Win Tin, NLD Leader Hospitalized

By WAI MOE

Win Tin, Burma’s prominent veteran journalist and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), was hospitalized in Rangoon on Thursday.

Nyan Win, the NLD spokesman, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that Win Tin, 79, was under treatment for low blood pressure at a private hospital, the Yangon Medical Center in Rangoon.
“Now his situation is better,” Nyan Win said.

A friend of Win Tin said that his low blood pressure was detected on Thursday evening, but was now under control.

Win Tin was released from the infamous Insein Prison in September after he served 19 years. He was arrested in 1989 while he was aide to the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. When he was in prison, he won several international awards.

On Thursday, Win Tin and his prison mate, Khin Maung Swe, were named members of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP), an umbrella opposition group of winning political parties in the 1990 election.

Win Tin and Khin Maung Swe are also executive members of the NLD.

Aye Thar Aung, the CRPP secretary, said during a recent interview with The Irrawaddy that the CRPP plans to seek a meaning dialogue between the junta and opposition groups prior to the 2010 elections as a way to break the political deadlock and open a path to a democratic transition in the country. Without an inclusive political process, the junta’s election plan would be illegitimate, he said.

The CRPP was formed in 1998 after the military junta failed to respond to the opposition’s calls to recognize the results of the 1990 elections. The NLD won a landslide in the election.

The CRPP is made up of 15 members representing the NLD and ethnic parties. Three member—Suu Kyi, Tin Oo and ethnic Shan leader Hkun Htun Oo—are under detention.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, was visited by her family doctor , Tin Myo Win, on Thursday. Tin Myo Win and his assistant went to the lakeside compound where Suu Kyi is detained in the early afternoon and stayed about four hours, according to Agence France-Presse.