The perfect hostage : a life of Aung San Suu Kyi

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The perfect hostage : a life of Aung San Suu Kyi

Justin Wintle

Hutchinson, 2007

  • : hbk
  • : pbk

Available at  / 3 libraries

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [432]-439) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: hbk ISBN 9780091796518

Description

Like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi has become an iconic figure. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, she has steadfastly opposed Burma's brutal military regime, instituted by General Ne Win in 1962, since 1988. But her leadership of the Burmese democracy movement, and her ardent advocacy of human rights, have landed her in desperate trouble. In 1989 she was placed under house arrest for the first time. Today she is again under house arrest, seemingly for good. In the years between she has faced constant physical and psychological harassment. In 2003, during an attempt on her life at Depayin, she witnessed the massacre of scores of her followers. Aung San Suu Kyi has also endured involuntary separation from her family - her English husband Dr Michael Aris, and their two sons. Aris' death in 1999 was yet another cruel twist of the knife. But having given her commitment to her people, nothing can deflect Suu Kyi from the course she has adopted. Crucially, her martyred father - General Aung San - led Burma to independence from the British. But if Aung San's legacy has profoundly affected his daughter's choices, so too has the disciplined upbringing given her by her widowed mother, Daw Khin Kyi. Justin Wintle gives us the fullest biography of Aung San Suu Kyi to date, asking searching questions along the way. Is Aung San's status as hero really vouchsafed? And is Aung San Suu Kyi's insistence on non-violence really best calculated to bring down a junta incapable of acting in good faith? There are no easy answers. But by also telling her father's story, and, vitally, the story of the Burmese people at large, Wintle lays bare the ambiguities which nourish a tragedy that is national as well as personal.
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780091796815

Description

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Daw Aung Sawn Sue Chee) is one of the world's most renowned freedom fighters and advocates of non-violence, having served as the figurehead for Burma's struggle for democracy since 1988. Born in 1945 to Burma's independence hero, Aung San, Aung San Suu Kyi was educated in Burma, India, and the UK. In 1988, while living in London, she returned to Burma to nurse her dying mother, and was plunged into the country's nationwide uprising that had just begun. Joining the newly-forming National League for Democracy political party, Suu Kyi gave numerous speeches calling for freedom and democracy. The military regime responded to the uprising with brute force, killing up to 10,000 demonstrators. As Suu Kyi began to campaign for the NLD, she and many others were detained by the regime. Despite being held under house arrest, the NLD went on to win a staggering 82% of the seats in parliament. The regime never recognized the results. Suu Kyi has been in and out of arrest since 1988. She was held from 1989-1995, and again from 2000-2002. The military junta placed restrictions on her movements which prevented her from spending time with her English husband as he

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