Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing reshuffles cabinet amid northern Shan State losses

Myanmar’s military council replaced its national security advisor Lt-Gen Yar Pyae with the commander of its navy on Monday, junta-controlled media reported. While regime loyalist Yar Pyae retained his position as home affairs minister, Adm Moe Aung will be replaced as navy head in order to take on his new role. He was one of three men appointed as ministers for the “Office of the Chairman of the State Administration Council,” or the office of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing. Two ministers for the junta’s Union Government Office, Aung Naing Oo and Ko Ko Hlaing, were also re-assigned as ministers to the coup leader’s office on Monday. Former military officer Aung Naing Oo also previously served as the junta’s commerce minister, as well as director-general of the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration, under the governments of ex-general Thein Sein and the now ousted elected civilian National League for Democracy (NLD). He held the same role for the Office of Union Investment and Foreign Economic Relations during the NLD’s tenure. He remains one of the only NLD officials to transition to a leadership role under the coup regime that took over the administration. Ko Ko Hlaing was a former advisor to Thein Sein and once served as the current junta’s minister for international cooperation. At the time of reporting, the implications of the moves were unclear; since its formation following the February 2021 coup, the military council has undergone several reshuffles. Commenting on the appointments, Myanmar political analyst Dr Hla Kyaw Zaw noted that Min Aung Hlaing typically “makes changes to his cabinet whenever he loses something,” referencing the recent seizure of several key towns on the China-Myanmar border and hundreds of military posts in northern Shan State by the Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armed organisations: the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, and the Arakan Army. The Brotherhood Alliance launched a major offensive against the junta in the region last October called Operation 1027. The junta’s national security advisor—which since May 2021 was Yar Pyae and is now Moe Aung—also serves as the junta’s head negotiator in “peace” delegations to meet with ethnic armed organisations such as those now making major gains in Shan State. In early June 2023, Yar Pyae led one such team to Mongla in eastern Shan State to hold China-mediated talks with the Brotherhood Alliance. A consensus was not reached. A photo supplied by the foreign ministry of the Myanmar junta from June 1, 2022 and released on July 2 shows Yar Pyae (L), speaking during a meeting with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ special envoy to Myanmar in Naypyitaw (Myanmar junta foreign ministry / AFP) Last week, after more than one month of battles, the military was forced to cede Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang Self-Administered Division, and its Laukkai Regional Operations Command centre to the MNDAA. Two Myanmar army generals stationed there, Brig-Gen Moe Kyaw Thu and Brig-Gen Tun Tun Myint, were seen in video footage on social media having drinks and a meal with MNDAA officials after surrendering to the ethnic Kokang forces on January 4. A junta spokesperson claimed that the military had given up the city and the command centre out of concern for the safety of family members of Myanmar army soldiers, and to prevent alleged artillery fire by the resistance from breaching the border to neighbouring China. The military council held multiple online and in-person meetings with Chinese government representatives following the fall of Laukkai, including one between public security minister Wang Xiaohong and Yar Pyae on January 5 to discuss border security, among other issues, Chinese media reported. Now taking over for Yar Pyae following the loss is the internationally sanctioned Moe Aung, son of Aung Thaung, a high-ranking official in the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party. In the months following the coup, Myanmar Now named Moe Aung as being among a group of younger generals in their fifties and forties who were “beholden to Min Aung Hlaing for their rapid rise to the highest echelons of power.” He was seen as one of the aides critical to the junta chief’s post-coup crackdowns on the public and the resistance movement. One of these generals was Lt-Gen Moe Myint Tun, who headed bodies including the military council’s foreign investment commission, but was replaced last September after being investigated for corruption. Myanmar Now reported at the time that there was speculation that navy chief Moe Aung—known to be close to Moe Myint Tun—was also being scrutinised, but could not confirm the allegations.

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