Name: Aung San Suu Kyi
Age: 55
Nationality: Mayanmar
Claim to fame: Free once again

FOR Mayanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, it has been a long walk to freedom. For more than ten years now, she has led the democracy movement in her native land. Most of the time however, she has proved to be the thorn that has soured relations between the ruling military junta and the rest of the world.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s political life has mostly been spent either on the streets of Yangoon and the countryside, or under house arrest. Her father, too, spent a lifetime in search of freedom. He was nationalist leader General Aung San whose efforts led to the then Burma’s independence from British rule in 1948.

Suu Kyi’s return to Mayanmar and her entry into the national political scene in 1988 was heralded as a new beginning for a country suffering from years of dictatorial rule. The following year, the ruling generals of Burma acknowledged her nuisance value and placed her under house arrest.

However, her efforts and those of her followers finally paid off when in 1990, countrywide general elections were announced. By then Suu Kyi’s political movement for freedom had matured into a political party and was then called the National League for Democracy. The NLD secured a landslide majority of 82 per cent. Stung by the result, the ruling junta clamped down and annulled the results. Countrywide arrests followed and thousands were jailed.

In retaliation, she started a non-violent protest movement. Inspired by the likes of Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, she called for change through dialogue. It was this approach that earned her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Her children received the award on her behalf as she was still under house-arrest.

In the next ten years, the trails and tribulations of the Mayanmar people never stopped. With a human rights record that is best described as best of the worst, sanctions and economic isolation made life difficult for the people. For Suu Kyi, it wasn’t easy either. Confined in her lakeside villa in Yangoon, she was barred from meeting her ailing husband. They never met again. She was released from house arrest in 1995, but with numerous restrictions on her movement. And after a series of failed attempts to leave Yangoon, she was again put under house-arrest in September 2000.

However, now that Suu Kyi is free with no conditions on her movement, there are still questions that need to be answered. True that her release will facilitate the incubation of democracy in Mayanmar, but will her release mean that democracy will actually return? Many see her release as associated more with the expected economic benefits for Mayanmar rather than a healthy return for the people’s government. In other words, it is a move that is more aimed towards ending the economic than democratic isolation of the country. This is one struggle that Suu Kyi must now fight.