Wife and daughter of Burmese junta's leader 'have left the country'
The wife, daughter and hated son-in-law of Burma’s secretive leader left the country last week, the opposition Democratic Voice of Burma has reported.
The Oslo-based radio station, which receives information from a network of dissidents within the country, said that Kyaing Kyaing, the wife of Than Shwe, had arrived with other family members in Singapore, the elite’s favourite destination for shopping and hospital trips.
Than Shwe has remained at the new capital, Naypitaw, with other junta members throughout the current crisis. He is believed to have traveled to Singapore a few months ago for medical treatment, said to be for cancer.
His daughter Ma Shwe Aye and her husband Teza, a tycoon who used his regime connections to rise from obscurity to become the richest man in the country, reportedly flew to Dubai.
Impoverished Burmese had an insight into the luxurious lifestyle of Than Shwe’s family last year when a video emerged of the wedding of another of his daughters, who was seen draped in presents of diamond necklaces.
DVB said that one of its correspondents had attempted to call Mr Teza at the seven-star Burj Al Arab Hotel, one of the world’s most luxurious, for an interview, but the tycoon failed to return the call.
Ten years ago Mr Teza was an unknown businessman but he has risen to become one of the most powerful men in Burma, thanks to his close connections with the regime. He is banned from visiting EU countries under targeted sanctions and is suspected of involvement in arms deals.
He owns Bagan Air, a tourist airline, and his Htoo Company is believed to have made tens of millions of dollars constructing bunkers and government buildings in Naypitaw. The crippling costs of building the city - located in an old jungle logging camp far to the north of Rangoon - are believed to have forced the regime to treble fuel prices, sparking the current round of protests.
Mr Teza was also notorious for building an ugly 60-metre viewing tower complete with a cocktail lounge in the historic city of Bagan. Known as Than Shwe’s tower by locals, because the military strongman financed it and Teza’s company built it, the cylindrical structure is hated because it is higher than all the 3,000 pagodas in the extraordinary complex that was once a Buddhist holy city. It was part of a complex, including a golf course, aimed at attracting Chinese package tourists.
Locals complained in private that to build higher than the height of a pagoda was arrogant and deeply sacrilegious.
The Asian Human Rights Commission warned today that junta members could move millions of dollars of personal wealth out of the country, as has happened before the fall of other Asian dictators.
From: Times Online, Oct 1
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2567469.ece
Update:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8867
One more link that confirms that the family members of Than Shwe have left Burma but the location is unknown. Good to follow up with different sources. Have yet to decide on which is more reliable though I definitely think that Singapore should have banned the entering of members of the junta and their family members the privillege of entering Singapore for leisure and medical treatment.
