Impassive Myanmar general keeps guard up

By Patrick Worsnip

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar (Reuters) - The handshake was firm, but the face remained impassive throughout.

There was no way Myanmar junta supremo Than Shwe, one of the world's most reclusive leaders, was going to let his guard down in front of the first foreign reporters to get close to him in years.

Even though he was greeting United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on a mercy mission for 2.4 million destitute victims of Cyclone Nargis, the stocky 75-year-old Senior General was unable to forgo his habitual khaki-green military garb.

His dark green shirt, open at the neck, was laden with medals and decorations befitting a man who has spent the last 55 years moving up the ranks of the former Burma's all-powerful army.

The only time he has been captured on film wearing anything other than khaki was at the 2006 wedding of his daughter.

Secret video sneaked onto the Internet showed him looking awkward and uncomfortable in white shirt and traditional orange sarong at a lavish "champagne and diamonds" ceremony that sparked outrage among ordinary people in one of Asia's poorest nations.

There was little sign of moderation in Naypyidaw, the capital he carved out of the foothills of the Shan plateau in 2005 at the behest -- or so most Burmese believe -- of an astrologer.

The cavernous hall in which he received Ban was dripping with chandeliers and bedecked in ceiling-high tapestries of ancient Buddhist pagodas. The two men sat on padded wooden armchairs more akin to thrones.