For many years, Myint Thein was one of the few political dissidents in Burma able or willing to allow his name to be attached to the comments about the need for democratic change in a country headed by a régime that rules with an iron fist. As spokesman for the National League for Democracy, the party of the imprisoned political leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Thein regularly met with journalists – usually in secret – and tried to draw the attention of the outside world to the movement's struggle.
Active in the democracy movement since 1988, the year that thousands of civilians were killed by the military after a democracy uprising, he was imprisoned for a number of years. His most recent incarceration followed last September's protests, initiated by civilians but taken up by Buddhist monks, which saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets of Burma's biggest cities in a remarkable display of defiance.
He was held in Rangoon's notorious Insein Jail, where his health deteriorated rapidly. Released at the end of October, Thein was told he had severe gastritis and a problem with his gall bladder. Doctors recommended he travel to Singapore for treatment, a process that took two months to arrange, with the authorities allegedly refusing to speed up the process. He eventually arrived in Singapore General Hospital at the end of January where he was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
Born in 1947, Thein was elected as an MP from Kyaikmayaw Township in Burma's Mon State – a region dominated by the ethnic Mon people. He became a leading member of the state's NLD apparatus in the aftermath of the 1990 general election which the party easily won but whose victory was ignored by the military. A close ally of Suu Kyi, he was appointed party spokesman in 2004.
Thein always remained optimistic that international pressure could bring about change. Shortly before his arrest in September, he said: "We believe that if the international community makes enough pressure to release Suu Kyi they will. She is a Mandela. She will unite all the people."
Andrew Buncombe
Myint Thein, political campaigner: born 8 October 1947; married (one son); died Singapore 28 March 2008.
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