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According to The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a government mouthpiece, Soe Win died Friday at 5.30pm at the Rangoon hospital.

 Medical sources said he died of leukemia. Soe Win's twin brother, Major General Tin Tun, died on September 19 shortly after donating bone marrow in an attempt to save Soe Win's life, sources close to the military said.

 Once deemed a possible successor to Burma's junta chief Senior General Thanj Shwe, Soe Win has been out of the military hierarchy struggle for more than a year because of illness.

  A hardliner in dealing with the pro-democracy movement led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, Soe Win was known as "the butcher of Depayin" for his role as mastermind of the deadly attack against the National League for Democracy on May 30, 2003.

 More than 70 National League for Democracy supporters were killed by a government-sponsored mob at the Depayin massacre and Suu Kyi was thereafter put under house arrest in Rangoonwhere she has languished in near complete isolation since.

  Soe Win is expected to be replaced by Lt Gen Thein Sein who was appointed acting prime minister on May 18 and took over the post as Secretary-1 of the junta, making him the third most powerful man in the regime.

 Than Sein was chairman of the National Convention process, the junta's answer to international calls for democratic change in the country which has been under military rule since 1962.

 In the aftermath of a brutal crackdown on peaceful monk-led protests on September 26 and 27 in Yangon, that left ten people dead and led to more than 2,000 arrests, the international community has strongly condemned the Myanmar regime and called for the freeing of opposition leader Suu Kyi, all other political prisoners and the commencement of a political dialogue to bring democracy to the country.

 On Thursday the United Nations Security Council issued a statement "strongly" deploring the Burmese military government's repression of pro-democracy demonstrators.

  Although Than Shwe met with UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari earlier this month and has agreed to initiate a dialogue with Suu Kyi if she drops her support for western sanctions against the regime, there is little optimism that the junta is sincere about giving up its absolute power any time soon.

 On Friday night the government issued a statement that described the UN Security Council's statement as "deplorable."

   "At any costs Myanmar will continue implementing the seven-step road map to democracy in keeping with the wishes of the people," said the statement, which was repeated by The New Light of Myanmar.

 The seven-step road map is the junta's proposed solution to bringing democracy to Burma. The process, which includes drafting a new constitution, holding a referendum on it and eventually staging a general election, is expected to take years to implement and will assure the military keeps its dominant role in ruling the country.

 The plan has been roundly criticised as a "sham" by opposition politicians, western democracies and the UN, and has lost its last shred of credibility in the aftermath of the anti-military demonstrations of last month.//dpa