December 2, 2003. Copyright, 2003, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Aung San Suu Kyi: Powerful symbol Òof the powerlessÓ
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, December 2, Graphic News:  The issue of Aung San Suu KyiÕs freedom has never been an easy one for BurmaÕs military junta. One of the many paradoxes in their treatment of the pro-democracy leader is that her latest spell under house arrest may just result in their being pressured to grant wider freedoms.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has added his voice to the growing clamour for the release of Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since an attack on her supporters in May. Annan said her release would show commitment to the seven-step Òroad mapÓ for peace announced by the military leadership earlier this year, but Suu Kyi wants assurances that 35 colleagues jailed in May will also be released.

There are signs that things may be beginning to move. Following the recent visit to Burma of UN human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the junta released five top opposition politicans from house arrest, but Suu Kyi herself was not freed.

The biggest paradox, of course, is that this fragile-looking 58-year-old mother of two should even be considered a threat to one of the worldÕs most repressive regimes. But the Nobel Peace Prize laureateÕs power to focus attention on the plight of BurmaÕs 50 million people has always grown in inverse relation to her personal freedom. In Burma -- or Myanmar as it is also known -- only Suu Kyi can unlock the stalemate.

Of course, with Suu Kyi they were never able to just throw away the key. The daughter of the revered late democracy leader, General Aung San, inherited the support of millions of Burmese who call her simply ÒThe LadyÓ. Despite being born into the cause in 1945, she appeared to come to it by accident: educated in India and Britain, Suu Kyi got swept up in the democracy movement only when she returned to Burma to visit her ailing mother in 1988.

Inspired by Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, she began preaching non-violent resistance to the junta, and by the time her National League for Democracy won an 82% election victory in 1990 she had been under house arrest for a year. BurmaÕs rulers refused to relinquish power and stepped up repression. In 1995 Suu Kyi was freed, but she was back under house arrest from September 2000 until May 2002 after daring to leave Rangoon.

In recent weeks Suu Kyi has said repeatedly that she does not want freedom unless her colleagues are released -- a determined attitude that has led to painful sacrifices in the past. In 1999 she did not visit her dying husband, Oxford academic Michael Aris, in Britain because she feared being prevented from re-entering Burma. For the same reason she did not go to Norway to collect her 1991 Nobel Prize, one of several international awards bestowed on her. Instead, her sons went to Oslo to accept the award on her behalf. At the presentation, Peace Prize Committee Chairman Francis Sejested called her Òan outstanding example of the power of the powerlessÓ.

Over the years journalists allowed to visit Suu Kyi at her lakeside home in Rangoon have spoken of the shy, low-key presence of the woman who has become a worldwide symbol of resistance to repression. She told several she does not find it difficult to survive separation from her family and solitary confinement, saying: ÒI have always felt free insideÓ.

As speculation grows that her release may be imminent, so are demands to allow her to be a free citizen in a free country.
/ENDS