Myanmar’s military leader puts in rare appearance at event honoring Aung San Suu Kyi’s father

BANGKOK (AP) – The head of Myanmar’s military government made a rare appearance at a ceremony on Saturday honoring General Aung San, an independence hero and father of jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

It was the first time that 69-year-old Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing attended the Martyrs’ Day wreath-laying since the army ousted Suu Kyi and seized power in February 2021. The leader’s appearance comes as his embattled government is preparing to hold elections while fighting armed opposition groups across the country.

Martyrs’ Day was an important event in Myanmar’s calendar for decades, but the military has downplayed the holiday in recent years. It commemorates the assassination of Aung San, a former Prime Minister who was gunned down at the age of 32 along with six Cabinet colleagues and two other officials in 1947, just months before the country – then called Burma – achieved freedom from British colonial rule. A political rival, former Prime Minister U Saw, was tried and hanged for plotting the attack.

Suu Kyi, who was detained when the army took over in 2021, was absent from the event for a fifth consecutive year. She is currently serving a 27-year prison term on what are widely regarded as contrived charges meant to keep her from political activity. She has not been seen in public since her arrest.

Ye Aung Than, a son of Suu Kyi’s estranged older brother, laid a wreath in front of his grandfather’s tomb during the main ceremony at the Martyrs’ Mausoleum near the foot of the towering Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon.

With Myanmar national flags flying at half-staff, members of the ruling military council, and cabinet, as well as high-ranking military generals joined Min Aung Hlaing in placing a basket of flowers in front of the tombs of the nine martyrs.

As the ceremony was held, people in Yangon paid tribute to independence leaders by blaring car horns and sirens at 10:37 a.m., the time of the 1947 attack.

Democracy supporters also held scattered rallies in parts of the country that are not under military control.

The event comes five months before elections that the military has promised to hold by the end of this year.

The poll is widely seen as an attempt to legitimize the military’s seizure of power through the ballot box and is expected to deliver a result that ensures the generals retain control.

The 2021 military takeover was met with widespread nonviolent protests, but after peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

Since the army took power, 6,974 people including poets, activists, politicians and others have been killed, and 29,405 people have been arrested by the security forces, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent organization that keeps detailed tallies of arrests and casualties linked to the nation’s political conflicts. The military government calls that figure an exaggeration.

The military, which is now estimated to control less than half the country, has been accelerating its counter-offensives to retake areas controlled by opposition groups ahead of the election.