$50m-plus wedding for daughter of SPDC boss
"People were shocked to see the extravagance of the wedding," said a reporter with a local journal in the Burmese capital. "They're asking themselves where the money came from in a country that ranks as one of the world's poorest."
"People are just outraged," said the editor of a business weekly. Viewers were offended by the extravagance of the event, where Thandar Shwe and her bridegroom, Maj Zaw Phyo Win, a deputy director at the Ministry of Commerce, were showered with expensive gifts, including luxury cars, houses and jewellery.
The total value of wedding gifts was said to be a staggering US$50 million (Bt1.8 billion).
Rangoon journalists compared the wedding to the parties thrown by Burma's late dictator Gen Ne Win. His birthday parties and the annual New Year flings for his favourite daughter were far classier, they say. But then, they recall, the Ne Win family had acquired a sophistication that the Than Shwe clan painfully lack.
In comparisons made between the lifestyles of Ne Win and Gen Than Shwe, observers recall Ne Win's 90th birthday party in early 2001, which was his last. Ne Win was accompanied to the event at Rangoon's Hotel Sedona by his favourite daughter, Sandar Win and her husband, Aye Zaw Win.
Video footage of that event was also made public, but it was believed that Ne Win's family members had engineered the leak to demonstrate that the old man was still going strong.
One year later, Ne Win was put under house arrest and his favourite grandsons were charged with treason. Sandar Win is still under house arrest.
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