Published on November 14, 2010
India hailed the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi by Myanmar’s military government and termed it as a step towards national reconciliation.
“India welcomes the release of Suu Kyi. We hope that this will be the beginning of the process of reconciliation in Myanmar,” External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said hours within the release of the 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose latest period of detention spanned seven-and-a- half years.
Suu Kyi has been jailed or kept under house arrest for more than 15 of the last 21 years.
Krishna said the recent elections in Myanmar are an important step in the direction of the national reconciliation process being undertaken by the military government.
“We have always encouraged them to take this process forward in a broad-based and inclusive manner. In this context, as a close neighbour of Myanmar, we are confident that the release of Suu Kyi will contribute to efforts for a more inclusive approach to political change and reforms,” he told reporters.
India maintains that its position on Myanmar, which is strategically located in the region, was propelled by the national interest.
On Saturday Myanmar’s military government freed its archrival, democracy leader Suu Kyi, after her latest term of detention expired.
Soon after the release, a smiling Suu Kyi, wearing a traditional jacket and a flower in her hair, appeared at the gate of her compound while her several thousand jubilant supporters chanted, cheered and sang the national anthem.
Speaking briefly in Burmese, she thanked the well-wishers, who quickly swelled to as many as 5,000, and said they would see each other again on Sunday at the headquarters of her political party.
The 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, whose latest period of detention spanned 7 1/2 years, has come to symbolise the struggle for democracy in the Southeast Asian nation ruled by the military since 1962.
The release from house arrest of one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners came a week after an election that was swept by the military’s proxy political party and decried by Western nations as a sham designed to perpetuate authoritarian control.
Her release was immediately welcomed by several activist groups around the world.
Critics allege the 7th November elections were manipulated to give the pro-military party a sweeping victory.
Results have been released piecemeal and already have given the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party a majority in both houses of Parliament.
The last elections in 1990 were won overwhelmingly by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, but the military refused to hand over power and instead clamped down on opponents.
Suu Kyi has shown her mettle time and again since taking up the democracy struggle in 1988.
Having spent much of her life abroad, she returned home to take care of her ailing mother just as mass demonstrations were breaking out against 25 years of military rule.
She was quickly thrust into a leadership role, mainly because she was the daughter of Aung San, who led Myanmar to independence from Britain before his assassination by political rivals.
She rode out the military’s bloody suppression of street demonstrations to help found the NLD.
Her defiance gained her fame and honour, most notably the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
Charismatic, tireless and outspoken, her popularity threatened the country’s new military rulers.
In 1989, she was detained on trumped-up national security charges and put under house arrest.
She was not released until 1995 and has spent various periods in detention since then.
Suu Kyi’s freedom had been a key demand of Western nations and groups critical of the military regime’s poor human rights record.
The military government, seeking to burnish its international image, had responded previously by offering to talk with her, only to later shy away from serious negotiations.
Suu Kyi — who was barred from running in this month’s elections — plans to help probe allegations of voting fraud, according to Nyan Win, who is a spokesman for her party, which was officially disbanded for refusing to reregister for this year’s polls.
Such action, which could embarrass the junta, poses the sort of challenge the military has reacted to in the past by detaining Suu Kyi.