Aung San Oo

In this Burmese name, the given name is Aung San Oo. There is no family name.
Aung San Oo
အောင်ဆန်းဦး
Born1943 (age 81–82)
NationalityBurmese American
OccupationEngineer
SpouseLei Lei Nwe Thein
Parent(s)Aung San
Khin Kyi
RelativesAung San Suu Kyi (sister)
Aung San Lin (brother)
Aung San Chit (sister)
Alexander Aris (nephew)
Kim Aris (nephew)
Ba Win (uncle)
Sein Win (cousin)

Aung San Oo (Burmese: အောင်ဆန်းဦး, born in 1943[1][2]) is a Burmese engineer who is the elder brother of politician and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi; the two are the only surviving children of Burmese independence leader Aung San.

Life

Aung San Oo as an infant

Aung San Oo has been described by the Burmese Lawyers' Council and the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma as a potential surrogate of the junta in an attempt to humiliate Aung San Suu Kyi and place her in an untenable position.[3][4] Time magazine reports that, according to Burmese exiles and observers in Rangoon, the junta used the alleged surrogacy of Aung San Oo and his lawsuit as an act of spite against the National League for Democracy leader.[5]

Aung San Oo's mansion in Bagan, 2007

Aung San Oo was educated in England and immigrated to the United States in 1973.[6] His wife, Lei Lei Nwe Thein (also spelled Leilei Nwe Thein), is also an American citizen.[7]

In 2005, Aung San Oo initiated the construction of a large mansion in Bagan. Being a U.S. citizen, he is legally unable to own property in Myanmar – a point that led to the Rangoon High Court dismissing his claim for a half-share in a house in Rangoon. Nevertheless, it is understood that his wife's family is serving as a proxy on his behalf.[8]

When Aung San Suu Kyi came to power in 2015, Aung San Oo started his personal website and began attacking Suu Kyi's government. On 8 October 2020, the NLD government banned Aung San Oo's website due to the spread of fake news.[9]

Litigation

Disputed family house 54 University Avenue.

Aung San Oo is estranged from his sister; while Suu Kyi became the leader of the Burmese National League for Democracy party, Oo is close to the ruling military junta. In 2000, Oo brought legal action against Suu Kyi in the Rangoon High Court demanding a half-share in the family home, where she was held under intermittent house arrest from 1989 to 2010.[10] There was widespread speculation at the time that Aung San Oo would then sell his half-share to the junta,[4] but the High Court ruled against Oo.[5] The Burmese Lawyers' Council describes the lawsuit as an attempt by the junta to publicly humiliate the leader of the National League for Democracy.[3] The Burmese Government in exile claims that had Aung San Oo won his case, he would have put Aung San Suu Kyi in an extremely precarious position.[4] In the Time article it is also reported that the junta may have used this legal manoeuver to "back Aung San Suu Kyi into a corner", despite advice to the contrary by the visiting former Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto the year before the lawsuit.[5]

In 2016, the Western Yangon District Court ordered the property to be equally divided between Aung San Oo and Aung San Suu Kyi. However, the former considered the decision unfair and appealed unsuccessfully multiple times to have the property auctioned off and the proceeds split between him and Suu Kyi. Following the military coup that ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, the Supreme Court of Myanmar heard a special appeal from Aung San Oo and decided in 2022 to have the property auctioned off, which was confirmed by a district court in Yangon to begin on 20 March 2024. A legal official said that the property is valued at around 315 billion kyats ($90 million).[11]

References

  1. ^ Pederson, Rena (15 January 2015). The Burma Spring. Pegasus Books. ISBN 9781605986678.
  2. ^ Sherman, Patrice (15 December 2017). Aung San Suu Kyi: Peaceful Resistance to the Burmese Military Junta. Cavendish Square Publishing. ISBN 9781502631107.
  3. ^ a b Legal Issues On Burma Journal No. 7, December 2000 Burma Lawyers' Council quote: "This approach reeks of a sinister attempt to publicly humiliate the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which overwhelmingly won the one and only democratic general election conducted by the military junta."
  4. ^ a b c NCGUB Archived 4 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine quote: "If he wins the case, U Aung San Oo is expected to turn his share of the house over to the government, a result which would put Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in an extremely precarious position."
  5. ^ a b c "Burmese Democracy Leader Faces New Threat". Time, 28 November 2000. "Talk about spite. First, Burma's military government told pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi that she couldn't leave Rangoon. Then they told her that she couldn't leave her house. Now, they want the house." and: "Late last year, former Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto visited Burma and met with the generals. Burma's military is anxious for Japan to resume aid to their country, which it cut off when soldiers gunned down thousands of democracy demonstrators in 1988. Hashimoto gave the generals this advice when it came to dealing with Suu Kyi and her followers: Don't back her into a corner. The generals, it appears, aren't listening."
  6. ^ Hansen, Barbara (1 February 1996). "The Kitchen Ambassador: Leilei Nwe Thein shares the culture and cooking of Southern California's tiny Burmese community". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
  7. ^ "Burmese-American Citizen returns from Homeland Merch Mission". ShelterboxUSA. 3 June 2008. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
  8. ^ Irrawaddy magazine, "Suu Kyi's Brother Builds a Winter Retreat", 12 October 2005 Archived 16 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ "အကိုကြီးသော်လည်း အဖ အရာ မမြောက်ဘဲ စစ်တပ်အလိုတော်ကျ အသုံး တော်ခံသည့် အောင်ဆန်းဦး (သို့မဟုတ်) နှမငယ်အပေါ် မနာလို မရှုစိမ့်သည့် မိဘမျက်နှာ အိုးမည်းသုတ်သူ". Khit Thit Media (in Burmese). 22 August 2022.
  10. ^ "Brother of Myanmar's Suu Kyi seeks share of family property". AP NEWS. 27 June 2022. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  11. ^ Grant Peck (25 January 2024). "After family feud, Myanmar court orders auction of home where Suu Kyi spent 15 years' house arrest". Associated Press.