Kyaw Zaw

Kyaw Zaw (, ; 3 December 1919 – 10 October 2012) was one of the founders of the Tatmadaw (the modern Burmese Army) and a member of the Thirty Comrades who trained in Japan in the struggle for independence from Britain. He was also one of the leaders of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), and had lived in exile in Yunnan Province, China, since 1989 after retiring from politics.

Student activist Born Maung Shwe in a village called Hsaisu near Thonze in Tharrawaddy District, British Burma, Kyaw Zaw was educated in the traditional manner, mainly in monastic schools often becoming a novice monk during the Buddhist lent, until the final year when he went to the Pazundaung Municipal High School in Rangoon. There he met teachers who were members of the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association) who made him become politically aware and soon joined the Yè tat (The Braves - Dobama militia). As he was educated only in the vernacular and had no knowledge of the English language required for university, he went on to the Highergrade Teachers Training School where English was not required.

The Great General Strike of 1938, known as Htaung thoun ya byei Ayeidawbon (the "Revolution of 1300" named after the Burmese calendar year), saw him as one of the student protesters successfully picketing the Secretariat, the seat of the colonial government, on 20 December. As the students left in triumphant procession, they were confronted by the British mounted police who charged into the students from Rangoon University at the head of the procession beating them with their batons and killing one of their number called Aung Kyaw. Kyaw Zaw saw this and was himself slightly injured trampled by a horse. The Prime Minister at the time was U Nu and the Commander in Chief of the Army General Ne Win. Kyaw Zaw was wounded by a shrapnel in his thigh in 1949 during the Battle of Insein when the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO) laid siege to the capital Rangoon. He was commissioned by Ne Win during the crisis as the commanding officer and Zaw rated this battle as the bitterest with the greatest loss of life in his military career. He had however decided not to join the Army rebellion led by Communist commanders soon after independence in 1948; he was convalescing from tuberculosis. He believed the Burmese people's struggle for a government they deserved had not finished yet and that they would have to "struggle for themselves courageously, ceaselessly and collectively".

Kyaw Zaw was then only one of two surviving Thirty Comrades. The Thirty Comrades were a group of Burmese men who secretly left Burma in 1941, and were trained by the Japanese on Hainan Island and returned to Burma with the invading Japanese Army in early to mid-1942. In a house in Bangkok on 26 December 1941, most of the Thirty Comrades had their blood drawn (in syringes) and poured into a silver bowl from which each of them drank (thway thauk in time-honoured tradition) and pledged "eternal loyalty" to each other and to the cause of Burmese independence. Among the Thirty Comrades were Thakin Aung San who took the nom de guerre Bo Tayza, Thakin Shu Maung who became Bo Ne Win and Thakin Shwe who became Bo Kyaw Zaw. Kyaw Zaw was one of the youngest of the Thirty Comrades. The sole surviving member of the Thirty Comrades today is Bo Yè Htut who is believed to be living in Pyinmana. Bo Ye Htut, like Bo Zeya (killed in action in 1968) and Bo Yan Aung (killed in the CPB purge of 1967), was one of the Communist members of the Thirty Comrades who led the Army rebellion in 1948 when Bo Kyaw Zaw decided to remain in the Army. He was regarded by some as one of only three military leaders in Burma's history that enjoyed the status of teacher in the heart of ordinary soldiers; the other two were Aung San and Tin Oo.

Death Kyaw Zaw died on 10 October 2012 at a hospital in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, China. He was 92, and survived by his two daughters, one son and seven grandchildren. His last dying wish was to pay a final visit to the Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon.