General Soe Win (; ; 10 May 1947 – 12 October 2007) was the Prime Minister of Burma and Secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Council from 2004 to 2007. He was known by Burmese dissident groups as "the butcher of Depayin" for his role as mastermind of the 2003 Depayin Massacre, in which 70 National League for Democracy supporters were killed by a government-sponsored mob. Biography Early career Soe Win was born in 1947. After completing his Conscripted service in a Border Guards Unit, he joined the Military Academy and was commissioned into the Air Defence Branch of the Air Force in 1969. A graduate of the Defense Services Academy (12th intake), he took part in the crackdown on democracy protesters as a Brigade Commander in 1988, deploying troops around Rangoon University and ordering them to shoot at Rangoon General Hospital during the upheaval. He became Tactical Operations Commander 3 of the Northwestern Regional Command in 1990. In 1997 he was named Regional Commander and a member of the junta, then called the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC. In November 2001 he was named Air Defense General of the War Office. In February 2003 he was promoted to Secretary-2 of the junta, which was vacant after Lieutenant General Tin Oo was killed in a helicopter crash two years before. Soe Win is widely regarded as the mastermind behind the deadly attack against National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters in the 30 May 2003 Depayin Massacre. In 2014, former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt released a memoir attributing responsibility for the massacre to Soe Win, who he claimed was acting on the instructions of former junta leader Senior General Than Shwe. The same year he accompanied Senior General Than Shwe on state visits to Vietnam and China. Soe Win also signed the order to dismiss Foreign Minister Win Aung and his deputy in September 2003. Rise to prime minister Soe Win was appointed prime minister by State Peace and Development Council chairman Than Shwe on 19 October 2004. Soe Win succeeded Khin Nyunt, who officially had been "permitted to retire for health reasons", but the reformist-minded premier had actually fallen out of favor with Than Shwe. Khin Nyunt was later convicted by a special tribunal of corruption charges and sentenced to 44 years in prison. As Secretary-1 in the SPDC and