Hey SuperForest
I thought I would take a moment to share with you the news that on Saturday, after spending the last 7 years under house arrest (and in some form of detention for much of the last 20 years because of her efforts to bring democracy to military-ruled Burma [Myanmar]), pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi was released by the Burmese military authorities.
The daughter of General Aung San, who was key in bringing about the end of British colonial rule in Burma and was assasinated in 1947 six months before Burmese independence, when Suu Kyi was just two years old, Aung San Suu Kyi grew up in Burma and India. This was followed by studies at Oxford, where she met and married an academic, settling down to family life. But in 1988, when returning to Burma to be with her seriously ill mother, Suu Kyi witnessed the horror of the shooting dead by the military of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators on the streets of Rangoon and decided she must do something.
Inspired by the non-violent campaigns of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King and India’s Mahatma Gandhi, she organised rallies and travelled around the country, calling for peaceful democratic reform and free elections.
The military government called national elections in May 1990. Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD [National League for Democracy] convincingly won the polls, despite the fact that she herself was under house arrest and disqualified from standing. But the junta refused to hand over control, and has remained in power ever since.
Appearing after her release this weekend outside her home in Rangoon, she spoke to the thousands of gathered supporters about moving forward:
I don’t believe in one person’s influence and authority to move a country forward. One person alone can not do something as important as bringing democracy to a country.
We all have to work together. We will have to find a way of helping each other
People must work in unison. Only then can we achieve our goal.
What happens next in Burma is anyone’s guess, but Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration and her release something to celebrate.
Love
P
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