• Most Popular
  • Most Shared

Ailing Myanmar prime minister is dead

BANGKOK
Sun Oct 14, 2007 3:59am EDT
Myanmar's Prime Minister Soe Win takes part in 60th Anniversary of Armed Forces Day ceremonies in Yangon in this March 27, 2005 file photo. Soe Win, presumed to have been the architect of an attack on supporters of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2003, died on October 12, 2007 in a military hospital in Yangon, state media announced. REUTERS/Adrees Latif/Files

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Long ailing Myanmar Prime Minister Soe Win has died and was to be buried at a state funeral on Sunday, official newspapers said.

World

They said the 59-year-old general died on Friday. They gave no cause of death, but he was believed to have been suffering from leukemia and had been to Singapore several times for treatment.

"It is hereby announced a period of official mourning will be observed for three days from 12 to 14 of October 2007," an official announcement in state-run newspapers said.

Soe Win, who replaced the purged Khin Nyunt in 2004, had been out of the political picture for months.

His place was taken by Acting Prime Minister Thein Sein, who met United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari earlier this month on his mission to end a military crackdown on peaceful mass protests.

Soe Win was a close confidante of junta strongman Than Shwe and first sprang to prominence when the army crushed a student-led uprising against military rule in 1988, when an estimated 3,000 people were killed.

He was also believed to have been behind the bloody attack on supporters of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in 2003 that led to her latest detention. She has been in detention of one form or another for 12 of the last 18 years.



More from Reuters

A Greenpeace activist dressed as one of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" rides outside the parliament building during a brief protest in Copenhagen December 13, 2009.   REUTERS/Christian Charisius

The face of climate protest

Protesters around the globe called for an end to global warming as climate talks in Copenhagen entered their sixth day.  Video 

    In this photo reviewed by the U.S. Military, a guard leans on a fencepost as a Guantanamo detainee (L) jogs inside the exercise yard at Camp 5 detention center, at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, January 21, 2009.  REUTERS/Brennan Linsley/Pool

    Life after Guantanamo

    Critics are worried that Gitmo prisoners once dubbed "enemy combatants" will be using prisons as pulpits for anti-American rhetoric once they're moved to U.S. soil.  Full Article 

    Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Robert Stevens answers a question during the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington December 14, 2009.  REUTERS/Molly Riley

    Lockheed eyes deals

    The future demands of cybersecurity make that sector one of many the aerospace giant sees as an acquisition target in the coming year.  Full Article