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Peace profile: Aung San Suu Kyi

Alison Koistinen
Published online: 19 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Alison Koistinen (2003) Peace profile: Aung San Suu Kyi, Peace Review: A Journal
of Social Justice, 15:3, 349-355, DOI: 10.1080/1040265032000130959

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 Peace Review 15:3 (2003), 349–355

Peace Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi

Alison Koistinen

“She took her last meal on the evening of 20 July, the day of arrest,” Aung San
Suu Kyi’s husband Michael Aris explains in the introduction to Freedom from Fear,
a collection of essays by Aung San Suu Kyi. Aris continues, “and for the
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following twelve days until almost noon on 1 August she accepted only water.
On that day a military officer came to give her his personal assurance … that her
young [supporters] would not be tortured.” This illustrates one of Aung San Suu
Kyi’s many actions against the military junta that has ruled her country, Burma.

R enamed “Myanmar” in 1989, Burma has a population of 42 million. The

country is home to several ethnic minority groups and over one hundred
indigenous languages. According to Aung San Suu Kyi’s “My Country and
People,” “each of these peoples belongs to one of three major racial groups, the
Mon-Khmers, the Tibeto-Burmans, and the Thai-Shans.” And, as she goes on
to explain, “[t]he one single factor that has had the most influence on Burmese
culture and civilization is Theravada Buddhism.”
Modern Burmese history is marred by both British and Burmese repressive
regimes. After three Anglo-Burmese wars in the 1800s, Burma fell completely to
British control in 1885. In this third and decisive battle, Aung San Suu Kyi
writes that the British “marched on Mandalay and captured the royal family.”
The country’s independence lost and replaced by province-of-India status, life in
Burma changed dramatically. The economy and people were exploited, and
profits mainly enriched British and other foreign interests. The British moved
tens of thousands of troops into Burma to quell revolutionary uprisings. Mission-
aries arrived to attempt to convert the overwhelmingly Buddhist population to
Christianity, finding moderate success in a few ethnic minority groups, in
particular the Karens. The British made some concessions to ethnic minority
groups to gain a modicum of support. According to Aung San Suu Kyi, this
“practice of encouraging the differences between the various racial groups was
to have sad consequences for the independent nation of the future.”
Burmese resistance had begun taking shape by the 1920s, and in the 1930s the
nationalist movement grew in popularity. As a law student during the 1930s,
Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, Aung San, became involved in Burmese nationalist
movements. As one of the leaders of the politically active Student Union, he
spearheaded student strikes and protests. He and several others began a move-
ment called Dohbama Asi-ayone, meaning “We Burmans Association.” After
helping the British defeat the Japanese in Burma during World Ward II, Aung
ISSN 1040-2659 print; ISSN 1469-9982 online/03/030349-07  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1040265032000130959
 350 Peace Profile

San negotiated for Burma’s freedom, and thus is often referred to as the
“architect of Burma’s independence from Britain.” Historian Andrew Marshall
asserts that his death in 1947 “marked for many Burmese the moment their
country fell apart.”

D aw Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Burma on June 19, 1945. She is the
daughter of Aung San, Burma’s national hero, and Daw Khin Kyi, a
Burmese diplomat. Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when a political rival
assassinated her father. In 1960, her mother became Burma’s ambassador to
India. Suu Kyi, then 15, went with her and continued her education in Delhi.
In 1964, she attended St. Hugh’s College at Oxford University, earning her
bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics, and economics.
Aung San Suu Kyi began her career at the United Nations in New York.
From 1969 to 1971 she served as the organization’s Assistant Secretary for the
Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. In 1973, she
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moved to Bhutan and became a Research Officer for the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. That same year she married British scholar Michael Aris and gave birth
to their first son, Alexander, in London. Kim, their second son, was born in
Oxford in 1977.
Throughout her years of education, Aung San Suu Kyi wrote highly praised
scholarly articles. In 1985, she traveled to Kyoto University and was a visiting
scholar at the school’s Center of Southeast Asian Studies, and in 1987 she
became a fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Simla, India.
During her academic career, she wrote many comparative political and literary
articles as well as essays on Burmese history. Some titles include “My Father,”
“My Country and People,” “Intellectual Life in Burma and India under
Colonialism,” and “Literature and Nationalism in Burma.” Her knowledge of
Burmese history and her ability to communicate to both Burmese and foreign
audiences through her writing lent greatly to her credibility when she entered the
political arena.

A ung San Suu Kyi was seventeen years old and living in India when Ne Win
and the Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSSP) seized power in 1962.
Ne Win took drastic measures to ensure his party’s complete control of the
country and all of its institutions. He banned all political parties except for his
own BSSP, dissolving the courts and invalidating the constitution. According to
Alan Clements, author of Burma: The Next Killing Fields?, an extreme fear of
foreigners prompted many of Ne Win’s policies, such as his move to force
“nearly a quarter of a million Indians and Pakistanis to leave the country without
their assets” or his 1960s policy of allowing tourists only 24-hour visas. Under Ne
Win, the media became state controlled and all information was filtered through
the regime’s point of view.
By 1987, Ne Win’s economic and social policies had led to severe inflation and
economic devastation. Angered by these policies, students began organizing
protests against the government. At first, students focused on the crippled
Burmese economy, but in 1988 they broadened the movement and began calling
for a democratic government and an end to human rights abuses. Ne Win and
his totalitarian regime responded by shutting down all universities.
 Peace Profile 351
In March 1988, at the same time her country was heading toward the height
of its political turmoil, Aung San Suu Kyi traveled from Great Britain to her
family home in Rangoon to care for her dying mother. While Aung San Suu Kyi
had always been concerned about Burma, not until she returned did she begin
to seriously contemplate taking action. Her husband Michael Aris pinpoints July
23, 1988, the day Ne Win stepped down, as the singular moment that Aung San
Suu Kyi knew she had to become involved. Aris recalls he and his wife watching
the broadcast of the “scene in congress as it was shown on state television” on
that important day. He writes, “She, like the whole country, was electrified.”
Although this moment was probably the most important for launching Aung San
Suu Kyi into the political realm, Aris notes that “the idea [to get involved] had
gradually taken shape in her mind during the previous fifteen weeks.”
Her political awakening was intensified by the student protests of August 8,
1988 and Aung San Suu Kyi’s firm belief that although Ne Win had announced
his resignation, he was still in control. The student-organized general strike
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ended in violence as the government unleashed the military on its citizens. An

exact death toll for the demonstration is difficult to obtain. According to author
Alan Clements, Burmese officials claimed that 500 people were killed, while
foreign diplomats have put the number closer to 10,000.
No longer able to ignore the dire situation, Aung San Suu Kyi threw herself
into the political arena. At first, she wrote letters to the government asking them
to address the problems the protestors had exposed. These letters fell on deaf
ears. On August 26 in front of a crowd of several hundred thousand at the
Shwedagon Pagoda, Aung San Suu Kyi gave her first public speech. The mass
rally had gathered in solidarity against the government and cheered when the
daughter of their national hero stated, “I could not as my father’s daughter
remain indifferent to all that was going on. This national crisis could in fact be
called the second struggle for national independence.”
This monumental speech thrust Aung San Suu Kyi to the forefront of her
nation’s struggle for human rights and democracy. Not merely the act of
speaking but also the content of her speech truly confirmed her ability to lead.
She began her speech by asking all Burmese to unite and to be disciplined. She
felt this rally at the Shwedagon Pagoda was “aimed at informing the whole world
of the will of the people.” She also used the words of her father, from a statement
he made shortly before his assassination:
We must make democracy the popular creed. We must try to build up a free Burma in
accordance with such a creed. If we should fail to do this, our people are bound to
suffer … Democracy is the only ideology which is consistent with freedom. It is also the
only ideology that promotes and strengthens peace. It is therefore the only ideology we
should aim for.
She went on to say, “[t]hat is what my father said. It is the reason why I am
participating in this struggle for freedom and democracy.”
Aung San Suu Kyi had to reconcile her desire for a Burma free of oppression
with her support for the armed forces her father had created. She did not want
to create a rift between the institution her father built and the people who loved
and revered him. She appealed to the people of Burma and all military personnel
to respect each other. She alleged that “there is a difference between armed
 352 Peace Profile

forces and those who abuse the power of the armed forces.” She asked the
military to “become a force in which the people can place their trust and
reliance.”
She spelled out clear goals. “The main objective is not to have either the
present form of government, nor an interim government, nor to have some other
new government, but to have a government that can bring about a strong and
prosperous Union of Burma.” She pleaded for the crowd to think of Burma’s
future when acting, adding that it was necessary that “they should continue to
demonstrate for this through peaceful and disciplined means.” She assured the
crowd that no politician was pulling the strings behind her; she was acting of her
own free will. In this speech, she set the foundation for her involvement in the
struggle. She established her legitimacy with the people by using her father’s
words and mentioning his goals for the country. Not only were these her goals,
they should be the goals of all Burmese citizens; encouraging people to remain
united, disciplined, and peaceful.
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T his unity proved crucial because on September 18 a military coup led by

General Saw Maung assumed power, establishing the State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC) as the new and sole political option. Regular
radio programming was interrupted to proclaim that the SLORC was now in
power and would “restore order while the country prepared for ‘democratic’
multiparty elections.” Several protests filled the streets in response. In an attempt
to control the crowds, the military fired automatic weapons, killing at least a
thousand demonstrators.
Between August 1988 and July 1989, Aung San Suu Kyi traveled throughout
Burma and gave nearly a thousand speeches in her “Revolution of the Spirit”
campaign. Even though a new government had taken over, the SLORC was just
a new name for the same repressive regime. Even so, the SLORC encouraged
political parties to officially register; a dramatic departure from Ne Win’s policy
of only allowing one party, the BSSP, to take part in the political process.
More than 200 opposition parties registered, including the National League
for Democracy (NLD). With Aung San Suu Kyi as one of the founding
members, the NLD’s main goal was to establish democracy in Burma. The basic
tenets were laid out in another speech she gave at the Shwedagon Pagoda. Josef
Silverstein, a scholar of Southeast Asian studies and a professor emeritus at
Rutgers University, describes Aung San Suu Kyi as the “single dominant voice
in defense of freedom and a return to democratic self-rule.”
Aung San Suu Kyi continued giving speeches and organizing demonstrations
against SLORC despite the impending danger. According to Alan Clements, she
cancelled a rally scheduled for July 19, 1989 when she heard that the SLORC
had sent in 10,000 troops to “control” the demonstrations. The leader of the
NLD feared a “killing field” if she allowed the protest to go on. The military
junta released an edict the day before the planned protest that promised “one of
three punishments—three years hard labor, life in prison or execution.”
The day of the planned demonstration holds great significance for the
Burmese people and Aung San Suu Kyi. July 19 is known as Martyr’s Day and
was also the day Aung San was assassinated. On July 20, Aung San Suu Kyi
attempted to visit her father’s grave. But, according to Clements, when she tried
 Peace Profile 353
to leave her home, she was “surrounded by eleven truckloads of armed troops”
and was “placed under house arrest for ‘endangering the state.’ ” Aung San Suu
Kyi would remain confined to her home for the next six years.
During her house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi continued developing her ideas
of democracy and freedom for Burma in essays and letters. When communi-
cation under a repressive regime is so controlled, it is a remarkable exercise of
will to express opinions contrary to those in power, which is why some of her
essays, such as “Quest for Democracy” and “Freedom from Fear,” were
smuggled out of the country and published abroad.
After her July 11, 1995 release from her first house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi
continued her political activities as if she had no memory of the previous six
years. She still spoke out against the government and continued calling for a
dialogue between the NLD and the SLORC. The Economist reported in Novem-
ber 1996 that thousands of her civilian supporters gathered daily outside of her
home in Rangoon. Her faithful followers appreciate her unbending determi-
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nation and her loyalty to the Burmese people. The Economist goes on to report
that “Since she was released from six years of house arrest in July 1995, she had
addressed her supporters over her garden fence every Saturday and Sunday.”
Neither Aung San Suu Kyi nor her supporters seemed to tire, so the
government decided to take new and more drastic steps. On November 9, 1996,
cars carrying Aung San Suu Kyi and her advisors were attacked, purportedly by
members of the Union Solidarity Development Association (USDA). According
to historian Andrew Marshall, the USDA is a “nationalist organization which
acted as the regime’s Rotweiller … At one USDA rally a Burmese general urged
the audience to kill Aung San Suu Kyi; her car was later stoned by a mob in a
well-planned and terrifying attack.” A November 16, 1996 article in The
Economist claims that during the attack, “there were … large numbers of uni-
formed soldiers and police near the scene of the attacks, and plain-clothed
officers with their shoulder bags and walkie-talkies. None intervened.” In
September 2000, the movement for human rights and democracy in Burma
suffered yet another setback: Aung San Suu Kyi was again placed under house
arrest. She remained confined for another 19 months.

T hroughout her very public political activities, Aung San Suu Kyi has
remained staunchly private about her personal life. In 1997, The Voice of
Hope, a book of conversations Aung San Suu Kyi had with Alan Clements, she
indicated that “That which has no bearing on my political work is private, and
I only talk about things that concern the public. As I said, personal privacy has
to be respected whether it’s mine or that of others.” But some personal
information about Aung San Suu Kyi shows the real extent of her sacrifice and
her commitment to her cause.
For most of her house arrest, she was separated from her family. Her husband
remained supportive of his wife’s political views until his death on March 27,
1999. In the winter of 1999, Aris knew he was dying of cancer and wished to see
his wife one last time. He had not visited Burma for three years, but when he
applied for a visa the SLORC denied him permission. They suggested that Aung
San Suu Kyi visit Aris in England instead. This, however, was impossible, since
she knew that once she left Burma, there was little chance she would ever be
 354 Peace Profile

allowed back. According to the The Economist, on the “eve of Mr. Aris’s death,
[the SLORC] said that she could go and come back; they must have known that
she would not trust their promise.” The article continues,
This, after all, is a regime which held an election in 1990, was roundly defeated, and had
yet to honor the outcome; which “freed” Miss Suu Kyi from six years of house arrest in
1995, but still restricts her movements and cuts her telephone line; which describes itself
as transitional, but locks up and tortures those who take it at its word. Had Miss Suu Kyi
left to see her husband before his death, or to attend his funeral, she would probably
have been consigned to lifelong exile. Those few of her leading supporters who have so
far been spared the junta’s reprisals would probably have been rounded up. The
opposition, already enfeebled by years of repression, would have been dealt a possibly
fatal blow.

Merely by attending the funeral of her husband of 26 years, Aung San Suu Kyi
could have risked the entire movement for democracy in her country.
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Spending several years under house arrest and continuously fighting for the
freedom of her people has elevated Aung San Suu Kyi to an almost saintly
status. While she remains humble, saying, “it still surprises me that people think
of me as an important person,” many Burmese refer to her simply as “the lady.”
In his study of Burma, historian Andrew Marshall recounts how the Burmese
people reacted to the continued captivity of their democratically elected leader.
Marshall writes that after the SLORC nullified the election results of 1990,
“there were reports that Buddha statues in temples and homes across the country
were growing breasts.” Although this phenomenon can be easily explained as a
human-made occurrence (many Burmese Buddhists apply gold leaf to the heart
area of the Buddha statue), the Burmese people did not want a “rational
explanation.” Instead, “the phenomenon was interpreted as a spiritual sign of
one woman’s rightful position as the nation’s democratically elected leader.”
Josef Silverstein spent much of his career studying Burma and its political history.
He claims that although the military had tried to “demean [Aung San Suu Kyi]
in the eyes of the people, her stature has grown.”
The Burmese government has criticized Aung San Suu Kyi for at least two
reasons. It claims that, first, she is an outsider and, second, that she is an agitator
with no knowledge of Burmese politics. Aung San Suu Kyi has addressed these
criticisms: “My family knows best how complicated and tricky Burmese politics
can be.” Her father, after all, was assassinated for his politics.

A ung San Suu Kyi’s work for human rights and democracy has earned her
accolades from the international community. Her recognition as a prisoner
of conscience by Amnesty International after her 1989 detention added inter-
national support and legitimacy to her cause. On October 12, 1990 Aung San
Suu Kyi was awarded in absentia the Rafto Human Rights Prize. On July 10,
1991, the European Parliament gave her the Sakharov Prize, which recognized
her human rights work. Like the Rafto Prize, it was awarded in absentia, since Suu
Kyi was still under house arrest.
On December 10, 1990 the Nobel committee announced that Aung San Suu
Kyi would receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee made the following
official statement: “The Norwegian Nobel committee wishes to honor this
 Peace Profile 355
woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people
throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and
ethnic conciliation by peaceful means.” After hearing about the award, Aung
San Suu Kyi’s was hopeful that “people would take a greater interest in
[Burma’s] cause for democracy.” She was grateful to the Nobel committee for
the recognition but said she also thought of all her “colleagues who have suffered
much more, but who have not been recognized. My recognition really stems
from the courage of many, many others.”
Many other international figures have praised Aung San Suu Kyi and her
work. In 1991 several Nobel Peace Prize winners, including Oscar Arias,
Desmond Tutu, and Elie Wiesel, wrote a letter to the leaders of the SLORC
appealing to the government out of “concern for [their] fellow Nobelist, Aung
San Suu Kyi, and for the people of [Burma].” The laureates also asked that the
SLORC “enter into dialogue with those leaders [that they] have detained and
to take a step to bringing peace to [their] troubled country.”
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In praise of her work, the Dalai Lama stated that, “following in the footsteps
of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has led a peaceful
and nonviolent campaign for democracy. The practice of nonviolence requires
determination, which Suu Kyi and her supporters have shown in full measure.”
Aung San Suu Kyi cites Gandhi as an influence on the development of her
political consciousness and the methods she employs to create change in Burma.
In the foreword to Freedom from Fear, Archbishop Desmond Tutu compares
Aung San Suu Kyi to Nelson Mandela. Czech Republic leader Václav Havel
nominated Aung San Suu Kyi for the Nobel Peace Prize, calling her an
“outstanding example of power to the powerless” and that she is “not only
speaking out for justice in her own country, but also for those who want to be
free to choose their own destiny.”
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Aung San. 1972. The Political Legacy of Aung San, comp. Josef Silverstein. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Aung San Suu Kyi. 1995. Freedom from Fear, rev. ed. London: Penguin.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 1997. The Voice of Hope, Conversations with Alan Clements. New York: Seven Stories
Press.
Clements, Alan 1992. Burma: The Next Killing Fields? Berkeley: Odonian Press.
Dassk.org. 2002. “Biography.” Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s Pages. ⬍ www.dassk.org ⬎
Lintner, Bertil. 1994. Burma in Revolt, Opium and Insurgency since 1948. Boulder: Westview Press.
Marshall, Andrew. 2002. The Trouser People, a Story of Burma—In the Shadow of the Empire. Washington:
Counterpoint.
Silverstein, Josef. 1998. “The Idea of Freedom in Burma and the Political Thought of Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi.” in David Kelly and Anthony Reid (eds.), Asian Freedoms. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Alsion Koistinen graduated from the University of San Francisco in May 2003 with a bachelor’s degree
in Politics. Email: amkoistinen@usfca.edu
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