Nobel laureates celebrate Burma's hero

Ellie Tesher- COLUMNIST
Toronto Star Online
Nov 29 2001

WITH THE eyes of the world on the routing of the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan, other repressive regimes carry on unimpeded.

Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi's heroic struggle for democracy and human rights, however, is the focus next month for reawakening international concern for her and her people who live under a brutal military junta.

Suu Kyi is the elected head of a government that was barred from taking power, isolated from her family for more than a decade and held under house arrest for most of those years. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her courageous peace efforts.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the prestigious prize, 34 former Nobel laureates, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, will gather in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 8 to focus worldwide attention on her cause, with ceremonies planned around the globe that same day.

Despite the West's condemnation of the treatment of Suu Kyi, elected politicians and democracy activists, the military government, which killed thousands who took part in a 1988 popular uprising and renamed the country Myanmar, though the people prefer Burma, persists in worsening human rights abuses. After the bloodbath created chaos, the military allowed a 1990 election in which the charismatic Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory.

The junta seized back power and imprisoned elected politicians on trumped-up charges, with sentences of up to 25 years. Many died in jail. Nineteen elected members of parliament still languish in prison today, as do hundreds of ordinary citizens oftimes yanked off the streets.

Among the ethnic minorities, the military has imposed slave labour and prostitution, wiped out villages or forced their immediate relocation and subjected women to gang rape. There's no freedom of expression or freedom of association.

"There's not really freedom of thought," says Bo Hla Tint, an elected MP and member of the coalition government in exile in Washington. He and several others, including the prime minister, have been stranded there since 1993 when they were part of a delegation to the United Nations. When the General Assembly passed a resolution calling for human rights improvements in Burma, the delegates were refused visas to return home. Hla Tint didn't see his family until they escaped across the border three years later.

"On the surface, you see Burmese people smiling, because they've learned how to survive. But when you analyze deeper, there is total lack of security, people can be arrested any time for any reason," he says.

In an attempt to deflect international criticism and increase trade opportunities, the rulers also renamed themselves the State Peace and Development Council. Shamefully, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) accepted them as members in 1997, though that year the United States banned any new American investment there and some companies like PepsiCo have left.

Suu Kyi's late father was prime minister between British colonial rule and the country's independence for which he had fought. He and his entire cabinet were murdered by political opponents six months before the transition. What followed has been four decades of dictatorship and military rule that ravaged resources and impoverished the population.

Suu Kyi was raised in Britain where she married anthropologist Michael Aris. She returned to Burma to care for her ailing mother and stayed to campaign politically. Her house arrest of 1989 was lifted six years later due to world pressure but, repeatedly, when she tried to meet with colleagues she was confined again. Aris and their two sons were rarely allowed into Burma to see her. Nor was she allowed to leave - if she wished to return - when Aris died of cancer.

Bearing a fragile beauty in contrast to the steely inner strength and fierce determination, she has been under permanent detention for the past two years while secret negotiations are supposedly being held between her and her captors about how to resolve the political impasse.

Not even the U.N. special envoy, who is supposed to facilitate them, is privy to the discussions, says Hla Tint. This regime has been deceptive before, only relenting when it wants international favour. That is why luminaries like Tutu and the Nobel laureates are taking a stand.

Suu Kyi is the symbol of Burma's fight for freedom.

In Toronto, corresponding with the ceremonies in Oslo, supporters are to meet Dec. 8 at 8 a.m. at Saint Lawrence Market to celebrate this remarkable and fearless woman and to show support for what Hla Tint calls "the moral, non-violent battle&quoy; of the Burmese people.