Aung San Suu Kui is a Burmese
politician, known for her efforts to turn her nation into a democracy and
improve the lives of the Burmese people. She became a political prisoner as a
result of her outspoken political beliefs, but has earned praise and recognition
in Burma and around the world. Now free, she is the chair of Burma’s National
League for Democracy (NLD). She
became a representative in the Burmese parliament in 2012.
Early Life and Family
Aung San Suu Kui was born on June 19,
1945, the youngest child and only daughter of Aung San, a founder of modern
Burma, and Khin Kyi, a nurse. Both of her parents were active in the Burmese
independence movement, so it is not surprising that Suu Kui would later become a
prominent advocate for reform. Her father, who had recently become Prime
Minister of Burma, was assassinated by a group of his political enemies in
1947; in the 1960s, however, her mother went on to become an ambassador for the
Burmese government. Suu Kui accompanied Khin Kyi to Nepal as well as to India,
where she became interested in the work of Mahatma Gandhi. She was still in
India at the age of 19, when she earned a degree in politics from New Delhi’s
Lady Shri Ram College.
In 1972, Suu Kui married Michael Aris,
a British author and scholar she had met while attending Oxford University. Suu
Kui and Aris had two sons, Alexander and Kim. Aris died of cancer in 1999. Because
the Burmese government would not allow him to re-enter the country, he and Suu
Kui only saw each other five times in the decade before his death.
Political Actions
Suu Kui did not become politically
active in Burma until 1988, when she returned to her home country after her
mother suffered a stroke. Before this, she had lived in the United States, the
United Kingdom, and Bhutan and worked for the United Nations and the Bhutanese
government. Soon after her return
to Burma, the country’s military dictator, Ne Win, resigned. Mass protests ensued and the military
killed thousands of citizens. Amid the chaos, Suu Kui began calling for multi-party
elections and a democratic government in Burma. Her first speech attracted hundreds
of thousands of people. The crowd included her husband and sons, who were all with
her in Burma at the time.
Although the Burmese government quickly
banned political gatherings, Suu Kui began a speaking tour around the country
in the latter part of 1988. She became General Secretary of the NLD, which
embraced a platform of civil disobedience and non-violence.
House Arrest and Release
In 1989, the government placed Suu Kui
under house arrest for continuing her political campaign. She received no trial. Her book, Freedom from Fear, was published in a
number of Western countries in 1991. That same year, she won the Nobel Peace
Prize and a human rights prize from the European parliament for her efforts to promote
democracy in Burma. She refused to keep the money she earned from her Nobel
Prize, instead putting it into a trust she dedicated to the health and
education of Burmese citizens. Suu Kui was released from house arrest in 1995,
after the United Nations and the United States put pressure on the Burmese
government. She was allowed to visit her family in the United Kingdom and
remained extremely popular among the people of Burma, sometimes speaking to crowds
of her supporters there. However, she was placed under house arrest again in
2000 and remained in this position for the better part of the next ten years.
Under mounting pressure from the U.N.
and a variety of countries (including the U.S.), the Burmese government
released Suu Kui in November 2010. Since her latest release, Suu Kui has been
elected to the Burmese parliament, received the United States Congressional
Gold Medal, and given an acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize her sons
previously had to accept for her.
