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Even the circumstances of her army officer husband’s death are not officially recorded—he is reported to have died in action.

 

After marrying Than Shwe, she slipped behind the security curtain that shields Burma’s top leaders and their families from public attention. Nevertheless, enough is known about her from reliable sources to paint a picture of a forceful but superstitious woman who rules Than Shwe’s private and professional life.

 

A well-informed source in Rangoon says that when Than Shwe expressed a wish to retire from active political life, Kyaing Kyaing skillfully played a sentimental card, telling him he had to stay in office in the interests of his favorite grandson. “Kyaing Kyaing asked Than Shwe who else would take care of their grandson’s future,” the source said. The grandson, Pho La Pyeit, is a favorite of Than Shwe, who reportedly believes the boy is his talisman of good fortune.

 

Kyaing Kyaing is said to share her husband’s superstitious ways, and she has been seen sometimes taking on the role of a mystic medium. She clearly displays signs of delusions of grandeur, expecting people to address her as “your majesty” and to drop to their knees in her presence.

 

She is also said to harbor a strong hatred of National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and there are those who suspect she had a hand in the mob attack on the pro-democracy activist and her supporters in May 2003.

 

Within the home, Kyaing Kyaing oversees the preparation of all her husband’s meals, according to a government official who has accompanied the couple on official trips in Burma. Nobody gets to meet Than Shwe without her approval.

 

Government and military appointments also have to meet with her approval, say informed sources. Her hire-and-fire influence reportedly nets her big rewards: luxury homes in new housing developments, business concessions and extravagant “New Year gifts.”

 

When one businessman’s wife presented her with a ruby worth 200 million kyat (US $18,000) Kyaing Kyaing is said (by a source close to the entrepreneur) to have dismissed the gem as “cheap.”

 

Burma’s business community say that as the Burmese New Year approached in April, Kyaing Kyaing demanded from them gifts worth at least 6 billion kyat ($5 million). “Daw Kyaing Kyaing told company owners not to regard the demand as extortion money or bribery, as it is the Burmese tradition to give presents to ‘worthy people’ during the New Year season,” reported the Oslo-based DVB radio.

 

Kyaing Kyaing’s cupidity—partly assuaged by shopping jaunts with her daughters to Singapore—appears finally to have alarmed her husband. He reportedly stepped in when his wife asked army officials to deliver to her a huge quantity of luxury goods confiscated from the home of sacked agriculture minister Nyunt Tin.

 

The disgraced minister was arrested on charges relating to a $10 million business scandal. A raid on his home netted more than 30 unlicensed cars and a treasure trove of gold and jewelry. But when Kyaing Kyaing asked her army cronies to deliver to her the confiscated goods, alarm bells reportedly rang at the top and Than Shwe intervened and countermanded her instruction.

 

Kyaing Kyaing seems to have taken her husband’s rare display of authority to heart, for she retired from public view for some time, although she remains honorary patron of the Myanmar [Burma] Women’s Affairs Federation.

 

Lt-Gen Myint Swe [Rangoon Commander]

 

The powerful new military intelligence chief, Lt-Gen Myint Swe, gained prominence after the ousting of former military intelligence boss and prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt in October 2004, and he seems to have been blessed by good fortune ever since. It is not surprising that cronyism is the order of the day in any authoritarian society. But in Burma, under its current military regime, it seems to have gone overboard.

 

Newly-promoted Lt-Gen Myint Swe, commander of Rangoon Command and chief of the post-Khin Nyunt Military Affairs Security, the new military intelligence agency formerly known as DSI, has benefited from this. He was promoted to his current rank on October 20, despite any visible professional military merit.

 

When an unusual bomb campaign in three locations in Rangoon in May killed 21 people, with dozens injured, it was under Myint Swe’s watch.Yet he was still promoted. There were other reported bomb attacks in the country, including the second city of Mandalay. The regime has found no suspects for any of the attacks and, predictably, has blamed foreign-based opposition groups.