Features

Can this woman save Burma?

Jul 02 09:56am

More than a year after her release from house arrest, human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi is once again in detention. Mary Braid looks at the sacrifices she has made for her country and asks if they've been worthwhile.

"I dream about my family all the time," said human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi in a rare interview in 1997. "But there are a lot of people here who need to be cared about, loved and looked after. They've become my second family." This fragile woman with the sad brown eyes was prepared to endure 13 years of house arrest for that second family - the people of Burma. The imprisonment she underwent was a desperate attempt to draw international attention to the human rights abuses that have been inflicted by her country's government during 41 years of military rule.

And she succeeded, becoming the figurehead for a worldwide campaign for democracy in Burma. But the personal cost was high. While Suu Kyi was imprisoned in the Burmese capital of Rangoon, her husband and two sons, aged just 12 and 16 at the time of her arrest in 1989, remained in England.

After her release last year, Suu Kyi stayed in Burma to fight for her country's freedom. Again, she campaigned tirelessly, touring remote areas and speaking at pro-democracy rallies before the increasingly nervous government arrested her again earlier this year.

"What do the women of Burma want?" she asked recently. "To be free from the tyranny of rising prices that make running a household an exhausting business. To be free from anxiety that their husbands might be penalised for independent thinking - or that their children might not be given chance in life."

Bordered by India, China and Thailand, Burma - also known as Myanmar - has cast, untapped mineral wealth and fertile plains. Once the world's greatest rice exporter, it is now an economic disaster zone, with most of its 48 million citizens living in abject poverty.

As a result of ethnic cleansing campaigns, more than 1.5 million people have fled their homes, many to refugee camps on the Thai border, and soldiers have been known to rape and impregnate women from the country's 67 ethnic groups to "make them Burmese". Political opponents are routinely tortured; millions of ordinary Burmese are used as forced labour to build railways and roads.

Few people outside Burma knew about these atrocities before Suu Kyi, now 58, was imprisoned. Her sacrifice was extraordinary. Unlike Nelson Mandela, Suu Kyi had the choice to walk away from captivity - and from Burma - and return to her family in her adopted homeland of England.

Instead, she chose to stay in Rangoon for the sake of her troubled country, leaving her husband, British academic Michael Aris, to raise their sons. Even when Aris was diagnosed with cancer, Suu Kyi stood by her agonising decision. He died before the pair had a chance to say goodbye.

What makes a woman sacrifice so much for her country? Part of the answer lies with her father, General Aung San, a man who dreamed of bringing democracy to a place that had been left in chaos by the British. Despite his assassination in 1947, Burma's greatest national hero is credited with freeing his country from colonial rule the following year. His death triggered Burma's decline from fledgling democracy to military rule in 1962.

As a teenager, Suu Kyi left her homeland to study abroad, but she always knew that she'd return one day to continue her father's work. "Before we were married, I promised my wife that I would never stand between her and her country," her husband once said.

Suu Kyi finally returned to Burma in 1988. By chance, she arrived in Rangoon as a new underground movement for democracy was gathering momentum. On August 8 of that year, Burmese students, farmers, policemen and civil servants, frustrated by the brutality of the latest junta, spilled on to the streets in protest. Thousands were gunned down by the army, an event that came to be known as the "8/8/88" massacre. Suu Kyi found herself propelled to speak at a rally. "I could not, as my father's daughter, remain indifferent to all that was going on," she explained.

She was soon elected leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) - with Aris's very public support. Her popularity spread and, in July 1989, the military government put her under house arrest. As worldwide outrage grew over 8/8/88 and Suu Kyi's internment, the military grudgingly agreed to national elections. In 1990 the NLD won over 80 per cent of the parliamentary seats, but the military refused to accept the result, leaving Suu Kyi under house arrest for another six years.

Her non-violent protest was very effective. Suddenly, she was in the news, and the world woke up to Burma's human rights abuses. In a speech delivered by her husband at the American University in Washington, Suu Kyi urged people to support her campaign. "Those fortunate enough to live in societies where they are entitled to full political rights can reach out to help the less fortunate in other parts of our troubled planet," she said.

Her profile protected her from the brutality meted out to ordinary NLD supporters. But meagre rations left her malnourished, resulting in hair loss, and the strain of her imprisonment showed in her drawn face. She argued that her suffering was trivial compared with that of her NLD colleagues, who were being tortured and killed, but her thoughts turned more than ever to her children. "On Sunday night, I speak to my children for 10 minutes," she said. "It's not enough, but I look forward to it."

Over the next seven years, she was freed for brief periods before being placed under house arrest again. She was watched constantly, and the threat of imprisonment - or worse - was hard to bear. At her lowest times, she sat with her father's photograph, thinking, "It's you and me against them." In 1991, her sons, Kim and Alexander, now aged 26 and 30 respectively, proudly received the Nobel Peace Prize on their mother's behalf.

Then, on May 6, 2002, after 13 years of international condemnation, the junta released Suu Kyi. At the time, amid jubilation, there was also speculation that this was a cynical bid to win worldwide approval and aid - a view that seems to have been borne out of Suu Kyi's second arrest and the military's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. Now, the question is: was her sacrifice worthwhile?

During her period of freedom this year, Suu Kyi travelled the countryside, speaking at pro-democracy rallies and encouraging her people to fight for freedom. "They don't want change, but change is inevitable," she said.

It was on May 30 this year that officials detained her after a government-orchestrated riot in which up to 70 people were believed killed. Although authorities insisted that she wasn't hurt, eyewitness reports suggest otherwise, and a UN envoy sent to Rangoon was initially denied access to her. The government also closed NLD offices and universities to prevent students from organising protests.

Josef Silverstein, an expert on Burma at Rutgers University in the US, says the junta may be taking harsh steps now because it has been working to insulate itself from pressure from the West by strengthening relations with its large Asian neighbours - China, India and Bangladesh. "I think the Burmese have been on a long-term trajectory here on two grounds," he told The New York Times. "One, of altering their international position, and two, of finally trying to eliminate Aung San Suu Kyi."

To former archbishop and freedom campaigner Desmond Tutu, it shows that the military still fears her influence. "In physical stature she is petite and elegant, but in moral stature she is a giant. Big men are scared of her. Armed to the teeth and they're still scared of her."