Word: aung
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Shaven Head. Ne Win's only visible support remains the 50,000-man Burmese army, but there is evidence that even this last bulwark is being undermined; popular Brigadier Aung Gyi, who disagrees with Ne Win's policies, is in exile in a Buddhist monastery where, his head shaven, he spends his time meditating...
Ever since General Ne Win tossed bumbling Premier U Nu out of office last March, the only thing that has kept him from rushing headlong into a program of industrial nationalization and farm collectivization has been the influence of tough, handsome Brigadier Aung Gyi. Last week the brakes were off. After a long feud with leftist members in the 17-man Revolutionary Council, Aung Gyi "most respectfully" asked Strongman Ne Win "to relieve me of the various duties to which I have been assigned...
...Army Vice Chief of Staff, Minister of Trade and Industry, and Chairman of the Burma Oil Co., Aung Gyi was Ne Win's No. 2 man and heir apparent. The son of a well-to-do Chinese textile merchant and a Burmese woman, he proved himself a canny diplomat both in the 1960 negotiations that fixed Burma's borders with Red China and in last month's talks with Japan that produced $170 million in additional World War II reparations and loans. Despite his insistence that "I have no training in economics," he built a modest army...
Inevitably, Aung Gyi's gradualism annoyed Ne Win, a soldier who is no Communist but has vowed to socialize Burma as quickly as possible. Aung Gyi earned the enmity of Brigadier Tin Pe, a Marxist theorist and a key member of the Revolutionary Council. For months, Tin Pe pressed for a faster switchover to state control; Aung Gyi's departure means that Tin Pe has finally...
Stripped of power, Aung Gyi, 43, flew off to voluntary exile in an isolated Burmese village near the borders of China and India. At least four high-ranking officers who shared his views were arrested or forced into retirement. With the opposition out of the way, Ne Win declared that the government would immediately take over the import and export business, the rice trade and some private industries. Burma's economy, said he, would now come under "total state control...