Almost There

Aung san suu Kyi is scheduled to be released from house arrest at some point today. The timing, just days after a military-backed party won the first election in two decades, is irrelevant in some respects, the fact that she is being released should be cause for celebration and a reminder on this weekend of all weekends that for some people every day is a day of remembrance.

It is hard to imagine what her life has been like cut-off from the rest of her country, let alone the world, during her periods of house arrest and coming at the end of a week which has seen people in London attacking the offices of a legitimate political party, it is worth reminding ourselves of why her release will be a source of such satisfaction for so many people. It will of course, to borrow from Chairman Mao, be the first step in a journey of several thousand.

Having studied politics in New Delhi and philosophy, politics and economics at Britain's Oxford University, she married British academic Michael Aris in 1972. She returned to Burma in 1988 to look after her dying mother at a time when countrywide pro-democracy protests against the army regime were taking place . She entered politics and helped set up the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, becoming its secretary-general and calling for an end to military rule.

She was placed under house arrest in July 1989 for "endangering the state." The next year, even without her, the NLD won 392 of 485 parliamentary seats in Myanmar's first election in almost 30 years. The military refused to relinquish power.

The following has been collated from various articles over the years and from my previous postings on her imprisonment.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has been in prison or under house arrest off and on for 15 years since 1989. When her husband died in Britain in 1999, Suu Kyi declined an offer from the junta to go to Britain for his funeral, fearing she would not be allowed back if she left.

She was initially freed in 1995, but was not allowed to travel outside Yangon to meet supporters. A pro-junta gang attacked a convoy carrying Suu Kyi, top party officials and supporters near Depayin town in 2003. The junta said four people were killed. Rights groups said as many as 70 were killed in the ambush. She was detained again soon after. She was found guilty on August 11, 2009, of breaking a security law by allowing American intruder John Yettaw to stay at her lakeside home for two nights. Critics said the charges were trumped up to stop her from having any influence over the polls.

She has since made several offers to the junta to lobby the international community to lift a wide range of sanctions on the country, most of which have been in place for more than two decades. Junta strongman Than Shwe never responded and the regime described her move as "insincere" and "dishonest."

I think it's fair to say that her imprisonment has meant that those of us in the West who believe that human rights are a human right have had somebody to focus on and anger has been channelled through her to and at the military Junta. Let's hope her release can be the start of a wider change of politics and attitudes.