public services can be seen also in the preference that foreign investors have shown to enter into partnerships with state enterprises rather than with domestic private firms. Myanmar’s short-lived success in the early 1990s to attract foreign investment under the ‘Open Door’ policy had all but ended by the time of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. A period of structural retrogression set in and by the end of the nineties Myanmar had shut down the only two independent Internet service providers (ISPs) in the country.14 There has been some foreign investment in value-added services, for example in 2002 in a US$12 million deal Shin Satellite (Thailand) set up a broadband satellite gateway with ‘semi state enterprise’ Bagan Cybertech, partly owned by Ye Naing Win, the son of ousted premier Khin Nyunt (see above).15 Bagan Cybertech was established in 2001 as part of Myanmar Teleport to be the ISP for a chain of Internet cafés. The Burmese deal was agreed to after a visit by Khin Nyunt to Bangkok in September 2001. At the time, it was reported that Burma's ruling junta wanted to cancel the use of Shin Satellite for transmission of the government's TV programmes as Yangon did not have the money to pay for the service, but Shin Satellite allowed the Burmese government to continue using the satellite service. In April 2002 Khin Nyunt was instrumental in the arrest and detention of family members of former Burmese dictator Ne Win for allegedly plotting a coup attempt against the junta. Maybe it was not coincidental that those in detention had recently launched their own terrestrial mobile cellular service, SkyLink, a potential rival to Ye Naing Win’s own telecom mogul ambitions.16 This event was a reflection of the vagaries and unpredictability of quickly accumulating (and just as quickly being dispossessed of) wealth by leveraging connections through the state apparatus. This was demonstrated two years later when Khin Nyunt proved equally powerless to protect himself and his family interests in Bagan Cybertech when he was deposed as Prime Minister. In October 2004 Bagan Cybertech was raided by the military after Khin Nyunt's arrest and officials went through the company's books, searching for incriminating evidence of malfeasance. Ye Naing Win is being held secretly and faces as yet unspecified charges, though the courts will likely rule on whether he was legally permitted to do business with foreigners.17 Bagan Cybertech was subsequently placed under the control of the Myanmar Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. 14 Eagle IT, one of the independent ISPs, was closed down because it would not transfer to the Ministry the domain initials .mm which denote Myanmar in Internet addresses. Asiaweek, 13 January 2000. 15 Ye Naing Win apparently reconciled with his father after a bizarre incident in 1998 where Khin Nyunt took out an advertisement in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper to announce that Ye Naing Win ‘was disowned by the parents for his inexcusable deed’, that of getting married to a woman from Singapore. (Pittsburg Post-Gazette, December 15, 1999) Under a law passed years ago by the junta to prevent Suu Kyi from taking office, a Burmese citizen married to a foreigner cannot hold government office, and neither can his or her parents. Suu Kyi had been married to a British citizen, Michael Aris, who died in 1999. 16 ‘Ne Win’s daughter, Sandar Win, who is being held under virtual house arrest along with her father at their Yangon home, is a prominent businesswoman who was a major shareholder of SkyLink. The family’s involvement in the project was one of the elements believed to have led to their downfall, after they began selling the handsets before being given permission by MPT, cheating other powerful investors in the scheme. Myanmar's communications minister was forced to resign amid the scandal.’ i.t.matters, Manila, 26 March 2002, itmatters.com.ph/news/news_03262002e.html 17 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific, 30 March 2005.