Pe Thein Zar graduated in 1960. For further study he went to
Moulmein College in 1961, and became an executive member of the Moulmein College Mon Students’ Association and an executive member of the Moulmein College Students’ Union. In January 1990, as a representative of the NMSP, he took up duties at the
National Democratic Front (NDF) office at Mannerplaw, located in the headquarters building of the
Karen National Union (KNU). In that year, the
State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) organised a free and fair general election. As had been expected, the
National League for Democracy (NLD), led by
Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory. The SLORC refused to transfer the power to the NLD and many elected members of the parliament went underground to join up with various armed resistance groups. Some arrived at NMSP and some at KNU areas. On 18 December 1990, with the support of the NMSP, the KNU, the
Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and other ethnic groups, the
National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), led by Dr.
Sein Win, a cousin of Aung San Suu Kyi, was established at Mannerplaw. In 1992, the
National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB) was founded by representatives of the NDF, NCGUB, and the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB). He was a member of the NCUB. When the Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC) was formed in Mannerplaw, he became a member of it as well. At the Third Congress of the NDF that was held at Mannerplaw in 1992, he was elected as a committee member responsible for foreign affairs, while Nai Shwe Kyin (the President of NMSP) was elected as its President. Also in 1992, when the NDF decided to establish the Federal University, in order to provide education for those students who were involved in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising and who had fled to the armed resistance group areas, he was assigned to take charge of that university. In February 1993, he attended a diplomacy training course, organised by Jose Ramos Hota who was later to become the second president of East Timor), at the University of New South Wales. In October 1993, under a programme of the UN International Indigenous Year, he led a delegation of NDF representatives to several European countries, to draw attention to the plight of the ethnic minorities of Burma under the Burmese military regime – to the gross human rights abuses, forced labour, rapes, murder and arbitrary arrests committed by the Burmese armed forces in the ethnic minority areas. In November 1993, he attended a UN Human Rights Commission seminar in Geneva, Switzerland where he met many representatives from various countries around the world. ==Resettlement in Australia==