Native name အောင်ဆန်းဦး Name Aung Oo Nationality American Spouse Lei Lei Nwe Thein | Ethnicity Bamar Parents Aung San, Khin Kyi Occupation Engineer Cousins Sein Win | |
Siblings Aung San Suu Kyi, Aung San Lin, Aung San Chit Grandparents U Pha, Phwa Su, Daw Suu, Pho Hnyin Similar People | ||
Aung San Oo (Burmese: အောင်ဆန်းဦး) is the elder brother of Burmese National League for Democracy chairwoman and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi; the two are the only surviving children of Burmese independence leader Aung San. Aung San Oo is an engineer. 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. 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.
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Aung San Oo was educated in England and immigrated to the United States in 1973. His wife, Lei Lei Nwe Thein (also spelled Leilei Nwe Thein), is also an American citizen.
The lawsuit
Aung San Oo is estranged from his sister; while Suu Kyi has become 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 had been held under intermittent house arrest from 1989 to 2010. There was widespread speculation among observers at the time that Aung San Oo would then sell his half-share to the junta, but the High Court ruled against Oo, much to the surprise of the same observers, who had assumed that it would bring down whatever verdict was preferred by the junta. The Burmese Lawyers' Council describes the lawsuit as an attempt by the junta to publicly humiliate the leader of the National League for Democracy. 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. 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.
The mansion
Since 2005, Aung San Oo has been constructing a large mansion on a prime location within the exclusive Archaeological Zone in Bagan. Oo himself, as a U.S. citizen, cannot legally hold property in Burma (it was on this basis that the Rangoon High Court dismissed his claim for a half-share in the house in Rangoon), but his wife's family is understood to be acting as proxy on his behalf. His wife, Daw Lei Lei Nwe Thein, is rumoured to harbour political ambitions for Oo through his connections with the junta, although there is no independent source to confirm these rumours.