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Reuters-Myanmar's Ne Win said in Si



Myanmar's Ne Win said in Singapore for treatment 
01:09 a.m. Sep 28, 1998 Eastern 

YANGON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Ne Win, the officially retired architect of
military rule in Myanmar, flew to Singapore at the weekend for medical
treatment, a business source told Reuters on Monday. 

Ne Win, 88, left Yangon for the Southeast Asian city state on a Myanmar
Airways flight on Sunday morning, said the source, who declined to be
identified. 

The source said Ne Win's health condition was unclear at present. Further
details were not available. 

An airline source confirmed that Ne Win's name was on the passenger
manifest. 

Ne Win, one of the leaders of Myanmar's (Burma's) independence movement
from Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, led a coup in 1962 that began the past
three-and-a-half decades of military-dominated rule in Myanmar. 

He implemented the ``Burmese Way to Socialism,'' a disastrous doctrine that
reduced Myanmar from one of Southeast Asia's richest countries to one of
its poorest. 

Ne Win officially retired from politics in 1988, the year the military
seized direct control by bloodily crushing a nationwide pro-democracy
uprising. 

His name is rarely mentioned in public and he has scarcely been seen since
he officially relinquished power, but many political analysts believe he
continues to wield considerable influence from behind the scenes. 

A personal visit to Indonesia in September 1997 was the first time he had
been in public since 1988.