Louisa Benson Craig

Who was Louisa Benson Craig?

Louisa Charmaine Benson Craig was a Burmese-born two-time beauty pageant winner and Karen rebel leader of Portuguese Jewish and Karen ancestry who was particularly known for becoming Burma's first Miss Universe contestant in 1956 and again Miss Burma in 1958.

After American schooling she returned to Karen and married Lin Htin, a commander of the Karen National Liberation Army in 1964. After her husband's death in 1965, widowed Louisa led the Fifth Brigade, but fell out with the Karen National Union leadership following a power struggle with Bo Mya.

As a "Most Wanted" independence warrior leader, Louisa was urged by her people in 1967 to leave to spare her life; and she emigrated to the United States by marrying a Mayflower descendant of Massachusetts' historic Governor Bradford and an aunt who started Twinings American tea company, Glenn Campbell Craig, former classmate of her youthful overseas studies at Tufts University, who reconnected with her as a U.S. Naval officer requesting assignment to Asian waters near Karen.

After emigrating, Louisa Benson Craig obtained a master's degree in international affairs at Columbia University and worked to advocate for Burmese democracy and resettlement efforts for Burmese refugees in the United States. In 2004, she was named a plaintiff in a landmark human rights case against Unocal, which was operating in Burma, for profiting from the Burmese military's alleged human rights abuses by operating the Yadana gas field.