Myanmar should have a national intelligence agency, former prime minister and head of the purged Military Intelligence organization U Khin Nyunt said in Yangon on November 28.
“I wish that Myanmar had an organization for state security,” he told the media at a book launch at the Karaweik Palace Hotel on Kandawgyi Lake, adding: “State security is in fact the people’s security.”
However, the art gallery owner and former general stressed that he was not interested in being involved in any intelligence agency established by the government.
In media interviews after his release from house arrest under a presidential pardon on January 13 last year, U Khin Nyunt said that if requested he was prepared to serve as a consultant on strategic issues in the interest of the nation.
“If someone approaches me for a suggestion I will give if it in the interests of the nation,” he was quoted as saying in the The Wall Street Journal in November 2012.
U Khin Nyunt also said at the Karaweik Palace Hotel event that he was not interested in becoming involved in politics because he was too old.
“Politics is for a new generation,” he said.
A sweeping purge of the Military Intelligence organization followed the arrest of the then Prime Minister and long-serving intelligence chief at Yangon airport in October 18, 2004 on his return from a visit to Mandalay. About 20 former senior MI officers remain in prison.
The former spy chiefwas placed under house arrest after receiving a 44-year jail sentence for corruption.
U Khin Nyunt denied in an interview with The Irrawaddy magazine on November 28, 2012 that he was a murderer. “I just followed orders,” he said.
When the State Law and Order Restoration Council – which ruled after the military seized power in a coup in September 1988 – changed its name in 1997 to the State Peace and Development Council, U Khin Nyunt was appointed its first Secretary (1), a position he held until being named prime minister on August 25, 2003.
Soon after becoming prime minister he unveiled the seven-point roadmap for a transition to democracy which led eventually to the elections in 2010 that paved the way for the installation of the government headed by President U Thein Sein.
During the 1990s and early this century, U Khin Nyunt played a key role in forging peace agreements with many armed ethnic groups.
The book launched at the Karaweik Palace Hotel was a collection of interviews with U Khin Nyunt by author Myat Khine.
