Top Myanmar general flies home after medical trip

YANGON, Jan 12 (Reuters) Myanmar junta supremo Than Shwe flew home today after a hush-hush medical trip to a top Singapore hospital where he was reported to have received treatment for intestinal cancer.

An airport source said the 73-year-old Senior General, as he is known in the former Burma, and his entourage flew into Yangon on a special charter flight. He was met by top regime leaders at the airport, the source said.

''I just don't know his health condition,'' the source said.

Than Shwe, who became Myanmar's most powerful man in 1992, left for Singapore on December 31 accompanied by his family and a team of doctors led by his Health Minister and personal physician, Kyaw Myint.

As usual, state-controlled media remained tight-lipped about the trip although his failure to attend an Independence Day state banquet on January 4 -- the first time he has missed the event in 16 years -- prompted speculation about a serious medical condition.

A Reuters reporter and photographer who tried to see Than Shwe at Singapore General Hospital found several security guards outside one ward and were barred from entering a corridor by Myanmar officials.

The hospital declined to comment and its security staff forced the photographer to delete the images on his camera.

The Democratic Voice of Burma, an Oslo-based media group, cited hospital sources as saying Than Shwe was being treated for cancer of the intestine.

His state of health has been a source of intense speculation in the ultra-secretive southeast Asian nation, which has been under military rule of one form or another since 1962.

In 2005, rumours he was gravely ill and had been ousted from power triggered frenzied gold buying in Yangon. The regime later accused foreign media of issuing slanderous reports.

Than Shwe's last official trip abroad was a state visit to India in 2004 where he was hounded by pro-democracy protesters demanding the release of detained opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

REUTERS SP BS1433