Saturday, November 13, 2010

Aung San Suu Kyi: A life indoors

"In the end they can't stop the people; they can't stop freedom. We shall have our time."


Every morning Aung San Suu Kyi wakes at 4 a.m. knowing there is nowhere she can go, that there is no prospect she will be allowed outside. Inside the mildewing two-storey villa the Burmese junta has made her prison, she meditates, sometimes for hours, before turning her attention to one of five radios tuned to stations around the world. These distant voices, broadcasts from the BBC, Voice of America, the rebel news service Democratic Voice of Burma, and others, are her only constant link with the outside world. She has no phone, no TV and no internet. Her mail is heavily censored. Often it is not delivered. The 65-year-old Buddhist lives with two long-serving maids, mother and daughter Khin Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, who have been sentenced with their employer for this final stretch of house detention.


After 15 years, the Myanmarese opposition leader is expected to be released from house arrest in less than 48 hours.


Read the Hindu op-ed

2 comments:

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  2. The Berlin wall came down. Aung San Suu Kyi's been released. Can we hope to see Irom Sharmila's fast bearing fruit in time?

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