Aung San Suu Kyi still waits for release

There was a last minute hitch. The Daughter of Burmese Democracy, Nobel-laureate Aung San Suu Kyi – detained for most of the past 20 years – had her release papers signed by General Than Shwe, the head of a military dictatorship that’s ruled Burma for 48 years. He signed them at 2.45pm local time yesterday.

So said a member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s now defunct party, the National League for Democracy. A government official was even quoted anonymously as saying: “The authorities will release her. It is certain.” Another said: “She will be released as planned. We are just waiting for the time to release her.”

By mid-afternoon, the time was obviously nigh. Foreign diplomats were seen entering her tightly-guarded, delapidated villa at 54 University Avenue, on the shores of Rangoon’s Inya Lake. Her supporters converged at the nearby junction of Kabaaye Pagoda Road. Rumours flew around and the international press went into a frenzy.

Aung San Suu Kyi: the world awaits
The situation in Burma regarding Aung San Suu Kyi’s release is utterly unclear at the moment, writes Asia Correspondent John Sparks.

This slight and rather shy woman is so feared by the ruling generals that they have imprisoned Ms Suu Kyi inside her home for 15 of the last 21 years.

However, her latest spell of detention is due to finish today and we probably should have seen her walking out of her dilapidated lakeside home by now. 
Read more: Aung San Suu Kyi: the world awaits

Fever-pitch

Pictures secretly filmed by undercover “Burma VJs” from the exiled opposition broadcaster, the Democratic Voice of Burma showed hundreds more supporters – young and old – gathered at the (now defunct) National League for Democracy HQ in Rangoon. You could tell that the atmosphere was electric; the anticipation had risen to fever-pitch.

“The generals are facing a dilemma.” Seasoned Burma-watcher

They stood waiting for news, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the face of “The Lady” (as everyone knows her). They held posters aloft, depicting the face of the world’s most famous political prisoner. Above them, a banner in Burmese script, reading “Today is the Day”.

But it wasn’t. There was a hitch. As dusk fell, the crowds dispersed, disappointed.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s younger son, “Kim” Htein Lin Aris – who has not seen his mother in more than a decade – was not, as was widely and erroneously reported, granted a Burmese visa in Bangkok. That, many think, would have indicated her imminent release. Well, it might have done.

Foreign diplomats in Burma say even government ministers are being kept in the dark. “Now no one knows what is going on,” said a seasoned Burma-watcher I spoke to. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said. “One thing is clear though: the generals are facing a dilemma.”

Running scared

Aung San Suu Kyi, now 65, remains a potent political force. Her famous mantra is “Freedom from Fear”. Setting her free will have the generals, who rule by fear, running scared.

“It looks like it’s over the conditions for her release. She won’t accept any – and her lawyer says that’s uneqivocal.” Dr Maung Zarni, LSE, on the reason for the delay

The generals know that having annulled her landslide election victory twenty years ago, incarcerated her for 15 of those years, dissolved her political party, jailed and murdered her supporters and political colleagues and instilled fear among the people of Burma of even mentioning her name, they have ultimately failed.

There is intense spectulation over what may have delayed her freedom, after her latest seven-year stint under house-arrest. Dr Maung Zarni, of the London School of Economics, told me: “It looks like it’s over the conditions for her release. She won’t accept any – and her lawyer says that’s uneqivocal,” he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi: 'The Lady' of Burma - Channel 4 News looks back at her troubled life and times

The regime will assume that the recent election – widely condemned as a sham – will have strengthened its hand, enhanced its mandate to govern and reduced any threat posed by the NLD and its high-priestess, Aung San Suu Kyi. But they don’t want to take any chances.

“They’ll want to make sure she doesn’t travel, doesn’t address her supporters, talk to the media or reach out to the ethnic mintorities,” said Dr Zarni. “She won’t accept that. And she’s using this to put pressure on the junta.”

Ambushed

The last time Aung San Suu Kyi travelled through Burma, rebuilding support for her party, she proved wildly popular. Thugs, who human rights groups claim were affiliated to the militarty government, eventually ambushed her convoy in May 2003, killing 70 of her supporters.

The junta triggered international outrage when they placed Ms Suu Kyi in “protective custody” – for her own safety.

Eighteen months ago, they came up with a bizarre excuse to prolong her detention. She was convicted of illegally entertaining an uninvited guest – an American man, John Yettaw – who swam across Rangoon’s Inya Lake to 54 University Avenue in a home-made frogman’s outfit.

Yettaw came to warn her, he claimed, that terrorists had been sent to kill her and that God had sent him to save her. Inevitably enough, yet more protective custody followed; but now her sentence has run its time.

After winning the 1990 general election by a landslide, she told her ecstatic supporters: “There is so much that we need to do for our country. I don’t think that we can afford to wait.”

But they’ve had to wait 20 years and now it looks like they may have to wait even longer.

Perseverance

In 2002, during a brief period of freedom from house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi told Reuters news agency: “What we have is perseverance. It is not patience. It is perseverence. We are prepared to persevere whatever the obstacles.”

And obstacles, there have been many. To the watching world, she has come to personify perseverance.

Jonathan Miller met and interviewed Aung San Suu Kyi 15 years ago