U Tin Oo, one of the most venerated members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and a former commander-in-chief of the Myanmar Army, died on Saturday. He was 97.
On his first visit to the National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters after completing six years of house arrest in February 2010, the first thing U Tin Oo did was to salute the flag of the party he cofounded in 1988.
Years of imprisonment and house arrest, and his advanced age of 84, were not enough to induce mental or physical fragility in the man. His loyalty to the party was as strong as it had been 22 years previous.
U Tin Oo, then vice president of the NLD, had returned at a time when the party was facing a life-or-death situation: register for the military-organized general election or face extinction, as the regime would no longer deem the party legally valid.
Some senior party members were threatening to form a breakaway group if the NLD refused to participate in the 2010 election. With Daw Aung San Suu Kyi still under house arrest, the burden of the decision fell on U Tin Oo’s shoulders.
He held a series of meetings with the party’s members over the ensuing days, leading to a vote by the NLD steering committee, to which Daw Aung San Suu Kyi agreed. It was decided: the party would not take part, as the election laws were unjust.
The decision bore fruit six years later when the NLD government was sworn in before Parliament, becoming the first democratically elected government since 1962—a moment that was “absolutely wonderful to see”, as U Tin Oo put it.
“We struggled because we wanted to see a change like this,” he said.
Professional soldier
A career soldier with 33 years of service that would see him reach the rank of general and the position of army commander-in-chief, U Tin Oo first joined the Burma Defence Army, formed during World War II, at the age of 16 after witnessing the atrocities committed by the Japanese fascists while he worked as an interpreter.
During his time in the army, he fought against Kuomintang troops near the Thai-Myanmar border and the Mujahideen at the Bangladeshi border in the 1950s. He believed a military was nothing more than a group employed by the government to protect the state’s sovereignty and the people’s interests. It made him sick then, to see 25 percent of Parliament selected from military appointees. He hated to see the Myanmar Army waging wars against ethnic armed groups, as he simply joined the army to fight against foreign invaders.
In 1974, U Tin Oo was promoted to the rank of general and became chief of the Myanmar Army. He was highly respected for his professionalism and concern for the welfare of his staff and their families. Unusually for a man of his position, General Tin Oo was friendly to the rank-and-file soldiers, but this popularity contributed to his downfall two years later.
Imported paint, an assassination plot, and imprisonment
One February evening in 1976, only days after the death of his youngest son, Gen. Tin Oo was summoned by Burma’s dictator Ne Win, who fired the general because his wife had ordered floor tiles and paint from Hong Kong to decorate their dining room and bathroom. Ne Win, then chairman of the ruling Burma Socialist Programme Party, claimed the general’s wife had broken the rules and regulations for the spouses of the army’s commanding officers.
According to observers at the time, including army officials close to the case, senior officials ordering overseas goods was an open secret. Many believed the real reason behind U Tin Oo’s forced retirement was his popularity among the troops and public, as demonstrated in incidents such as the nationwide 1974 labor strike. Workers chanted the slogan “Long Live Gen. Tin Oo” while condemning Ne Win and the then Burmese President U San Yu for low wages and spiraling prices for basic commodities.
The sacking of Gen. Tin Oo sent shock waves through military circles and was acutely felt by junior officers, who had lost their leader. A group of them planned to restore him as the military chief by assassinating U San Yu and then military intelligence chief U Tin Oo, the man held responsible for Gen. Tin Oo’s expulsion. But the plot was uncovered and the plot leader, Captain Ohn Kyaw Myint, was hanged while other conspirators were jailed. Gen. Tin Oo was charged with withholding information about the plot and imprisoned for seven years.
Years later, after his release in 1980, U Tin Oo said he didn’t hold a grudge over the sentence, but felt guilty for the death of Capt. Ohn Kyaw Myint and the imprisonment of the officers.
‘Let’s work together’
The ’88 Uprising pushed U Tin Oo into the political arena, as he could no longer bear the army’s violent crackdown on protesters.
After co-founding the NLD in 1988, U Tin Oo was often seen by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s side, through good and bad. Once they narrowly escaped a state-sponsored assassination attempt in the provincial Upper Burma town of Depayin in 2003.
Shortly before the party was founded, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told U Tin Oo “let’s work together.” He agreed, using his expertise and experience to achieve her objectives. During his nearly 17 years in prison and house arrest after joining the NLD, the former general never questioned the party’s mission for democracy, human rights, and a federal union. He helped the NLD stay on course amid mounting pressure from the authorities.
U Tin Oo became the NLD’s patron when it was elected as the ruling party in 2016, increasing his prominence even further by representing the NLD at public events, as the military-drafted 2008 Constitution bans the country’s Union ministers from taking part in party activities—Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was Myanmar foreign minister. Health permitting, he rarely turned down invitations to events—from book launches to interfaith gatherings to annual commemorations of important days in modern Myanmar history.
Sporting the NLD’s trademark jacket made from pinni, a hand-woven cotton cloth ranging in color from beige to umber and worn with a white collarless shirt and longyi, U Tin Oo attended the party’s headquarters around noon every weekday until the day he fell in his bathroom and suffered a stroke in May 2017, leaving the then 91-year-old paralyzed on his right side and barely able to speak. After the accident he was confined to his home and a wheel chair.
Despite the NLD taking office, U Tin Oo was aware the party had a long way to go before achieving its mission. The nonagenarian said every government was prone to criticism, but the challenges could be overcome if the government persevered step-by-step with the people’s will in mind.
His support for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was unshakable. In his message on the NLD government’s first anniversary in March 2017, he reaffirmed his confidence in the woman 19 years his junior.
“She is a person of her word,” he said. “She takes great risks for the peace process. I want to wish her good health and safety from danger.”
But his wish would be denied, as she has been in prison since the military takeover in 2021. When coup leader Min Aung Hlaing rounded up the NLD’s senior leaders, he spared U Tin Oo, probably due to his old age and ill health.
But the coup leader had an opportunity to see first-hand the ailing retired general’s steely loyalty to the NLD when he made an unusual visit to U Tin Oo in December 2021 to “cordially inquire after his health” and offer him treatment at military hospitals. The 94-year-old received the junta chief out of politeness—proudly wearing an NLD jacket emblazoned with the party’s red badge.
Min Aung Hlaing’s visit was condemned as a politically motivated attempt to counter his hardline image at home and abroad by pretending to reach out to a leading member of the opposition party. In reality, the meeting was one-sided and nothing more than a photo op for Min Aung Hlaing, whose host was hardly able to speak.
Though his reaction to the 2021 coup was not recorded, it undoubtedly distressed him to see Daw Aung San Suu Kyi arrested again and the country once again subjected to military dictatorship, something he fought against for decades. He would surely have been proud to learn that young people—some of them the same age he was when he joined the army—were flocking to ethnic armed organizations to undergo military training to help topple the regime.
For his part, it seems U Tin Oo continued to defy the regime in his own way until he drew his last breath at the age of 97.
In the years following his meeting with Min Aung Hlaing, U Tin Oo was hospitalized several more times as his health deteriorated. Despite the junta chief’s offer, however, he never checked in to any of Yangon’s military hospitals—which are better appointed than public hospitals. He was rushed to an intensive care unit this week and never came out, dying at Yangon General Hospital.
