Senior general (Burmese: ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး) is the highest rank in Myanmar Armed Forces. It is held by the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services (CinCDS). Since 2011, a person appointed as CinCDS has to be quickly promoted one higher rank every year until he get the rank of Senior general.
The rank insignia of Senior general is with a big star surrounded by a flower branch and with four small stars. Its rank medal and car insignia show that it is the five-star general rank, and the flag of CinCDS confirms it. The rank of Senior general is two ranks higher than that of a General (a full General), but in terms of stars, the Senior general has only one more star than the General.
The Senior general rank exists in all branches: Myanmar Army, Myanmar Navy and Myanmar Air Force, but all these ranks are to be held by the same person at a time no matter from which branch he was promoted. A person holding the rank of Senior general can wear any uniform from all these branches.[1][2]
| Burmese title | English title | Rank insignia | Golden strap [3] |
Rank medal [3][4] |
Car insignia [5][6] |
Flag[6][7][8] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး | Senior general | 
|
|
|
|
| ||
| Insignia on regular uniform |
of Myanmar Army | of Myanmar Navy [1] |
of Myanmar Air Force [2] |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
History edit
In 1990, the Myanmar Armed Forces underwent structural changes, during which Commander-in-Chief General Saw Maung elevated himself to the rank of Senior General on 18 March 1990, becoming the first person to hold this rank.[9] Than Shwe was subsequently promoted directly from the rank of General to Senior General on 23 April 1993.[10] He served in this position until his retirement on 30 March 2011.[11] In March 2013, Min Aung Hlaing was promoted to Senior General from his prior role as Vice-senior general.[12][13]
List of rank holders edit
| No. | Photo | Name | Date of promotion | Date of retirement | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saw Maung | 18 March 1990 [9] | 24 April 1992 [14] | Promoted directly from General[14] | |
| 2 | 
|
Than Shwe | 23 April 1993 [14] | 30 March 2011 [14] | Promoted directly from General[14] |
| 3 | .jpg)
|
Min Aung Hlaing | March 2013[15][16] | – | Promoted from Vice-senior general |
References edit
- ^ a b Fleet Exercise-2020 conducted with involvement of attack submarine Minye Theinkhathu of Tatmadaw (Navy) to enhance defence prowess of State
- ^ a b Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing receives a model plane from Gen. Maung Maung Kyaw in 2019. | OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT WEBSITE OF SENIOR GEN. MIN AUNG HLAING / VIA REUTERS
- ^ a b Message of Greetings from Commander in Chief of Defence Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee of Armed Forces Day on 27 March 2020. / Myanmar Digital News
- ^ KoKo LinnMaung (23 July 2019). တပ်မတော် ရာထူးအဆင့်အတန်း အင်္ဂလိပ်လိုအခေါ်အဝေါ်များ [Tatmadaw appointment ranks' nomenclature in English]. Facebook (in Burmese and English).[user-generated source]
- ^ Myanmar's Army Chief General Min Aung Hlaing 2nd-r waves as he leaves a ceremony to mark the 67th anniversary of Armed Forces Day in Myanmar's Capital Naypyitaw, March 27 2012. / Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters
- ^ a b Parade of the 76th Anniversary Armed Forces Day held;Chairman of the State Administration Council Commanderin-Chief of Defence Services Senior General Maha Thray Sithu Min Aung Hlaing delivers address / seniorgeneralminaunghlaing.com.mm
- ^ Senior General Min Aung Hlaing addresses the National Defense University via videoconference on January 27. (Photo: True News Information Unit)
- ^ Commander in Chief by Zachary Harden, 17 January 2022
- ^ a b Mya Win (1991). တပ်မတော် ခေါင်းဆောင်များ သမိုင်း အကျဉ်း (၁၉၄၂ ခုနှစ်မှ ၁၉၉၀ ပြည့်နှစ်အထိ) [A Brief History of Tatmadaw's Leaders (1942 to 1990)] (in Burmese). Yangon: News and Periodical Enterprise. pp. 86–87.
- ^ Joshua Norman (2 June 2011). "The world's enduring dictators: Than Shwe, Myanmar (Burma)". CBS News.
- ^ "Burma's Than Shwe 'remains senior general'". BBC News. 31 August 2010.
- ^ "As the country prepared to transition to civilian rule, Than Shwe retired from the military. He passed over higher-ranking or more experienced officers in 2011 to select Min Aung Hlaing to succeed him as commander in chief; Min Aung Hlaing also became a general that year. He was made vice senior general in 2012 and senior general in 2013". Brittanica.
- ^ "Min Aung Hlaing Appointed Vice-Senior General". The Irrawaddy. 3 April 2012.
- ^ a b c d e "(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.]. Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services (in Burmese). 25 March 2021.
- ^ ကြေးမုံသတင်းစာ (၂၈.၃.၂၀၁၃) (The Mirror Newspaper (28.3.2013)) (in Burmese)
- ^ ကြေးမုံသတင်းစာ (၂၅.၃.၂၀၁၃) (The Mirror Newspaper (25.3.2013)) (in Burmese)
