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// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did the Commander-in-Chief say to the pizza? "You're under my command to be chief.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services
တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်
Flag of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services
since 30 March 2026
Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services
StyleHis Excellency
TypeSupreme Commander
AbbreviationC-in-C DS
Member ofNational Defence and Security Council
SeatNaypyidaw, Myanmar
Appointer
PrecursorInspector General, Burma Army
Formation1 May 1947 (as GOC);
10 May 1989 (as C-in-C DS)
First holderMajor General Lechmere Thomas (as GOC);
General Saw Maung (as C-in-C DS)
Unofficial namesတပ်ချုပ်၊ ကာချုပ်
DeputyDeputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services
WebsiteOfficial website

The Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services (Burmese: တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်, romanized: Tatmadaw Kakweyay Uzigyoke) is the supreme commander of the Tatmadaw and all armed forces in Myanmar according to the constitution.[3] The Tatmadaw, officially translated as "Defence Services",[3][4] is an independent branch of government under control of the commander-in-chief and not answerable to the president of Myanmar, though certain actions of the commander-in-chief require the approval of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), which is chaired by the president.[5] According to the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, the commander-in-chief is appointed by the president upon nomination by the NDSC; the commander-in-chief is also a member of the NDSC.[3]

The Constitution frames the commander-in-chief as an expressly political office, stating he "participates in the national political leadership role of the state". Accordingly, he has expansive governance powers under the Constitution, including the ability to appoint the leadership of the Home, Border, and Defence ministries, the right to appoint 25% of the members of both houses of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (which appoints the president), the ability to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president, as well as having effective voting control on the NDSC. One of the most significant executive powers retained by the president is discretion in calling meetings of the NDSC.[6][7] Article 418 of the 2008 Constitution allows the Commander-in-Chief broad authority over the government if the president declares a state of emergency in coordination with the NDSC. This happened after the 2021 coup d'état: military-installed acting president Myint Swe declared a state of emergency and transferred power to Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who then formed a military junta—the State Administration Council.[3][8][9]

The current Commander-in-Chief is General Ye Win Oo, since 30 March 2026.[10]

History

[edit]

The position was created as "General Officer Commanding (GOC) Burma Army" (Burmese: ဗမာ့တပ်မတော်စစ်ဦးစီးချုပ်) on 1 May 1947.[11]: 155 [12]: 83 

After the establishment of the War Office in May 1948, the GOC was the head of the combined military forces of army, navy, and air force.[12]: 85  For this broader authority, the term "Supreme Commander-in-Chief of All Armed Forces of the Union of Burma" (ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံလက်နက်ကိုင်တပ်ပေါင်းစုံစစ်သေနာပတိချုပ်) was also used.[13][14][15]

On 28 September 1955, with the unification of Burma Army (ဗမာ့တပ်မတော်; Bama Tatmadaw), Burma Navy (ဗမာ့ရေတပ်မတော်; Bama Ye Tatmadaw) and Burma Air Force (မြန်မာ့လေတပ်မတော်; Myanma Le Tatmadaw): 187  into a single Tatmadaw or Defence Services, the position was renamed as "Chief of Staff, Defence Services" (ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်) and given all powers previously held by the GOC Burma Army, the CO Burma Navy, and the CO Burma Air Force.[12]: 128 

On 10 May 1989, the position was further renamed as "Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services" (တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်) in 1989.[16]

List of GOC/CS/C-in-CDS

[edit]

(Dates in italics indicate de facto continuation of office)

No. Portrait Name
(Birth–Death)		 Term of office Notes Ref.
Took office Left office Time in office
General Officer Commanding, Burma Army
* Major-General
Lechmere Cay Thomas
(1897–1981)		 1 May 1947 4 January 1948 248 days Previously served as Inspector General. His appointment as GOC is recorded in the military's official history but he is not acknowledged as the first person in the official list of CS/C-in-C DS. [11][12][17]
Supreme Commander-in-Chief of All Armed Forces of the Union of Burma;
General Officer Commanding, Burma Army
1 Lieutenant General
Smith Dun
(1906–1979)		 4 January 1948 31 January 1949 1 year, 27 days Ethnic Karen, forced to retire due to the Karen conflict. Listed as the first CS/C-in-C DS in the official list even though he had retired before 1955. [18][19][20]
2 General
Ne Win
(1910–2002)		 1 February 1949 28 September 1955 6 years, 239 days Oversaw the unification of Burmese armed forces. [18][19][20]
Chief of Staff, Defence Services
(2) General
Ne Win
(1910–2002)		 28 September 1955 20 April 1972 16 years, 205 days Later became president and Chairman of the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). [18][19][20]
3 General
San Yu
(1910–2002)		 20 April 1972 7 March 1974 1 year, 321 days Later became president. [18][19][20]
4 General
Tin Oo
(1927–2024)		 8 March 1974 6 March 1976 1 year, 364 days Later became vice-chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD). [18][19][20]
5 General
Thura Kyaw Htin
(1925–1996)		 6 March 1976 4 November 1985 9 years, 243 days [18][19][20]
6 General
Saw Maung
(1928–1997)		 4 November 1985 10 May 1989 3 years, 187 days [18][19][20]
Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services
(6) Senior General
Saw Maung
(1928–1997)		 10 May 1989 24 April 1992 2 years, 350 days [18][19][20]
7 Senior General
Than Shwe
(born 1933)		 24 April 1992 30 March 2011 18 years, 340 days [18][19][20]
8 Senior General
Min Aung Hlaing
(born 1956)		 30 March 2011 30 March 2026 15 years [18]
9 General
Ye Win Oo
(born 1966)		 30 March 2026 Incumbent 132 days [18]

Timeline

[edit]
Ye Win OoMin Aung HlaingThan ShweSaw MaungKyaw HtinTin OoSan YuNe WinSmith DunLechmere Thomas

List of other historical C-in-C and IG

[edit]

Supreme Commander-in-Chief of All Burmese Armed Forces

[edit]
No. Portrait Name
(Birth–Death)		 Term of office Notes Ref.
Took office Left office Time in office
Head of the State;
Supreme Commander-in-Chief of All Burmese Armed Forces
1 Ba Maw
(1893–1977)		 1 August 1943 19 August 1945 2 years, 18 days The only civilian commander-in-chief of the military. The Head of the State was the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Burmese Armed Forces according to the Constitution of Burma, 1943. [21][22]

Supreme Commander-in-Chief of PBF

[edit]
No. Portrait Name
(Birth–Death)		 Term of office Notes Ref.
Took office Left office Time in office
Supreme Commander-in-Chief
1 Major General
Aung San
(1915–1947)		 27 March 1945 29 December 1945 277 days Founder of modern Myanmar Army, leader of Thirty Comrades, father of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. [11]

Inspector General of the Burma Army

[edit]
No. Portrait Name
(Birth–Death)		 Term of office Notes Ref.
Took office Left office Time in office
Inspector General, Burma Army
1 Major-General
Lechmere Cay Thomas
(1897–1981)		 29 August 1945 1 May 1947 1 year, 245 days Became the General Officer Commanding, Burma Army, on 1 May 1947. [11][17]

Existing positions named C-in-C and CS

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ↑ Reconfirms the Commander-in-Chief Appointed by the Office of the Military Appointments General

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ မြန်မာ့တပ်မတော်၏ တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ် တာဝန်လွှဲပြောင်းလက်ခံခြင်း ဂုဏ်ပြုစစ်ရေးပြအခမ်းအနား ကျင်းပပြုလုပ်" [Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Myanmar's Defence Services (Tatmadaw), the honour parade and ceremony for transferring the duty of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services was held]. Ministry of Information, Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (in Burmese). 30 March 2026.
  2. 1 2 နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတရုံး၊ တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်အဖြစ် ပြန်လည်အတည်ပြုခန့်အပ်ခြင်း (အမိန့်အမှတ် ၄/၂၀၁၂) [Office of the President, Reconfirming and Reappointing the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services (Order No. 4/2012)]
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 The Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (2008) and its official English translation; Bilingual ; source: Constitutional Tribunal of the Union
  4. ↑ ၁၉၅၉ခုနှစ်၊ တပ်မတော်အက်ဥပဒေ [The Defence Services Act, 1959] (Bilingual; English and Burmese)
  5. ↑ Shubin, Grant; Radhakrishnan, Akila. "Beyond the Coup in Myanmar: A Crisis Born from Impunity". International Human Rights Clinic. Harvard Law School. Retrieved 7 December 2025. The 2008 Constitution situates the military as an autonomous entity simultaneously independent of, but also entwined with, the civilian state. This duality was created to prevent the civilian government from checking the actions of the military or its members and does not contemplate any civilian power over the military or military-controlled territories.
  6. ↑ Shubin, Grant; Radhakrishnan, Akila. "Beyond the Coup in Myanmar: A Crisis Born from Impunity". International Human Rights Clinic. Harvard Law School. Retrieved 7 December 2025.
  7. ↑ Slow, Oliver (2023). Return of the junta: why Myanmar's military must go back to the barracks. London New York Oxford New Delhi Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-350-28965-9.
  8. ↑ "Statement from Myanmar military on state of emergency". Reuters. 1 February 2021. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
  9. ↑ "Order No (9/2021), Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, Republic of the Union of Myanmar" (PDF). The Global New Light of Myanmar. 3 February 2021. p. 3. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 April 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  10. ↑ "Min Aung Hlaing nominated for Myanmar presidency as military leadership reshuffled". Mizzima News. 30 March 2026. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  11. 1 2 3 4 တပ်မတော်သမိုင်း vol. 3
  12. 1 2 3 4 တပ်မတော်သမိုင်း vol. 4
  13. ↑ ၁၉၅၂ခုနှစ်၊ ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်၌ စစ်ဥပဒေခေတ္တထုတ်ပြန်ကျေညာမှုအက်ဥပဒေ။ [Shan State Temporary Military Law Proclamation Act, 1952]
  14. ↑ စစ်သေနာပတိချုပ်၏အမိန့်ကြော်ငြာစာအမှတ် ၃၃ [Notification No. 33 of the Order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief]
  15. ↑ ၁၉၅၄ ခုနှစ်၊ ကင်းလွတ်ချမ်းသာခွင့်နှင့် တည်မြဲရေးအက်ဥပဒေ။ [The Indemnity and Permanence Act, 1950]
  16. ↑ ၁၉၅၉ ခုနှစ်၊ တပ်မတော်အက်ဥပဒေကို ပြင်ဆင်သည့် ဥပဒေ [The Law Amending the Defence Services Act, 1959]; in Burmese and English
  17. 1 2 Houterman, Hans; Jeroen, Koppes (August 2005). "British Army Officers 1939-1945". World War Ⅱ unit histories and officers. Retrieved 26 April 2026.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 DSMuseum (30 March 2026). "ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်/ တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့သူများ" [Individuals who have served as the Chief of Staff/ Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services]. Defence Services Museum (in Burmese). Defence Services (Army, Navy, Air Force) News Techonlogy Department. Retrieved 22 April 2026.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 news bulletin (25 March 2021). "(၇၆)နှစ်မြောက် တပ်မတော်နေ့အထိမ်းအမှတ်အဖြစ် ခေတ်အဆက်ဆက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင် ခဲ့ကြသည့် ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်၊ တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်(အငြိမ်းစား) များ၏ အမှတ်တရရုပ်တုများ ဖွင့်ပွဲအခမ်းအနားကျင်းပပြုလုပ်" [As a commemoration for the 76th anniversary of Armed Forces Day, the opening ceremony for memorial statues of those who served through successive periods as Chief-of-Staff and Commander-in-Chief (now retired), was held.]. Ministry of Information, Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (in Burmese).
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Myoe, Maung Aung (2009). "Appendix (6)". Building the Tatmadaw: Myanmar Armed Forces Since 1948. ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. Retrieved 22 April 2026.
  21. ↑ ဘိုဘို (31 March 2018). "တယောက်တည်းသော အရပ်သား စစ်သေနာပတိချုပ်" [The only one civilian commander-in-chief of military]. BBC (in Burmese). British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 21 April 2026.
  22. ↑ ဗမာနိုင်ငံတော်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးစည်းမျဉ်းပြုလုပ်သော ဥပဒေ [CONSTITUTION FOR GOVERNMENT OF BURMA] 1943
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