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Former Burmese President is dead at



Subject: Former Burmese President is dead at 78

Former Burmese president is dead at 78
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Rangoon, Jan 29, (AFP)- San Yu, former president of Burma and
vice Chairman of the Burma Socialist Programme Party(BSPP), which
was in power for nearly two-and-a-half decades, has died at age
78, official news media said Monday.

Born in 1918 to a Sino-Burmese family, San Yu studied medicine in
Rangoon when World war II broke out and joined the army to serve
as a junior officer while Burma was under Japanese occupation.

San Yu rose to the rank of general and was one of the members of
General Ne Win's revolutionary council which took over from Prime
Minister U Nu in 1962 following a military coup.

San Yu was the first general secretary of the ruling BSPP and
became its vice President in 1985. He became chief of staff and
defence minister in 1972 and assumed the presidency in 1981.

Following widespread anti-government unrest in 1988 which toppled
his BSPP administration, San Yu retired from his office to live
quietly in suburban Rangoon.

The Obituary in the Burmese-language newspapers said San Yu would
be buried on Tuesday afternoon.