Chokchai S.

Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi says she felt compelled to act on behalf of the people of Burma

Like the South African leader Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.

 

The 65-year-old has spent most of the last 20 years in some form of detention because of her efforts to bring democracy to military-ruled Burma.
In 1991, a year after her National League for Democracy won an overwhelming victory in an election the junta later nullified, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The committee chairman, Francis Sejested, called her "an outstanding example of the power of the powerless".
She was sidelined for Burma's first elections in two decades on 7 November 2010 but released from house arrest six days later.
Thousands of supporters gathered to hear her issue a call for Burmese people to work together for change.
Political pedigree
Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of the country's independence hero, General Aung San.

 

Profile: The woman who has become the face of Burma's democracy movement

He was assassinated during the transition period in July 1947, just six months before independence.
Aung San Suu Kyi was only two years old at the time.

In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been appointed Burma's ambassador to Delhi.
Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics. There she met her future husband, academic Michael Aris.

After stints of living and working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled in the UK to raise their two children, Alexander and Kim.
But Burma was never far from her thoughts.
When she arrived back in Rangoon in 1988 - to look after her critically ill mother - Burma was in the midst of major political upheaval.

Ms Suu Kyi was a toddler when her father was assassinated

Thousands of students, office workers and monks took to the streets demanding democratic reform.
"I could not, as my father's daughter remain indifferent to all that was going on," she said in a speech in Rangoon on 26 August 1988.

Ms Suu Kyi was soon propelled into leading the revolt against the then-dictator, General Ne Win.
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.
But the demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the army, who seized power in a coup on 18 September 1988.
The military government called national elections in May 1990.
Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD 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.
House arrest
Ms Suu Kyi remained under house arrest in Rangoon for six years, until she was released in July 1995.

Aung San Suu Kyi

• 1989: Put under house arrest as Burma junta declares martial law
• 1990: NLD wins election; military disregards result
• 1991: Wins Nobel Peace Prize
• 1995: Released from house arrest, but movements restricted
• 2000-02: Second period of house arrest
• May 2003: Detained after clash between NLD and junta forces
• Sep 2003: Allowed home after medical treatment, but under effective house arrest
• May 2007: House arrest is extended for another year
• Sept 2007: First public appearance since 2003, greeting protesting Buddhist monks
• May 2008: House arrest extended for another year
• May 2009: Charged with breaking detention rules after an American swims to her compound
• August 2009: Sentenced to 18 months further house arrest

She was again put under house arrest in September 2000, when she tried to travel to the city of Mandalay in defiance of travel restrictions.

She was released unconditionally in May 2002, but just over a year later she was put in prison following a clash between her supporters and a government-backed mob.
She was later allowed to return home - but again under effective house arrest, where she has since remained.
During periods of confinement, Ms Suu Kyi has busied herself studying and exercising.
She has meditated, worked on her French and Japanese language skills, and relaxed by playing Bach on the piano.

In more recent years, she has also been able to meet other NLD officials and selected diplomats.
But during her early years of detention, she was often in solitary confinement. She was not allowed to see her two sons or her husband, who died of cancer in March 1999.
The military authorities offered to allow her to travel to the UK to see him when he was gravely ill, but she felt compelled to refuse for fear she would not be allowed back into the country.
She has grandchildren she has never met.
'Can't stop freedom'
In recent months she has been criticised in some quarters for her decision to boycott the November 2010 elections, Burma's first in 20 years.
The NLD said the election laws were unfair and decided not to take part in the polls. Under new election laws, it then had to disband.
But a group of NLD members formed a new party to contest the polls, arguing that some representation in the new parliament would be better than none at all.
The polls - described as "neither free nor fair" by US President Barack Obama - appear to have left military-backed parties firmly in control.
So much so, in fact, that they freed the pro-democracy leader six days after the elections, to a jubilant reception.
Ms Suu Kyi has often said that detention has made her even more sure that she should dedicate her life to representing the average Burmese citizen.
In a rare interview in 2007 during the uprising that was brutally put down by the military, she said democracy was "not finished in Burma".
"No matter the regime's physical power, in the end they can't stop the people; they can't stop freedom," she told British journalist John Pilger. "We shall have our time."