Saw Chit Thu

In this Burmese name, Saw is an honorific, not a given name.
Thiri Pyanchi
Saw Chit Thu
စောချစ်သူ
Saw Chit Thu during a speech
Leader of the Karen National Army
Incumbent
Assumed office
19 February 2024
Personal details
Born
San Myint

(1969-12-15) December 15, 1969 (age 55)
Kyar Inn village, Hlaingbwe, Karen State, Myanmar (Burma)
SpouseNan Khin Hla Thu
ChildrenSaw Htoo Eh Moo
Saw Chit Chit
Nan Hnin Nandar Aye
OccupationSoldier, businessperson
AwardsThiri Pyanchi (awarded November 2022)
Military service
AllegianceMyanmar
Branch/serviceKaren National Army
Border Guard Forces
Democratic Karen Buddhist Army
Years of service1994–present
RankColonel
Unit
  • Former commander of DKBA Battalion 999
  • Border Guard Forces
  • KNA
Battles/warsMyanmar civil war (2021–present)

Colonel Saw Chit Thu (Burmese: စောချစ်သူ) is a Karen soldier and businessperson, sometimes identified as a warlord,[1] who has held a leading position in armed groups in Karen State, Myanmar, including the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), the Border Guard Forces (BGF) and the Karen National Army (KNA). He is considered a powerful figure in the border area,[2][3][4][5] and has been sanctioned by the United Kingdom and the United States for links to projects which use trafficked and forced labour in online scam farms.[6][7]

Early life

[edit]

Saw Chit Thu was born on 15 December 1969[8] in Kyar Inn village, Hlaingbwe Township, Karen State.[9] He was previously known as San Myint, and adopted the pseudonym Saw Chit Thu.[10]

Military career

[edit]

Saw Chit Thu was a colonel in the Karen National Union (KNU) / Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and close ally of General Tin Maung, commander of the KNU/KNLA's 7th Brigade. In 1994, a faction of Buddhist Karen soldiers broke away from the predominantly Christian-led KNU,[11] and established Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) in the following year. The event dealt a serious blow to the KNU.[12] Saw Chit Thu is a former commander of DKBA Battalion 999,[13] and led the DKBA troops in the Battle of Kawmoora. In return, he received control over Kawmoora and timber trade rights along the Moei River, particularly in Shwe Kokko.[11]

In the spring of 1998, he was accused of leading DKBA attacks on Karen civilians in refugee camps in Thailand.[14][15] Among the DKBA leaders, he is believed to the most powerful decision-maker in both the DKBA's military wing and its political administration.[16] He also owns large businesses dealing with logging and auto trading, and he is rumored to be involved in drug trafficking.[17][18][19] In 2010, he accepted the Burmese government’s demands to transform the DKBA into a Border Guard Force, under the command of the Tatmadaw.[20] The majority of BGF troops operating in Karen State are from the DKBA faction.[13]

Saw Chit Thu is the founder and former chairman of Chit Lin Myaing Company, a major conglomerate run by the BGF. The company has claimed significant projects and been granted special permits in Kayin State.[21] 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.[22] He also linked a deal with the Dongmei Group, led by Chinese triad leader, Wan Kuok-koi, to develop Saixigang.[23] In June 2020, the civilian-led government launched a tribunal to investigate the Yatai development, successfully halting ongoing construction.[24] The probe embarrassed the Myanmar Armed Forces, which oversees Saw Chit Thu's BGF.[24]

In January 2021, 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 January 8, along with 13 commanders, 77 officers, and 13 battalions from 4 regiments who collectively signed and submitted their resignations.[25] Amid controversy and under pressure, at least 7,000 BGF members resigned to protest the ouster of their top leaders. However, Saw refused to retire.[26]

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.[24] In November 2022, he was awarded the title of Thiri Pyanchi, one of the country’s highest honors.[27] In December 2023, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Saw Chit Thu for being linked to "forced labour schemes" in which "victims were trafficked to work for online scam farms."[6][7]

On 23 January 2024, Saw Chit Thu told the media that he discussed with Lt. Gen. Soe Win, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, that the Border Guard Force (BGF), would no longer wish to accept money and supplies from the military. They aim to stand independently, and he also claimed that they don't want to fight against their fellow Karen people.[28][29]

In response to this surprise announcement, long-time Myanmar analyst David Scott Mathieson noted that:

Even Saw Chit Thu has made a dramatic realignment, recently ending his alliance with the military, and after first attempting to retire in Yangon and Mandalay, then declaring “autonomy” in a stunning turn after 30 years of being the Sit-Tat’s hired thug. Chit Thu claims the decision was prompted by “Karen not wanting to kill other Karen.” This may apply to some of the BGF personnel, but Chit Thu has been murdering other Karen since 1994, so to assume he had a recent change of heart is a contemptible canard. After three decades of the DKBA, then BGF, burning down refugee camps, drug dealing, land grabbing and conniving with Chinese gangsters to create the monstrosity of Shwe Kokko casino and the scam centers, Chit Thu should be in the top five defendants at any eventual Karen State War Crimes Trial.[30]

On 19 February 2024, Saw Chit Thu dissolved the Karen BGF and reformed it into the Karen National Army (KNA).[31]

On 5 May 2025, the United States Department of the Treasury issued sanctions against Saw Chit Thu and his two sons, citing their role in organizing scam centers, human trafficking and smuggling across borders as KNA/BGF leaders.[32]

Personal life

[edit]

Saw Chit Thu is married to Nan Khin Hla Thu, and has two sons, Saw Htoo Eh Moo and Saw Chit Chit, and one daughter, Nan Hnin Nandar Aye.[33]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Myanmar rebel group withdraws from Thai border after army returns". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  2. ^ "BGF Colonel Saw Chit Thu appeals for more time before resigning". Monnews. 21 January 2021.
  3. ^ "Colonel Chit Thu – "Border Guard Force Stands By The Karen People…"". Karen News. 27 August 2014.
  4. ^ "Karen State Militia Leadership Quits en Masse After Military Ousts Its Chief". The Irrawaddy. 15 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Uniting ethnic Karen armed groups 90 per cent successful". Mizzima. 30 November 2018.
  6. ^ a b "UK and allies sanction human rights abusers". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2024-04-24.
  7. ^ a b "UK Hits Myanmar Border Guard Force Colonel, Two Others, With Sanctions". The Irrawaddy.
  8. ^ "Burma-related Designations; Transnational Criminal Organization Designations". Office of Foreign Assets Control. Archived from the original on 18 May 2025. Retrieved 18 May 2025.
  9. ^ "Nationalist Monk Joins Chinese Gambling City-Linked BGF Leader's Mass Donation". The Irrawaddy.
  10. ^ "The Karen Border Guard Force/Karen National Army criminal business network exposed". Justice For Myanmar. 2024-05-22. Retrieved 2025-05-27.
  11. ^ a b "From rebel to kingpin: The ruthless rise of Saw Chit Thu". nationthailand. 2025-02-12. Retrieved 2025-02-22.
  12. ^ Gravers, Mikael (2022). "A Saint in Command? Spiritual Protection, Justice and Religious Tensions in the Karen State". Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship. 2020, Vol.1: Unknown.
  13. ^ a b "ကရင်လူထုကောင်းစားရေးအတွက် ကေအန်ယူ အပေါ်သစ္စာဖောက်ခဲ့ရဟု ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီး စောချစ်သူပြော". DVB (in Burmese). 21 August 2019.
  14. ^ "ATTACKS ON KAREN REFUGEE CAMPS: 1998". Karen Human Rights Group. 2014-07-24. Retrieved 2025-05-27.
  15. ^ "Thais clamp down on Burmese refugees". BBC News. 1998-03-24. Retrieved 2025-05-27.
  16. ^ "The Junta Hit Men". The Irrawaddy. July 9, 2009.
  17. ^ "Analysis | Shwe Kokko: How Myanmar's Crime Hub is Destabilizing the Region". The Irrawaddy. 2023-02-27. Retrieved 2023-03-03.
  18. ^ "With conflict escalating, Karen BGF gets back to business". Frontier Myanmar. 13 May 2021.
  19. ^ "အခုက ဟိုး တစ်ကနေ သုည ပြန်ဆုတ်သွားတာ". The Irrawaddy. 16 August 2022.
  20. ^ "Kayin State BGF officers and others collectively resign". Eleven Media Group. 16 January 2021.
  21. ^ "ဇွဲကပင်‌တောင် ‌ကေဘယ်လ်ကားစီမံကိန်းကို ချစ်လင်းမြိုင် တိုယိုတာကုမ္ပဏီ အကျိုးတူ လုပ်ကိုင်ခွင့်ရရှိ". ကေအိုင်စီ - KIC News. 13 January 2017.
  22. ^ "Myanmar's Casino Cities: The Role of China and Transnational Criminal Networks" (PDF). United States Institute of Peace. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 28, 2020. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  23. ^ "Chinese Crime Networks Partner with Myanmar Armed Groups". United States Institute of Peace. Archived from the original on April 22, 2020. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  24. ^ a b c "Scam City: How the coup brought Shwe Kokko back to life". Frontier Myanmar. 2022-06-23. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  25. ^ "BGF ထိပ်သီးခေါင်း‌ဆောင်များ နုတ်ထွက်ခြင်းမပြုရန် တပ်မတော်တိုက်တွန်း". Myanmar NOW (in Burmese). 15 January 2021.
  26. ^ "ယူနီဖောင်းချွတ်ရန် အစီအစဉ် မရှိသေးဟု ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးစောချစ်သူပြော". Mizzima (in Burmese). 12 January 2021.
  27. ^ "Wirathu, preacher of hate, receives top honour from Myanmar junta chief". Myanmar NOW. Retrieved 2023-01-05.
  28. ^ "ကရင်နယ်ခြားစောင့်တပ် သီးခြားရပ်တည်ရေး ဒုတပ်ချုပ်နဲ့ ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးစောချစ်သူဆွေးနွေး". Radio Free Asia (in Burmese).
  29. ^ "ဒုတိယ ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီးစိုးဝင်း ကရင်ပြည်နယ်ကို နေ့ချင်းပြန်သွားရောက်". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese). 23 January 2024.
  30. ^ https://www.irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-column/myanmars-multi-generational-karen-revolution.html
  31. ^ Krackhauer [@krackhauer] (February 19, 2024). "Col. Saw Chit Thu led junta affiliated #Karen Border Guard Force was abolished and it has been reformed into a new faction called Karen National Army, #KNA whose allegiance is still not clear though" (Tweet). Archived from the original on February 29, 2024. Retrieved February 29, 2024 – via Twitter.
  32. ^ "Treasury Sanctions Burma Warlord and Militia Tied to Cyber Scam Operations". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Washington. Retrieved May 6, 2025.
  33. ^ Irrawaddy, The (2024-05-22). "Myanmar's BGF: A Family-Run Criminal Enterprise With Friends Across Asia". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 2025-05-27.
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