As elections near, people ask me whether she is relevant to Burmese politics after so long. The answer is yes
The focus is on Burma not just because of the elections scheduled for Sunday, but also because of the possibility of Aung San Suu Kyi being released six days later.
I have been doing a large number of media briefings in recent days and the questions have been split pretty evenly between the elections and the possible release on 13 November.
Two of the questions I am most frequently asked are: what I think she will do if she is released and, secondly, whether she can have any relevance in Burma after so long under house arrest?
The first is difficult to answer. It depends to a major extent on whether the regime places restrictions on her.
Her lawyer told me recently that when she was released in 1995 she was not allowed to travel outside Rangoon. On release from a further period of house arrest in 2002, she was allowed to travel outside Rangoon, but only once prior authorisation had been sought from the regime.
Her colleagues at the National League for Democracy tell me that this time, as before, Aung San Suu Kyi wants to travel the country and reconnect with the Burmese public. I imagine she will also be inundated with requests for meetings with foreign diplomats (including this one) and visiting politicians.
As for her relevance, all the evidence points to a regime that still fears that she is very relevant.
They have kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years. Both the constitution and the election laws included specific provisions which seemed designed to prevent her from running for election or holding high office.
And she remains hugely important to the Burmese people. For them she represents hope of a better future and a figure embodying the unity that is so absent from present day Burma. She already had a special status as the daughter of the father of the country's independence movement.
But her bravery and dedication to the democratic cause in 1988 and beyond gave her a significant following in her own right. People have enormous admiration for the way she has remained dignified, committed and principled in the face of everything the regime has thrown at her since the 1990 elections in which her party won by a landslide.
Last Friday, I drove down University Avenue where Aung San Suu Kyi lives. Part of the road is open to traffic, but you soon meet a crude wood and barbed wire barrier, the first of two which prevent anyone getting to her house. A couple of bored looking guards cast wary eyes at my car with its diplomatic number plates as we approached. They needn't have worried. I had a meeting elsewhere. The only time I have been allowed to meet her was last October in a session rigidly structured by the regime.
You can't see the house from that roadblock, but you can see it very clearly from the opposite bank of Rangoon's Inya lake at a distance of some 500m. But that's about as close as most people can get to a woman who for years has embodied the Burmese people's defiance against the regime that controls the country.
Since she was last placed under house arrest in 2002, the authorities have sought to control her completely, denying her the chance to communicate in any way with the people who gave her party an overwhelming mandate in 1990 and the younger generation that has emerged since.
How will the regime try to control her now? Delay her release? Attach a string of conditions, in defiance of all the calls by the international community for her freedom to be unconditional?
Release her only to re-arrest her shortly afterwards "for her own safety", because of the crowds of people who will undoubtedly flock to see her?
All are possible. But if you want to know what Aung San Suu Kyi means to people, I don't think you need look much further than the title of one of her books, Freedom from Fear. She represents an alternative vision of how life in Burma could be. In which freedom from fear would be a central element and a radical change from the current position.
For most people here that would be a pretty good start.
Andrew Heyn is the British Ambassador to Burma
Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/nov/02/aung-san-suu-kyi-burma-elections
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| Aung San Suu Kyi's house, seen across a lake from 500 metres away – the closest most people can get to her. Photograph: Nyein Chan Naing/EPA |
I have been doing a large number of media briefings in recent days and the questions have been split pretty evenly between the elections and the possible release on 13 November.
Two of the questions I am most frequently asked are: what I think she will do if she is released and, secondly, whether she can have any relevance in Burma after so long under house arrest?
The first is difficult to answer. It depends to a major extent on whether the regime places restrictions on her.
Her lawyer told me recently that when she was released in 1995 she was not allowed to travel outside Rangoon. On release from a further period of house arrest in 2002, she was allowed to travel outside Rangoon, but only once prior authorisation had been sought from the regime.
Her colleagues at the National League for Democracy tell me that this time, as before, Aung San Suu Kyi wants to travel the country and reconnect with the Burmese public. I imagine she will also be inundated with requests for meetings with foreign diplomats (including this one) and visiting politicians.
As for her relevance, all the evidence points to a regime that still fears that she is very relevant.
They have kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years. Both the constitution and the election laws included specific provisions which seemed designed to prevent her from running for election or holding high office.
And she remains hugely important to the Burmese people. For them she represents hope of a better future and a figure embodying the unity that is so absent from present day Burma. She already had a special status as the daughter of the father of the country's independence movement.
But her bravery and dedication to the democratic cause in 1988 and beyond gave her a significant following in her own right. People have enormous admiration for the way she has remained dignified, committed and principled in the face of everything the regime has thrown at her since the 1990 elections in which her party won by a landslide.
Last Friday, I drove down University Avenue where Aung San Suu Kyi lives. Part of the road is open to traffic, but you soon meet a crude wood and barbed wire barrier, the first of two which prevent anyone getting to her house. A couple of bored looking guards cast wary eyes at my car with its diplomatic number plates as we approached. They needn't have worried. I had a meeting elsewhere. The only time I have been allowed to meet her was last October in a session rigidly structured by the regime.
You can't see the house from that roadblock, but you can see it very clearly from the opposite bank of Rangoon's Inya lake at a distance of some 500m. But that's about as close as most people can get to a woman who for years has embodied the Burmese people's defiance against the regime that controls the country.
Since she was last placed under house arrest in 2002, the authorities have sought to control her completely, denying her the chance to communicate in any way with the people who gave her party an overwhelming mandate in 1990 and the younger generation that has emerged since.
How will the regime try to control her now? Delay her release? Attach a string of conditions, in defiance of all the calls by the international community for her freedom to be unconditional?
Release her only to re-arrest her shortly afterwards "for her own safety", because of the crowds of people who will undoubtedly flock to see her?
All are possible. But if you want to know what Aung San Suu Kyi means to people, I don't think you need look much further than the title of one of her books, Freedom from Fear. She represents an alternative vision of how life in Burma could be. In which freedom from fear would be a central element and a radical change from the current position.
For most people here that would be a pretty good start.
Andrew Heyn is the British Ambassador to Burma
Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/nov/02/aung-san-suu-kyi-burma-elections
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