Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar – From captivity to Freedom
Like the South African leader Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of heroic and peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.
Aung San Suu Kyi was the recipient of the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding by the Government of India.
Family
Aung San Suu Kyi (now 65), was born on June 19, 1945, Rangoon, Burma [now Yangon, Myanmar]), Myanmar, is the opposition leader and daughter of Aung San (a martyred national hero of independent Burma) and Khin Kyi (a prominent Burmese diplomat).
Aung San Suu Kyi is the third child and only daughter of Aung San, considered to be the father of modern-day Burma.
In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been appointed Burma’s ambassador to Delhi.
Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics. There she met her future husband.
After stints of living and working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled down to be an English don’s housewife and raise their two children, Alexander and Kim.
Her husband, the British academic Michael Aris, died in 1999 of cancer. She could not visit him while he was dying without risking being exiled from her country forever, and the junta refused him an entry visa to Myanmar.
She has not seen her two sons in more than 10 years. She has never met her grandchildren. Every year her sons apply for visas, every year they are rejected without explanation. In Bangkok on November 10, her youngest son, Kim Aris, got permission to enter Myanmar; it is not known when he will get to the country.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s final appeal against her sentence was rejected by the Supreme Court and her legal team has been assessing what it means for her liberty. The court’s decision is a moot point though; she has almost completed this last sentence.
Political Beginnings
Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to take care of her ailing mother. By coincidence, in the same year, the long-time leader of the Socialist ruling party, General Ne Win, stepped down, leading to mass demonstrations for democracy on 8 August 1988 (8-8-88, a day seen as auspicious), which were violently suppressed in what came to be known as the 8888 Uprising. On 26 August 1988, she addressed half a million people at a mass rally in front of the Shwedagon Pagoda in the capital, calling for a democratic government. However in September, a new military junta took power. Later the same month, the National League for Democracy (NLD) was formed, with Suu Kyi as general secretary.
Influenced by both Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and by more specifically Buddhist concepts, Aung San Suu Kyi entered politics to work for democratization, helped found the National League for Democracy on 27 September 1988, and was put under house arrest on 20 July 1989. She was offered freedom if she left the country, but she refused.
One of her most famous speeches is the “Freedom from Fear” speech, which begins: “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”
She also believes fear spurs many world leaders to lose sight of their purpose. “Government leaders are amazing”, she once said. “So often it seems they are the last to know what the people want.”
The Struggle
Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when her father, then the de facto prime minister of what would shortly become independent Burma, was assassinated. She attended schools in Burma until 1960, when her mother was appointed ambassador to India. After further study in India, she attended the University of Oxford, where she met her future husband. She had two children and lived a rather quiet life until 1988, when she returned to Burma to nurse her dying mother. There the mass slaughter of protesters against the brutal and unresponsive rule of the military strongman U Ne Win led her to speak out against him and to begin a nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights. In July 1989 the military government of the newly named Union of Myanmar placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and held her incommunicado. The military offered to free her if she agreed to leave Myanmar, but she refused to do so until the country was returned to civilian government and political prisoners were freed. The newly formed group with which she became affiliated, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won more than 80 percent of the parliamentary seats that were contested in 1990, but the results of that election were ignored by the military government (in 2010 the military government formally annulled the results of the 1990 election).
Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest in July 1995. The following year she attended the NLD party congress, but the military government continued to harass both her and her party. In 1998 she announced the formation of a representative committee that she declared was the country’s legitimate ruling parliament. The military junta once again placed her under house arrest from September 2000 to May 2002. Following clashes between the NLD and pro-government demonstrators in 2003, the government returned her to house arrest. Calls for her release continued throughout the international community in the face of her sentence’s annual renewal, and in 2009 a United Nations body declared her detention illegal under Myanmar’s own law. In 2008 the conditions of her house arrest were somewhat loosened, allowing her to receive some magazines as well as letters from her children.
In May 2009, shortly before her most recent sentence was to be completed, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested and charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest after an intruder (a U.S. citizen) entered her house compound and spent two nights there. In August she was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, though the sentence immediately was reduced to 18 months, and she was allowed to serve it while remaining under house arrest. At the time of her conviction, the belief was widespread both within and outside of Myanmar that this latest ruling was designed to prevent Aung from participating in multiparty elections scheduled for 2010. This suspicion became reality through a series of new election laws enacted in March 2010: one prohibited individuals from any participation in elections if they had been convicted of a crime (as she had been in 2009), and another disqualified anyone who was married to a foreign national from running for office (her husband was British).
Periods under detention
• 20 July 1989: Placed under house arrest in Rangoon under martial law that allows for detention without charge or trial for three years.
• 10 July 1995: Released from house arrest.
• 23 September 2000: Placed under house arrest.
• 6 May 2002: Released after 19 months.
• 30 May 2003: Arrested following the Depayin massacre, she was held in secret detention for more than three months before being returned to house arrest.
• 25 May 2007: House arrest extended by one year despite a direct appeal from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to General Than Shwe.
• 24 October 2007: Reached 12 years under house arrest, solidarity protests held at 12 cities around the world.
• 27 May 2008: House arrest extended for another year, which is illegal under both international law and Burma’s own law.
• 11 August 2009: House arrest extended for 18 more months because of “violation” arising from the May 2009 trespass incident.
• 13 November 2010: Released from house arrest.
Release from House Arrest
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s celebrated pro-democracy leader and a political prisoner of global stature, was set free from house arrest in Yangon on 13.11.2010.
The 65-year-old Ms. Suu Kyi’s release was greeted by cheering supporters who gathered outside her house in a show of defiance against Myanmar’s military government. Hundreds of other supporters waited for her at the Yangon headquarters of the recently-de recognized National League for Democracy (NLD), which she still leads.
Several world leaders hailed her in comments on the release, which was ordered before the junta, the State Peace and Development Council could transfer power to an ostensibly “civilian” government in the wake of the November 7, 2010 general election.
Myanmar’s military establishments have subjected Ms. Suu Kyi to several terms of house arrest and a few spells in prison, for about 15 years in all since 1989. She led the NLD to a landslide victory in the country’s free elections in 1990 but was not allowed to lead a civilian government.
Walking free for the first time since 2003, Ms. Suu Kyi covered the distance from her old lakeside bungalow to the gate to acknowledge the greetings of her supporters. As she smiled and waved at them from across the gate, an enthusiast tossed up a bunch of flowers for her. The video-footage of her first public appearance in several years showed her accepting the flowers in a typical oriental style. She appeared to be in good spirit.
Like the South African leader Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of heroic and peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.
Aung San Suu Kyi was the recipient of the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding by the Government of India.
Family
Aung San Suu Kyi (now 65), was born on June 19, 1945, Rangoon, Burma [now Yangon, Myanmar]), Myanmar, is the opposition leader and daughter of Aung San (a martyred national hero of independent Burma) and Khin Kyi (a prominent Burmese diplomat).
Aung San Suu Kyi is the third child and only daughter of Aung San, considered to be the father of modern-day Burma.
In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been appointed Burma’s ambassador to Delhi.
Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics. There she met her future husband.
After stints of living and working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled down to be an English don’s housewife and raise their two children, Alexander and Kim.
Her husband, the British academic Michael Aris, died in 1999 of cancer. She could not visit him while he was dying without risking being exiled from her country forever, and the junta refused him an entry visa to Myanmar.
She has not seen her two sons in more than 10 years. She has never met her grandchildren. Every year her sons apply for visas, every year they are rejected without explanation. In Bangkok on November 10, her youngest son, Kim Aris, got permission to enter Myanmar; it is not known when he will get to the country.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s final appeal against her sentence was rejected by the Supreme Court and her legal team has been assessing what it means for her liberty. The court’s decision is a moot point though; she has almost completed this last sentence.
Political Beginnings
Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to take care of her ailing mother. By coincidence, in the same year, the long-time leader of the Socialist ruling party, General Ne Win, stepped down, leading to mass demonstrations for democracy on 8 August 1988 (8-8-88, a day seen as auspicious), which were violently suppressed in what came to be known as the 8888 Uprising. On 26 August 1988, she addressed half a million people at a mass rally in front of the Shwedagon Pagoda in the capital, calling for a democratic government. However in September, a new military junta took power. Later the same month, the National League for Democracy (NLD) was formed, with Suu Kyi as general secretary.
Influenced by both Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and by more specifically Buddhist concepts, Aung San Suu Kyi entered politics to work for democratization, helped found the National League for Democracy on 27 September 1988, and was put under house arrest on 20 July 1989. She was offered freedom if she left the country, but she refused.
One of her most famous speeches is the “Freedom from Fear” speech, which begins: “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”
She also believes fear spurs many world leaders to lose sight of their purpose. “Government leaders are amazing”, she once said. “So often it seems they are the last to know what the people want.”
The Struggle
Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when her father, then the de facto prime minister of what would shortly become independent Burma, was assassinated. She attended schools in Burma until 1960, when her mother was appointed ambassador to India. After further study in India, she attended the University of Oxford, where she met her future husband. She had two children and lived a rather quiet life until 1988, when she returned to Burma to nurse her dying mother. There the mass slaughter of protesters against the brutal and unresponsive rule of the military strongman U Ne Win led her to speak out against him and to begin a nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights. In July 1989 the military government of the newly named Union of Myanmar placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and held her incommunicado. The military offered to free her if she agreed to leave Myanmar, but she refused to do so until the country was returned to civilian government and political prisoners were freed. The newly formed group with which she became affiliated, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won more than 80 percent of the parliamentary seats that were contested in 1990, but the results of that election were ignored by the military government (in 2010 the military government formally annulled the results of the 1990 election).
Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest in July 1995. The following year she attended the NLD party congress, but the military government continued to harass both her and her party. In 1998 she announced the formation of a representative committee that she declared was the country’s legitimate ruling parliament. The military junta once again placed her under house arrest from September 2000 to May 2002. Following clashes between the NLD and pro-government demonstrators in 2003, the government returned her to house arrest. Calls for her release continued throughout the international community in the face of her sentence’s annual renewal, and in 2009 a United Nations body declared her detention illegal under Myanmar’s own law. In 2008 the conditions of her house arrest were somewhat loosened, allowing her to receive some magazines as well as letters from her children.
In May 2009, shortly before her most recent sentence was to be completed, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested and charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest after an intruder (a U.S. citizen) entered her house compound and spent two nights there. In August she was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, though the sentence immediately was reduced to 18 months, and she was allowed to serve it while remaining under house arrest. At the time of her conviction, the belief was widespread both within and outside of Myanmar that this latest ruling was designed to prevent Aung from participating in multiparty elections scheduled for 2010. This suspicion became reality through a series of new election laws enacted in March 2010: one prohibited individuals from any participation in elections if they had been convicted of a crime (as she had been in 2009), and another disqualified anyone who was married to a foreign national from running for office (her husband was British).
Periods under detention
• 20 July 1989: Placed under house arrest in Rangoon under martial law that allows for detention without charge or trial for three years.
• 10 July 1995: Released from house arrest.
• 23 September 2000: Placed under house arrest.
• 6 May 2002: Released after 19 months.
• 30 May 2003: Arrested following the Depayin massacre, she was held in secret detention for more than three months before being returned to house arrest.
• 25 May 2007: House arrest extended by one year despite a direct appeal from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to General Than Shwe.
• 24 October 2007: Reached 12 years under house arrest, solidarity protests held at 12 cities around the world.
• 27 May 2008: House arrest extended for another year, which is illegal under both international law and Burma’s own law.
• 11 August 2009: House arrest extended for 18 more months because of “violation” arising from the May 2009 trespass incident.
• 13 November 2010: Released from house arrest.
Release from House Arrest
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s celebrated pro-democracy leader and a political prisoner of global stature, was set free from house arrest in Yangon on 13.11.2010.
The 65-year-old Ms. Suu Kyi’s release was greeted by cheering supporters who gathered outside her house in a show of defiance against Myanmar’s military government. Hundreds of other supporters waited for her at the Yangon headquarters of the recently-de recognized National League for Democracy (NLD), which she still leads.
Several world leaders hailed her in comments on the release, which was ordered before the junta, the State Peace and Development Council could transfer power to an ostensibly “civilian” government in the wake of the November 7, 2010 general election.
Myanmar’s military establishments have subjected Ms. Suu Kyi to several terms of house arrest and a few spells in prison, for about 15 years in all since 1989. She led the NLD to a landslide victory in the country’s free elections in 1990 but was not allowed to lead a civilian government.
Walking free for the first time since 2003, Ms. Suu Kyi covered the distance from her old lakeside bungalow to the gate to acknowledge the greetings of her supporters. As she smiled and waved at them from across the gate, an enthusiast tossed up a bunch of flowers for her. The video-footage of her first public appearance in several years showed her accepting the flowers in a typical oriental style. She appeared to be in good spirit.
By GLOBAL IAS TEAM.
