National Defence and Security Council

The National Defence and Security Council (Burmese: အမျိုးသား ကာကွယ်ရေးနှင့် လုံခြုံရေး ကောင်စီ, Burmese pronunciation: [əmjóðá kàkwɛ̀jé n̥ḭɴ lòʊɴdʑòʊɴjé kàʊɴsì]; abbreviated NDSC) is an eleven-member national security council responsible for security and defence affairs in Myanmar. NDSC serves as the highest authority in the Government of Myanmar, as an executive body that has disproportionate membership consisting of Tatmadaw members.[1] NDSC was formed on 31 March 2011.[2][3] Of the 11 members, the Commander-in-chief appointed 5 members and controls 6 votes.[3][4] The Tatmadaw directly reports to NDSC.[5] The NDSC's existence is enshrined in Chapter V of the Constitution of Myanmar.[6]

National Defence and Security Council

အမျိုးသား ကာကွယ်ရေးနှင့် လုံခြုံရေး ကောင်စီ [əmjóðá kàkwɛ̀jé n̥ḭɴ lòʊɴdʑòʊɴjé kàʊɴsì]
Agency overview
Formed	31 March 2011 (2011-03-31)
Type	Agency
Jurisdiction	Government of Myanmar
Headquarters	Naypyidaw
Agency executive	Win Myint, President

The NDSC's constitutionally enshrined roles include expansive powers:

• Recommend pardonees for the President to grant amnesty[6][7]
• Approve the President's act of severing foreign diplomatic relations[6]
• Coordinate with the President to take military action against aggressors[6]
• Approve the Tatmadaw's ability to conscript citizens[6]
• Approve the President's nomination for Commander-in-Chief of the Tatmadaw[6]
• Coordinate with the President in declaring a state of emergency[6]
• Exercise legislative, executive and judiciary powers during a state of emergency[6]
• Exercise sovereign power during a state of emergency[6]

Members

According to the Constitution, NDSC's membership must consist of the following individuals:

• The President
• First Vice-President
• Second Vice-President
• Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw
• Speaker of the Amyotha Hluttaw
• Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services
• Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services
• Minister for Defence
• Minister for Foreign Affairs
• Minister for Home Affairs
• Minister for Border Affairs

National Defence and Security Council of Win Myint (2018–present)

Position	Name
President	Win Myint
First Vice President	Myint Swe
Second Vice President	Henry Van Thio
Speaker of the House of Representatives of Myanmar	T Khun Myat
Speaker of the House of Nationalities	Mahn Win Khaing Than
Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services	Min Aung Hlaing
Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services	Soe Win
Minister of Defence	Sein Win
Minister of Home Affairs	Kyaw Swe
Minister of Foreign Affairs	Aung San Suu Kyi
Minister of Border Affairs	Ye Aung

National Defence and Security Council of Htin Kyaw (2016–2018)

Position	Name
President	Htin Kyaw
First Vice President	Myint Swe
Second Vice President	Henry Van Thio
Speaker of the House of Representatives of Myanmar	Win Myint
Speaker of the House of Nationalities	Mahn Win Khaing Than
Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief	Min Aung Hlaing
Armed Forces Deputy Commander-in-Chief	Soe Win
Minister of Defence	Sein Win
Minister of Home Affairs	Kyaw Swe
Minister of Foreign Affairs	Aung San Suu Kyi
Minister of Border Affairs	Ye Aung

National Defence and Security Council of Thein Sein (2011–2016)

As of 9 July 2013, NDSC was composed of the following members:[8][9][10]

Position	Name
President	Thein Sein
First Vice President	Tin Aung Myint Oo(2011–2012)
	Sai Mauk Kham
Second Vice President	Nyan Tun
Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw	Shwe Mann
Speaker of the Amyotha Hluttaw	Khin Aung Myint
Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief	Min Aung Hlaing
Armed Forces Deputy Commander-in-Chief	Soe Win
Minister of Defence	Wai Lwin
Minister of Home Affairs	Ko Ko
Minister of Foreign Affairs	Wunna Maung Lwin
Minister of Border Affairs	Thet Naing Win

References

1. MacDonald, Adam P (1 May 2013). "The Tatmadaw's new position in Myanmar politics". East Asia Forum. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
2. "Myanmar forms national defense, security council". People's Daily. 1 April 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
3. Htun Aung Gyaw (21 February 2014). "Myanmar's constitutional crisis reaching boiling point". The Nation. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
4. Sithu Aung Myint (20 May 2015). "Coalition government: just a fantasy?". Myanmar Times. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
5. Weiss, Stanley A (4 March 2013). "Myanmar: A nation at war with itself". Myanmar Times. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
6. "Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar" (PDF). Ministry of Information. September 2008. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
7. Soe Than Lynn (24 October 2011). "More amnesties planned, says Thura U Shwe Mann". Myanmar Times. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
8. "National Defense and Security Council (NDSC)". Alternative Asean Network on Burma. 9 July 2013. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
9. "အမျိုးသားကာကွယ်ရေးနှင့် လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီဖွဲ့စည်းခြင်း (ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် ၉/၂ဝ၁၁)". နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတရုံး. 6 April 2011.
10. "အမျိုးသားကာကွယ်ရေးနှင့် လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီတွင် အဖွဲ့ဝင် ပြင်ဆင်ဖွဲ့စည်းခြင်း (ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် ၃/၂၀၁၂)". နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတရုံး. 16 August 2012.

See also

• Government of Burma