On 1st February 2021, once again Myanmar’s military has seized their country’s power after detaining Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders. Prior to the military coup, the army accused that the November 2020 nationwide election was marred by fraud and they would not be able to accept the election results that has given a landslide election victory to Ms Suu Kyi’s party.
Aung Saan Suu Kyi is one of the global political symbol who have carried out decade long political struggle against Myanmar military government. Her unrelenting and tireless political battle against the ruling military regime has immensely helped in ending of 26 years military rule in Myanmar.
| Aung San Suu Kyi was a career diplomat, author and a supreme political leader of the National League for Democracy. On 6th April 2016, Aung Saan Suu Kyi became the first elected State Counselor (equivalent to Prime Minister.) of Myanmar and she has been at the helm of power till Myanmar military captured the power once again by a military coup on 01st February 2021. Even though Aung San Suu Kyi was the defacto leader of Myanmar, she or the country’s actual president were able to control the military. |
Aung San Suu Kyi was born on 19 June 1945 at Rangoon, Burma. Her mother name was Khin Kyi and her father name was Aung San. Aung San Suu Kyi was the youngest daughter of Aung San.
Aung San was a national hero, father of independence and an architect of Union of Myanmar. He founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated with United Kingdom for Burma’s independence in 1947. Unfortunately Aung San was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. His daughter Aung San Suu Kyi grew up in Rangoon with her mother Khin Kyi, and her two brothers such as Aung San Lin and Aung San Oo.
Soon after graduating from the University of Delhi in 1964 and the University of Oxford in 1968, Aung San Suu Kyi worked at the United Nations for three years.
In 1972, she married Michael Aris , and gave birth of two children. In 1988 Aung San Suu Kyi became the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) that she had newly formed with the help of several retired army officials who was vehemently criticizing military junta for their autocratic rule in the country.
In the 1990 election, Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD Party won more than 80% of the seats in the Parliament. But the result was nullified by the military junta and they refused to hand over the power to her party. Simultaneously military regime placed her under house arrest on a numerous occasions. Altogether she was in the jail about 15 years within the span from 1990 to 2010 and she became one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners in the world.
While she was in the jail, she was given an opportunity to leave the country to join her late husband who was residing in the U.K. But she declined and remained under house arrest for most of the period. During this period she was prevented from meeting her party leaders, supporters and international visitors.
Instead of calling and encouraging for violent uprising against military regime, Aung San Suu Kyi advocated for the peaceful resistance against the ruling military regime. This has earned her immense respect from across the globe and the same has finally paved the way in getting her Nobel Prize in 1991.
In the 2015 elections, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory, winning 86% of the seats in the Assembly of the Union. This majority seats were much more than the 67 percent needed to ensure that its preferred candidates were elected President and Second Vice President in the Presidential Electoral College.
As her late husband and children are foreign citizens, she was prohibited from becoming the President of the country as per the clause stipulated in the constitution. Hence, she assumed the newly created role of State Counsellor which is equivalent to Prime Minister.
Ever since Aung San Suu Kyi became State Counselor of Myanmar, everybody thought that she would work tirelessly to end the ongoing ethnic division and the ethnic rivalry in the country. Contrary to the world community’s expectation, Suu Kyi has been criticized for not doing anything when section of Myanmar military carried out genocide on Rohingyas community even though she was not having much control over the military. Because of the same, thousands of Rohingyas community suffered lot and they forced to leave their country and many are still living in different parts of the world.
Her steady silence in this regard has immensely tarnished her image in front of the world community.
Even though Aung San Suu Kyi is now out of power, she has sacrificed her entire life as a role of mother and wife and devoted the rest of her life to her country’s political struggle. Her main intention was to finish the unfinished dream of her father who have promised Myanmar to be a federal union country. Myanmar literally started as a democracy country. But due to the never ending ethnic rivalries, armed struggle between ethnic groups and the different political views among the leaders, country witnessed widespread civil war that has immensely helped military regime to rule the country so many decades.
