MYANMAR’S FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER DIES IN PRISON AS A VICTIM OF THE 2004 REFORMISTS PURGE
November 7th 2009 01:55
One of Myanmar’s leading media-savvy politicians who was caught up and jailed in the 2004 government purge has died in jail.
Win Aung, a former Myanmar foreign minister and one of ex Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt’s aides, died on Wednesday morning November 4 in Yangon infamous Insein Prison. He was 65.
Fluent in English, Win Aung was said to be media savvy with foreign journalists and willing to give regular interviews with foreign media, including Time Magazine.
“I am a democratic person myself,” Win Aung told Time in 1999. “I would like my children and myself to live under a real democratic situation.”
Before his removal from the foreign minister post, he wrote religious and political articles under the pen name of Sithu Nyein Aye.
His younger son, Thaung Suu Nyein, is now editor-in-chief of a leading Yangon-based weekly, 7 Days News Journal.
Win Aung was one of the first senior government officials to become a victim of the 2004 purge of reformists.
Win Aung was arrested in September 2004, a month before a government crackdown on powerful Military Intelligence officers and several political leaders including the Prime Minister Khin Nyunt.
The junta originally announced Win Aung and his deputy Khin Maung Win’s retirement following news that he had told senior officials at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations Ministry meeting in Jakarta in July 2004 that Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was in political trouble.
“He is in a dangerous position,” Win Aung was quoted as saying. “Khin Nyunt may have to flee the country. If that happens, I will have to flee with him.”
After his arrest, Wing Aung was detained under house arrest for two years. In 2006, he was sentenced to a 7-year jail term on charges of misuse of authority. He was detained in Insein Prison until he died.
U Myat ‘Sonny’ Swe, deputy ceo of the Myanmar Times newspaper was also arrested during the same purge and he is still in prison where he is serving a 14 year sentence for alleged newspaper censorship avoidance..
His father, Brigadier General Thien Swe, who was head of the unit in charge of censoring the private enterprise Myanmar Times newspaper, was also jailed. Reports of his prison sentence vary, but it is around the 130 years mark.
All persons jailed were part of a moderate (by Myanmar standards) political push which crumbled when the Prime Minister Khin Nyunt released Aung San Suu Kyi in 2003. On her release she began campaigning vigorously through the country, prompting the Depayin massacre of her supporters on the night of May 30, 2003.
This marked the end of Aung san Suu Kyi’s freedom, and the beginning of the brutal end of the reformist push led by Khin Nyunt and the upper echelons of military intelligence.
Win Aung, a former Myanmar foreign minister and one of ex Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt’s aides, died on Wednesday morning November 4 in Yangon infamous Insein Prison. He was 65.
Fluent in English, Win Aung was said to be media savvy with foreign journalists and willing to give regular interviews with foreign media, including Time Magazine.
“I am a democratic person myself,” Win Aung told Time in 1999. “I would like my children and myself to live under a real democratic situation.”
His younger son, Thaung Suu Nyein, is now editor-in-chief of a leading Yangon-based weekly, 7 Days News Journal.
Win Aung was one of the first senior government officials to become a victim of the 2004 purge of reformists.
Win Aung was arrested in September 2004, a month before a government crackdown on powerful Military Intelligence officers and several political leaders including the Prime Minister Khin Nyunt.
The junta originally announced Win Aung and his deputy Khin Maung Win’s retirement following news that he had told senior officials at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations Ministry meeting in Jakarta in July 2004 that Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was in political trouble.
“He is in a dangerous position,” Win Aung was quoted as saying. “Khin Nyunt may have to flee the country. If that happens, I will have to flee with him.”
After his arrest, Wing Aung was detained under house arrest for two years. In 2006, he was sentenced to a 7-year jail term on charges of misuse of authority. He was detained in Insein Prison until he died.
His father, Brigadier General Thien Swe, who was head of the unit in charge of censoring the private enterprise Myanmar Times newspaper, was also jailed. Reports of his prison sentence vary, but it is around the 130 years mark.
All persons jailed were part of a moderate (by Myanmar standards) political push which crumbled when the Prime Minister Khin Nyunt released Aung San Suu Kyi in 2003. On her release she began campaigning vigorously through the country, prompting the Depayin massacre of her supporters on the night of May 30, 2003.
This marked the end of Aung san Suu Kyi’s freedom, and the beginning of the brutal end of the reformist push led by Khin Nyunt and the upper echelons of military intelligence.
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