Posts Tagged ‘Nobel Peace Prize’
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi heads to France…good trip Lady
AFP,26 June 2012
Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrives for the last leg of her historic European tour on Tuesday in Paris, where she will be treated with the honours of a visiting head of state.
The 67-year-old Nobel Peace laureate arrives in France after warm welcomes in Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Britain and will meet with French President Francois Hollande and other senior officials.
“France will pay tribute to this woman’s exceptional struggle for human rights and will mark its active support for the democratic transition under way” in Myanmar, foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
Suu Kyi will arrive in Paris by train from London on Tuesday afternoon, before heading to the Elysee Palace for dinner and a press conference with Hollande.
During her three-day visit Suu Kyi will also meet Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, the heads of both chambers of parliament, members of the local Myanmar community and her supporters in human-rights groups.
Pierre Martial, the head of the France Aung San Suu Kyi association that supported her in the country, said she would use the visit to urge French authorities and businesses to back the country’s democratic transition.
“She is calling on some countries to give concrete help, to invest… in a reasonable and fair way, to help the country revive after years of economic and political horror,” he said.
He said the visit would also serve for Suu Kyi “to thank all those who helped her during these long years of repression”.
Martial urged French authorities to “commit very concretely” during her visit to providing both financial and moral support to independent pro-democracy groups operating in the country.
A French diplomatic source said that her visit was “a message of confidence in the future of a country that has chosen to break with detestable practices” and that France would support Myanmar in this move.
Suu Kyi was freed from nearly two decades of house arrest in November 2010 and became a lawmaker earlier this year as part of a gradual transition towards democracy in Myanmar.
She launched her European tour on June 13 in Switzerland and will arrive in France from Britain, where she studied and lived for several years until she returned to fight for democracy in Myanmar, leaving her children and her English husband behind.
On June 16 she finally delivered her Nobel Peace Prize speech, 21 years after winning the award while under house arrest, in Oslo, pledging to keep up her struggle for democracy.
Despite some optimism surrounding reforms in the country, France-based groups including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Human Rights League (LDH) urged the international community to maintain pressure on Myanmar’s leadership for reform.
In a statement on Monday, the groups called for “great caution regarding the easing of economic sanctions and an increase in investment” in Myanmar, noting “the lack of an independent judicial system” and “continued repression of public demonstrations”.
Suu Kyi’s visit to Europe has been clouded by continued violence in western Myanmar where dozens of people have been killed and an estimated 90,000 people have fled clashes between Buddhist Rakhines and stateless Muslim Rohingya.
Over tea and cookies with Burma’s icon
Sunday, Jun 24, 2012
She cooks, fixes leaks and can live without a cell phone or the Internet. And she’s proud of her country’s lotus shawls.
Aung San Suu Kyi, known as an international symbol of democracy, is a simple woman who finds pleasure in the simple joys of life. And revels in the kindness of her two sons.
It was a close friend, a Nobel Peace laureate like her, who arranged my meeting with Suu Kyi at her home one day after Christmas of 2010. Finally going to that old mansion by the lake on University Avenue in Burma’s (Myanmar) capital, Rangoon, was the realization of a longtime aspiration to meet Burma’s icon of democracy.
How did Daw Suu (daw is an honorific for a revered woman, literally meaning “aunt”) maintain her sanity during those 20 years of house arrest?
In her marked calm manner, she said nonchalantly that she literally had to plug the leaks of her ancestral home. She confessed to receiving all her news from a transistor radio during those dark years as she had no cell phone or computer that had access to the Internet. In fact, at the time of our visit, her application for Internet connection was still pending.
She expressed her interest in cooking while serving me and my sons tea and cookies. In fact, she even welcomed the idea of having a Filipino cookbook (which I eventually sent).
Proud of the rural livelihoods in her country, Daw Suu advised me to go to Inle Lake and buy the traditional lotus shawl culled from the lotus flower so abundant in Burma. I did as told and did not regret her suggestion.
On more serious matters, Daw Suu expressed appreciation for the Philippines’ consistent and steadfast support of her quest for democratic reforms in Burma. She, in fact, wrote a handwritten letter to President Aquino, which I personally handed to him.
However, she expressed disappointment with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), noting that it is not cohesive enough and does not stand up for her cause, so unlike the African nations who rallied behind the opposition leader of Ivory Coast at that time.
But she said it was understandable due to the economic interests of some Asean nations.
When asked if she would eventually submit herself to another election, she said she would only consider such in an inclusive political process. At that time, it did not seem imminent.
She said she would visit Thailand and Norway once she is allowed to travel again, which was what she exactly did.
She is once again calling attention to Burma.
Sons’ kindness
There was never any trace of bitterness or anger in her words or demeanor during our conversation. She was always calm and serene, firm yet gentle, beautiful in her simplicity.
She did not seem bothered at all that we were intruding on an afternoon after Christmas. She spoke lengthily to my sons and said they were the first non-Burmese youth she had seen and met in 20 years. That was touching.
She spoke of kindness, as she did on her long-delayed acceptance speech for her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. But this time, she spoke of her sons’ kindness, saying they never blamed her for their situation, considering that she had not seen them for a very long time. At this point, I could not help but shed a tear, as a mother, as a woman.
Daw Suu spoke much of the sufferings of her people and the need for basic health care, employment, nutrition and of justice for the many who are maimed, abused and killed. She stressed the need for ethnic conciliation and for harmony of the various ethnicities.
Suu Kyi stands for the ideal social consciousness, of the need for compassion, of the belief in democracy, freedom and the fair and just treatment of every human being and the capacity of every human being to act with compassion, strength, courage and determination.
Faded portrait
During our visit to the country, we noticed a framed, faded portrait of a young Suu Kyi in the backroom of a lacquerware shop in Bagan, an ancient city located in the Mandalay Region of Burma. It was placed on the top shelf in place of an image of the Buddha or a long-lost parent. This was in December 2010, just over a month after the release of the Burmese prodemocracy leader from house arrest. Even then, conspicuous acknowledgment of the Lady, as she is often called, was simply not done.
Gesturing toward the photograph, I mentioned Daw Suu’s nascent freedom. The shop owner beamed, and was quick to declare that the portrait had stayed there all throughout Daw Suu’s imprisonment. This felt like a silent yet staunch act of protest.
Yes, the portrait may have been left in the very rear of the shop, only a flickering fluorescent lamp illuminating it, but it was wreathed in silk garlands, and was an obvious source of pride and inspiration. The shop owner, a warm, excitable woman, began to speak of Daw Suu in a hushed, considered tone: “We love her. We have hope. We believe she can help Burma.”
It seemed as if she was speaking for the entire country. As my sons and I discreetly spoke with more Burmese people, it soon became clear that she may as well have been.
Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama: Lady and the lama
Jun 21st 2012, by A.A. | OXFORD
THIS week two Nobel-peace-prize laureates, both international figures of inspiration, find themselves visiting Britain: the leader of Myanmar’s (ie Burma’s) opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi; and also the Tibetans’ exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. On June 19th, in London, the two met
The rendezvous, not publicised on either of their official schedules, was disclosed by the Dalai Lama’s office on Twitter only the next day, where it was described simply as “a private meeting”. The Dalai Lama, who had previously called for Miss Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest, is reported to have told her “I have real admiration for your courage.” He also gave her his blessing, as one Buddhist to another. The obvious backdrop to any such blessing would be the separate political struggles of Myanmar and Tibet. The two places have a certain neighbour in common.
China’s leaders will not be happy to learn of the meeting. The Dalai Lama’s ten-day visit to Britain has given fresh occasion for China to denounce him. In a further measure, the Chinese Olympic committee threatened to withdraw some of its athletes from training in England. The Dalai Lama shrugged off all this as “routine”. He is as accustomed to acting as a hate figure for the Chinese government as he is to being a symbol of hope to many people elsewhere.
Myanmar has also vexed China, its most involved economic partner, of late. Last year its president, Thein Sein, suspended a hydropower dam being built with Chinese backing in northern Myanmar. Reforms that have been initiated by his once perfectly authoritarian government—such as those that enabled Miss Suu Kyi to win a parliamentary seat in April—have been seen in part as an attempt to build better relations with other countries, that Myanmar should not remain so reliant on China’s good graces.
One danger for Miss Suu Kyi is that she could develop hate-figure status with the Chinese government. It would surely hurt her movement if she were to join the Dalai Lama in China’s official view as a “jackal in monk’s clothing” (or a jackal in a htamain, as it were). As her role evolves from dissident to politician, she will have to deal with politicians in Beijing. A meeting with the Dalai Lama does nothing to nurture their trust in her, and could frustrate the sort of progress that her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), pursues in Myanmar.
That the two met in London may also strain Britain’s already tense relations with China. When David Cameron met the Dalai Lama last month, the Chinese government rebuked Britain and called off a senior official’s visit.
On the evening of June 19th, Miss Suu Kyi celebrated her 67th birthday at a private garden party in Oxford, her old university and former home. Her return to Britain—by way of Oslo, where she collected the Nobel peace prize that was awarded her in 1991, when she was under house arrest—is part of her second trip outside Myanmar in the past 24 years. (She visited Thailand last week.) In 1988, when she had returned to Yangon (then Rangoon) from Britain to care for her ailing mother, she was caught up in pro-democracy demonstrations. At the time and ever since she chose at great personal sacrifice not to leave Myanmar, for fear that she would not be allowed back.
Her audience with the Dalai Lama is the product of unusual circumstance. She was long not at liberty to leave her home in Yangon; he was forced to flee his in Lhasa. She is working to steer her country in a new direction, while he can do little to influence Tibet’s fate. Both must hope that China’s displeasure at their meeting will not impede the work that Miss Suu Kyi has ahead of her back home.
(Picture credit: “The official Twitter page of the Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama”)
