from The Straits Times :

Sep 28, 2007
Myanmar PM in long stay at S'pore hospital

WHILE his country is convulsed by protests and bloodshed, Myanmar's ailing prime minister remains under treatment at a Singapore hospital, an embassy staffer said on Friday.

Soe Win, the suspected mastermind of a deadly attack on opposition forces in Myanmar four years ago, has been at the Singapore General Hospital for three to four months, said the staffer.

Asked about the prime minister's condition, the staffer said, 'According to the doctors, we cannot meet with him.'

Attempts by AFP to locate Soe Win at the hospital were unsuccessful.

But the embassy staffer said: 'He is well. He is on recovery.'

Although Soe Win wields little power in the regime, his health problems highlight the ageing nature of the junta which rules Myanmar.

The junta leader, Senior General Than Shwe, 73, also visited Singapore in January for what an embassy official said were medical checks.

Despite 'a lot of speculation' about the leader's health he was 'very much OK' after the checkup at the Singapore General Hospital, the official said.

Myanmar officials rarely speak on the record for fear of repercussions by the junta, which has drawn international condemnation for a two-day crackdown on mass protests that left at least 13 people dead and hundreds more arrested.

Four years ago the death toll was even higher, dissidents said, after an attack allegedly plotted by Soe Win on the motorcade of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in May 2003.

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