Meanwhile, Win Tin says he is practically homeless. His property was seized by the government when he went to jail on July 4, 1989, and his friends have been denied the government approval needed to house him.
Born into a poor family in north Yangon, also known as Rangoon, Win Tin dreamed of joining Myanmar's struggle for independence from the British. When he was a teenager, he met Aung San, the nation's independence hero and father of Aung San Suu Kyi. Win Tin asked if he could join the resistance and was rebuffed.
"Aung San plainly said, 'Stick with your studies. There are many people to fight. The time will come for you,' " Win Tin said.
When an uprising broke out in 1988, he became a founding member of NLD and a close aide to Suu Kyi. He was arrested a year later and jailed, and his sentence was extended after he managed to smuggle out a report to a United Nations official about torture and other human-rights violations rampant in Myanmar's jails.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Win Tin had repeatedly refused to sign a letter promising to give up his political activities as a condition of his release. Local news reports have said that Win Tin could be jailed for refusing to return his prison-issue dungarees. He says he will continue to wear the prison blues until Myanmar is free.
"I remember Daw Suu Kyi's response to this kind of warning about her security. She said, 'If a quack shoots me with a pistol, then the whole world will know where this bullet comes from,' " he said.
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McDermid is a special correspondent. Special correspondent Swe Win contributed to this report.
