Yangon - Myanmar's Martyr's Day, the annual commemoration of the assassinations of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's father Aung San and eight other heroes of the independence movement, was held in downgraded fashion Saturday.

The 61st Martyr's Day was led Saturday by Yangon Mayor Brigadier- General Aung Thein Linn, unlike previous ceremonies that were hosted by the minister of culture. At this year's ceremony, for the first time, foreign diplomats were not invited.

No official reason for the downgrading of the ceremony has been announced.

Myanmar's military rulers shifted their capital in late 2004 to Naypyitaw, leaving Yangon the country's largest city and still the site for embassies but not for government ministries and the military.

Martyr's Day is a national holiday commemorating the assassination of Aung San, his brother Ba Win, six cabinet ministers and three others on July 19, 1947, on the orders of rival politician U Saw.

Suu Kyi, daughter of Aung San, who has been under house arrest since May 2003, last attended a Martyr's Day ceremony in 2002.

The head of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party has been under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.

The NLD was scheduled to hold a separate Martyr's Day ceremony Saturday afternoon. Security has been tightened in the former capital, eyewitnesses said.

Aung San, who was only 32 when he died in a hail of bullets, is still a revered figure in Myanmar as the founder of the military and one of the key players in winning Myanmar independence from the British, which was granted months after his death in 1948.

Myanmar's current military leaders, who have ruled the country since 1988 under the equivalent of martial law, are known to have mixed feelings about Aung San and his family.

Aung San's daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, returned to Myanmar in 1988 after years studying abroad to tend her ailing mother and got swept up in that year's nationwide anti-military demonstrations, which forced former strongman General Ne Win to resign.

Ne Win put an end to Myanmar's brief fling with democracy in 1962, when he toppled Myanmar's first elected Prime Minister U Nu with a coup and launched the country along the economically disastrous Burmese Way to Socialism.

Although Aung San is remembered as the founder of the Myanmar military, which became a separate force in 1942, Ne Win is seen as the father of the military dictatorship that has lorded over the country since 1962. (dpa)