Pwint San (Burmese: ပွင့်ဆန်း, also spelt Pwint Hsan; born 13 July 1961 in Rangoon, Burma[1]) is now retired from his previous position Minister of Labour of Myanmar after he was dismissed from his duties in 2023.[2] He was forced to serve as Minister for Commerce from 3 February 2021 to 19 August 2022 in the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état by the Burmese military.[3]
Dr Pwint San | |
|---|---|
ပွင့်ဆန်း | |
| Minister of Labour | |
| Assumed office 19 August 2022 | |
| President | Myint Swe (acting) |
| Prime Minister | Min Aung Hlaing |
| Preceded by | Myint Kyaing |
| Minister for Commerce | |
| In office 3 February 2021 – 19 August 2022 | |
| President | Myint Swe (acting) |
| Prime Minister | Min Aung Hlaing |
| Preceded by | Than Myint |
| Succeeded by | Aung Naing Oo |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 13 July 1961 (age 63) Rangoon, Burma |
| Nationality | Burmese |
| Political party | Union Solidarity and Development Party |
| Cabinet | Min Aung Hlaing's military cabinet |
Career
editPwint San is a medical doctor by training, and later became a businessman.[4] In the 2020 general election, he became a politician of the Burmese military's proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party,[5] and won a seat of Pyithu Hluttaw for Mayangon Township. He later served as a deputy commerce minister during Thein Sein's presidency.[6] He subsequently became a central executive in the USDP.
In the 2015 general election, he ran for House of Representatives seat from Manyangone Township but lost. In the 2020 general election, he ran as a candidate for Mayangone constituency No. 2, representing the Union Solidarity and Development Party but defeated the National League for Democracy candidate by a landslide.[7]
In the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, he was appointed as Minister for Commerce on 3 February 2021. One of his sons has publicly disowned his father, stating that he cannot condone his father's association with the military council responsible for the killing of protesters.[8][9]
Sanctions
editOn 17 May 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury added Pwint San to its Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.[10]
On 20 July 2023, the EU countries imposed personal sanctions on San, citing his continued contributions to serious human rights violations in Myanmar as Union Minister of Labour and previously Minister of Commerce in the junta-appointed government. He was accused of abusing his authority powers to target workers associated with various opposition movements, restricting supply of goods within the country and providing economic means to sustain junta's illegal seizure of power.[11]
Personal life
editHe is married to two women and has multiple children with both families.[12][13]
References
edit- ^ "Burma-related Designations; Counter Terrorism Designation Removal". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
- ^ "Myanmar Junta Announces Cabinet Reshuffle With Slight Changes". Bloomberg News.
- ^ "NEWLY APPOINTED UNION MINISTERS: STATE ADMINISTRATION COUNCIL ISSUES ORDER". Myanmar International TV. 2021-02-04.
- ^ "Children of the junta: the relatives of Myanmar's military regime living in Australia". the Guardian. 2021-05-07. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
- ^ "Pyidaungsu Hluttaw approves motion condemning sanctions". The Myanmar Times. 2011-04-04. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
- ^ "Myanmar Junta Rolls Back NLD Reforms, Revives Previous Regime's Plans". The Irrawaddy. 2021-10-12. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
- ^ "ဦးသိန္းစိန္ အေမရိကန္ခရီး အက်ဳိးရလဒ္". 2022-11-24. Archived from the original on 2022-11-24. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
- ^ "ဩစတြေးလျ ပြည်ထဲရေးက မြန်မာစစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ဆွေမျိုးများအကြောင်း စုံစမ်း ရှာဖွေနေ". The Irrawaddy (in Burmese). 5 May 2021.
- ^ Doherty, Ben; Bucci, Nino; Butler, Ben (7 May 2021). "Children of the junta: the relatives of Myanmar's military regime living in Australia". The Guardian.
- ^ "Burma-related Designations; Counter Terrorism Designation Removal". U.S. Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
- ^ "L 183 I". Official Journal of the European Union.
- ^ "စီးပွားရေးနှင့်ကူးသန်းရောင်းဝယ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနကုန်သွယ်ရေးဦးစီးဌာန၏ (၁၀)ကြိမ်မြောက်ဝါဆိုသင်္ကန်းကပ်လှူပူဇော်ပွဲကျင်းပ" (PDF). Commerce Journal (in Burmese). 2015-08-03.
- ^ "Outed by online campaign, children of Myanmar junta hounded abroad". Reuters. 2021-03-19. Retrieved 2022-08-04.