Biography*
1942: September 6. Marriage of Aung San, commander of the Burma Independence Army, and Ma Khin Kyi (becoming Daw Khin Kyi), senior nurse of Rangoon General Hospital, where he had recovered from the rigours of the march into Burma.
1945: June 19. Aung San Suu Kyi born in Rangoon, third child in family. "Aung San" for father, "Kyi" for mother, "Suu" for grandmother, also day of week of birth.
Favourite brother is to drown tragically at an early age. The older brother, will settle in San Diego, California, becoming United States citizen.
1947: July 19. General Aung San assassinated. Suu Kyi is two years old. Daw Khin Kyi becomes a prominent public figure, heading social planning and social policy bodies.
1948: January 4. The Independent Union of Burma is established.
1960: Daw Khin Kyi appointed Burma's ambassador to India. Suu Kyi accompanies mother to New Delhi.
1960-64: Suu Kyi at high school and Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi.
1964-67: Oxford University, B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics at St. Hugh's College (elected Honorary Fellow, 1990).
British "parents" are Lord Gore-Booth, former British ambassador to Burma and High Commissioner in India, and his wife, at whose home Suu Kyi meets Michael Aris, student of Tibetan civilisation.
1969-71: She goes to New York for graduate study, staying with family friend Ma Than E, staff member at the United Nations, where U. Thant of Burma is Secretary-General. Postponing studies, Suu Kyi joins U.N. secretariat as Assistant Secretary, Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. Evenings and weekends volunteers at hospital, helping indigent patients in programs of reading and companionship.
1972: January 1. Marries Michael Aris, joins him in Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where he tutors royal family and heads Translation Department. She becomes Research Officer in the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
1973: They return to England for birth of Alexander in London.
1974: Michael assumes appointment in Tibetan and Himalayan studies at Oxford University.
1977: Birth of second son, Kim at Oxford.
While raising her children, Suu Kyi begins writing, researches for biography of father, and assists Michael in Himalayan studies.
1984: Publishes Aung San in Leaders of Asia series of University of Queensland Press. (See Freedom from Fear, pp. 3-38.)
1985: For juvenile readers publishes Let's Visit Burma (see Freedom from Fear, pp. 39-81), also books on Nepal and Bhutan in same series for Burke Publishing Company, London.
1985-86: Visiting Scholar, Center of Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, researching father's time in Japan. Kim with her, Alexander with Michael, who has fellowship at Indian Institute of Advanced Studies at Simla in northern India.
1986: On annual visit to grandmother in Rangoon, Alexander and Kim take part in traditional Buddhist ceremony of initiation into monkhood.
1987: With fellowship at Indian Institute Suu Kyi, with Kim, joins Michael and Alexander in Simla. Travels to London when mother is there for cataract surgery.
Publishes "Socio-Political Currents in Burmese Literature, 1910-1940" in journal of Tokyo University. (See Freedom from Fear, pp. 140-164.) September. Family returns to Oxford. Suu Kyi enrolls at London School of Oriental and African Studies to work on advanced degree.
1988: March 31. Informed by telephone of mother's severe stroke, she takes plane next day to Rangoon to help care for Daw Khin Kyi at hospital, then moves her to family home on University Avenue next to Inya Lake in Rangoon.
July 23. Resignation of General Ne Win, since 1962 military dictator of Burma. Popular demonstrations of protest continuing.
August 8. Mass uprising throughout country. Violent suppression by military kills thousands.
August 15. Suu Kyi, in first political action, sends open letter to government, asking for formation of independent consultative committee to prepare multi-party elections.
August 26. In first public speech, she addresses several hundred thousand people outside Shwedagon Pagoda, calling for democratic government. Michael and her two sons are there.
September 18. Military establishes State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Political gatherings of more than four persons banned. Arrests and sentencing without trial reaffirmed. Parliamentary elections to be held, but in expectation that multiplicity of parties will prevent clear result.
September 24. National League for Democracy (NLD) formed, with Suu Kyi general-secretary. Policy of non-violence and civil disobedience. October-December. Defying ban, Suu Kyi makes speech-making tour throughout country to large audiences.
December 27. Daw Khin Kyi dies at age of seventy-six.
1989: January 2. Funeral of Daw Khin Kyi. Huge funeral procession. Suu Kyi vows that as her father and mother had served the people of Burma, so too would she, even unto death.
January-July. Suu Kyi continues campaign despite harassment, arrests and killings by soldiers.
February 17. Suu Kyi prohibited from standing for election.
April 5. Incident in Irawaddy Delta when Suu Kyi courageously walks toward rifles soldiers are aiming at her.
July 20. Suu Kyi placed under house arrest, without charge or trial. Sons already with her. Michael flies to Rangoon, finds her on third day of hunger strike, asking to be sent to prison to join students arrested at her home. Ends strike when good treatment of students is promised.
1990: May 27. Despite detention of Suu Kyi, NLD wins election with 82% of parliamentary seats. SLORC refuses to recognise results.
October 12. Suu Kyi granted 1990 Rafto Human Rights Prize.
1991: July 10. European Parliament awards Suu Kyi Sakharov human rights prize.
October 14. Norwegian Nobel Committee announces Suu Kyi is winner of 1991 Peace Prize.
1991: December. Freedom from Fear published by Penguin in New York, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Also in Norwegian, French, Spanish translations.
December 10. Alexander and Kim accept prize for mother in Oslo ceremony. Suu Kyi remains in detention, having rejected offer to free her if she will leave Burma and withdraw from politics. Worldwide appeal growing for her release.
1992: Suu Kyi announces that she will use $1.3 million prize money to establish health and education trust for Burmese people.
1993: Group of Nobel Peace Laureates, denied entry to Burma, visit Burmese refugees on Thailand border, call for Suu Kyi's release, Their appeal later repeated at UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva.
1994: February. First non-family visitors to Suu Kyi: UN representative, U.S. congressman, New York Times reporter.
September-October. SLORC leaders meet with Suu Kyi, who still asks for a public dialogue.
1995: July 10. SLORC releases Suu Kyi from house arrest after six years of detention.
In the last four years her movements have still been restricted. While she has had some opportunities to telephone her family in England, she is regularly denounced in the government-controlled media, and there is concern for her personal safety. Efforts to revive any NLD party activities have been balked, and its members have been jailed and physically attacked. In the first months after detention was ended, she was able to speak to large gatherings of supporters outside her home, but this was stopped. Yet her popularity in the country has not diminished.
Internationally her voice has been heard not infrequently. Reporters with cameras and videotape have been able to interview her in person, and telephone interviews with the media outside Burma have also been published. Using video cassettes she has sent out statements, including the keynote address to the NGO Forum at the U.N. International Women's Conference in Beijing in August 1995.
There have been a number of visitors from abroad, including a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, whom she told that Norway will be the first country she will visit when free to travel. SLORC has changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council, 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 hearing for such pleas among western nations, and the United States has applied economic sanctions against Burma, but Burma's neighbours follow their policy of not intervening in the internal affairs of other sovereign states, and Burma has been admitted into the Association of South Eastern Asian Nations.
On March 27, 1999, Michael Aris died of prostate cancer in London. He had petitioned the Burmese authorities to allow him to visit Suu Kyi one last time, but they had rejected his request. He had not seen her since a Christmas visit in 1995. The government always urged her to join her family abroad, but she knew that she would not be allowed to return. This separation she regarded as one of the sacrifices she had had to make in order to work for a free Burma.
Award Ceremony Speech
Presentation Speech by Francis Sejersted, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
Your Majesties, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are assembled here today to honour Aung San Suu Kyi for her outstanding work for democracy and human rights, and to present to her the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991. The occasion gives rise to many and partly conflicting emotions. The Peace Prize Laureate is unable to be here herself. The great work we are acknowledging has yet to be concluded. She is still fighting the good fight. Her courage and commitment find her a prisoner of conscience in her own country, Burma. Her absence fills us with fear and anxiety, which can nevertheless only be a faint shadow of the fear and anxiety felt by her family. We welcome this opportunity of expressing our deepest sympathy with them, with her husband, Michael Aris, and with her sons, Alexander and Kim. We feel with you, and we are very grateful to you for coming to Oslo to receive the Nobel Prize on behalf of your wife and mother.
Our fear and anxiety are mixed with a sense of confidence and hope. In the good fight for peace and reconciliation, we are dependent on persons who set examples, persons who can symbolise what we are seeking and mobilise the best in us. Aung San Suu Kyi is just such a person. She unites deep commitment and tenacity with a vision in which the end and the means form a single unit. Its most important elements are: democracy, respect for human rights, reconciliation between groups, non-violence, and personal and collective discipline.
She has herself clearly indicated the sources of her inspiration: principally Mahatma Gandhi and her father, Aung San, the leader in Burma's struggle for liberation. The philosopher of non-violence and the General differ in many respects, but also show fundamental similarities. In both, one can see genuine independence, true modesty, and "a profound simplicity", to use Aung San Suu Kyi's own words about her father. To Aung San, leadership was a duty, and could only be carried out on the basis of humility in face of the task before him and the confidence and respect of the people to be led.
While no doubt deriving a great deal of inspiration from Gandhi and her father, Aung San Suu Kyi has also added her own independent reflections to what has become her political platform. The keynote is the same profound simplicity as she sees in her father. The central position given to human rights in her thinking appears to reflect a real sense of the need to protect human dignity. Man is not only entitled to live in a free society; he also has a right to respect. On this platform, she has built a policy marked by an extraordinary combination of sober realism and visionary idealism. And in her case this is more than just a theory: she has gone a long way towards showing how such a doctrine can be translated into practical politics.
For a doctrine of peace and reconciliation to be translated into practice, one absolute condition is fearlessness. Aung San Suu Kyi knows this. One of her essays opens with the statement that it is not power that corrupts, but fear.1 The comment was aimed at the totalitarian regime in her own country. They have allowed themselves to be corrupted because they fear the people they are supposed to lead. This has led them into a vicious circle. In her thinking, however, the demand for fearlessness is first and foremost a general demand, a demand on all of us. She has herself shown fearlessness in practice. She opposed herself alone to the rifle barrels. Can anything withstand such courage? What was in that Major's mind when at the last moment he gave the order not to fire? Perhaps he was impressed by her bravery, perhaps he realised that nothing can be achieved by brute force.2
Violence is its own worst enemy, and fearlessness is the sharpest weapon against it. It is not least Aung San Suu Kyi's impressive courage which makes her such a potent symbol, like Gandhi and her father Aung San. Aung San was shot in the midst of his struggle. But if those who arranged the assassination thought it would remove him from Burmese politics, they were wrong. He became the unifying symbol of a free Burma and an inspiration to those who are now fighting for a free society. In addition to his example and inspiration, his position among his people, over forty years after his death, gave Aung San Suu Kyi the political point of departure she needed. She has indeed taken up her inheritance, and is now in her own right the symbol of the revolt against violence and the struggle for a free society, not only in Burma, but also in the rest of Asia and in many other parts of the world.
We ordinary people, I believe, feel that with her courage and her high ideals, Aung San Suu Kyi brings out something of the best in us. We feel we need precisely her sort of person in order to retain our faith in the future. That is what gives her such power as a symbol, and that is why any illtreatment of her feels like a violation of what we have most at heart. The little woman under house arrest stands for a positive hope. Knowing she is there gives us confidence and faith in the power of good.
Aung San Suu Kyi was born in 1945. Her father was killed when she was two. She has no personal memories of him. Her mother was a diplomat, and Aung San Suu Kyi was to spend many of her early years and much of her later life abroad. In 1967, she took a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at St. Hugh's College, Oxford. From 1969 on, she worked for two years for the United Nations in New York. In 1972 she married Michael Aris, a British specialist on Tibet. For a time the family lived in Bhutan, but in the mid-seventies they moved back to Oxford. In addition to being a housewife with two small children, Aung San Suu Kyi kept up her academic work, gradually concentrating on modern Burmese history and literature. She was a visiting scholar at Kyoto University in Japan and at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in New Delhi. On her return to Burma in 1988, she broke off her studies at the London School of Oriental and African Studies. There is little in these outward events to suggest the role she was to embark on in 1988. But she was well prepared.
There is a great deal of evidence that the fate of her own people had constantly weighed on her mind. Her husband has told us how she often reminded him that one day she would have to return to Burma, and that she would count on his support.3 Her studies, too, as we have seen, became increasingly concentrated on Burma's modern history. The study of her father and the part he played in Burmese history no doubt increased her political commitment and sense that his mantle had fallen on her.4
In moving to Japan, she was virtually following in her father's footsteps. During the Second World War, it was from a base in Japan that Aung San built up Burma's independent national army. When Japan invaded Burma, Aung San and his men went too. Before long, they switched from fighting the British colonial power to resisting the occupying Japanese and supporting the retaking of Burma by the Allies. After the war, he led the negotiations with the British which were to lead to final independence. Aung San Suu Kyi appears to have felt an urgent need to study the process which led to Burma's independent statehood, and to understand the ideals governing the politics. In a beautiful essay comparing the Indian and Burmese experience of colonisation, she also brings out the special features of Burma's cultural heritage.5 History is important. You choose who you are by choosing which tradition you belong to. Aung San Suu Kyi seeks to call attention to what she sees as the best aspects of the national and cultural heritage and to identify herself with them. Such profound knowledge and such a deep sense of identity are an irresistible force in the political struggle.
The occasion of Aung San Suu Kyi's return to Burma in 1988 was, characteristically enough, not the political situation but her old mother's illness. The political turbulence had just begun, however. There had been demonstrations and confrontations with the police with some two hundred killed. The unrest continued while she was nursing her dying mother. That was the situation in which she resolved to take an active part in what she herself called "the second struggle for national independence".
The military regime had seized power in Burma in 1962. The disturbances which broke out in 1988 were a reaction to growing repression. In the summer of that year, at a time when the situation was very uncertain, Aung San Suu Kyi intervened with a open letter to the government, proposing the appointment of a consultative committee of respected independent persons to lead the country into multi-party elections. In the letter, she emphasised the need for discipline and for refraining from the use of force on either side, and demanded the release of political prisoners.6
A couple of days later, she addressed several hundred thousand people in front of the large Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, presenting a political program based on human rights, democracy and non-violence. On the 18th of September, after hesitating for a few weeks, the armed forces reacted by tightening the restrictions. The so-called "State Law and Order Restoration Council" (SLORC) was established, and martial law was introduced under which meetings were banned and persons could be sentenced without trial.
Political parties were not prohibited (perhaps with meetings banned it was thought unnecessary). A week after the establishment of SLORC, Aung San Suu Kyi and a few other members of the opposition founded the National League for Democracy, the NLD. She went on to engage in vigorous political activity, defying the ban on meetings and military provocations, and holding heavily attended political meetings all over the country. One remarkable feature of her political campaign was the appeal she had for the country's various ethnic groups, traditionally at odds with each other.
It must have been her personal prestige which caused the regime to hesitate so long, but in July 1989 she was placed under house arrest. In May 1990, elections were held, in which the NLD won an overwhelming victory and over 80 per cent of the seats in the national assembly. There is general agreement that this was principally a triumph for Aung San Suu Kyi.
Why did the SLORC allow free elections? Probably because they expected a very different result, a result which would somehow have provided the legitimacy they needed to retain power. The dilemma of such regimes was demonstrated - trapped in their own lies. At any rate, they refused to accept the election result. The election was in effect annulled. The SLORC continued, but with reduced legitimacy. Lack of legitimacy is often made up for by increased brutality. Amnesty International has reported continuing serious violations of human rights.7 Today, the Burmese regime appears to have developed into one of the most repressive in the world.
In recent decades, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded a number of Prizes for Peace in recognition of work for human rights.8 It has done so in the conviction that a fundamental prerequisite for peace is the recognition of the right of all people to life and to respect. Another motivation lies in the knowledge that in its most basic form, the concept of human rights is not just a Western idea, but common to all major cultures. Permit me in this connection to quote a paragraph of Aung San Suu Kyi's essay In Quest of Democracy:
Where there is no justice there can be no secure peace.
...That just laws which uphold human rights are the necessary foundations of peace and security would be denied only by closed minds which interpret peace as the silence of all opposition and security as the assurance of their own power. The Burmese associate peace and security with coolness and shade:
The shade of a tree is cool indeed
The shade of parents is cooler
The shade of teachers is cooler still
The shade of the ruler is yet more cool
But coolest of all is the shade of the Buddha's teachings.
Thus to provide the people with the protective coolness of peace and security, rulers must observe the teachings of the Buddha. Central to these teachings are the concepts of truth, righteousness and loving kindness. It is government based on these very qualities that the people of Burma are seeking in their struggle for democracy.9
This is not the first time that political persecution at home has prevented a Peace Prize Laureate from receiving the prize in person. It happened to Carl von Ossietzky in 1936, ill in one of Hitler's concentration camps.10 It happened to Andrei Sakharov and to Lech Walesa. Ossietzky died before the regime fell, but Sakharov and Walesa saw their struggles succeed.11 It is our hope that Aung San Suu Kyi will see her struggle crowned with success.
However, we must also face up to the likelihood that this will not be the last occasion on which a Peace Prize Laureate is unable to attend. Let that remind us that in a world such as ours, peace and reconciliation cannot be achieved once and for all. We will never be able to lower our standards. On the contrary, a better world demands even greater vigilance of us, still greater fearlessness, and the ability to develop in ourselves the "profound simplicity" of which this year's Laureate has spoken. This applies to all of us as individuals, but must apply especially to those in positions of power and authority. Show humility and show fearlessness - like Aung San Suu Kyi. The result may be a better world to live in.
Aung San Suu Kyi's tears as she meets British son she hasn't seen for ten years
Aung San Suu Kyi cried with joy when she was reunited with her son, who she last saw a decade ago.
Burma's pro-democracy leader, 65, was only released from her house arrest on November 13, after more than seven years in detention.
Kim Aris, 33, who lives in Britain, flew into Rangoon after being granted a visa by the military regime and was greeted by his smiling mother at the airport.
During anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007, Ms Suu Kyi made her first public appearance since 2003, greeting monks outside her house and praying with them.
As Burma’s historic elections approach, Peter Popham, the author of the new book The Lady and the Peacock: the Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, parses the private stories and public myth of the pro-democracy leader and Nobel laureate.
Burma’s ruling generals have always been extremely superstitious, consulting astrologers, wizards, and numerologists before doing anything. But even the most rational of them could be forgiven for believing that, in their contest with Aung San Suu Kyi, they were up against someone with otherworldly powers.
Peter Popham has been a foreign correspondent and commentator at The Independent for more than 20 years, reporting from Albania, Mongolia, South Asia, and now Italy. He is the author of The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu KyiandTokyo: The City at the End of the World.
But in 1989, Ms Suu Kyi was detained at her lakeside home in the capital Rangoon. While she was imprisoned, the NLD won a landslide election victory, but the ruling generals refused to relinquish power.
Human beings the world over need freedom and security that they may be able to realize their full potential.
Aung San Suu Kyi
I think I should be active politically. Because I look upon myself as a politician. That's not a dirty work you know. Some people think that there are something wrong with politicians. Of course, something wrong with some politicians.
Aung San Suu Kyi
It is often in the name of cultural integrity as well as social stability and national security that democratic reforms based on human rights are resisted by authoritarian governments.
Aung San Suu Kyi
Peace as a goal is an ideal which will not be contested by any government or nation, not even the most belligerent.
Aung San Suu Kyi
The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence.
Aung San Suu Kyi
The history of the world shows that peoples and societies do not have to pass through a fixed series of stages in the course of development.
Aung San Suu Kyi
The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.
Aung San Suu Kyi
The value systems of those with access to power and of those far removed from such access cannot be the same. The viewpoint of the privileged is unlike that of the underprivileged.
Author
