Aung San Suu Kyi Turns 64
Voice of America:
Burma’s famous opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, spent her 64th birthday Friday at a high-security prison outside Rangoon. The pro-democracy leader has spent 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest by the military junta and is currently awaiting the re-opening of her trial on charges of violating her house arrest. Yet for all the government’s attempts to silence Aung San Suu Kyi, her resilience has become the symbol of the movement to bring democracy to Burma.
Human rights advocates around the world renew their call for the release of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on her 64th birthday, 19 Jun 2009
Human rights advocates around the world are commemorating Aung San Suu Kyi’s 64th birthday. It is a time of little celebration for the pro-democracy leader, who spent the day in Burma’s notorious Insein prison outside Rangoon.
Aung San Suu Kyi is charged with violating her house arrest by providing shelter to an American visitor who trespassed on her property in May. Human rights groups consider the trial a pretext for keeping her detained before the country’s 2010 elections.
Rusty Dalizo is with the Free Burma Coalition Philippines, whose group staged a protest Friday in front of the Burmese embassy in Manila.
“We are calling on the brutal and bloody military dictatorship in Rangoon to immediately release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and over 2,000 political prisoners still detained in jails all across the country today,” he said.
Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of a prominent figure in Burma’s independence who was assassinated when she was just two years old. She was educated abroad and upon returning to care for her ailing ther in the late 1980s, became politically active in the National League for Democracy party.
She went on to win a landslide victory in elections held by the military regime in 1990. But the military junta, which has run the country since 1962, refused to hand over power and put her under house arrest, where she has spent 13 of the last 19 years.
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With all due respect to Daw Suu Kyi, I think she’s quite wrong about ASEAN countries not being able to reap any benefits from Myanmar by trading with the generals. I happen to know folks in Thailand and Singapore whose companies have literally made millions trading with Myanmar. Some even praise the generals as the most trustworthy and undemanding business associates they ever had.
However, Daw Suu Kyi is absolutely right about the moral and ethical issues invoved when one deals with the generals. But since when were morals and ethics prerequisites for business success? Don’t get me wrong. The junta’s dirty tactics have never been honourable. I wish the best for Daw Suu Kyi. I hope the junta releases her. But letting her take over the reins? That might just be what the junta needs to do to destroy her popularity. The people of Myanmar will certainly feel good about a more benevolent leader taking over. But unless she is business-minded and able to control all the unreasonable and sometimes violent dissent going on in the country, the lives of the Burmese people will not be any better with or without the lady.
Not every Aung San agrees with Suu Kyi. Just take a look at her brother Aung San Oo.
He’s a close ally of the junta and an American citizen to boot. Is it possible to believe in freedom and democracy in America while supporting the junta in Myanmar? I’m not sure about that, but Aung San Ooo certainly gives us some food for thought. If the great Bogyoke himself were still around today, whose side would the great general who fought against British imperialism be on? Would he be fighting against the army he founded? Or would he be supporting his daughter from behind? We’ll never know but great heroes don’t always think alike.
It’s a nice video, but it’s also a rather simplistic representation of what’s really going on in Myanmar. Yes, there is plenty of suffering, but poverty in Myanmar has more to do with trade sanctions than with the regime. It’s simply not true that tourists and foreign investments do not benefit the Burmese people. It would be nice to have some freedom and democracy in Myanmar, but at the end of the day, it’s unfair to nail every problem in Myanmar on the generals. The country is vast, diverse and plagued with ethnic tensions. If Daw Suu Kyi ever takes over as head of the Union, she had better have lots of support and cooperation from the generals.
