Saw Chit Thu

Colonel Saw Chit Thu (Burmese: စောချစ်သူ) is a Karen military officer and former insurgent commander who is the current general secretary and executive advisor of the Central Command of Border Guard Forces (BGF). As the leader of the BGF, Chit Thu became a person of considerable influence in the border area.[1][2][3][4] Saw Chit Thu is a former commander of DKBA Battalion 999, and majority of BGF troops operating in Karen State are from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) faction that broke away from the Karen National Union (KNU) and allied itself with the Burma Army in 1994.[5] Among the DKBA leaders, he is believed to the most powerful decision-maker in both the DKBA's military wing and its political administration.[6] He also owns large businesses dealing with logging and auto trading, and he is rumored to be involved in drug trafficking.[7][8][9] In 2010, he accepted the Burmese government’s demands to transform the DKBA into a Border Guard Force, under the command of the Tatmadaw.[10]

In this Burmese name, Saw is an honorific, not a given name.

In 2017, Saw Chit Thu began working with Yatai International Holding Group, led by Chinese convict, She Zhijiang, to develop Yatai New City in Shwe Kokko, after She gave Chit Thu a down payment of US$300,000.[11] He also linked a deal with the Dongmei Group, led by Chinese triad leader, Wan Kuok-koi, to develop Saixigang.[12] In June 2020, the civilian-led government launched a tribunal to investigate the Yatai development, successfully halting ongoing construction.[13] The probe embarrassed the Myanmar Armed Forces, which oversees Saw Chit Thu's BGF.[13] In December 2020, the Tatmadaw pressured Saw Chit Thu and other high-ranking officers including Major Saw Mout Thon and Major Saw Tin Win, to resign from the BGF. Major Saw Mout Thon of BGF Battalion 1022 resigned on 8 January, along with 13 commanders, 77 officers and 13 battalions of 4 regiments who collectively signed and submitted their resignations.[14] Under pressure amid controversy, at least 7,000 BGF members resigned to protest the ouster of their top leaders. However, Saw refused to retire.[15]

In the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, the Myanmar Armed Forces have become pre-occupied with the ensuing Myanmar civil war (2021–present), which has enabled the Yatai New City to resume development.[13] In November 2022, he was awarded the title of Thiri Pyanchi, one of the country’s highest honors.[16]

References
  1. "BGF Colonel Saw Chit Thu appeals for more time before resigning". Monnews. 21 January 2021.
  2. "Colonel Chit Thu – "Border Guard Force Stands By The Karen People…"". Karen News. 27 August 2014.
  3. "Karen State Militia Leadership Quits en Masse After Military Ousts Its Chief". The Irrawaddy. 15 January 2021.
  4. "Uniting ethnic Karen armed groups 90 per cent successful". Mizzima. 30 November 2018.
  5. "ကရင်လူထုကောင်းစားရေးအတွက် ကေအန်ယူ အပေါ်သစ္စာဖောက်ခဲ့ရဟု ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီး စောချစ်သူပြော". DVB (in Burmese). 21 August 2019.
  6. "The Junta Hit Men". The Irrawaddy. July 9, 2009.
  7. Irrawaddy, The (2023-02-27). "Analysis | Shwe Kokko: How Myanmar's Crime Hub is Destabilizing the Region". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 2023-03-03.
  8. "With conflict escalating, Karen BGF gets back to business". Frontier Myanmar. 13 May 2021.
  9. "အခုက ဟိုး တစ်ကနေ သုည ပြန်ဆုတ်သွားတာ". The Irrawaddy. 16 August 2022.
  10. "Kayin State BGF officers and others collectively resign". Eleven Media Group. 16 January 2021.
  11. "Myanmar's Casino Cities: The Role of China and Transnational Criminal Networks" (PDF). United States Institute of Peace. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  12. "Chinese Crime Networks Partner with Myanmar Armed Groups". United States Institute of Peace. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  13. Frontier (2022-06-23). "Scam City: How the coup brought Shwe Kokko back to life". Frontier Myanmar. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  14. "BGF ထိပ်သီးခေါင်း‌ဆောင်များ နုတ်ထွက်ခြင်းမပြုရန် တပ်မတော်တိုက်တွန်း". Myanmar NOW (in Burmese). 15 January 2021.
  15. "ယူနီဖောင်းချွတ်ရန် အစီအစဉ် မရှိသေးဟု ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးစောချစ်သူပြော". Mizzima (in Burmese). 12 January 2021.
  16. "Wirathu, preacher of hate, receives top honour from Myanmar junta chief". Myanmar NOW. Retrieved 2023-01-05.
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