Recent violence in Burma shows how difficult it will be to achieve unity and democracy in the country, democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi told a South African group by video conference.
Aung San Suu Kyi used a video link on Monday to take questions from a small group at the University of Johannesburg, where her longtime supporters include fellow Nobel peace laureates Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
"I think we should all be concerned about hostilities breaking out all over the country," she said, saying such violence underlines the challenge of bringing Burma's many ethnic groups together. "But we do intend to get to the position where we are a true union of hearts and minds," she said.
Aung San Suu Kyi has made a few such virtual appearances to audiences in Hong Kong and the United States since Burma's military leaders freed her from house arrest almost a year ago. She has not been expressly banned from foreign travel. But Sein Win, an overseas opposition leader and Aung San Suu Kyi's cousin, said she might not be allowed to return if she does venture abroad.
Sein Win, who was in South Africa from his Rockville, Maryland home in exile to accept an honorary degree from the University of Johannesburg on Aung San Suu Kyi's behalf on Tuesday, said concern about what might happen if she were to leave shows how uncertain the situation is in his homeland. He said he would not return until democracy and rule of law are guaranteed in Burma. He also said his cousin, who he had not seen since 1989, looked "spiritually" strong in the video link.
Aung San Suu Kyi said she was inspired by South Africa's defeat of apartheid. "We are determined to make a success of our struggle for democracy," she said. "We are not just going to sit. We are going to move to get to where we want to go."
Last November, Aung San Suu Kyi's party boycotted Burma's first elections in 20 years, saying the vote was undemocratic. The new government is nominally civilian but remains dominated by the military, which has ruled since 1962.
Despite the elections, violence continues in parts of Burma. Rights groups and the Associated Press have interviewed victims who say the army is involved in forced relocation, forced labour, gang-rape and extra-judicial killings. Amnesty International says troops have used civilians as human shields and minesweepers. Western countries are urging Burma to free its more than 2,000 political prisoners and reconcile with Aung San Suu Kyi.
Speaking on Monday, Aung San Suu Kyi repeatedly called on the international community to closely follow events in Burma, and to criticise and reward as warranted. She called on South Africa to display more leadership, saying its government had not always been as forthright in its support as had individuals such as Mandela and Tutu.
Those who had achieved freedom should "remember those who are still struggling to obtain theirs", she said.
In awarding her the peace prize in 1991, the Nobel committee called Aung San Suu Kyi's struggle "one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades".
Retired Archbishop Tutu, who received the Nobel peace prize in 1984 for his nonviolent campaign against apartheid in South Africa, has called Aung San Suu Kyi "a global symbol of moral courage". Mandela made her an honorary elder when he formed the group of global statesmen in 2007. Mandela shared the 1993 Nobel with then-South African president FW de Klerk for their work in negotiating an end to apartheid.
Mandela's elders, who champion peace and human rights around the world, have kept an empty chair representing Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's thousands of political prisoners at their meetings.
Aung San Suu Kyi was released on 13 November after more than seven years under house arrest. She was first arrested in 1989 and at the time of her release had been detained for 15 of the previous 21 years.
Aung San Suu Kyi was largely raised outside Burma and initially settled with her husband and sons in England. In 1988, she returned home to care for her ailing mother as mass demonstrations were breaking out against military rule. As the daughter of Aung San, the country's martyred founding father, she was thrust into a leadership role.
She led her party, the National League for Democracy, to victory in 1990 elections, but the junta refused to recognise the results. Aung San Suu Kyi's party said last year's vote, in which it refused to participate, was held under unfair and undemocratic conditions.
International human rights groups are calling for a UN-led international commission of inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Burma, where the military crushed mass protests for democracy led by Buddhist monks in September 2007. Several dozen people were believed killed and many more jailed.
http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/aung-san-suu-kyi-voices-concern-over-burma-violence/
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