Ye Htut

Ye Htut
Minister of Information of Myanmar
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 August 2014
Preceded by	Aung Kyi
Spokesperson for the President
Incumbent
Assumed office February 2013[1]
Deputy Minister of Information of Myanmar
In office 31 August 2012 – 1 August 2014
Preceded by	Soe Win[2]
Deputy Director General/Director General at the Ministry of Information
In office 2005 – 31 August 2012
Succeeded by	Tint Swe[3]
Personal details
Born	1959 (1959) (age 56)[1]
Nationality	Myanmar
Political party	Union Solidarity and Development Party
Spouse(s)	Khin Sandar Tun[4]
Residence	Naypyidaw
Occupation	Army Officer
Religion	Theravada Buddhism
Military service
Allegiance	Myanmar
Service/branch	Myanmar Army
Years of service	1977-2005[1]
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel

Ye Htut (Burmese: ရဲထွဋ်, [jɛ́ tʰʊʔ]) is the incumbent Minister for the Ministry of Information of Burma (Myanmar) and spokesperson for the President.^[5] He previously served as a Lieutenant Colonel in Myanmar Army.

Military career

Ye Htut applied to Defence Services Academy but initially rejected, so enrolled at Rangoon University. He applied again and accepted for the academy’s 22nd intake in 1977. After graduation in 1981, he was dispatched to Kayin State, where he would spend five years fighting the Karen National Union along the Myanmar-Thai border.

Over the next 16 years, he served in Tanintharyi Region, Kayin State, Kachin State and near Naypyidaw, before landing as the chief instructor at a training facility in southern Shan State in 2002. He also contributed articles for the army’s Myawady news journal.^[1]

Governmental career

He was retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in Myanmar Army and took up the post of Deputy Director General at the Department of Information and Public Relations under the Ministry of Information in 2005. He was promoted as the Director General of the department in 2009, which has been viewed as a propaganda machine for the military government.^[5]

He became Deputy Minister for the Ministry of Information in August 2012 when the former minister Kyaw Hsan and deputy ministers were reshuffled to other ministries. He became spokesperson for the President in February 2013.^[6]

On July 30, 2014, he was nominated to be Minister for the Ministry of Information. On August 1, the Assembly of the Union confirmed his nomination .

Public image

He is an active Facebook user, has an official account on the social media site where he often shares news from the government and the military and writes his opinions through his Facebook account.^[5] He earned the nickname Facebook minister for his frequent use of Facebook.^[4]

Controversy

In 2012, Media reports, particularly those in Eleven Media, suggested that he was behind the blog posts known by the pen name Dr Sate Phwar, who criticized the legislature for acting above the law. However, he denied that the accusations linking him to Dr Seik Phwar.^[7] The Assembly of the Union formed a commission to investigate the identity of Dr Seik Phwar after the blogger wrote an article criticising parliament. The commission’s chairman said they found evidence that could implicate him.^[8] However, the commission failed to disclose the identity of Dr Seik Phwar, after five months of investigation.^[9]

In June 2014, he posted an apology note on on his Facebook account after a storm of criticism followed his wife’s sharing of a Photoshopped image of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Hijab. His wife deleted her Facebook account after screenshots of her post were spread by other Facebook users.^[4]

References