon International Airport after they returned from Chiang Mai, Thailand and are currently being questioned. They are accused of being connected to the seizure of explosive devices in Mandalay, according to Zaw Htay, the spokesperson of the State Counsellor's Office.

On 6 December 2019, Hnin Zar Phyu and her two children were detained by Thai immigration officials in Chiang Mai when she went there to extend her visa.[21] The Chiang Mai office of the Thailand Immigration Bureau arrested her due to the presence of her name on the list of people affiliated with the Arakan Army, which was provided by the Myanmar government. On 25 February 2020, the detained family left for Switzerland under the political asylum initiated by the UNHCR.[24][25]

On 9 June 2021, Aung Myat Kyaw, Moe Hnin Phyu and her husband were released from prison after all charges against them were dropped. The release happened after the Tatmadaw took power in a coup d'état earlier that year.[26]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "About AA". Arakan Army. Archived from the original on 3 November 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2015.
  2. ↑ "Arakan Army Leaders". Arakan Army. Archived from the original on 24 June 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  3. ↑ "ETHNIC LEADERS HAVE THEIR SAY – PART 1". Karen News. Archived from the original on 18 July 2015. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
  4. ↑ အပြောထက် လက်တွေ့လုပ်ရအောင် (ရုပ်/သံ) [Let's do more than talk (video/audio)]. The Irrawaddy (in Burmese). 20 September 2025.
  5. ↑ "AA Chief Tun Myat Naing's 47th Birthday Marked with Interethnic Friendship Futsal Tournament Including Muslims". Global Arakan Network. Archived from the original on 5 March 2026. Retrieved 1 April 2026.
  6. 1 2 3 Bhattacharyya, Rajeev (4 May 2026). "Arakan Army Chief Twan Mrat Naing on Talks With the Myanmar Government, and Relations With India and Bangladesh". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 5 May 2026. Retrieved 6 May 2026.
  7. ↑ "Rakhine: A Test Run for Repression". Myanmar's Military Struggles to Control the Virtual Battlefield. International Crisis Group: Page 4–Page 10. 2021.
  8. 1 2 "Who took over the leadership of Arakan Army at just 30". en.bonikbarta.com. Archived from the original on 25 April 2025. Retrieved 4 May 2026.
  9. ↑ "Explainer: The insurgents plunging Myanmar's Rakhine back into chaos". Reuters. 15 January 2019. Archived from the original on 7 December 2022. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
  10. ↑ "The Arakan Army's Journey: From Rebels to Rulers and A New Arakan Paradigm". arakanstudies.org. Archived from the original on 13 March 2026. Retrieved 16 April 2026.
  11. ↑ Kean, Thomas (7 June 2022). "Arakan Army on Collision Course with the Military in Myanmar's Rakhine State". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 22 March 2024. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  12. ↑ Kyaw Hsan Hlaing (3 October 2022). "Insurgents in Myanmar's Rakhine State Return to War on the Military". US Institute of Peace. Archived from the original on 29 November 2023.
  13. ↑ Lay, Thar Nge (16 September 2024). "တစ်ပြည်ထောင်စနစ်ဖြင့် အုပ်ချုပ်သွားမည်ဟု ဗို". MPA (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 25 September 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  14. ↑ Agency, Yangon Khit Thit News (6 September 2025). "ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်၏ ကျန်းမာရေး အတွက် စိုးရိမ်ဟု AA စစ်ဦးစီးချုပ် ဗိုလ်ချုပ် ထွန်းမြတ်နိုင်ပြောဆို". Khit Thit Media. Archived from the original on 11 October 2025. Retrieved 6 September 2025.
  15. ↑ "စက်တင်ဘာ ၆ ရက် နိုင်ငံတဝန်းသတင်းများ အနှစ်ချုပ် - ရွေးကောက်ပွဲလုံခြုံရေးထိခိုက်အောင်အွန်လိုင်းက လှုံ့ဆော်သူတွေကိုအရေးယူဖို့ ပြည်ထဲရေးဝန်ကြီးပြော". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese). 6 September 2025. Archived from the original on 10 September 2025. Retrieved 6 September 2025.
  16. ↑ "၁၇ နှစ် ပြည့် အေအေ-ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ထွန်းမြတ်နိုင်ပုံဖော်နေတဲ့ ရခိုင်ပြည်". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese). 10 April 2026. Archived from the original on 4 May 2026. Retrieved 10 April 2026.
  17. ↑ "Myanmar: Arakan Army Oppresses Rohingya Muslims | Human Rights Watch". Human Rights Watch. 28 July 2025. Archived from the original on 1 August 2025. Retrieved 4 May 2026.
  18. ↑ Pyae, Myo (12 August 2025). "Arakan Army Denies Rohingya Massacre". The Irrawaddy. Archived from the original on 13 January 2026. Retrieved 4 May 2026.
  19. ↑ "Arrest warrants requested for Arakan Army leaders; Over 200 civilians killed by airstrikes in Myanmar last month - DVB". english.dvb.no. Archived from the original on 21 September 2025. Retrieved 4 May 2026.
  20. ↑ Bhattacharyya, Rajeev. "Arakan Army Commander-in-Chief Twan Mrat Naing on the Future of Rakhine State". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025. Retrieved 4 May 2026.
  21. 1 2 3 "Spouse and children of AA chief arrested in Chiang Mai". Burma News International. Archived from the original on 28 February 2024. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
  22. ↑ "Myanmar citizens deported from Singapore over alleged insurgent ties remanded in custody". Reuters. 26 July 2019. Archived from the original on 18 May 2021.
  23. ↑ "AA Chief's Brother, Several Arakanese Arrested in Singapore". The Irrawaddy. 10 July 2019. Archived from the original on 3 December 2022.
  24. ↑ "Wife, Children of Leader of Myanmar's Arakan Army Detained in Thailand". The Irrawaddy. 6 December 2019. Archived from the original on 28 February 2024.
  25. ↑ "AA chief's wife, children left for Switzerland". Narinjara. 26 February 2020. Archived from the original on 28 February 2024.
  26. ↑ "Myanmar Junta Drops Charges Against Arakan Army Chief's Relatives". 10 June 2021. Archived from the original on 30 November 2023.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.