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Biography: Aung San Suu Kyi

Biography: Aung San Suu Kyi

CBC NEWS, October 5, 2007

On Sept. 22, 2007, Burmese pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi made her first public appearance in more than four years.

She stepped outside her home — where the country's ruling junta has detained her since May 2003 — to greet protesters in a swelling pro-democracy movement. The Noble laureate and devout Buddhist, a tiny woman nicknamed 'The Lady', created a national stir from a mere glimpse.

It again demonstrated Suu Kyi's legendary mix of force and restraint, inspired by non-violent revolutionaries such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. And it landed her in the middle of another crisis in the troubled Asian nation.

The increasingly elusive and isolated regime in Burma, also known as Myanmar, has cracked down violently against the pro-democracy movement and created headlines around the world.

The situation echoes back to 1988, when protests ended in bloodshed and a movement, symbolized by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, began.

Freedom-fighting runs in the family

Suu Kyi is the daughter of one of Burma's most cherished heroes. Gen. Aung San led his country's fight for independence from Great Britain in the 1940s and was killed for his beliefs in 1947.

She was two years old when her father — the de facto prime minister of newly independent Burma — was assassinated. Though a Buddhist, she was educated at Catholic schools and left for India in her mid-teens with her mother, who became the Burmese ambassador to India. Suu Kyi went to England, where she studied at Oxford University and met Michael Aris, a Tibetan scholar. They married and had two sons, Alexander and Kim.

A watershed moment in Suu Kyi's life came in 1988 when she received a call from Burma that her mother had suffered a stroke and did not have long to live. Suu Kyi returned to Burma, leaving her husband and two children in England, having cautioned them years before that duty may one day call her back to her homeland.

A bloody crackdown and house arrest

She arrived back in Burma to nurse her mother at a time of a burgeoning pro-democracy movement, fuelled by the energy and idealism among the country's young people. There were demonstrations against the repressive, one-party socialist government.

Suu Kyi was drawn into a mushrooming pro-democracy movement in the country, helping to found the National League for Democracy to advance the people's cause. However, a junta called the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) seized power on Sept. 18, 1988, and violently cracked down on the protests. Thousands of pro-democracy advocates were killed and Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest the following year.

Next came a general election in 1990, which political parties were allowed to contest. Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory, with 80 per cent support. This was not to be tolerated by the regime's leaders, who refused to recognize the election results.

Despite her detainment and the setback, Suu Kyi continued to campaign for democracy.

The world takes notice

Her persistence paid off and the international community took up the cause. Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and was released from house arrest in 1995. Soon after gaining her freedom, Suu Kyi gave one of her most dramatic speeches at a global women's conference in Beijing. She didn't appear at the conference, but spoke to the international gathering by means of a video smuggled out of Burma.

"To the best of my knowledge, no war was ever started by women," she said in the speech, expressing herself with the calm conviction and passion that reflects her Buddhist upbringing. "But it is women and children who have always suffered the most in situations of conflict."

Without specifically targeting her Burmese opponents, her words dripped with gentle sarcasm. It was a powerful speech, subtly crafted for the targeted audience in her homeland.

A time of grief

In 1999, Michael Aris was dying of prostate cancer in England where he lived with their two sons. He had repeatedly requested permission to visit his wife one last time before he died, but junta's authorities denied him entry, arguing that there are no proper facilities in the country to tend to a dying man.

They suggested instead that Suu Kyi visit him in England. She refused, fearing if she ever left the country she would never be allowed to return.

The day Aris died, on his 53rd birthday, Suu Kyi honoured the occasion at her home in Rangoon, with 1,000 friends and supporters, including high-ranking diplomats from Europe and the United States. Instead of wearing her usual bright flowers and wreathes of jasmine, Suu Kyi chose instead a traditional black lungi with a white jacket. She cried only when one of the monks reminded the audience that the essence of Buddhism is to treat suffering with equanimity.

The steep price of struggle

The junta continued to keep a watchful eye on Suu Kyi and, a year and a half later, there was outrage around the world when Suu Kyi tried to leave Rangoon, only to be thwarted by authorities. It was similar to a roadside standoff in 1998, when she suffered severe dehydration and had to be returned to her home by ambulance.

In September 2000, she was, again, placed under house arrest until the United Nations helped to guarantee her release 19 months later. But her freedom was short-lived. In 2003, she was put into "protective custody" after her motorcade was attacked.

Being under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years has taken a toll. The long years of isolation, the lack of contact with family, friends and colleagues, the crushing of the latest protests clearly weigh on her.

In photos taken after her two meetings with UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari in September 2007, the 62-year-old Suu Kyi appeared exhausted and discouraged, unable even to fake a smile for being allowed the rare privilege of talking to an outside guest.

Suu Kyi has no phone or internet access. Her two grown sons, Alexander and Kim, live abroad and are denied entry into the country. It is not known whether she has ever seen her young grandchildren, Kim's children Jasmine and Jamie.

It's all part of the heavy price she has had to pay to keep the fight for democracy alive in Burma.

With files from the Associated Press

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