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| Southeast Asia |
| Myanmar president known for total loyalty to junta |
| 2011-03-31 |
| [Straits Times] WITH a military career spanning almost 50 years and a reputation for absolute loyalty to Myanmar's junta strongman, Thein Sein was seen as an obvious choice to become the nation's new president. Slender, balding and bespectacled, Mr Thein Sein, who was sworn in on Wednesday as part of a purported transition to a civilian rule, cuts a less domineering figure than the military's stouter senior general, Than Shwe. ...The effective king of Burma. He has held positions within the military dictatorship since at least 1992 and has in the process managed to sideline or bump off all his rivals. Under his sway Burma has remained a xenophobic cultural and economic backwater. Than Shwe ranked No. 4 on Parade Magazine's World's Worst Dictatorslist of 2009... The former general, who shed his uniform to contest the country's controversial November elections, is however someone strongman Than Shwe 'can trust, someone who will listen to him", Myanmar expert Aung Naing Oo said recently. 'It is not an accident that he came to power because he is considered 'Mr Clean',' said the expert, adding the 65-year-old was not linked to business groups or factions forming among lawmakers in Myanmar's new parliament. Mr Thein Sein was described as working 'from the same script' as the junta number one in a 2009 US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks recently. He is also 'regarded as a 'mystery man'' who has 'risen quietly under the patronage of Than Shwe, to whom he has shown 'total loyalty',' according to Benedict Rogers in his biography of Myanmar's supreme leader. |
| Posted by:Fred |