Failed Burma plot raises hope for Suu Kyi's freedom
By James Pringle
The Times-March 11, 2002
HOPES of eventual freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, rose yesterday after close relatives of the notorious former ruler General Ne Win were arrested for allegedly plotting a coup.
General Ne Win, the frail, reclusive, 92-year-old despot who isolated Burma from the world for decades, and his powerful daughter, Sanda Win, were behind barbed-wire barricades last night at their lakeside estate in north Rangoon, heavily guarded and with their telephones cut off. General Ne Win’s son-in-law, Aye Zaw Win, and three adult grandsons, including his favourite, Kyaw Ne Win, the notorious leader of the thuggish "Scorpion" gang, which is infamous for extortion and trouble-making, were in custody and under interrogation.Senior police and military officers were also being held as alleged co-conspirators. The arrests were being seen as the end of the Ne Win era.
Rangoon was calm last night, but hundreds of pavement tea shops, where Burmese people quietly gossip for fear of military intelligence spies, were abuzz with rumour and speculation.
General Ne Win wielded strong influence on the ruling military junta until recently and the arrests will be popular with a country sick of the nepotism and monopoly deals won for his family. Although the junta says that security precautions at the large villa housing the former dictator and his daughter were "for their own safety", a Rangoon-based Western diplomat said: “They are obviously under house arrest.”
Foreign envoys were reluctant to appear too optimistic, but some said that the move against the Ne Win family, which opposed concessions to Daw Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Laureate who lives under house arrest, could throw open Burma’s slow-moving political process.
Burma’s tough rulers in the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) seem to be concerned about their international pariah status, criticism of forced labour, lack of investment and poverty. The crackdown on General Ne Win is motivated by a determination to conserve their power in any future political settlement.The charismatic Daw Suu Kyi, whose opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) won free elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power, has been meeting ruling generals behind closed doors for 16 months. Political prisoners continue to be released, but few details have emerged.
NLD leaders hope that Daw Suu Kyi will be will be released before next month’s water festival as foreign pressure pushes the junta to speed up dialogue and prove that it wants to end Burma’s agony. To do so, it must release more political prisoners.
With 639 NLD members still in custody, the move against the Ne Win family could facilitate that, observers say. Sanda Win’s husband and grandsons were arrested in a Chinese restaurant while allegedly waiting to discuss a coup plot with a senior commanding officer.
General Ne Win, a nom de guerre meaning "Bright Sun", has always been an eccentric figure who believes in numerology: the currency he introduced was bafflingly denominated in multiples of nine; 99 buddhist monks were at a party for his recalcitrant favourite grandson last year; and General Ne Win wants to live to 99, insiders say. He was one of the "30 comrades" in Burma’s independence struggle with Britain in 1948, a campaign led by Daw Suu Kyi’s father before his assassination ultimately allowed General Ne Win to take power in a 1962 coup.
The coup immediately cut off this Kiplingesque, rice-growing land from the rest of the world as it embarked on its ill-fated “Burmese Way to Socialism”. The general, despite his age and infirmity, had, until recently, exercised power behind the scenes, especially over his protégé, General Khin Nyunt, the powerful intelligence chief and No 3 in the ruling military triumvirate.
By last night, however, it was clear that he was no longer the puppet-master. Generals Khin Nyunt, Than Shwe and Maung Aye, the country’s military chiefs, were holding emergency meetings yesterday, again behind closed doors.