David Oliver Abel ( my, ဒေးဗစ် အေဘယ်လ်; 28 February 1935 – 18 January 2019) was a Burmese economist, retired Brigadier General in the

Myanmar Army The Myanmar Army ( my, တပ်မတော်(ကြည်း), ) is the largest branch of the Tatmadaw, Armed Forces (''Tatmadaw'') of Myanmar (Burma) and has the primary responsibility of conducting land-based military operations. The My ...

and former

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

minister. He served variously as Minister of Commerce, Minister of Finance and Revenue, and Minister of National Planning and Economic Development. At one time, he ran all three ministries simultaneously. He was considered the country's economic czar throughout the 1990s. Abel retired from the

State Peace and Development Council The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...

and vacated his position as the Minister of the Chairman's Office on 25 August 2003.

Early life and education

Abel was born in 1935 in Insein, near

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

, but his family's roots were in

Maymyo Pyin Oo Lwin or Pyin U Lwin (, ; Shan: ), formerly and colloquially referred to as Maymyo (), is a scenic hill town in the Mandalay Region, Myanmar, some east of Mandalay, and at an elevation of . The town was estimated to have a population of ...

(now Pyin Oo Lwin). Abel's father, Alfred T. Abel was a

Burma Railways Rail transport in Myanmar consists of a railway network with 960 stations. The network, generally spanning north to south with branch lines to the east and west, is the second largest in Southeast Asia, and includes the Yangon Circular Railway ...

engineer, while his mother

Daw Daw or DAW may refer to: People and language * Daw (given name) * Daw (surname) * Daw, an honorific used in Burmese name#Honorifics, Burmese names * Dâw people, an indigenous people of Brazil * Dâw language, a language of Brazil * Davaoeño lang ...

Chai, was a senior school teacher. Abel's father is an ethnic

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, but he does have some

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

ancestry. He is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

of mixed Anglo-Burman and

heritage. Abel matriculated from Maymyo's Saint Albert's Catholic Missionary School in 1951. He then studied medicine at Mandalay College but did not complete his degree because of an ongoing insurgency in Upper Burma. He then attended the British

Royal Military Academy Sandhurst The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS or RMA Sandhurst), commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is one of several military academies of the United Kingdom and is the British Army's initial officer training centre. It is located in the town of ...

(RMAS) from 1953 to 1956, graduating with an economics degree.

Military and governmental career

Abel had served as the personal assistant of then-President General

San Yu San Yu ( my, စန်းယု, ; 3 March 1918 – 28 January 1996) was a Burmese army general and statesman who served as the fifth president of Myanmar from 9 November 1981 to 27 July 1988. Biography San Yu, an ethnic Chinese, was born i ...

of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma. He retired the

Tatmadaw Tatmadaw (, , ) is the official name of the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include th ...

in 1991 as a Director General of Procurement, with a rank of

Brigadier General Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

. Abel serving in the military, he has received many honors. Throughout his military career, he served in various civil administration posts. He was appointed by the

State Law and Order Restoration Council State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

to serve as a cabinet minister for the Ministry of Commerce (Burma), the Ministry of Finance (Burma),

Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development The Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development ( my, အမျိုးသားစီမံကိန်းနှင့် စီးပွားရေး ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်မှု ဝန်ကြီး ...

, and the Ministry of

's Office before retiring in 2003. Abel was hailed as the economic architect of the country for pushing for privatisation and establishing some of the largest military-owned enterprises of the country, Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL),

Myanmar Economic Corporation The Myanmar Economic Corporation ( my, မြန်မာ့စီးပွားရေး ကော်ပိုရေးရှင်း; abbreviated MEC) is one of the two major conglomerates and holding companies operated by the Burmese military ...

(MEC) in 1990, along with 12 joint venture companies, and served as Chairman of the

Myanmar Investment Commission The Myanmar Investment Commission ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှု ကော်မရှင်, abbreviated MIC) is a government-appointed body under the Ministry of Inv ...

until 1997. Abel stood out as a member of the junta because he was media-friendly, outspoken and a member of a religious minority. He was a

in a junta dominated by Buddhists and before pre-publication censorship was lifted in August 2012 could only be referred to by his family name because his Christian name, “David”, was banned from publication.

Personal life and death

Abel is married to Khin Thein Mu, a retired

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

. They have two children, a son Aung Thiha and a daughter Cho Cho Khine. He died with

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

on 18 January 2019 at the age of 83.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abel, David 1935 births 2019 deaths Anglo-Burmese people Burmese generals Burmese people of Indian descent Burmese people of Jewish descent Burmese Roman Catholics Finance ministers of Myanmar Government ministers of Myanmar Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Military personnel from Yangon