Aung San Suu Kyi

Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi pledge to work together for Burma democracy

US secretary of state reiterates call for Burmese regime to end repression during historic meeting with opposition leader

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• Jason Burke in Delhi, Sara Olsen and agencies in Rangoon
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 December 2011 18.50 GMT
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In a 90-minute meeting, the US secretary of state praised the Burmese pro-democracy leader's leadership Link to this video

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, have made an unprecedented public vow to work together to promote democratic reforms in the isolated and repressive south Asian state.

Ending a historic three-day visit to Burma, the first by a US secretary of state in more than 50 years, Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi held hands on the porch of the lakeside home where the campaigner has spent much of the past two decades under house arrest. "If we move forward together I am confident there will be no turning back on the road to democracy," Aung San Suu Kyi said. "We are not on that road yet, but we hope to get there as soon as possible with the help and understanding of our friends."

Clinton's visit follows a series of tentative reforms by Burma's new nominally civilian government. In the last year media restrictions have been loosened, some political prisoners released and elections held. The polls were heavily rigged to give the party backed by the army a massive majority and were boycotted by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

Clinton repeated her call for the regime to free all political prisoners, end campaigns against ethnic minorities and respect the rule of law. Burma remains under US and European sanctions, and western officials say the regime's desire to see them lifted has prompted the recent changes. Clinton, who has indicated the sanctions are likely to stay for the foreseeable future, said nonetheless that the US was "prepared to go further if reforms maintain momentum".

However, referring to "serious setbacks and grave disappointments over the past decades" she said she remained cautious.

Analysts have also seen the trip as a bid by Washington to roll back Beijing's influence in Burma and in the region.

In recent years, the Burmese regime has become close to China developing a "dense web" of economic and other ties. Clinton announced that the US would spend about $1.2m (£760,000) on healthcare initiatives and assistance to landmine victims, particularly in rural areas in Burma.

Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party swept 1990 elections that were ignored by the regime, now plans to run in parliamentary by-elections within months.

On Thursday night the Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi spent three hours dining together at the residence of the American charge d'affaires in Rangoon. One senior US official said the event marked the beginning of what appeared to be a "very warm friendship" between the two women.

Locals say the reforms have made no difference and have been limited in extent. The military still dominates most institutions and has vast financial interests.

In central Rangoon on Friday, Burma's most famous land rights activist, lawyer Phoe Phyu, was in court on charges of unlawful assembly. In October, Phyu, who has been tortured during previous detentions, led a small peaceful farmer's protest against the seizure of farmers' land by some of the country's leading companies.

"I do not think Hillary Clinton or Aung San Suu Kyi alone can solve this problem," he told the Guardian on his way to court. "I am afraid but we will keep smiling no matter what threat we face."

Sara Olsen is a pseudonym.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Burma's New Hope: A Repressive Regime Loosens Its Grip (for Now)

By HANNAH BEECH / RANGOON Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011

Posters of Suu Kyi and her father, independence hero Aung San, hang behind monks at a monastery outside Rangoon.

James Nachtwey for TIME

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It's instinctive. I still avert my eyes. But the Lady stares at me all over town, in a laminated postcard pressed to my palm by a street child, on a poster at a Buddhist monastery where monks were once locked up for their political activism, at the entrance of a tea shop darkened by one of Burma's chronic power cuts. Just last year, displaying a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, the once jailed democracy icon known affectionately by her supporters as the Lady, could invite arrest by agents of the ruling military junta. Back then, Burmese would furtively show me her image, then look around to see if anyone was watching. Too often, someone was. But now her picture is openly cherished, a 66-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate as fresh as the blossoms she wears in her hair. "It's like a dream to see her pictures everywhere," says Su Su Nway, a political prisoner who was released in October after four years in jail, mostly in solitary confinement. "I still cannot believe it. I wonder if I will wake up and she will be gone."

For now, she is around — and so was another lady. Hillary Clinton's visit to Burma, which continues through Dec. 2, is the first by a U.S. Secretary of State in more than half a century. For decades, relations between the two nations have moldered, as Burma hid behind a haze of tropical terror and the U.S. slapped economic sanctions on the country's oppressive rulers. Burma is the second poorest country in Asia, after Afghanistan, and the world's second most corrupt, after Somalia. Most Burmese live in the countryside, surviving with barely one foot out of the Iron Age. Virtually everyone not part of the elite suffers the relentless fear of an authoritarian state that can jail practically anyone for any reason. For instance, in 2008, after a cyclone killed some 140,000 people, some Burmese who distributed food were imprisoned simply for inadvertently exposing the government's failure to help citizens. Clinton was, thus, in one of the world's most backward, repressed countries — an Orwellian realm where George Orwell himself once served as a colonial policeman.(See Aung San Suu Kyi in the 2011 TIME 100.)

Yet the country that calls itself Myanmar is also a changed place. It's not just Suu Kyi's omnipresence that signals a remarkable transformation. In March, a nominally civilian government replaced the ruling junta. Despite vote rigging for the military-linked party in last year's elections and a leadership stacked with retired generals, the new government is starting to do something the previous regime failed to do: consider the needs of some 50 million Burmese. Economic reforms — from privatization to the creation of labor unions — are beginning to mend a tattered economy in which one-quarter of the country's budget is spent on the army. Some of the hundreds of political prisoners crowding Burma's notorious jails have been released. Once muzzled newspapers are loosening up, and the country's censorship czar has said that his bureau should be abolished. Even the country's flag and anthem were abruptly changed late last year (brighter colors, catchier tune), as if the regime wanted a visual and aural break from its disgraceful past. "It's a brave new Burma," a friend in Rangoon, the commercial capital, tells me. I laugh, but she's not joking.

Suu Kyi, having just celebrated her first anniversary of freedom from house arrest, is also looking forward. "I am cautiously optimistic," she tells me at the headquarters of her opposition National League for Democracy (NLD). "That's all I can say, that's all anyone can say." The NLD is doing more than talking. The same day in mid-November that U.S. President Barack Obama announced Clinton's visit to Burma, the NLD made a historic decision to re-enter politics — a space that didn't even exist until last year. Back in 1990, the NLD won elections that the military junta ignored. The woman who might have been Burma's Prime Minister spent most of the intervening two decades under house arrest. When the regime announced it would hold new elections in 2010, the NLD chose to boycott a surely sham contest.(SEe TIME's photoessay, "Freedom for Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi.")

But the surprisingly reformist leadership of President Thein Sein, a retired general and former junta member, has now persuaded the opposition force to reregister as a political party and contest the coming by-elections. Suu Kyi is running for a seat in parliament, something she could only do after the government changed electoral laws this year to allow former prisoners to run for office. "I am awed by the responsibility," she says. "We have a lot of work to do, and we are, as you might imagine, a bit rusty when it comes to all this."

In years past, Burma's military intelligence could arrest someone for possessing samizdat NLD pamphlets in their homes. Yet for a nation sheltered so long from open political debate, the hunger for civics knowledge in Burma is astonishing. Every time I visit, I have improbable discussions with young and old alike on things like federalism, constitutional amendments or Rousseau. The big political question now, of course, is whether these budding reforms will bring anything truly resembling democracy and a free market to Burma. Other countries in Asia, like Indonesia, have made the transition from military rule to democratic governance. Could Burma, one of the last remaining "outposts of tyranny," to use a U.S. designation, be next?

See what's next for Burma after Suu Kyi was freed.

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Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2100949,00.html#ixzz1fHELu2ib

Aung San Suu Kyi

Freedom from Fear: Aung Sang Suu Kyi

Freedom from Fear speech

by Aung Sang Suu Kyi, 1990

 

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched.

Public dissatisfaction with economic hardships has been seen as the chief cause of the movement for democracy in Burma, sparked off by the student demonstrations 1988. It is true that years of incoherent policies, inept official measures, burgeoning inflation and falling real income had turned the country into an economic shambles. But it was more than the difficulties of eking out a barely acceptable standard of living that had eroded the patience of a traditionally good-natured, quiescent people - it was also the humiliation of a way of life disfigured by corruption and fear.

The students were protesting not just against the death of their comrades but against the denial of their right to life by a totalitarian regime which deprived the present of meaningfulness and held out no hope for the future. And because the students' protests articulated the frustrations of the people at large, the demonstrations quickly grew into a nationwide movement. Some of its keenest supporters were businessmen who had developed the skills and the contacts necessary not only to survive but to prosper within the system. But their affluence offered them no genuine sense of security or fulfilment, and they could not but see that if they and their fellow citizens, regardless of economic status, were to achieve a worthwhile existence, an accountable administration was at least a necessary if not a sufficient condition. The people of Burma had wearied of a precarious state of passive apprehension where they were 'as water in the cupped hands' of the powers that be.

Emerald cool we may be_As water in cupped hands_But oh that we might be_As splinters of glass_In cupped hands.

Glass splinters, the smallest with its sharp, glinting power to defend itself against hands that try to crush, could be seen as a vivid symbol of the spark of courage that is an essential attribute of those who would free themselves from the grip of oppression. Bogyoke Aung San regarded himself as a revolutionary and searched tirelessly for answers to the problems that beset Burma during her times of trial. He exhorted the people to develop courage: 'Don't just depend on the courage and intrepidity of others. Each and every one of you must make sacrifices to become a hero possessed of courage and intrepidity. Then only shall we all be able to enjoy true freedom.'

The effort necessary to remain uncorrupted in an environment where fear is an integral part of everyday existence is not immediately apparent to those fortunate enough to live in states governed by the rule of law. Just laws do not merely prevent corruption by meting out impartial punishment to offenders. They also help to create a society in which people can fulfil the basic requirements necessary for the preservation of human dignity without recourse to corrupt practices. Where there are no such laws, the burden of upholding the principles of justice and common decency falls on the ordinary people. It is the cumulative effect on their sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote man's desire for harmony and justice while restraining the less desirable destructive traits in his nature.

In an age when immense technological advances have created lethal weapons which could be, and are, used by the powefful and the unprincipled to dominate the weak and the helpless, there is a compelling need for a closer relationship between politics and ethics at both the national and international levels. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations proclaims that 'every individual and every organ of society' should strive to promote the basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings regardless of race, nationality or religion are entitled. But as long as there are governments whose authority is founded on coercion rather than on the mandate of the people, and interest groups which place short-term profits above long-term peace and prosperity, concerted international action to protect and promote human rights will remain at best a partially realized struggle. There willcontinue to be arenas of struggle where victims of oppression have to draw on their own inner resources to defend their inalienable rights as members of the human family.

The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences ofdesire, ill will, ignorance and fear.

Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and to uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.

Always one to practise what he preached, Aung San himself constantly demonstrated courage - not just the physical sort but the kind that enabled him to speak the truth, to stand by his word, to accept criticism, to admit his faults, to correct his mistakes, to respect the opposition, to parley with the enemy and to let people be the judge of his worthiness as a leader. It is for such moral courage that he will always be loved and respected in Burma - not merely as a warrior hero but as the inspiration and conscience of the nation. The words used by Jawaharlal Nehru to describe Mahatma Gandhi could well be applied to Aung San:

'The essence of his teaching was fearlessness and truth, and action allied to these, always keeping the welfare of the masses in view.'

Gandhi, that great apostle of non-violence, and Aung San, the founder of a national army, were very different personalities, but as there is an inevitable sameness about the challenges ofauthoritarian rule anywhere at any time, so there is a similarity in the intrinsic qualities of those who rise up to meet the challenge. Nehru, who considered the instillation of courage in the people of India one of Gandhi's greatest achievements, was a political modernist, but as he assessed the needs for a twentieth-century movement for independence, he found himself looking back to the philosophy of ancient India: 'The greatest gift for an individual or a nation . .. was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.'

Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as 'grace under pressure' - grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.

Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear ofdeath, fear oflosing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.

The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinguishes man from the mere brute. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of peffection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.

Aung San Suu Kyi...

Aung San Suu Kyi