Kyaw Nyein

Kyaw Nyein served as the first post-independence Minister of Home Affairs and in September 1948 assumed additionally the positions of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister U Nu.[5]

In 1949, after a pressure campaign from the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces (tatmadaw) General Ne Win that amounted to an attempted coup d'état, Kyaw Nyein and five fellow socialist ministers resigned. At that time, the democratic elected government of U Nu had lost control of most of Burma's territory due to ethnic and communist uprisings. In this volatile situation and unbeknownst to the government, Ne Win had led clandestine negotiations with communist insurgents. One day in April 1949, he entered a cabinet meeting and declared that he would form a government with the communists who had accepted the deal under the condition that all socialist ministers resigned. Kyaw Nyein and five fellow socialist ministers agreed to step aside provided that Prime Minister U Nu remained the head of government. Although the agreement with the communists fell apart eventually, in addition to his military position as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Ne Win held for two years the civilian positions as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister in the government of Prime Minister U Nu.[6]

Kyaw Nyein reentered Prime Minister U Nu's cabinet in 1951 and held various minister positions until the split of the AFPFL in 1958. During this time period, he developed Burma's non-alignment policy and became the main advocate for a Third Force position of post-colonial countries. Subsequently, he was a driving force behind the creation of the Asian Socialist Conference and headed the 'Preparatory Committee for the first Conference of Asian Socialist Parties' in March 1952 in Yangon, which also initiated the publication of Socialist Asia, the organ of the Asian Socialist Conference.[7][8][9]

After the split, Kyaw Nyein became a leader of the Stable AFPFL faction alongside Ba Swe.[10]

Kyaw Nyein was detained in August 1963 after General Ne Win had staged a coup d'état in March 1962. He was released in February 1968 at the height of tensions between Burma and China and an escalating civil war between Burma's armed forces and the China-backed Burma Communist Party.[11] In the same year, Kyaw Nyein and other veteran politicians among them U Nu and U Ba Swe were invited by General Ne Win, who chaired the Revolutionary Council, to advise the council on drafting a national constitution and "ways of improving the country's stability and prosperity." [12] He was part of a group of twenty-one politicians who proposed the return to democracy with a mixed economy. A minority of eleven from a total of thirty-three members of the advisory committee recommended a one-party system. Ne Win rejected the majority advice[13] and established in 1974 a Soviet-style one-party socialist system based on a new constitution.