THAILAND / FILE: Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi set to turn 63 under house arrest

Record ID: 722327

  • Title: THAILAND / FILE: Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi set to turn 63 under house arrest
  • Date: 18th June 2008
  • Summary: (ASIA) BANGKOK, THAILAND (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) SANN AUNG, MEMBER OF NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR DEMOCRACY IN EXILE, SAYING: "She is the leader and she talks straightforward, she criticises the military regime and she is working for the people. So, the military do not want her to be free."
  • Embargoed: 3rd July 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA325880EDXTKGBZS3JSC2TSACU
  • Story Text: Born in Rangoon, which is now known as Yangon, on June 19, 1945, Suu Kyi's father, national hero Aung San, was assassinated when she was two.
    His death came six months before the nation achieved independence from Britain that he helped negotiate.
    After studying politics in New Delhi, Suu Kyi studied philosophy, politics and economics at Britain's Oxford University before she married British academic Michael Aris in 1972.
    Suu Kyi returned to Yangon in April 1988 to look after her mother just as resentment of military rule boiled over into country-wide pro-democracy protests.
    Named secretary general of the National League for Democracy (NLD) the same year, she called for an end to the military rule established in a 1962 coup. She remained in Myanmar after her mother's death in December 1988 and was put under house arrest in July 1989 for "endangering the state".
    Her husband and sons were placed under similar restrictions when they joined her in 1989 from Britain.
    Although Suu Kyi was barred from standing in general elections in 1990, her NLD party won 392 of 485 parliamentary seats in the first multi-party general election since 1960. But the military ignored the result, refusing to relinquish power.
    Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, Suu Kyi a mother of two, has been in prison or under house arrest on and off since 1989. Aris died in March 1999 and Suu Kyi declined an offer from the junta to leave the country to attend his funeral in Britain.
    Suu Kyi's latest stretch of detention began on May 30, 2003 after clashes between her supporters and pro-junta demonstrators. Since then she has been held virtually incommunicado, her telephone line cut, her mail intercepted and visitors restricted.
    As the daughter of Aung San, she exercises enormous personal political clout in the nation of 57 million. It is largely out of fear of this that the ruling generals have kept her in some form of detention for nearly 13 of the last 19 years.

    "You know, the Burmese people inside and outside, for them she is like a strong person that we have to respect and we rely on. She is like our aspiration," said Saan Aung, Member of the National League for Democracy in exile.
    On September 22, 2007, Suu Kyi prayed outside her home with monks protesting against the military government. The junta appointed a go-between to make contact with Suu Kyi after its crackdown on the most sustained protests in 20 years, which triggered global outrage. They met four times but their talks have gone nowhere. The last time she was seen by the public was in March this year when state television showed pictures of her meeting U.N.
    special envoy on Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari.
    Myanmar's military junta said last week that Suu Kyi deserved to be beaten like an errant child for threatening national security.
    Seeking to justify the 62-year-old's latest stretch of house arrest, now in its sixth year, official newspapers said Suu Kyi and other detainees had been in contact with and had received cash from rebel guerrillas and foreign governments.
    In September 2007, street protests against the junta erupted into violence, with the military government clamping down on protesters killings dozens, including a Japanese journalist.
    In early May, a powerful cyclone ripped through the country's delta region killing tens of thousands and affecting millions with the junta resisting outside help for weeks after the calamity.
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