BURMA DEMOCRACY & DEVELOPMENT: Biography of Senior General Than Shwe and V-general Maung Aye

Friday, June 27, 2008

Biography of Senior General Than Shwe and V-general Maung Aye

Than Shwe
Chairman of SPDC

Early life

Born 2 February 1933 Kyaukse, Mandalay division
High school graduate
Postal worker who joined army at age 20

Military

Early military career: assigned to psychological war department and fought against Karen and Shan
Military progression: 1960 – captain; 1972 – Lt. Colonel; 1978 – Colonel; 1983 – Commander military district Southwest; 1985 Brigadier Gen. and Vice-Minister of Defense; 1986 – Major General; 1992 – Chairman (SPDC)
Relatively peaceful military tenure due to stationing in delta region
1 of 21 original members of SLORC
Launches campaign directed against Muslims in north

Leadership initiatives

Responsible for renaming country and calling for new constitution
Corruption crackdown in 1997 leads to sacking of many ministers
Advocate of ASEAN
Ceasefires with ethnic groups
Moves capital to outside Pyinmana (reportedly on advice of astrologers)

Personal

Big believer in astrology
Believes grandson, Pho La Pyeit, is talisman
Wife, Daw Kyaing Kyaing (Pa-O), political figure implicated in public bribery trial in 2004
Wife reportedly convinced him not to retire from politics
Children sent to school in Army trucks, not typical luxury cars
Reads foreign news and current events periodicals
Reportedly enjoys wearing traditional Burmese dress

Maung Aye
Vice-Chairman SPDC

Early life

Born: 25 December 1937

Military

- Graduate of Defense Services Academy – 1st batch career soldier
- 1980s – Commander in Eastern region
- Regarded as a ruthless field soldier and field commander
- Rumored to have received CIA training
- 1 of 21 original members of SLORC

Leadership initiatives

- At least at one stage, regarded by NLD and ASSK as someone they might be able to work with
- Reported to rarely venture outside of War Office anymore, with exception of ceremonial duties
- Does not approve of ceasefire groups maintaining arms

Personal

- Allegedly strong links to drug lords
- Heavy drinker
- Believed to be pro-Indian (relative to many others in leadership)
Wife – Mya Mya San; Daughter – Nandar Aye (spouse of Major Pye Aung)
Officer Commission number 7875

Source: Mizzima News

လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး စုံစမ္းစစ္ေဆးေရးမႉး မစၥတာကင္တားနားနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆံုဖုိ႔ ျငင္း

“က်ေနာ္ေျပာခ်င္တာက ျမန္မာျပည္ဟာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈေတြ အလြန္ႀကီးမား၊ ျပင္းထန္၊ ဆိုးသြမ္း၊ ရက္စက္ၾကမ္းၾကဳတ္ေနတဲ့အတြက္ ဘာနဲ႔တူသလဲဆုိရင္ငရဲခန္းႀကီးလိုပဲ ျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ ခင္ဗ်ားတုိ႔ေတြ ေနာင္ကို လာတဲ့အခါမွာဟိႏၵဴကုလားမီးနင္းပြဲလာသလုိ လာၿပီးေတာ့ မီးေပၚ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ၾကည့္သလုိေလွ်ာက္တာမ်ဳိး မလုပ္ပါနဲ႔။ ခင္ဗ်ားတုိ႔ ဆီပူေလာင္တာပဲ အဖတ္တင္မွာပဲ။ ဘာမွမထူးဘူး။ လာမယ့္လာရင္ မီးသတ္သမားပုံစံနဲ႔ လာၾကပါ။ မီးသတ္သမားေတြလို လာၾကပါ။ျမန္မာျပည္မွာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈ ေလာင္မီးႀကီးက်ေနတာကို ၀ုိင္း၀န္းၿငိႇမ္းသတ္ၾကပါလို႔ က်ေနာ္ေျပာခ်င္ပါတယ္၊ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံခ်င္ပါတယ္၊ ေတာင္းပန္ခ်င္ပါတယ္၊ ပန္ၾကားခ်င္ပါတယ္။”
ဦး၀င္းတင္

Save Burma & save human lives

We are promoting Burma’s political, social and economical and human rights awareness. We have to go through ups and downs of political, social and economical crisis. We also focus on human rights violations by Burma’s military regime. Indeed, we share Burma’s political comments, diplomatic relations with various countries on this site.BDD is non-profit group which supports restoring human rights, democratization process and national reconciliation in Burma. This site could not provide fair media ethic but just sharing knowledge, information and comments. We do strictly reject any unacceptable and abuse words, insulting individuals and personal attacks.

Killer never wants witnesses and victims, edge rival on the road again

Views: Former NLD Youths

6 April 2008

Current NLD LA seniors (former NLD Youths) discussed the current Vote NO campaign. NLD messaged and requested towards the citizens to defend their own future to vote no at constitutional referendum. NLD LA seniors received her message of comparing vote yes and vote no, her strong message of if people vote yes, there will be suffering many generations. Indeed, 1990 election results couldn’t conclude power to the people and bring what people expected, but this time people votes must be clear; No to SPDC what it made them suffer.

However, giving vote no means tomorrow wouldn’t be beautiful, we need many years to safe Burma from the aches, bring our morality from the ground zero, fixing useless education to compete within the region, providing reasonable health care to middle class and grassroots people, making sure that equal opportunity to all citizens in any sectors, have equal business opportunity,, constitution will provide equal rights for all ethnic nationalities, fundamental rights and ethnic rights.

Need leas to say, Burma would face more challenges ahead. Ending SPDC era doesn’t mean Burma will have everything is fine and we have to work hard to catch the other countries. Unity is very important to defend the democracy from military dictatorship again.

Moreover, pre- and during referendum, our forces and colleagues to be careful about SPDC’s dirty strategies, they must be watching NLD and they have been creating a wrongdoing of NLD.

Let us sharing with you that NLD seniors are saying they would not accept any financial support from outside organizations, NGOs, governments and parties. They have enough support from citizens who are supporting them from their bottom of their hearts.

Breaking News: SPDC’s civil militia attacked NLD members last few days

Rangoon, 4th April,2008

NLD member U Tin Yu, from Hlaing Tharyar Township was brutally beaten by two unidentified men believe to be Swan Arr Shin and USDA members yesterday evening. The two attackers were riding motorbike that only government authorities could use it, stopped before U Tin Yu and beaten him to the ground. U Tin Yu was hospitalized and unstable condition, said NLD member.

Another two members of the NLD; U Myint Hlaing and U Myint Aye from Rangoon division have also been attacked past three days.

Regime seemed to decide to use do or die strategy to approve its one-sided referendum. Regime declared anyone who opposes or agitates against its referendum to face legal charges. On the other hand, illegal beating and attacking the NLD members to scare the citizens.

Intelligence: Chinese pressure on Burma

Naypyidaw 31-03-2008

Sources said Chinese Military Attaché Mr. Fan Lian-fengi met with SPDC top generals on the eve of Armed Forces Day on 27th March 2008 and spent four hours together with them in Naypyidaw.

The meeting is about Chinese concern over Burma political development before May 2008. Also head of the political division in Rangoon, Mr. Chen Chen also accompanied with military attaché. It was not clear that Chinese military attaché met with Than Shwe or not.

Indeed, they have raised their concerns of “Free Tibet” Movement and Burma Saffron Revolution should not be linked up. in return, SPDC generals assured that they would not create more pressure on Beijing Olympic, country bilateral relations and political side with Chinese domestic policies towards Tibet, stressed sources.

They raised the issue of ALL Burma Monks Association has founded relations with the Dalai Lama in exile during the four hour meeting. The Chinese felt that Tibet and Burma case is totally different. Most of the top generals listened to their lecture.

Breaking News: NLD spokesperson passed away

Rangoon, 28-03-2008

U Myint Thein, one of the NLD spokespersons passed away this evening at 8 PM Burmese local time. U Myint Thein got medical treatment in Singapore last month.

During Saffron Revolution, Burmese regime arrested him from his home even he was getting medical treatment of cancer. His family and he needed a fund to get medical treatment and they decided to sell the townhouse complex in Thuwana complex but regime forced his family to move because it was illegal to sell it, they lost their townhouse unit before he got to go.

If you wanted any donation for his family, please contact the NLD Headquarters.

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Journalist’s comment on Xinhua News Agency

BDD
03-02-2008

“Xinhua News Agency should be careful what they posted on Burma/Myanmar issue.” said one of the journalists who reside in Rangoon. He continued “If Chinese accused the Western media that creating more problems and using political attack the rest of the world, they should be care about siding with regime. In this case, they should also deserve what others accuse them. China should be respective and staying at the middle if they wanted to lead the world and side with people who deserve to be treated fairly. If Chinese really care about so-call neo-colonialists are trying to conquer the world, they should side with powerless Burmese people. Now case is different, they sided with powerful brutal regime for their own interest. Indeed, we need “Balance of power” with the West and so-called newly countries.”

Breaking News:NLD will challenge the SPDC’s referendum from legal perspective

Rangoon 24-03-2008

Sources close to NLD stressed that NLD will announce within few days but must be careful of regime’ killing zone or political minefield. However, NLD will do its political action without delaying what NLD supposed to do. NLD will announce the legal and political challenge again in March and will have full political actions.

Moreover, NLD sources asked political activists should be aware that strategy and tactics could be different between NLD and other anti-regime democratic and ethnic forces and they do understand their frustrations. Citizens should see and join when NLD would lead the people in appropriate time.

Social and Business News

Rangoon
03-04-2008

Five people were murdered with gunshots near University Avenue, (located on the Green Bank Road or Sein-Le-Kan-Thar road) where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's met with SPDC’s liaison officer U Aung Kyi, last night. Each victims were shot in the head. According to Rangoon witness; victims were businesspersons from Mogok which in Northern of Mandalay.

These murder cases are often, even under tightening security in Rangoon. Citizens’ security and stability would not be first priority, but regime’s stability and suppression against political opponents are first concern.

Chinese foreign minister vows to support UN mediation efforts in Myanmar

BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met on Tuesday with UN secretary-general special advisor to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari, pledging continued support for the UN's mediating efforts in Myanmar.

Considering Myanmar as China's friendly neighbor, Yang told Gambari that the country supported the Myanmar government's efforts in promoting the domestic political process, maintaining national stability and improving people's living standards.

China hoped that Myanmar could realize democracy and development at an early date, which was in the interests of the Myanmar people and should be the goal of international efforts.

He called on the international community to be objective, just and balanced while making constructive efforts to help Myanmar; to be patient and confident, and do more to promote trust among parties concerned about Myanmar.

Hand of Beijing seen in events

The Financial Times
12-02-2008

As Burma’s citizens await further details on a planned constitutional referendum, many western diplomats and Burmese analysts are suggesting that the ruling generals were goaded into action by pressure from Beijing, their biggest patron.

China’s relations with the junta have drawn international attention since September’s crackdown on anti-government demonstrations.

Since then, western governments have urged Beijing to press for reforms. Analysts say Beijing may be anxious that the generals’ recalcitrance would affect China’s image during the Olympics, which start on the 20th anniversary of a Burmese anti-government uprising.

“A lot of countries have been putting a lot of pressure on China to do something on Burma,” said Win Min, a political science lecturer at Thailand’s Payap University.

Nyo Ohn Myint, an exiled dissident, said: “The generals are playing a game – they are trying to satisfy the Chinese and Asean recommendations for legitimacy.”

The referendum plan has had a cool reception abroad, amid concerns it will undermine prospects for dialogue between the junta and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize-winning democracy leader.

Singapore called the referendum a “positive step”. Other Asean governments have been silent, with no public comment from China. Japan expressed concern that the process “does not allow participation by Aung San Suu Kyi and other [opposition] parties”.

Breaking News

Rangoon by phone
10-02-2008

"SPDC's announcement also shocking the mid and low level officers", sources said. Because regime hasn’t finished its' drafting constitution, and announced the election date without having an answer of winning or losing from their projected date of referendum in May 10th, 2008.

Sources closed to regime said that it might be someone or outside of the country pressured top hardline leaders of regime. Thus, the regime rushed to announce it without consideration of reality ground, just provided the timeframe of political development.

Sources also questioned who decided (unofficially Than Shwe was a man to decide without consider anything) this announcement and bring more political confrontations from people and political activists as well as EU, US and other political players that rejected regime sham National Reconciliation.

Special Report:

Intelligence
07-02-2008

Sources said that one prominent and other eleven student activists and groups questioned controversial exile government NCGUB led by Dr. Sein Win. In this letter, student activists claimed that they haven't seen any effectiveness by NCGUB lately and letter focused how much worried about existing political mandate that should be utilized properly.

Sources said the letter was believed to send with names and signatures of prominent student leaders related to 1988 democracy uprising and played leading role in the Saffron Revolution. Now, this letter is believe to be reached out to US based NCGUB office.

In the letter, they preferred to see more political representation but they felt that political mandate has been abused by the exile government. However, few members of the government in exile said they still do not know this letter is existed or not.

Intelligence

Rangoon
01-02-2008

As all know Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had met NLD seniors before she met SPDC’s liaison officer U Aung Kyi 30th January 2008.

During the meeting, U Aung Kyi offered regime’s roadmap between NLD and SPDC. This is seemed focusing cooperation with NLD in common interest and to work between NLD and SPDC and leave differences and uncompromised issues without any promising. More than that he couldn’t answer her main concerns of “rule of law” which SPDC must stop the hostilities and brutalities that what DASSK pointed out.

Dialogue has been placed with four basic agreements after end of the meeting with him. Sources close to regime stressed that after Chinese delivered the regime their unhappiness responses.

What they said!

Rangoon
27-02-2008

Than Shwe’s alliance businessman Tay Za made a speech and sang a song at one of the business dinners two weeks ago, here is unofficial translation from his speech; “I want to call the US and it would consider, if US sanction against me, I am not the one who suffer, but my employees and staffs do. I wanted to sing a song for the one who decided to put sanction on me, he then sang one of the Burmese well-known singers, Kai Zar’s ‘Min Lie Youk Kyar, Ngar Lie You k Kyar’ in English “You and me are Men or Face as a Man”.

Where SPDC will go?

Source close to regime said that all of the decision making processes are being under control by Senior general Than Shwe. He placed Thura Shwe Mann to oversee all security operations relating arm forces.

Others; PM Thein Sein, FM Nyan Win for international affairs, Minister Aung Thaung, Htay Oo and police chief Khin Ye for internal issues, information minister Kyaw Hsan for media and to make sure that all non-government control media are under watched.

Vice-senior general Maung Aye was believed to be sideline and his men in the important positions were replaced with Than Shwe’s trusted men.

There are no sign of country development programs, national reconciliation, providing better economy and subsidies but to prepare for defensive line against the next uprising. They have to spend much funds for the security issue, make sure that monks, students, workers, and rest of the people are being watched and brutalized if necessary.

Update News: Burma latest

Intelligence Unit
13-01-2008

Unless super hard-liners pushed harder lines against monks, political activists and NLD but within a mid level officals feel different ways. Many local commanders who requested anonymity to the NLD locals saying that they are not happy with top generals' performance. Mainly, they are concerning about increasing consumer price is a major issue among them. Because, which is effecting the officials' way of lives and their families.

However, gen. Htay Oo, SPDC minister and USDA secretary ordered USDA members and local leaders to defend the country from possible Western invasion through popular uprising.

After September Uprising, SPDC has widely provided GSM phones and two way radios to USDA core local leaders . Reports saying that first round of small arms training to the group leaders of USDA and members Swan-Arr-Shin to face the possible major uprising last two weeks and would do it again in March. More bloodshed would be seen, said Rangoon resident.

Update News: Ceasefire groups Vs SPDC

Thai-Burma border
27-01-2007

Sources close to SPDC said that regime sent General Ye Myint as a special envoy of Senior General Than Shwe to the ceasefire groups recently.

General Ye Myint delivered the message of Than Shwe saying that “All of our armed ceasefire groups are colleagues” and we understand soldiers to soldiers. General Than Shwe wanted to see all of ethnic armed ceasefire groups to know that SPDC would not change its previous plan of seven-step roadmap.

Either ceasefire group will enter the political arena, please form the political party and will contest at the election which will be designed by the seven-step roadmap or if CFG will hold the arms, SPDC will allow the different name from the former CFG. Source said that General Ye Myint did not pressure but to persuade them to side with SPDC.

General Ye Myint failed to answer what CFG's common question of CFG's proposal at the National Convention those ethnics’ rights, essence of federalism and self-determination.

Related News

Intelligence Unit
Dated: Unknown

Source close to SPDC said that Sir. General Than Shwe has developed illness last week, his associates seek visa permission for the unofficial trip to have a medical treatment in Singapore but it failed. Unconfirmed source said that Singaporian immigration had replied without explanation but negative.

However, source said Sir. General might use his illness for granted not to decide for the national reconciliation and political development, he is still buying a time to delay to meet with DASSK and seek alternative strategy to hold the power without negotiation with DASSK and ethnic leaders. Unpopular regime roadmap would be renewed without allowing ethnic and democratic forces in the process, sources said.

Special Report

Rangoon
11-01-2008

Sources said that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has requested U Aung Kyi, SPDC’s liaison minister for her, to replace her representative to meet U Aung Kyi regularly. Sources said she prefers to have a genuine negotiation with senior general. Coincidently, She was approached to meet by U Aung Kyi was during the Chinese delegation’s five visit in Burma.

There has no positive sign after meeting. Former NLD senior stressed that “should we wait for general Than Shwe’d change his mind or should we fight to get it.”

International Organizations’ (INGO) works inside Burma

NCUB’s rebuttal

DFID

DFID is a major stakeholder of the 3 D funds project who supplied 34 millions for 5 years.
National Health Committee oversees all these projects under the National Health Program in which 3 Ds funds is one of them.
All inputs have to go through MOH.
DFID is focal point in this program. Ruric Mardsen is a person of principle, he pointed out some of the monitoring difficulties such as giving so much authorities for monitoring to Township Education Officers as they are very busy persons who can not properly monitor the project activities.
DFID is professional at first but later they are weak in professionalism. UNICEF is responsible for DFID health projects including 3 D funds’ some of the projects concerning mother to child transmission of HIV virus.
DFID also implements water and sanitation projects and school infrastructure.

When it was complained to WHO they said that kind of event is happening all around the world it is not surprising, it is nice if only ten percent go to the target group.
There are also wastages. 10000 Bags of Cement were bought in July, rainy season for school renovation. Head masters didn’t how to maintain them. They are all damaged in schools.
5 bags of cement had been bought to a school for hand pump. 2 bags was taken by the ministry concerned. Only three bags arrived. Department had to mix with sand and it was damaged two years later.
Over 50 percents of UNDP school renovation programme remained uncompleted

Projects staffs and participants who are going to attend the workshops or trainings had to take recommendation letter from the department concerned police station and even USDA whether he has not involved in any criminal cases and political activities.

In every seminars or workshops or trainings held in luxurious hotels or anywhere, special branch of intelligent are present

One of the planner officers who are international staff from the UNICEF told a field officer to ask any favor for her stay in a remote area as the military guest house is more comfortable. They also have an idea that it is more workable to work together with military people.

Field officers from some UN organizations report back some damages and mismanagement of the government department concerned but all of them are ignored and warned not to say stuff like that. Therefore no complaints are made for these incidents in school and health sectors.