From Guerrilla Fighter to Myanmar Peace Negotiator
Years before Mr. Min earned a Ph.D. from George Mason University, or advised the United States military in Afghanistan, or became one of Myanmar’s leading peace negotiators, he spent his early 20s in the thick
and humid Burmese jungle, a grunt in a student militia trying to overthrow the country’s military regime.
ackground allows him to inhabit two worlds: part U.S.-educated academic, part Myanmar peacemaker." Mr. Min said he was able to succeed in negotiations like this
because of his combination of military and academic training. that unique b
"I met one government official who was shot 14 times by the leader of the K.N.U.," an ethnic political group.
Today, after years of brokering talks between ethnic rebels and the central government to end a decades-long civil war, Mr. Min, 43, looks more like a banker than a former guerrilla fighter from a country
that remains stricken by conflict (most recently involving the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group).
He spent four years with the All Burma Students Democratic Front fighting the government alongside ethnic rebel groups.
Mi Sue Pwint, a central committee member of the All Burma Students Democratic Front, said in a message
that she had no issue with Mr. Min’s decision to leave the militia and support the government-backed peace process.
