One morning in April 1990, a 24-year-old university student using the pseudonym Wunna woke up early and solemnly worshiped in front of a small Buddha statue he kept in his room, acutely aware that he was probably doing so for the last time. When finished praying he stood up, loaded his 38 mm pistol and wedged it under his left arm pit. Then he donned a jacket to cover the weapon and walked out into the streets of Rangoon.
The young student’s intention that day was to assassinate Khin Nyunt, who was then the head of Burma’s military intelligence service (MI) and the third-ranked general in the military junta, which had taken power in a 1988 coup and simultaneously crushed a nationwide pro-democracy uprising.
Khin Nyunt was regarded as the most powerful general in the regime—the one who really called the shots—despite the fact that Snr-Gen Saw Maung and his deputy, then Gen Than Shwe, were officially ranked above him. The spy chief’s intelligence apparatus was notorious for cracking down on pro-democracy activists, who it routinely arrested, tortured and threw into prison, so Wunna believed that killing Khin Nyunt would advance the cause of democracy in Burma and be of great benefit to the country’s oppressed people.
On the day of the intended assassination, Wunna was invited to attend a religious ceremony at the house of a relative of Khin Nyunt. He had been told that the intelligence chief would be present as well, so with the pistol concealed under his jacket on the hot sunny day, Wunna first took a bus and then walked the remaining distance to the ceremony, where his intended victim would be within shooting range.
As he had planned, Wunna arrived before Khin Nyunt and surveyed the house. The crowd attending the ceremony stirred and the hosts bustled about as Khin Nyunt arrived, and when the out-of-uniform MI chief was escorted to a reserved table and served a glass of lemon juice, Wunna found himself standing only eight feet away from his target.
All Wunna needed to do was take out his pistol, aim at Khin Nyunt’s left chest and pull the trigger—the very act he had rehearsed hundreds of times while taking target practice on the Thai-Burma border in hopes of getting close enough to the top general to take a shot. But he knew that the second he assassinated the spy chief, he would in turn be killed by the powerful man’s coterie of bodyguards.
Wunna reminded himself that his mission was for the good of the Burmese people, and although his gut was filled with fear and his body trembling, he desperately tried to gather himself and summon the necessary courage and commitment. At the same time, however, his mind was swimming with thoughts and images of his beloved family and the consequences that would rain down on them after he killed a top brass general.
As Wunna hesitated, Khin Nyunt stood up and walked away. The would-be-assassin had lost his chance and knew he would probably never have another. He realized then and there, however, that even if he did get another shot at the general, he was not professional enough to carry out the job.
He was also not seasoned enough to cover his tracks—after all, he didn’t think he would survive once he pulled the trigger—and a few months later he was arrested by MI. Wunna and two of his colleagues were charged with high treason, given the death sentence and sent to Insein Prison. Then in 1993, his death sentence was reduced to 20 years behind bars.
Wunna was not the only person who attempted to assassinate regime leaders following the 1988 coup and crackdown on pro-democracy activists. Maj Ko Ko Naing of the Karen National Union, an ethnic armed group, exploded bombs at Rangoon’s City Hall and the Thanlyin Oil Refinery on July 7, 1989, the anniversary of the day that late dictator Ne Win ordered the demolition of Rangoon University’s historic student union. Ko Ko Naing was later arrested and sentenced to death after leading a separate assassination team to kill the top military leaders.
Then in early 1990, the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front also plotted to kill top military leaders in an operation named “Hawk,” and the following year ABSDF member Min Han and his colleagues planned once again to do in a separate operation. Both times, however, the conspirators were arrested and sentenced either to death or to lengthy terms of imprisonment. Min Han was released on Oct. 12, when the current Burmese government granted amnesty to certain prisoners and political prisoners.
These attempts to kill top leaders in the aftermath of the 1988 crackdown were not isolated events in Burma. In fact, the assassination and attempted assassination of political leaders—both those that have ruthlessly oppressed the people and those that have been well-respected—is part of the fabric of the country’s modern history.
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