Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Myanmar (Burma): To go or not to go?

This is a good question that I was trying to find an answer. I have been reading the biography of Aung San Suu Kyi and is very interested to visit the Burma to learn more about its people and the pulse of the economy. I came across this article by Joe Cummings, author of Lonely Planet's Myanmar (Burma) and it helps clear the air for me. The article is appended below and I hope it will be helpful for you.

Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (second right), walks towards the gate of her house to meet with supporters after her release in Yangon on Nov 13 2011.

Several well-intended groups and individuals including National League for Democracy (NLD) spokesperson and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi have urged non-Burmese not to visit Burma, believing that all forms of tourism support government repression in Burma (she has since changed her views). Others claim that international visitation helps educate the world as to what's really going on in the country, filling in the gaps left by narrowly focused refugee and activist reports, and by reporters on one-week jaunts through the country. One view says most of the revenue generated by travel and tourism ends up in the hands of the military regime, while another says the evidence points the other way. Very little concrete, verifiable data is displayed by either side. The following is a personal view, based on 10 years of close association with Burma as the principal author of Lonely Planet's guidebook to that country.


From what I have seen and experienced, tourism development in Burma benefits many ordinary Burmese, not just generals or foreign investors as some reports would have us believe. In spite of high inflation the average Burmese today is politically and economically better off than in 1985 and anyone who says otherwise either hasn't traveled to Burma both then and now, or is deliberately delivering misleading information to serve a political agenda.

The Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Burma

The State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the latest junta to run Burma, is abominable. Public dissent has been suppressed since Ne Win's 1962 takeover. Political imprisonment, torture and corvee (involuntary civilian service to the state) have been around for centuries. If anything, human rights abuses have decreased in the face of increased tourism. Since the package-tour requirement was waived in 1993, many Burmese citizens have been able to eke out a living from tourism, which channels more money directly to ordinary people than any other form of foreign activity in the country. I recently spoke by phone with Ko Kyaw, an old friend of mine who works as a tour guide in Burma. He sends almost every kyat / dollar he earns to his family in Bagan. Ko Kyaw voted for the NLD and is an ardent supporter of Daw Suu Kyi, but he was very disappointed to learn about The Lady' s call for a boycott. He says there' s just barely enough tourism to keep him and his family alive, and that if a boycott has a significant effect, many people in Mandalay, Bagan and the western Shan State will suffer. He's not the only one who sees it this way. I haven't met a single person inside Burma who supported a tourism boycott, including the many people I have met in the pro-democracy movement - including even the Moustache Bros of Mandalay who are now serving 10 years in prison for satirizing the government during a pwe performance.


Does tourism boost the use of draft labor in Burma? None of the highway or railways projects cited by tourism critics can be said to be serving tourists more than the general populace, in fact the opposite appears to be true. The two railway lines that were built by draft labor - the Ye Dawei line and the Loikaw railway - are both off-limits to foreigners. The Yangon-Mandalay highway has been upgraded for cargo and passenger traffic, and even the 1st-class buses (operated by nearly a dozen private companies now) running along this route are filled mostly with Burmese -- one of the obvious signs that economic development is taking place, at least in urban areas. The vast majority of foreign visitors travel this route by air. The only draft labor project that can be indirectly attributed to tourist promotion was the restoration earlier this year of the Mandalay Palace, as much a symbol of Burmese nationalism as a tourist attraction. The use of draft labor was discontinued at the palace shortly after foreign visitors to Mandalay began reporting the phenomenon to the outside world (though convict labor was used throughout). Urban beautification projects, which have also used draft labor, have been undertaken in areas that aren't visited by tourists as well as those that are. The greatest human rights abuses currently take place away from foreign public view, though they are becoming more difficult to hide with the proliferation of independent travelers finding their way into decreasingly remote corners of the country. If Burma closes to tourism, it will fall almost entirely into the hands of unscrupulous investors in other sectors who could care less about the ethics of totalitarian government as long as no one from the international community is around to observe their activities.


If you decide to visit Burma to see for your self, go with as much advance information as possible and travel with your eyes and ears open. Many foreigners leading the boycott movement haven't been to Burma since 1988 or 1989 (or haven't been at all) and tend not to distinguish between Burma in 1996 and Burma in 1989. I've traveled to Burma every year but one since 1986. In the past year alone I have spent four months traveling to nearly every state in the country. I have long-time friends in Burma including members of the underground resistance, risking their lives on a daily basis - who maintain that sealing Burma off from the outside world only further cements SLORC's fear-driven control over the people.
If you'd like to maximize the positive impact of a visit to Burma and minimize support of the government, follow these simple tactics:


1. Don't stay in government-owned hotels. Stay at private, locally owned hotels or guest houses.

2. Don ' t take Myanmar Tours & Travel (the state tourist agency) tours.

3. Don't take modes of transport for which MTT controls the tickets (e.g. the Mandalay Express train and the Mandalay-Bagan boat). Take Iocal transport.

4. Buy handicrafts directly from the artisans rather than from government shops.


As of 1996, well over 90% of all tourist-oriented businesses in the country belonged to the private sector, so avoiding government-owned or government-operated concessions is fairly easy. Whatever you decide, there isn't a single indication that government repression, which has thrived on 34 years of political isolation and virtual non-visitation, will somehow slacken due to a relative lack of foreign visitors. And if the private sector were somehow to suffer as a result of a boycott, SLORC will simply blame the opposition and continue raking in hard currency through their total monopoly on gems, minerals, timber and energy resources -- now and always the regime's main sources of revenue.

Tourism remains one of the only industries to which the ordinary people have access. Any reduction in tourism automatically means a reduction in local income-earning opportunities. For this reason alone, I continue to believe that the positives of travel to Burma outweigh the negatives.

*** Note:


In 1997, SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) changed its name to SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) -- a different name, but the same military dictatorship with the same brutal policies.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi - The Lady and the Peacock


I have been reading this book of Aung San Suu Kyi who has become an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression. The 65-year-old has spent most of the last 20 years in some form of detention because of her efforts to bring democracy to military-ruled Burma.



Aung San Suu Kyi served for 22 years as a beacon of hope in Burma’s darkness. Jon Swain describes how she put country before family. You can watch the movie The Lady (2011) here, the story of Aung San Suu Kyi as she becomes the core of Burma's democracy movement, and her relationship with her husband, writer Michael Aris.

The Sunday Times, 14 November 2010

On a hot August day in 1988, tens of thousands of people started to gather on the open ground west of Rangoon’s most famous landmark, the magnificent Shwedagon pagoda. Somerset Maugham compared the sight of the pagoda rising above the city, glistening with gold, to a “sudden hope in the dark night of the soul”.

His description could equally well have fitted the brave woman in a longyi with an orchid in her hair whom the people were flocking to see. In Burma, Asia’s heart of darkness, she, too, stood as a beacon of hope.

Eighteen hours later they were still coming. The crowd swelled to close to a million. Many had camped throughout the night, bringing bedding and food with them. There was a buzz of anticipation in the air. All wanted to see and listen to Aung San Suu Kyi.

At the time they knew very little about this remarkable woman beyond her name. Now she is the most famous political prisoner since Nelson Mandela and a Nobel peace prize laureate for standing up to a “regime characterised by brutality”. Yesterday, unbowed and as demure as ever, she was freed from years of house detention.

To the adoring crowds on that August day 22 years ago when her ordeal started, the name of Suu Kyi was very special. Her father, General Aung San, was Burma’s great national hero. The reason so many had camped out in the open all night was because they saw in the daughter of this most revered figure in modern Burmese history their greatest hope for change after years of tyranny.

Suu Kyi was making a political speech for democracy and freedom at a critical juncture. Burma was in chaos after students had led a popular uprising against the military. Blood flowed in the streets from the crackdown that followed.

General Ne Win, the ageing and hated dictator who had dominated Burma for three decades of economic stagnation and isolation, had resigned. His successor Sein Lwin, who had ordered troops to open fire on massed demonstrators demanding an end to military rule and the introduction of democracy, had also quit. It was hoped that the third president in a few weeks, Maung Maung, would make significant concessions. It turned out to be a vain hope. Burma is still in chains.

Suu Kyi’s speech that day, though, was a defining moment in her life. It marked the instant when she turned her back on her comfortable life in Britain and returned to her roots.

Asia has had its share of family dynasties. In India son followed mother, in Pakistan daughter followed father, in the Philippines widow followed husband. But nowhere has the idealism and sense of duty been as strong and principled as in the case of Suu Kyi, who that day took the heartbreaking decision to put her commitment to Burma above her family, a decision she has stuck with through thick and thin.

Suu Kyi took the heartbreaking decision to put her commitment to Burma above her family, a decision she has stuck with through thick and thin. Until a few months before, she had been an Oxford housewife, living happily with her husband, the academic Michael Aris and their two children Alexander and Kim, in a smart townhouse near St Antony’s college. Now she was deliberately entering the brutal and devious world of Burmese politics. She has never emerged from it. Her lonely vigil, which began with her addressing the crowds that August day in 1988 challenging the generals, has continued unbroken to this day — much of it under house arrest, and at a tragic personal cost. For as well as a political story, Suu Kyi’s is ultimately a family tragedy. She arrived at Oxford in 1964 to study philosophy, politics and economics at St Hugh’s, where her contemporaries remember her “absolutely delectable” beauty — a flower always in her long dark hair — and her innocence of the social and sexual Sixties revolution roiling around her.

Aris met her at the university and courted her on a romantic holiday in Bhutan, where he was teaching. At their wedding, Kipling’s poem Mandalay was recited: “I’ve a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land! On the road to Mandalay...” Aris loved those words, which he believed perfectly described his wife.

But he also once said: “Before we married... I promised my wife that I would never stand between her and her country. And I have never tried to deter her from fulfilling what she sees as her duty to her people. Any person knowing her dedication to duty as I do would realise that such an attempt is sure to fail. March 1988 her mother suffered a severe stroke in Rangoon and Suu Kyi went out to nurse her. Although her visit coincided with the greatest political upheaval for decades, she initially took no part in it. When protesters discovered Aung San’s daughter was in the city, they pleaded with her to become their leader; but she was reluctant.

“She just wanted to help to stop the killing,” a former student activist told the BBC’s Mike Wooldridge recently. “She didn’t want to play any political role. I said: ‘You are General Aung San’s daughter. We really need you.’ So I persuaded her... was her sense of duty to the country where her father had died a hero that forced her to pick up the torch for freedom he had once carried and campaign against the generals.

Aung San was assassinated in 1947 on the threshold of gaining independence for Burma from Britain. Aged two, his daughter was too young to have known him. But she cherishes the photograph she has of him holding her in his arms and, although she had left Burma at the age of 15, she was never allowed to forget she was his daughter.

On that day in August 1988 beside the Shwedagon pagoda she told the adoring crowd that the political uprising was a “second struggle for national independence” and, as Aung San’s daughter, she could not remain indifferent.

“It is true I have lived abroad,” she said. “It is also true that I am married to a foreigner. These facts have never, and will never, interfere with or lessen my love and devotion for my country by any measure or degree.”

It was at that time that western journalists, including myself, who had smuggled themselves into Burma to cover the mass demonstrations against military rule, first met her.

We did so at the family’s rambling colonial mansion at No 54 University Avenue, where she was nursing her ailing mother who would die soon afterwards.

The impression of that first meeting has stayed with me. Her demure and willowy appearance masked a rock-solid will. None of us realised how strong it was, because she was always beguilingly gentle and soft-spoken even when she criticised the brutal generals.

I noted that Suu Kyi was full of hope for her country. Wherever she appeared she was feted, and nothing seemed to intimidate her. Once, when soldiers took aim and warned they would shoot if she continued walking down the middle of a road, she kept on walking.





Aung San Suu Kyi pictured with son Kim in 1995 (Robin Moyer) “Fear is a habit,” she liked to say. “I have spent most of my life in places where I have not had to be frightened and so I am not afraid.”

It was courage such as this that made the military realise she was their gravest political threat. In almost any country her youth, beauty, integrity and popular support would have guaranteed such a political figure a measure of protection. But not in Burma, where within a few months Suu Kyi would be invisible, under house arrest. And it was here that her family tragedy began.

Denied a visa to Burma to see her, Aris worked tirelessly behind the scenes on her behalf. This shy Oxford don and Tibetologist in a tweed coat never let on about his own agony and despair over their forced separation over the following years, bringing up Kim and Alexander virtually on his own.

The brothers have rarely seen their mother since, the Rangoon regime having cancelled their Burmese passports. I remember witnessing a sad scene at Bangkok airport when Aris was trying vainly to comfort the distraught boys after they had again been separated from her.

Suu Kyi maintained publicly that her country was more important than her family, but confidants saw a different face. One recalled: “She felt guilty. She worried about her sons. She tried not to cry but I know she’s a human being .... She said, ‘I really miss Kim [her younger son]. I really miss his attitude — he’s really naughty.’”

Because of Aris’s retiring nature, few outside their close family circle knew how wonderfully effective he was on behalf of his wife. The award of the Nobel prize for peace largely came down to his unstinting efforts. He could lift the telephone and call political leaders, and it was largely because of him that Suu Kyi continued to have the strong support of the Foreign Office while she was under house arrest.

In 1999 Aris himself was dying of prostate cancer at the age of 52. Suu Kyi made the heartbreaking decision to stay under house arrest in Burma, knowing that if she were to leave to see him, as the ruling junta cynically hoped she would, it would never let her back. Nor would it allow Aris to visit her.

She talked about the dilemma to John Jackson, a British political activist who met her in Rangoon at the time. He told Wooldridge: “She was trying to see him, but the regime was refusing him a visa to enter the country ... Her movements were restricted — she couldn’t simply leave the country.

“The man that she loved and the father of her children wanted to see her, and she didn’t know how many months he had left. She seemed strong, she seemed — I’d say — stoic, but she let it be known that this was something that was dominating her thoughts. She wouldn’t in any way try to cover the fact that this was an extremely important issue for her.”

Aris had always known that one day his wife’s sense of family political destiny and obligation as Aung San’s daughter would compel her to go back to Burma. Even on his deathbed, he kept his word that he would never ask her to come back to him, and he died in Oxford without her at his side.

All this caused much strain and grief to those who were close to the couple. They have remained fiercely loyal to Suu Kyi, however, respecting her position to put her country above family, hard as it has been. Despite the huge personal sacrifices she has made, it is certain that Suu Kyi’s resolve to change Burma is still intact.

Few prisoners would have the inner strength to survive so many years of isolation without cracking.

We know that Suu Kyi has kept to a strict daily routine. When he was alive, Aris told me that she rose in the morning at six, fed the crows in the garden as an act of Buddhist merit, a custom she had inherited from her mother, and then ate a simple breakfast of noodles.

He expected that the rest of her time was spent reading and meditating and playing old favourites on the piano. Armed troops surrounded the house, but the only weapon kept in it was a Japanese ceremonial sword that belonged to her father.

The piano has rotted away in the tropical humidity, but she now reportedly listens to the BBC six hours a day. An American official who visited her recently found an exceptionally well-informed woman — “she knows more about the world than almost any person I’ve ever met”.

In 2006 she suffered health problems, and in 2007, when protests broke out again echoing the uprising in 1988, the military took her telephone away. 

The military’s justification for first detaining her was that she had “committed acts designed to put the country in a perilous state”. The truth is that the military was frightened of her huge popularity. It undoubtedly still is.

The fact is, though, that the brutally suppressed 1988 uprising was the single best opportunity Burma has had to rid itself of military rule. The opportunity to force change was lost, and some think that Suu Kyi may have contributed to the failure by always rejecting violence. Highly principled and believing in Buddhist pacifism, she has never wavered from her belief that military force can be overcome by moral force.

During occasional visits to Rangoon, I used to make a point of driving past her house to gauge the atmosphere. Sometimes the driver was frightened of slowing down and being noticed by the soldiers and would accelerate away. “We love her but we are afraid to show it,” one said. At other times there was little or no problem.

Periodically, the regime would have a fit of paranoia and make the conditions of her house arrest stricter. Confiscating her telephone was one particular example.

Now she is free again. But nobody can say how long her freedom will last this time. She has been released before, only to have her house arrest reinstated.

Suu Kyi also always demanded that no conditions should be attached to her release and she is unlikely to compromise on this. While releasing her, the regime is highly unlikely to free the 2,100 political prisoners that it is holding, and it is bound to keep a close watch on her movements. 


The house where Aung San Suu Kyi was held (EPA)

It would be good to think that her 15 years under house arrest have had a positive influence on the way Burma is governed. It is a great personal triumph that she has stuck to it, an extraordinary feat of willpower. But her release follows fraudulent elections that resulted in a political party closely linked to the military regime winning most of the seats in parliament, so it is questionable whether she can achieve any lasting change in her country.

Before her release, her top allies were saying that she would help investigate allegations of election fraud when she was free. But as she takes her first steps of freedom, many people in her country, including her supporters, will be asking whether she can still lead her people to a better future. In her long absence the opposition has fractured.

Her political party, the National League for Democracy, which won a landslide election victory 20 years ago but was not allowed to take power, refused to participate in the latest elections and was forced to disband. 

Many will be thinking that the generals surely would not have set her free her unless they had decided that, at 65, she no longer poses a threat. Her release would be a bittersweet triumph indeed if this turned out to be true. 

Here is an interview Aung San Suu Kyi had with BBC.



And more news and profile of this great lady here.


After 21 long years, on 16 June 2012, the heroine of Burma's democracy movement, Aung San Suu Kyi, finally delivers her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded back in 1991, truly an historic day in the story of Burma's struggle for democracy, human rights and freedom.

It was on 10 December 1991 when Aung San Suu Kyi's late husband, Dr. Michael Aris, and their two sons Alexander and Kim, went to Oslo, Norway to accept the award on her behalf.



Part 2




Nobel Lecture by Aung San Suu Kyi, Oslo, 16 June, 2012. Her speech is given below:

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, Distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Dear Friends,

Long years ago, sometimes it seems many lives ago, I was at Oxford listening to the radio programme Desert Island Discs with my young son Alexander. It was a well-known programme (for all I know it still continues) on which famous people from all walks of life were invited to talk about the eight discs, the one book beside the bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and the one luxury item they would wish to have with them were they to be marooned on a desert island. At the end of the programme, which we had both enjoyed, Alexander asked me if I thought I might ever be invited to speak on Desert Island Discs. “Why not?” I responded lightly. Since he knew that in general only celebrities took part in the programme he proceeded to ask, with genuine interest, for what reason I thought I might be invited. I considered this for a moment and then answered: “Perhaps because I’d have won the Nobel Prize for literature,” and we both laughed. The prospect seemed pleasant but hardly probable.

(I cannot now remember why I gave that answer, perhaps because I had recently read a book by a Nobel Laureate or perhaps because the Desert Island celebrity of that day had been a famous writer.)

In 1989, when my late husband Michael Aris came to see me during my first term of house arrest, he told me that a friend, John Finnis, had nominated me for the Nobel Peace Prize. This time also I laughed. For an instant Michael looked amazed, then he realized why I was amused. The Nobel Peace Prize? A pleasant prospect, but quite improbable! So how did I feel when I was actually awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace? The question has been put to me many times and this is surely the most appropriate occasion on which to examine what the Nobel Prize means to me and what peace means to me.

As I have said repeatedly in many an interview, I heard the news that I had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on the radio one evening. It did not altogether come as a surprise because I had been mentioned as one of the frontrunners for the prize in a number of broadcasts during the previous week. While drafting this lecture, I have tried very hard to remember what my immediate reaction to the announcement of the award had been. I think, I can no longer be sure, it was something like: “Oh, so they’ve decided to give it to me.” It did not seem quite real because in a sense I did not feel myself to be quite real at that time.

Often during my days of house arrest it felt as though I were no longer a part of the real world. There was the house which was my world, there was the world of others who also were not free but who were together in prison as a community, and there was the world of the free; each was a different planet pursuing its own separate course in an indifferent universe. What the Nobel Peace Prize did was to draw me once again into the world of other human beings outside the isolated area in which I lived, to restore a sense of reality to me. This did not happen instantly, of course, but as the days and months went by and news of reactions to the award came over the airwaves, I began to understand the significance of the Nobel Prize. It had made me real once again; it had drawn me back into the wider human community. And what was more important, the Nobel Prize had drawn the attention of the world to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma. We were not going to be forgotten.

To be forgotten. The French say that to part is to die a little. To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity. When I met Burmese migrant workers and refugees during my recent visit to Thailand, many cried out: “Don’t forget us!” They meant: “don’t forget our plight, don’t forget to do what you can to help us, don’t forget we also belong to your world.” When the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to me they were recognizing that the oppressed and the isolated in Burma were also a part of the world, they were recognizing the oneness of humanity. So for me receiving the Nobel Peace Prize means personally extending my concerns for democracy and human rights beyond national borders. The Nobel Peace Prize opened up a door in my heart.

The Burmese concept of peace can be explained as the happiness arising from the cessation of factors that militate against the harmonious and the wholesome. The word nyein-chan translates literally as the beneficial coolness that comes when a fire is extinguished. Fires of suffering and strife are raging around the world. In my own country, hostilities have not ceased in the far north; to the west, communal violence resulting in arson and murder were taking place just several days before I started out on the journey that has brought me here today. News of atrocities in other reaches of the earth abound. Reports of hunger, disease, displacement, joblessness, poverty, injustice, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry; these are our daily fare. Everywhere there are negative forces eating away at the foundations of peace. Everywhere can be found thoughtless dissipation of material and human resources that are necessary for the conservation of harmony and happiness in our world.

The First World War represented a terrifying waste of youth and potential, a cruel squandering of the positive forces of our planet. The poetry of that era has a special significance for me because I first read it at a time when I was the same age as many of those young men who had to face the prospect of withering before they had barely blossomed. A young American fighting with the French Foreign Legion wrote before he was killed in action in 1916 that he would meet his death:  “at some disputed barricade;” “on some scarred slope of battered hill;” “at midnight in some flaming town.” Youth and love and life perishing forever in senseless attempts to capture nameless, unremembered places. And for what? Nearly a century on, we have yet to find a satisfactory answer.

Are we not still guilty, if to a less violent degree, of recklessness, of improvidence with regard to our future and our humanity? War is not the only arena where peace is done to death. Wherever suffering is ignored, there will be the seeds of conflict, for suffering degrades and embitters and enrages.

A positive aspect of living in isolation was that I had ample time in which to ruminate over the meaning of words and precepts that I had known and accepted all my life. As a Buddhist, I had heard about dukha, generally translated as suffering, since I was a small child. Almost on a daily basis elderly, and sometimes not so elderly, people around me would murmur “dukha, dukha” when they suffered from aches and pains or when they met with some small, annoying mishaps. However, it was only during my years of house arrest that I got around to investigating the nature of the six great dukha. These are: to be conceived, to age, to sicken, to die, to be parted from those one loves, to be forced to live in propinquity with those one does not love. I examined each of the six great sufferings, not in a religious context but in the context of our ordinary, everyday lives. If suffering were an unavoidable part of our existence, we should try to alleviate it as far as possible in practical, earthly ways. I mulled over the effectiveness of ante- and post-natal programmes and mother and childcare; of adequate facilities for the aging population; of comprehensive health services; of compassionate nursing and hospices. I was particularly intrigued by the last two kinds of suffering: to be parted from those one loves and to be forced to live in propinquity with those one does not love. What experiences might our Lord Buddha have undergone in his own life that he had included these two states among the great sufferings? I thought of prisoners and refugees, of migrant workers and victims of human trafficking, of that great mass of the uprooted of the earth who have been torn away from their homes, parted from families and friends, forced to live out their lives among strangers who are not always welcoming.

We are fortunate to be living in an age when social welfare and humanitarian assistance are recognized not only as desirable but necessary. I am fortunate to be living in an age when the fate of prisoners of conscience anywhere has become the concern of peoples everywhere, an age when democracy and human rights are widely, even if not universally, accepted as the birthright of all. How often during my years under house arrest have I drawn strength from my favourite passages in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

……. disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspirations of the common people,

…… it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law . . .

If I am asked why I am fighting for human rights in Burma the above passages will provide the answer. If I am asked why I am fighting for democracy in Burma, it is because I believe that democratic institutions and practices are necessary for the guarantee of human rights.

Over the past year there have been signs that the endeavours of those who believe in democracy and human rights are beginning to bear fruit in Burma. There have been changes in a positive direction; steps towards democratization have been taken. If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith. Without faith in the future, without the conviction that democratic values and fundamental human rights are not only necessary but possible for our society, our movement could not have been sustained throughout the destroying years. Some of our warriors fell at their post, some deserted us, but a dedicated core remained strong and committed. At times when I think of the years that have passed, I am amazed that so many remained staunch under the most trying circumstances. Their faith in our cause is not blind; it is based on a clear-eyed assessment of their own powers of endurance and a profound respect for the aspirations of our people.

It is because of recent changes in my country that I am with you today; and these changes have come about because of you and other lovers of freedom and justice who contributed towards a global awareness of our situation. Before continuing to speak of my country, may I speak out for our prisoners of conscience. There still remain such prisoners in Burma. It is to be feared that because the best known detainees have been released, the remainder, the unknown ones, will be forgotten. I am standing here because I was once a prisoner of conscience. As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the often repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many. Those who have not yet been freed, those who have not yet been given access to the benefits of justice in my country number much more than one. Please remember them and do whatever is possible to effect their earliest, unconditional release.

Burma is a country of many ethnic nationalities and faith in its future can be founded only on a true spirit of union. Since we achieved independence in 1948, there never has been a time when we could claim the whole country was at peace. We have not been able to develop the trust and understanding necessary to remove causes of conflict. Hopes were raised by ceasefires that were maintained from the early 1990s until 2010 when these broke down over the course of a few months. One unconsidered move can be enough to remove long-standing ceasefires. In recent months, negotiations between the government and ethnic nationality forces have been making progress. We hope that ceasefire agreements will lead to political settlements founded on the aspirations of the peoples, and the spirit of union.

My party, the National League for Democracy, and I stand ready and willing to play any role in the process of national reconciliation. The reform measures that were put into motion by President U Thein Sein’s government can be sustained only with the intelligent cooperation of all internal forces: the military, our ethnic nationalities, political parties, the media, civil society organizations, the business community and, most important of all, the general public. We can say that reform is effective only if the lives of the people are improved and in this regard, the international community has a vital role to play. Development and humanitarian aid, bi-lateral agreements and investments should be coordinated and calibrated to ensure that these will promote social, political and economic growth that is balanced and sustainable. The potential of our country is enormous. This should be nurtured and developed to create not just a more prosperous but also a more harmonious, democratic society where our people can live in peace, security and freedom.

The peace of our world is indivisible. As long as negative forces are getting the better of positive forces anywhere, we are all at risk. It may be questioned whether all negative forces could ever be removed. The simple answer is: “No!” It is in human nature to contain both the positive and the negative. However, it is also within human capability to work to reinforce the positive and to minimize or neutralize the negative. Absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal. But it is one towards which we must continue to journey, our eyes fixed on it as a traveller in a desert fixes his eyes on the one guiding star that will lead him to salvation. Even if we do not achieve perfect peace on earth, because perfect peace is not of this earth, common endeavours to gain peace will unite individuals and nations in trust and friendship and help to make our human community safer and kinder.

I used the word ‘kinder’ after careful deliberation; I might say the careful deliberation of many years. Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness. Every kindness I received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough of it in our world. To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people. Norway has shown exemplary kindness in providing a home for the displaced of the earth, offering sanctuary to those who have been cut loose from the moorings of security and freedom in their native lands.

There are refugees in all parts of the world. When I was at the Maela refugee camp in Thailand recently, I met dedicated people who were striving daily to make the lives of the inmates as free from hardship as possible. They spoke of their concern over ‘donor fatigue,’ which could also translate as ‘compassion fatigue.’ ‘Donor fatigue’ expresses itself precisely in the reduction of funding. ‘Compassion fatigue’ expresses itself less obviously in the reduction of concern. One is the consequence of the other. Can we afford to indulge in compassion fatigue? Is the cost of meeting the needs of refugees greater than the cost that would be consequent on turning an indifferent, if not a blind, eye on their suffering? I appeal to donors the world over to fulfill the needs of these people who are in search, often it must seem to them a vain search, of refuge.

At Maela, I had valuable discussions with Thai officials responsible for the administration of Tak province where this and several other camps are situated. They acquainted me with some of the more serious problems related to refugee camps: violation of forestry laws, illegal drug use, home brewed spirits, the problems of controlling malaria, tuberculosis, dengue fever and cholera. The concerns of the administration are as legitimate as the concerns of the refugees. Host countries also deserve consideration and practical help in coping with the difficulties related to their responsibilities.

Ultimately our aim should be to create a world free from the displaced, the homeless and the hopeless, a world of which each and every corner is a true sanctuary where the inhabitants will have the freedom and the capacity to live in peace. Every thought, every word, and every action that adds to the positive and the wholesome is a contribution to peace. Each and every one of us is capable of making such a contribution. Let us join hands to try to create a peaceful world where we can sleep in security and wake in happiness.

The Nobel Committee concluded its statement of 14 October 1991 with the words: “In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize ... to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour this 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.” When I joined the democracy movement in Burma it never occurred to me that I might ever be the recipient of any prize or honour. The prize we were working for was a free, secure and just society where our people might be able to realize their full potential. The honour lay in our endeavour. History had given us the opportunity to give of our best for a cause in which we believed. When the Nobel Committee chose to honour me, the road I had chosen of my own free will became a less lonely path to follow. For this I thank the Committee, the people of Norway and peoples all over the world whose support has strengthened my faith in the common quest for peace. Thank you.


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Why Walk When You Can Fly


Once there was a king who received a gift of two magnificent 
falcons from Arabia. They were peregrine falcons, the most 
beautiful birds he had ever seen. He gave the precious birds 
to his head falconer to be trained.
 
Months passed and one day the head falconer informed the 
king that though one of the falcons was flying majestically, 
the other bird had not moved from its branch since the day 
it had arrived.
 
The king summoned healers and sorcerers from all the land to 
tend to the falcon, but no one could make the bird fly. He 
presented the task to the member of his court, but the next 
day, the king saw through the palace window that the bird 
had still not moved from its perch. Having tried everything 
else, the king thought, "Maybe I need someone more 
familiar with the countryside to understand the nature of 
this problem." So he told his court, "Go and get a farmer."
 
In the morning, the king was thrilled to see the falcon 
soaring high above the palace gardens. He said to his 
court, "Bring me the doer of this miracle."
 
The court quickly located the farmer, who came and stood 
before the king. The king asked him, "How did you make 
the falcon fly?"
 
With his head bowed, the farmer said to the king, "It was 
very easy, your highness. I simply cut the branch where 
the bird was sitting."

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