Aung San Suu Kyi's desperate plea to the world

[Ed Barrow]

Source: The Independent

As Aung San Suu Kyi prepares to celebrate her 65th birthday tomorrow, confined in the house in which she has spent most of the past two decades, a confidante of the Burmese opposition leader has made a simple but passionate appeal to those in the West to use their freedom to help his country achieve the same.

In a hand-written letter smuggled out of Burma and passed to The Independent, U Win Tin writes: "I want to repeat and echo her own words – 'please use your liberty to promote ours'. I want to add more to it. Please bring more and more liberty to us, to our country, Burma. We are starving for it and we are waiting for someone or some institutions or some countries to bring it to us."

The plea from Ms Suu Kyi's friend and senior political ally, who himself spent almost 20 years in solitary confinement, comes at a desperately difficult time for the opponents of Burma's military junta.

Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been forced to shut down after it decided it could not participate in an election due later this year when she and more than 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars. While a breakaway group of supporters has decided to contest the polls, most independent analysts believe the election will simply further cement the junta's position.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/aung-san-suu-kyis-desperate-plea-to-the-world-2003669.html

[varun]

1. Burmese military

dictatorship is one of the worst in the world. Several uprisings against it have been quashed brutally. And China is one of the major allies of Burma. Why doesnt it pressure Burma to change its ways?

[iandhr]

2. Burma gives China....

... wait for it. OIL