Behind the walls of a lakeside house in Rangoon, on a street guarded by soldiers, blocked by barricades and razor wire, the world's most famous political prisoner today celebrates her 62nd birthday alone.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Noble Peace Prize winner and Burma's democratically elected leader, cannot communicate with the outside world; her phone is disconnected. No visitors are allowed and it's believed no outsider has seen her for the past three months.
Though her party won by a landslide in 1990, the election was not recognized by the junta – generally recognized as a gang of thugs – that continues to rule the country. She has been in this solitary prison for most of the past 17 years.
In the meantime, the generals have been busy. Hundreds of thousands of members of ethnic groups have fled to refugee camps on the Thai border while others hide out in the Burmese jungle.
Leaders of Burma, renamed Myanmar in 1989, have imposed forced labour, burned down villages, taken over farmland and, it's believed, profited from the large opium and methamphetamine trade.
In a fit of paranoia, the junta moved the capital from Rangoon (renamed Yangon) 320 kilometres inland to Naypyidaw, which means Throne of Kings, in 2005.
"They are trying to recreate a despotic monarchy in the 21st century," says human rights researcher Guy Horton. "They are kind of marching backwards into the future. They want to restore the notion of a centralized racist state embodied in the Burmese kings before the British arrived."
But some observers say they see a new stiffening of Burmese resolve, as pockets of emboldened citizens openly protest this backward march.
Democracy advocates, some daring to wear T-shirts bearing the photo of Suu Kyi, demonstrated May 27, the anniversary of her party's 1990 election. No one was arrested because there were too many (about 1,200) taking part, says Bo Hla-Tint, a spokesperson for the Burmese government in exile.
Activists do get arrested, however. A group praying for Suu Kyi at a Buddhist temple last month was jailed and then released.
But recently those perennial activists have been joined by ordinary Burmese protesting rising food prices – the cost of rice has jumped 500 per cent in five years — unemployment and power outages.
Here in Toronto, Lerwah Lobo, sitting in his crowded basement kitchen in the west end with his friend and fellow refugee Minthura Wynn, reflects on Suu Kyi's birthday and their homeland. Wynn, an activist in the 1988 student-led revolts in Rangoon, believes there will be more demonstrations today.
The collapse of the educational system troubles both men, who pause over their soup of chicken broth and fresh mint leaves. Students go to university for only three months of the year and pass their courses. "They are poisoning the future generation," says Minthura Wynn. "Three months is not enough. It's not realistic."
There are whispers of change. "Over the last five years Burmese people have become more brave and exercised their right to freedom of expression," says Khin Maung Winn, deputy director of the Democratic Voice of Burma, an Oslo-based news service.
Even ordinary people are talking to the media, not about politics but about "day-to-day living."
"It's directly affecting the people and making life there almost intolerable," says Horton. "Its impact is greater than ideas of freedom and political liberty."
Despite small signs of hope, there is always worrisome news. For example, last month Russia announced it will build a nuclear reactor in Burma. Russia and China both eagerly exploit the country's natural resources.
While Suu Kyi is the focus of international attention, another former political prisoner, Min Ko Naing, who won Canada's Rights and Democracy John Humphrey Freedom Award in 1999, is also standing up to the junta.
"He is showing strong leadership and we need someone to lead the movement in the absence of Aung San Suu Kyi, " says Tin Maung Htoo, of Canadian Friends of Burma.
"Regardless of the arrests, all these determined young leaders – we will follow them. I believe the momentum is growing and growing and growing."
