Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi this afternoon attended the funeral of a political prisoner who died yesterday of a serious stomach ailment, according to witnesses in Rangoon.
"U Aung May Thu died of a perforated gastric ulcer in the guarded ward of Rangoon General Hospital at about 4:30 yesterday evening," said U Ohn Myint, vice-chairman of the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) Social Support Committee, which assists political prisoners and their families. "His condition was serious, and required an operation within hours," he added.
Sources said that Aung May Thu, 61, was sent from Tharawaddy Prison to a local hospital on Sept 16, but did not receive proper treatment there. The sources added the Burmese junta’s Military Intelligence (MI) may have been responsible for delaying treatment of his illness. However, after a sudden drastic deterioration of his condition, he was transferred to Rangoon General Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery.
"He died because he was hospitalized too late," said a friend and former fellow inmate. "If he had been sent to the hospital in time, he would not have died."
Aung May Thu was arrested on Nov 6, 1989 on charges of having connections with the banned Communist Party of Burma (CPB). A military tribunal later sentenced him to 20 years imprisonment under section 5(j) of the Emergency Provisions Act and 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act. Later, his sentence was reduced to 10 years, in line with a decree issued in 1993 that halved the sentences of all political prisoners.
Although he completed his sentence in 1999, he remained in detention at Tharawaddy Prison under section 10(a) of the State Protection Act, which allows for an indefinite extension of prison sentences if a prisoner is deemed to present a continued threat to the state. During the era of former dictator Ne Win, Aung May Thu spent seven years at the notorious Coco Island penal colony.
Aung May Thu is the second political prisoner to die in Burma in recent months. At the end of July, Mai Aik Pan, a leader of the Palaung ethnic group, passed away in southern Burma’s Moulmein Hospital while serving a seven-year prison sentence.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), more than 70 political prisoners have died in prison since 1988, when the current regime seized power in a bloody coup.
Rights groups estimate that there are more that 1,500 political prisoners still detained in Burma’s prisons. The release of all political prisoners has been a key demand of the NLD since it entered into secret talks with the junta nearly two years ago.
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