Do not give up hope, Suu Kyi urges Myanmar democracy advocates

Sunday, Nov. 14, 2010
Mark MacKinnon
Globe and Mail Update

Do not give up hope, Myanmar's main opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged supporters Sunday, only hours after she was freed from years of house arrest by the military junta that has ruled the secretive Asian country for nearly 50 years.

“There is no reason to lose heart,” she told cheering supports at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD).

“Please let us know what you are thinking, what is on your mind. I would like to know over the last six years what changes have taken place in the people and what they are thinking.”

A large crowd had gathered at the NLD offices in anticipation after the world's most famous prisoner of conscience was released Saturday evening local time (early Saturday in Canada) from house arrest amid scenes of jubilation.

Arriving by car from the lakeside residence that had doubled as her prison, she slipped into the ramshackle headquarters as people shouted “We love Suu” amid thunderous applause.

Inside, she met with Rangoon-based diplomats and was later scheduled to attend the funeral of a close friend and pay a customary visit to the city's sacred Shwedagon pagoda.

“This is an unconditional release. No restrictions are placed on her,” her lawyer Nyan Win said.

In her first public appearance Saturday evening, Ms. Suu Kyi indicated she would continue with her political activity but did not specify whether she would challenge the military with mass rallies and other activities that led to her earlier detentions.

“We have a lot of things to do,” said the 65-year-old charismatic and relentlessly outspoken woman who has come to symbolize the struggle for democracy in the isolated and secretive nation once known as Burma. The country has been ruled by the military since 1962.

“If we work in unity, we will achieve our goal,” Ms. Suu Kyi told some 5,000 cheering supporters who streamed to her residence when it was clear that she had been freed. Many chanted her name. Some wept.

“I haven't seen you for a long time,” she said to laughter, smiling deeply as she held the metal spikes that top the gate. When a supporter handed up a bouquet, she pulled out a flower and wove it into her hair.

On Saturday, hundreds of supporters had already gathered outside her residence when a convoy of three official cars arrived to read her the release order. When armed riot police took down barricades outside her residence, the crowd surged forward to the gate of her property and began chanting: “Come out, come out Aung San Suu Kyi!”

As news spread that the woman known as The Lady was free, the crowd outside her residence quickly grew into the thousands.

Wearing a lilac dress, the diminutive 65-year-old walked out to meet her supporters, smiling and shaking hands.

Trucks filled with riot police were parked around the corner when Ms. Suu Kyi came out to meet her supporters but government forces made no move to break up the spontaneous celebration.

Her release follows weeks of speculation, and comes just days after a party affiliated with the ruling junta claimed a massive victory in elections held Nov. 7 that have been widely condemned as fraudulent.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed the release of Ms. Suu Kyi, calling her “an unwavering champion of peace.”

“Neither her trial nor appeal process were conducted in line with international standards. She was not granted due process and should never have been detained,” Mr. Harper in a statement issued from Yokohama, Japan, where he is attending a Pacific Rim summit.

Mr. Harper said Canada has long supported Ms. Suu Kyi in her efforts to bring genuine democracy to the country. In recognition of her struggle to promote fundamental freedoms and democratic principles, she was granted honorary Canadian citizenship by in 2007.

Mr. Harper said that the sanctions imposed against the regime in 2007 will remain in place despite the release.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Ms. Suu Kyi’s release was “long overdue,” while French President Nicholas Sarkozy warned Myanmar’s ruling junta against placing new restrictions on her.

“Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration for all of us who believe in freedom of speech, democracy and human rights,” Mr. Cameron said in a statement. “Her detention was a travesty, designed only to silence the voice of the Burmese people. Freedom is Aung San Suu Kyi's right. The Burmese regime must now uphold it.” Myanmar is also known as Burma.

Ms. Suu Kyi has already said she will seek to investigate the Nov. 7 vote, the first election held in the country since her National League for Democracy won a landslide in 1990, claiming 80 per cent of the seats in a result never honoured by the military.

Ms. Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for leading a campaign of non-violent resistance to military rule, has been under some form of detention for 14 of the past 20 years.

She’s spent nearly all of that time secluded in her family’s dilapidated mansion on the shore on Rangoon’s Inya Lake. She has been without the use of a telephone, or Internet access, and has only been allowed to see junta-approved visitors.

Despite that isolation, she remains easily the most popular figure in the country, and an icon to those who oppose the military junta that has ruled Myanmar for the past 48 years. “People, even if they have never seen her, they know her name,” said human rights activist Naw Htoo Paw.

Ms. Suu Kyi was barred from running in last week's election because of her “criminal record.” The NLD boycotted the vote, arguing that a free and fair election could not be held under the rules set by the junta, and was later forced to officially disband.

“She is the only one who can change the nation,” said Naw San, head of the Students and Youth Congress of Burma. “If she walks to Shwedagon, tens of thousands of people will follow her.”

With a report from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press