Hla Swe
လှဆွေ
Member of the House of Nationalities
In office
31 January 2011 – 29 January 2016
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPyuu Lwin
ConstituencyMagwe Region № 12
Gangaw Township
Personal details
Born (1960-09-28) 28 September 1960
Chauk, Myanmar
Political partyUnion Solidarity and Development Party
SpouseThida
ChildrenThiha Swe
Hla Myat Chel
Aye Mya Thida Swe
Parent(s)Boe Thar (father)
Than Kyi (mother)
Residence(s)North Dagon Township, Yangon, Myanmar
OccupationPolitician
Military service
AllegianceMyanmar
Branch/serviceMyanmar Army
Years of service1978–2003
Rank Lieutenant Colonel

Hla Swe (Burmese: လှဆွေ, also known as Bullet Hla Swe; born 28 September 1960) is a Burmese politician who served as an MP in the House of Nationalities for Magwe Region № 12 constituency from 2011 to 2016.

After he ended up his term length in the Parliament in 2016, he published a weekly newspaper The Bullet News Journal.[1][2][3][4] He is known for his outspoken, Islamophobic and homophobic statements.[5]

Early life and education

Hla Swe was born in military base in Chauk, Magway Region to parents Boe Thar and his wife Than Kyi. His father, Boe Thar was a former military officer. He attended Basic Education High School No. 1 Kyaukse and straight out of high school in 1978.[6]

Military and governmental career

Hla Swe joined the Myanmar Army in 1978 and most of his 25 years of service was spent fighting armed ethnic groups in border areas. In 2003, he took up an administrative role for the State Peace and Development Council military government in Gangaw Township, Magwe Region. In 2006, he was retired as a lieutenant colonel in Myanmar Army and took up the post of director of Myanmar Radio and Television.

Political career

He served as a central executive committee member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party.[6][7] In 2010 election, he was elected as an MP for House of Nationalities. He is clearly pro-military, he believes the Tatmadaw should gradually ease its grip on parliament.[6][8]

In 2015 election, he run for House of Nationalities seat from Gangaw Township constituency, but lost to National League for Democracy (NLD) candidate.[9]

On 9 November 2022, he became the chairman of the Naypyidaw Council of the USDP.[10]

In 2023, he founded a group of Pyusawhti militias in his hardcore supporter village, Myaung Khinyan, located in Gangaw.[11]

Arrest

On August 7, 2019, Kyauktada township deputy administrator Myo Myint filed a complaint against Hla Swe with the township court for allegedly condemning state leaders while speaking at a rally against the US imposition of visa sanctions on Myanmar military leaders in front of Yangon City Hall on August 3. He told supporters in the speech, “If the United States came and bombed government ministries, I would accept that. Hey bombers, try it. If all [state leaders] died, that would be good”.[12]

Hla Swe was sued for sedition under Article 124(a) on 8 August 2019. The arrest warrant was issued with an address in Magwe Region, where he lives. If he is prosecuted under this article, he faces seven to 20 years in prison or a fine.[13] On 28 December 2020, he surrendered himself to the Yangon Western District Police Station after absconding for over one year.[14] His charge was dropped on 11 May 2021 by State Administration Council in the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.[15]

Public image

In 1980–1981, as a military officer, he had deliberately forced LGBTs to serve as military porters, a practice internationally criticised as a war crime.[16] He supported the crackdown by Myanmar Army in 1988 Pro-Democracy Protests which resulted in 3,000 estimated deaths.[17] In 2015, he generated controversy for posting on social media about his hatred for LGBTs.[16][17]

He courted controversy during the run-up to 2015 election by playing on anti-Rohingya sentiment to win the election. He blamed his defeat on 2015 election not on the success of his NLD rival, but on Aung San, Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar.[9][18]

Quotes

“I think I am too old for politics. Look at our politicians, they are all around 70, there needs to be a younger generation of politicians. But if my party wants me to run, I will run.”[6]

“The situation today is good, we should not go back to the past, but should move forward towards democracy.”[6]

References

  1. ↑ The Myanmar Times Journal From lawmaker to publisher, ‘Bullet’ Hla Swe continues to court scandal
  2. ↑ Amyotha Hluttaw Gov Hla Swe's MP Profile
  3. ↑ "Proposal about Rakhine State by MP U Hla Swe". YouTube.
  4. ↑ The Irrawaddy News Election Tribunal to Hear Cases Brought by Ex-MP Hla Swe, NLD Rival
  5. ↑ "5 people who almost certainly will not be Myanmar's next president - Coconuts Yangon". 29 January 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Frontier Myanmar Media ‘Bullet’ Hla Swe: Contradictions and controversy
  7. ↑ Dawnmanhon News လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ် ဦးလှဆွေကို Eleven မီဒီယာ တရားစွဲဆိုမှု တရားရုံးလက်ခံ
  8. ↑ "U Hla Swe Quotation About For Goint to Run the 2015 General Elections". MCNtv News YouTube Channel.
  9. 1 2 Barron, Laignee. "No sweet goodbye for outspoken USDP man".
  10. ↑ "ဝရမ်းပြေး ထောင်ထွက် ဘူးလက်လှဆွေ နေပြည်တော် ကြံ့ခိုင်ရေးဥက္ကဋ္ဌ ဖြစ်လာ". Myanmar Now. 10 November 2022.
  11. ↑ ""တစ်ချို့က ထွက်ချင်လျက်နဲ့ အဆက်အသွယ်မရှိလို့ နေရတာတွေရှိတယ်။" အင်တာဗျူး". MPA (in Burmese). 15 December 2023.
  12. ↑ "Court issues warrant to arrest former USDP lawmaker". The Myanmar Times. 13 August 2019.
  13. ↑ "Anti-US Rally in Yangon: Bullet Hla Swe an instigator or a diehard nationalist?". Burma News International. 13 August 2019.
  14. ↑ "Fugitive Former Lawmaker Turns Himself in to Myanmar Police". Radio Free Asia. 28 December 2020.
  15. ↑ "ဘူးလက်လှဆွေ အမှုကို အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီ က ပိတ်သိမ်း". The Irrawaddy (in Burmese). 20 May 2021.
  16. 1 2 "USDP representative prompts anger with anti-gay Facebook rant". The Myanmar Times.
  17. 1 2 "'Bullet' Hla Swe: Contradictions and controversy | Frontier Myanmar". frontiermyanmar.net. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
  18. ↑ "Former MP takes aim at politicians with new journal- DVB Multimedia Group". 6 July 2016.
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