Tin Oo, one of Myanmar’s most influential political figures and a close ally of detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was put to rest on Wednesday under Yangon’s cloudy skies.
Tin Oo’s life was vividly intertwined with the country’s history since it gained independence from Britain in 1948. Charismatic and popular among the troops during his years as head of the armed forces under former dictator Ne Win, he was ousted and jailed on political charges in 1976, when he was at the height of his military career.
After his release from prison in 1980, he spent a couple of years as a Buddhist monk. Then, as the country rose up against Ne Win’s despotic rule in 1988, he became a co-founder with Suu Kyi of the National League for Democracy (NLD), Myanmar’s future ruling party.
Over the next three decades, he played an active role in Myanmar’s politics. Like other NLD leaders, he was subjected to harassment and repeated arrest. In 2003, he and Suu Kyi were targeted in the deadly Depayin massacre, which saw the brutal murder of dozens of party members and supporters.After this incident, both party leaders were again detained by a regime fearful of their enormous popular appeal.
It wasn’t until 2018 that his advancing age and poor health forced Tin Oo into retirement. At the time, the country appeared to be making some political and economic progress under the NLD’s leadership.
However, in his final years, before his death last weekend at the age of 97, he was once again forced to witness Myanmar’s decline, brought on by a coup that has sent the country into a spiraling crisis marked by untold atrocities. Since the military takeover of February 2021, thousands of people, including hundreds of NLD party members and Suu Kyi herself, have been imprisoned for opposing the regime, and thousands more have been killed.
On Wednesday, Yangon was able to briefly relive the relative openness of the decade that preceded the current catastrophe. Tin Oo’s funeral attracted hundreds of mourners—the largest public gathering in the city since the massive anti-coup protests of three years ago. Although small in comparison to those demonstrations of popular outrage, the funeral procession harkened back to a time when political expression was still possible in Myanmar.
One scene captured by photographers was especially emblematic of the state of Myanmar today: As the procession, bearing a large portrait of Tin Oo, passes Suu Kyi’s shuttered Yangon home, we catch a glimpse of another portrait—that of Suu Kyi’s father, independence hero Aung San—above the gate. Faded and almost colourless, it is a reminder of how the military has diminished its own honour and all but drained the life out of a country that it profeses to govern.
Among those who attended the funeral at Yangon’s Yay Way cemetery were family members of jailed political leaders, including ousted President Win Myint. Other NLD members, some not seen in public since the coup, were also present.
Diplomats from China, India and Japan were also notably in attendance. In a social media post, the Chinese embassy in Yangon referred to Tin Oo as the patron of the NLD, despite the fact that the party no longer officially exists under the current regime.
Perhaps the most surprising sight at the funeral was a garland sent by junta leader Min Aung Hlaing. The military commander of Yangon Region was also seen paying his respects.
Soon after seizing power, Min Aung Hlaing visited the ailing Tin Oo in his central Yangon home in an apparent attempt to justify his takeover in the eyes of military officials. In a further sign of respect, he unveiled and saluted statues of Tin Oo and other former army chiefs at a ceremony held in 2021.
But these gestures by a disgraced commander in chief will do little to restore confidence in his rule. As Tin Oo knew, Myanmar’s military will never be able to restore its honour until it accepts its rightful place—as the servant of a democratically elected civilian government.
