(By Than Shwe, at the time of his death)

Dear Peoples of Burma!
Forgive me for my deeds
Atrocious to the extreme
My fear and anger
I had for you
Could not be controlled
So I tried to control
All of you.

Forgive me for hating you
My lack of knowledge
And education
My shortcomings
My bad judgement
My ignorance
Made me ashamed
Of myself.

Aung San Suu Kyi was a thorn in my flesh
She was the one who could give you what
You good citizens deserve
She was everything I was not
She had everything I lacked
Everyone loved her
But everyone hated me!
Those of you who knew
What was good and what was bad
Those of you who were innocent
And full of joy and caring
How I despised you all!

I wanted you all to suffer
Because of my own suffering
Yes, I made you suffer
As much as I could
All of you who were weaker than I!

The basic human rights
I deprived you of
You were not even allowed
To have thoughts
That I disapproved of
The truth that you felt in your hearts
And even in your prayers
I controlled them all!

I ordered my troops and militia to do my dirty work;
I manipulated and moulded their minds
With bribes and threats and by evil means
Which only a conniving villain would use!

You Shans, Karens and other ethnic races,
Your courage, simplicity and determination
Filled my soul with venomous jealousy,
Poisonous rage and bitterness.

I had no freedom,
So I destroyed yours,
I made you live in fear,
In poverty and in despair -
I robbed you of everything you had;
Education, livelihood, home, land,
And country
But worse of all,
Your freedom!

Hundreds and thousands I had ordered to be imprisoned,
Tortured, or unlawfully murdered,
All the women and children my soldiers had raped;
The one million poor internally displaced people
Will forever be my great source of remorse!

My selfishness and my gluttony for
Opulence and power
Got the better of me
I was nothing but
A black hearted thief and murderer!

I had a pitiful life that was worthless
All the money without the riches
Of the heart and mind
Was completely pointless!

In my shameful life
There was no one whom I could trust
My wife was an ogress, my children greedy,
My generals were scheming
And they were there to grab
Whatever they could from me.

Oh, Peoples of Burma!
As I lay here dying,
I beg for your forgiveness,
For it has dawned on me that
You are not my enemies at all,
But peaceful and good Citizens of this Earth,
And that my worst enemy was myself!

Had I the wisdom, awareness and sense
To have realized that when I had the chance
I would have done all I could within my power
To do the best I could
For your welfare and the betterment
Of this great nation!

But now it is far too late,
Oh, this is my great remorse!

Feraya