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Release of Pro-Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi Brings Hope to Myanmar

1 year ago
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Luisita Lopez Torregrosa
Luisita Lopez Torregrosa
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One of the world's most revered democracy leaders, Aung San Suu Kyi, was freed from house arrest in Myanmar on Saturday to the chants and cheers of thousands of supporters gathered around her at the gate of her compound in Yangon.
Waving and smiling as people celebrated around her, she said, "Thank you for welcoming me like this." Clutching a white handkerchief and standing at the iron bars of her gate, she told the crowd and the world, "We haven't seen each other for so long, I have so much to tell you."
Small-boned and frail-looking but looking radiant, Aung San Suu Kyi, said she would speak Sunday at the headquarters of her disbanded political party, the National League for Democracy.
Her release was welcomed by world leaders and human rights groups. President Barack Obama called Aung San Suu Kyi "a hero of mine." British Prime Minister David Cameron said her freedom was long overdue. "Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration for all of us who believe in freedom of speech, democracy and human rights," Cameron said in a statement.
A Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the 65-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 of the last 25 years under house arrest. Her release has been a major demand of Western nations pressing the junta to ease political repression in Myanmar, formerly Burma, a strategically important but impoverished Southeast Asian nation. The junta did not make a statement regarding its decision to free her at this time.
But analysts have said that the ruling generals may not feel the need to keep Suu Kyi under arrest and isolated from the public and the world's media after the junta won parliamentary elections five days ago, the first such balloting in 20 years. In that last election two decades ago, Suu Kyi's party won in a landslide, but the junta annulled the results and clung to power. This time, western countries including the United States condemned the elections as neither fair nor free.
The end of Suu Kyi's house arrest does not mean that she is free to carry on her anti-regime campaign, but her plan to speak out on Sunday suggests she has no intention of remaining silent or curtailing her long struggle against the dictatorship.
"She will be linking up with the people, who very much desire her release to work for democracy and human rights," said the deputy leader of her party, U tin Oo, according to The New York Times. "She is already the democratic leader of Burma and an icon."
Suu Kyi's lawyer, U Nyan Win, welcomed "her long overdue release" but continued his criticism of the junta. "Whether Aung San Suu Kyi is living in the prison of her house, or the prison of her country, does not change the fact that she, and the political opposition she represents, has been systematically silenced, incarcerated, and deprived of any opportunity to engage in political process that could change Burma," he was quoted as saying.
Saturday's release was not the first for Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta has let her off twice before, in 1995 and 2002. But when enthusiastic crowds greeted her wherever she went, she was returned to house arrest. She was convicted last year of violating the terms of her detention when she briefly housed an American man, someone she didn't know, who swam to her lakeside home.
Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a democracy leader in Burma in 1988 after spending much of her life abroad, mostly in Britain. She had returned home to take care of her mother when mass demonstrations broke out in Yangon (then Rangoon, the capital), against a quarter century of military rule. She soon took on a leadership role because she was the daughter of Aung San, who led Burma to independence from Britain before his assassination.
She survived the military's bloody attacks on the opposition, founded the National League for Democracy, and stayed in her country, leaving behind in Britain her husband, a British scholar named Michael Aris and her two sons. Aris died of cancer in 1999.
Her huge popularity at home and celebrity worldwide in the late 1980s posed a threat to the country's then-new military junta. In 1989, she was arrested on false national-security charges and put under house arrest. She was released in 1995, only to be placed back under arrest.
Like Nelson Mandela, she became an incarcerated cause celebre', a symbol worldwide who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She became a national heroine at the same time as other pro-democracy female leaders in Southeast Asia, women like Corazon C. Aquino in the Philippines, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, and Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia.
On Saturday, after years in isolation, Aung San Suu Kyi stood surrounded by her people, flowers strewn at her feet, a survivor and icon, and after all these years, the heir to her father's legacy and symbol of her country.
Filed Under: Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, Woman Up, International, Military
Tagged: aung san suu kyi freed, Barack Obama - United States of America - World Leader, Benazir Bhutto, Burma VJ, Burmese military junta, Corazon C. Aquino, David Cameron poster, house arrest, human rights, Megawati Sukarnoputri, myanmar export, Myanmar military junta, National League for Democracy, pro-democracy leader, U Nyan Win, U Tin Oo
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shutiny

Thank you Ms. Luisita for the report. Well done! It is amazing to me to see that these quiet, gentle(but determined) women mentioned in your report have done so much incredible things in the face of insurmountable odds. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has devoted her life to bring freedom and democracy to her people and I'll continue to pray for her eventual success. Please continue to report/give voices to people that can not speak.

November 13 2010 at 6:31 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply

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