Profile
Aung San Suu Kyi
Nobel Peace Laureate and Burmese democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, will be awarded a Doctor of Laws (LLD) honoris causa, by the University of Cape Town on Monday, the 10th of December 2007. The 10th of December is International Human Rights Day.
Because Aung San Suu Kyi is currently under house arrest in Burma, the degree will be accepted on her behalf by fellow Nobel Peace Laureate, Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Aung San Suu Kyi, was born in Rangoon (Burma), on June 19th 1945, the youngest of three children, to General Aung San, (National Leader and Hero) and Ma Khin Kyi – a senior nurse at Rangoon General Hospital. In July 1947, General Aung San was assassinated. Suu Kyi was 2 years old at the time and her mother thereafter became a prominent public figure heading national social planning and social policy bodies.
In 1960 Daw Khin Kyi was appointed as Burmese Ambassador to India, Suu Kyi accompanied her to New Delhi where she completed her High school education and then enrolled in Lady Shri Ram College. In 1964, Suu Kyi enrolled at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, to read for a degree in Economics, Politics and Philosophy, which she completed successfully in 1967, and to which she was elected as an Honorary Fellow in 1990. She also met her future husband, Professor Michael Aris during this time. They were married on New Years Day in 1972. They have two sons, Alexander born in 1973, and Kim, born in 1977.
In 1969 Suu Kyi travelled to the USA, New York, to enrol for post Graduate Studies. However she joined the United Nations Secretariat as an assistant secretary on the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, and spent her evenings and weekends as a hospital volunteer working and helping indigent patients in reading and companionship programmes.
Shortly after this Michael Aris accepted a posting to the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, where he headed up the Translation Department, and tutored the Royal Family. Suu Kyi became a research officer in the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
During this time Suu Kyi began researching the history of her father preparatory to writing his biography, as well as assisting Michael in his Himalayan studies.
1984, Suu Kyi publishes “Aung San” in the leaders of Asia series published by the University of Queensland press. 1985, Suu Kyi publishes for juvenile readers “Let’s visit Burma”, also books on Nepal, and Bhutan in the same series for the Burke publishing company, London.
1985/6, Suu Kyi was a visiting scholar at the Centre of South East Asia Studies, Kyoto University, and at the same time researching her fathers time in Japan. In 1987, Suu Kyi left Japan and joined her husband in Simla and whilst there publishes “Socio-Political Currents in Burmese Literature, 1910-1940” in a Tokyo University journal. In September of ’87 the family returned to Oxford, and Suu Kyi enrolled at ‘SOAS’ in London to work on an advanced degree.
In March of 1988, Suu Kyi, she returns to Rangoon to be with her ill mother, Daw Khin Kyi, who had been hospitalised.
Burma was in the grip of turbulence and turmoil, the government of the Dictator Ne Win who stole power in 1962 in a coup from the former totalitarian Socialist regime that had ruled Burma since 1948, had proved unequal to the task and had led the country (previously the most potentially rich country in Asia) into an moral, economic, administrative and political decline unequalled in the countries history. Under the weight of increasing civil protest and demands for a national referendum on Burma’s future, Ne Win resigned on the 23rd July 1988. The Government refused to accede to a referendum. Suu Kyi’s house quickly became the locus of political activity in the country.
On August 8th 1988, there was a mass uprising throughout the country, which was violently suppressed by the military. Thousands were killed. On the 15th August in her first overt political action Suu Kyi sent an open letter to the Government asking for the formation of an Independent Consultative Committee to prepare for multiparty elections. This was refused. In her first public speech she addressed several hundred thousand people outside the Shwedagon Pagoda (a National Symbol) in which she called for Democratic Government.
On December 27th 1988, Suu Kyi’s mother died. The funeral held on January 2nd 1989 became almost a state occasion where students, politicians and the authorities had to cooperate. People began to realise the possibilities of the benefits of cooperation under Suu Kyi’s leadership.
Suu Kyi vows “that as her Father and Mother had served the people of Burma, so too would she, even unto death”. The military had other ideas, Suu Kyi’s popular leadership and growing support turned her into enemy No. 1 for the Junta. She was prohibited from standing for election, Suu Kyi continued to campaign around the country to rapturous acclaim. The Military were beginning to realise the potential political potency of Suu Kyi to damage and thwart their plans. They ordered her to be placed under house arrest on the 20th July in 1989.
1989, Suu Kyi continues to campaign despite severe harassment, arrests and killings of her supporters by the soldiers. On February 17th Suu Kyi is prohibited from standing for election and in May 27th 1990, despite detention, NLD wins election with 82% of the Parliamentary seats contested, but the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) refuses to recognise the results.
On the 12th of October 1989, Suu Kyi is awarded the Rafto Human Rights Prize. In 1991, July 10th, the European Parliament awards Suu Kyi Sakharov Human Rights Prize and on October 14th, the Norwegian Nobel Committee Announces the Suu Kyi is the winner of the 1991 Peace Prize.
In 1991, December, “Freedom from Fear” is published by penguin in New York, England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and this is also done in Norwegian, French, Spanish, translations. On December 10th, Alexander and Kim accept prize for their Mother at ceremony in Oslo. Suu Kyi remains in detention, having rejected an offer to release her if she will leave Burma and withdraw from Politics.
In 1992, Suu Kyi announces that she will use the $1.3 million prize money to establish health and education trust for Burmese people. In 1993, Group of Nobel Peace Laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu denied entry into Burma to meet with Fellow Nobel Peace Laureate Suu Kyi. They then went to Thai/Burma border to meet with refugees and to call for Suu Kyi’s release. Their appeal is later repeated at the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. In 1994, the first non-family visitors allowed to see Suu Kyi, and they are a UN representative, a US Congressman, and a New York Times reporter.
In September/October of that year, SLORC leaders meet with Suu Kyi who still asks for public dialogue. In 1995 July 10th, SLORC releases Suu Kyi from house arrest after six years of detention. On July 11th, she tells reporters that she is still dedicated to restoration of democracy in Burma and calls for dialogue on political reform, between SLORC, democracy movement, and ethnic minorities.
She also urges disinvestment by foreign businessmen doing business or thinking of doing business in Burma to wait until democracy has been restored. On November 28th, she informs SLORC that the NLD is withdrawing from “National Convention”, and shortly afterwards a Military spokesman announces that the Junta will “annihilate anyone disturbing national interests”.
In March 1996, Suu Kyi forced to cancel trip to Mandalay to attend supporters trial, after train coach which she booked “supposedly” developed a last minute fault. She later tells reporters that this was SLORC trying to prevent her from meeting the people. In July of 1998, Suu Kyi was involved in two “standoffs” with the military after having her car blocked “en route” by the police to prevent her from leaving Rangoon to meet with NLD officials in other areas. The five day standoff was forcibly ended by the military, and authorities ended the other when they forcibly seized her car, restrained her and drove her car back to the city against her will.
In August, authorities blocked her en route to a meeting with members of her party, outside the capital. This time she had taken food and water with her, but eventually supplies ran out and the authorities refused to allow her to buy fresh supplies and prevented her party members and doctors from giving her food and water.
In March of 1999, her husband who had not seen her since 1995 was dying from prostate cancer – Suu Kyi could not leave Rangoon to visit with him as the authorities would not let her return. They also refused to issue him with a visa. She was unable to see him before he died on the 27th of March in London.
In August, she is prevented from doing NLD work in Dala, and in September, the police force her to return to the capital after a nine-day stand-off, where she had taken refuge in her car. The NLD party headquarters in Rangoon is ordered closed, after being raided, smashed and stripped of it’s Party files, documents and almost everything else (probably in retaliation for the Investigation into the state of education and the “Education Seminar” run by the International Team).
In 2000, Suu Kyi announces that she will travel outside of the Capital Rangoon in defiance of the Military Juntas ban on travel. “As I am not legally restricted in any way, we have decided that it is time to make this clear. I shall travel outside Rangoon within the next few days. This shall be an organised trip and will be done openly”.
In September, accompanied by a number of her Party colleagues, she was not allowed to board the train and they were held in a waiting room whilst the station itself was surrounded by a heavy security presence, preventing visitors from entering.
A number of party supporters were arrested and taken away in military vehicles (the charges are unknown). On September 23rd, Suu Kyi and other party leaders are confined to their homes in “temporary” detention. On December the 7th, US President Bill Clinton conferred America’s highest civilian honour on Burma’s pro-democracy leader – she was unable to receive the honour in person, but her son Alexander collected the award on her behalf. Using video cassettes she has sent out statements, including the keynote address to the NGO Forum at the UN International Women’s Conference in Beijing in August 1995.
SLORC has since changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) but its repressive policies and violation of Human Rights continue unabated. Suu Kyi discourages tourists from visiting Burma and Businessmen from investing in the country until it is free. She finds much sympathy for such pleas amongst western nations; both the United States and the European Union have applied economic sanctions against Burma.
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Issued by:
Communications and Marketing Department
University of Cape Town