Burma: a close friend of Aung San Suu Kyi and pillar of the opposition dies of leukemia
Zaw Myint Maung, a close friend of former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and pillar of the Burmese opposition, died of leukemia on Monday, just days after being released by the military junta.
The 72-year-old man was a figure in the National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, victim of the junta’s repression since the 2021 coup.
Arrested after the putsch, Zaw Myint Maung was imprisoned on corruption charges. Released a few days ago for health reasons, he was sent to intensive care at Mandalay General Hospital, where he died on Monday, a source within their party told AFP.
The junta granted him an amnesty on Sunday.
“We have had confirmation of his death. It is a great loss for us, he was one of the vice-presidents of the NLD,” declared, on condition of anonymity, the high-ranking party source, specifying that he died of leukemia.
Despite his death, “we must move forward for democracy,” said this source.
Zaw Myint Maung led a doctors’ strike in 1988, a pivotal year in Burma, where large-scale peaceful demonstrations helped make Aung San Suu Kyi the face of opposition to the military in power.
In 1989, he left his job in the biochemistry department of a university to join the LND, established a year earlier. His commitment earned him nearly two decades in prison.
After the generals initiated a democratic turn in the early 2010s, which allowed the accession to power of the LND, the big winner at the polls in 2015, he became head of government of the Mandalay region (center).
A year before the coup, Aung San Suu Kyi described him as “a real tough guy and a comrade who has been with us since the very beginning” of the party.
– Party decimated –
The military putsch against Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021 sparked armed uprisings across the country, which the junta is still working to crush.
The junta’s repression decimated the NLD leadership.
In March, the junta dissolved the NLD for failing to register again, in accordance with a new electoral law drawn up by the military, excluding it from elections which the latter said could be held in 2025.
Just after the coup, Nyan Win, former spokesperson for the party and close to Aung San Suu Kyi, died of Covid-19 in July 2021, while being held in a military prison on charges of sedition. In 2022, another former MP was executed on the orders of the junta, the first case of the application of the death penalty after decades.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 79, is serving a 27-year prison sentence on charges ranging from corruption to failing to comply with restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Human rights groups maintain that the closed-door trial of the 1991 Nobel laureate was just a sham to keep her from the political scene.
In September, Italian media reported that Pope Francis had offered refuge to Aung San Suu Kyi.
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