About Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

A few years ago I was Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's personal physician and know her well. Madeleine Bunting has written thoughtfully about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the article An icon worthy of Gandhi and Mandela which appeared in the March 24, 1999 issue of the Guardian Unlimited. I especially find the following quotes about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from Ms. Bunting's article to be very significant:

• Surely she will come to be recognised in the same breath as the tiny band of figures of compelling moral authority - perhaps, the only woman to stand alongside Mahatama Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.
• It is hard to imagine the conflict of loyalties with which she has to struggle between her responsibilities to her family and those to her people.
• There are few people who have chosen to make such huge personal sacrifices for their country and ideals. What makes this so astonishing is that she has made this choice every day for more than 10 years. It would have been so easy to call it a day, go into exile and maintain the struggle from the comforts of England. Given the frustrations of achieving change in Burma and her family responsibilities, no one could have challenged such a choice. To be sure, Mandela, King and Gandhi faced incremental choices to take risks that led to imprisonment and assassination, but there is something in her ongoing choice, the clash of personal and public duties which makes her plight so compelling and so poignant.
• By placing her commitment to her country men before herself and her family, she is making a massive investment in a shared endeavour of bringing democracy to Burma.
• She is a woman who demonstrates huge strength ...