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After nearly a quarter century of isolation, burma's suu kyibegins her global tour by ferujkll sdff
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After nearly a quarter century of isolation, burma's suu kyibegins her global tour by FERUJKLL SDFF
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| Article Posted: 05/04/2013 |
| Article Views: 94 |
| Articles Written: 2023 - MORE ARTICLES FROM THIS AUTHOR |
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After nearly a quarter century of isolation, burma's suu kyibegins her global tour |
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Airport security crowded the fast-track immigration section atBangkok s Suvarnabhumi Airport on the evening of May 29. Thailand s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra had arrived home shortlybefore from a trip to Australia . But the throngs of excited onlookers were not there to greetThailand s first female P.M., who was on her way back from meetingAustralia s own first female P.M., Julia Gillard. Instead, theyhad gathered after word trickled out that another lady leader hadtouched down in Bangkok. Aung San Suu Kyi , Burma s iconic opposition leader, was making her first tripoverseas in 24 years.
Under house arrest for much of that time atthe behest of the country s then-ruling generals, Suu Kyi hadtraded a globe-trotting youth spent in India, England, the U.S.,Bhutan and Japan for the moldering confines of her family slakeside villa in Burma s largest city, Rangoon. Now, she was negotiating the fluorescent-lit splendor of Bangkok sgleaming airport. Clutching a new red passport that had been issuedby the quasi-civilian government that took over the countryofficially known as Myanmar last year, the Nobel Peace Prizelaureate smiled briefly as she received her first entry stamp innearly a quarter century. Airport porters snapped photos with theircellphones, while even harried-looking businessmen from a flightfrom Hong Kong seemed charmed.
That Burmese lady is here, onesaid into his iPhone, excitedly. You know, what s her name. Possessed of a finely attuned wit, Suu Kyi has joked that she isknown overseas as the woman with the unpronounceable name. Thatmay be.
But Suu Kyi (her full name is pronounced Ahng Sahn SueChee ) is also the world s most famous female democracy activist.She is in Bangkok to attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia,where she will appear on a panel about Asian women on Friday. Afterthe military regime that had ruled Burma for nearly half a centurybegan devolving power to a semi-civilian government, Suu Kyi madethe unprecedented step of involving her political party, theNational League for Democracy (NLD), in April by-elections. Thelast time the NLD participated in electoral politics back in 1990,it won by a landslide. But the junta ignored the results.
This timearound, the NLD won 43 of 45 seats and the new hybridmilitary-civilian government honored the results. Suu Kyi is now amember of the Burmese parliament. It s a sea change for a woman who was cloistered for so long. Onthe campaign trail, Suu Kyi proved a tireless, charismaticpolitician, always taking care to smile and wave at the thousandsover supporters who gathered wherever she went.
But there is also anatural reserve to the 66-year-old, an almost royal remove perhapsborne of her family background. The daughter of Burma sindependence hero Aung San, Suu Kyi was only two when her fatherwas assassinated by political rivals. She grew up largely overseas,as her mother served as the fledgling nation s ambassador toIndia. Even Suu Kyi s path to politics was unexpected. Back inBurma to take care of her ailing mother, she happened to be therewhen mass democracy protests and an ensuing brutal crackdownconvulsed Rangoon in 1988.
She had not left home since then, untilher May 29 arrival in Bangkok. When her English husband wasstricken by cancer in Oxford in 1999, she made the heart-wrenchingchoice not to visit him at his deathbed, lest Burma s junta refuseto let her return home. Now that she has her passport and the confidence that she cantravel freely, Suu Kyi has a busy summer of globe-trotting ahead ofher. On her birthday on June 17, she will be in England, where oneof her two sons lives. (Suu Kyi studied at Oxford and her husband,an academic of Himalayan culture, is buried there.) She willaddress the International Labor Organization in Switzerland.
A tripto Norway to receive her 1991 Peace Prize is also planned. Most immediately this week, Suu Kyi is scheduled to visit a Burmeserefugee camp in Thailand. Tens of thousands of Burmese,particularly members of the country s ethnic minorities, haveflooded neighboring Thailand over the decades to escape governmentrepression and civil war. Other Burmese are economic refugees whooccupy some of the lowest rungs of the social ladder in Thailand,working construction or seafood-processing jobs that make themprone to abuse because of their questionable immigration status.Suu Kyi is expected to meet with Burmese migrant workers inThailand, as well. Suu Kyi s trips whether to a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand or,as rumored, to a Dublin stage shared with U2 rocker andphilanthropist Bono will undoubtedly garner intense globalinterest.
Media scrums will follow her everywhere. Even at theBangkok airport, Suu Kyi looked exhausted, though elegant, as shegamely grinned for the impromptu crowds of fans. (I happened to beon another flight coming into Bangkok at the same time.) For awoman who told me in Rangoon that she cherishes her time alone andwho suffers from motion sickness, Suu Kyi s re-entry into theworld will be a shock. Bangkok is a particularly exuberant,traffic-choked metropolis compared to the city where she has livedfor 24 years. As Suu Kyi exited the air-conditioned airport intothe moist heat of the Thai capital, the flashes of hundreds ofcameras erupted in a frenzied burst.
A flock of Burmese yelled Mother Suu. She paused for a second, smiled and waved, thenstrode on. I am a professional writer from Business Bags & Cases, which contains a great deal of information about ball joint dolls , knitted finger puppets, welcome to visit!
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