June 13, 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi left Myanmar today for a 16-day European trip that will include her acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize that she was awarded in 1991. At the time, Myanmar’s military junta refused to allow her to leave the country to accept the award.

After a violent military coup in Myanmar in 1988, Suu Kyi rose to prominence as the leader of the opposition and co-founder of the National League for Democracy (NLD). In 1990, the NLD won 392 of 492 seats in parliamentary elections. However, the military refused to relinquish power and arrested many of the party’s leaders. Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest and spent much of the next 20 years confined to her home in Yangon. After the government relaxed some of the country’s political and economic restrictions in 2011,  Aung San Suu Kyi in 2012 was elected to Myanmar’s parliament.

Aung San Suu Kyi  (© Candace Scharsu, Archive Photos)

While in Europe, Suu Kyi will address the International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland; speak before both houses of the British Parliament in London; and be the guest of honor at a concert in Dublin, Ireland.

The trip will conclude in Paris, where she will be the guest of French President Francois Hollande. She is to be honored by France for her “fight for democracy and the rights of man and to reaffirm France’s will to support the political transition in Myanmar.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Myanmar 1988 (a Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 1990 (a Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 1991 (a Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 2000 (a Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 2011 (a Back in Time article)

April 2, 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi‘s National League for Democracy (NLD) took at least 40 of the 45 seats being contested in parliamentary elections in Myanmar (also known as Burma) on April 1. Apart from winning her own seat, Suu Kyi appears to have helped a number of her colleagues to victory. The democracy advocate has for two decades led the opposition to the military dictatorship that has controlled the country since 1962. The NLD, one of 17 opposition parties that took part, was competing in its first elections since 1990, after boycotting the 2010 polls, which it claimed were unfair.  A transitional civilian government took power in Myanmar in 2011 after years of oppressive military rule.

Speaking outside NLD headquarters in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, Aung San Suu Kyi noted, “It is not so much our triumph as a triumph of the people who have decided that they have to be involved in the political process in this country. We hope this is the beginning of a new era.”

Aung San Suu Kyi won a seat in a new parliament in Myanmar, which suffered years of oppressive military rule. (© Candace Scharsu, Archive Photos)

The military junta in Myanmar kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for years after her party won polls in 1990 but was not allowed to take power. Suu Kyi was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent efforts to bring democracy to Myanmar.

Additional World Book articles:

• Myanmar 1990 (Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 1991 (Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 2010 (Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 2011 (Back in Time article)

Dec. 1, 2011

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Myanmar’s prodemocracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Aung San Suu Kyi is a human rights activist who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent efforts to bring democracy to Myanmar. Earlier, Mrs. Clinton met with Myanmar’s president, Thein Sein, and pledged to improve ties with Myanmar if current reforms continue. After the meeting, the secretary of state said that the United States would reward Myanmar’s leaders, presumably by lifting economic sanctions, if they keep “moving in the right direction.” A series of reforms, including establishing civilian leadership, has led to speculation that Myanmar’s decades of isolation could be coming to an end. Hillary Clinton is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Myanmar since John Foster Dulles in 1955.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Political activist Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar

Myanmar was taken over by the military in 1962 and was ruled by a brutal junta until 2011, when the army ceded power to a nominally civilian government. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy recently re-registered as a political party. She announced plans to run for a seat in Myanmar’s parliament in forthcoming elections.

Additional World Book articles:

• State, Department of
• Myanmar 1962 (Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 1990 (Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 1991 (Back in Time article)
• Myanmar 2010 (Back in Time article)