By AFP
A close ally of detained Myanmar democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi died of leukaemia on Monday, a National League for Democracy source told Agence France-Presse, days after being released from junta custody on health grounds.
U Zaw Myint Maung, 72, who spent around two decades in prison for defying Myanmar’s military, was a close confidante of Suu Kyi and a lynchpin of the NLD.
He was arrested following the military’s 2021 coup and jailed on charges of corruption. He was recently released on health grounds.
“We got confirmation of his death. It’s a big loss for us as he was one of our NLD vice-chairmen,” a senior party source told AFP, requesting anonymity to speak to the media.
The source said Zaw Myint Maung had died of leukaemia.
“Although we were prepared we might lose him one day, we are sorry for losing him in this difficult situation. We have to move forward for democracy with the leaders we have.”
Zaw Myint Maung was detained along with other senior NLD figures following the 2021 coup that upended a 10-year experiment with democracy and returned the Southeast Asian nation to military rule.
In 1988 he led a doctors’ strike as part of huge pro-democracy uprisings that thrust Suu Kyi into the spotlight in Myanmar.
In 1989 he left his job in a university biochemistry department and joined the NLD.
The military later imprisoned him for around two decades for his activism.
After the generals enacted democratic reforms and the NLD won a landslide in the 2015 elections, he became the chief minister of Mandalay Region.
Decimated NLD
The year before the putsch Aung San Suu Kyi described him as a “real hardcore and a comrade who has been together with us since the very beginning [of our party].”
The 2021 coup sparked widespread armed opposition to military rule that the junta has failed to crush more than three years later.
Almost three million people have been forced from their homes by the conflict, according to the United Nations.
The junta’s crackdown on dissent has decimated the senior ranks of the NLD.
Months after the coup U Nyan Win, a former NLD spokesman and Suu Kyi confidante, died of Covid-19 while being held in military custody for sedition.
In July 2022 another former NLD lawmaker, U Phyo Zayar Thaw, was executed by the junta alongside three other men in Myanmar’s first use of capital punishment in decades.
In March last year, the junta dissolved the party for failing to re-register under a tough new military-drafted electoral law, removing it from polls it has indicated it may hold in 2025.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 79, is serving a 27-year prison sentence on charges ranging from corruption to not respecting Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.
Rights groups say her closed-door trial was a sham designed to remove her from the political scene.
Last month Italian media reported that Pope Francis has offered refuge on Vatican territory to Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the government ousted by the military in 2021.