A short essay on life of Aung San Suu Kyi

Here is short essay on the life of Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon (now named Yangon). Her father, Aung San, founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burma's independence from the British Empire in 1947; he was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. She grew up with her mother, Khin Kyi, and two brothers, Aung San Lin and Aung San Oo, in Rangoon. Aung San Lin died at age eight, when he drowned in an ornamental lake on the grounds of the house. Her elder brother emigrated to San Diego, California, becoming a United States citizen. After Aung San Lin's death, the family moved to a house by Inya Lake where Suu Kyi met people of very different backgrounds, political views and religions. She was educated in Methodist English High School (now Basic Education High School No. 1 Dagon) for much of her childhood in Burma, where she was noted as having a talent for learning languages. She is a Theravada Buddhist. Suu Kyi's mother, Khin Kyi, gained prominence as a political figure in the newly formed Burmese government. She was appointed Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal in 1960, and Aung San Suu Kyi followed her there, she studied in the Convent of Jesus and Mary School, New Delhi and graduated from Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi with a degree in politics in 1964. Suu Kyi continued her education at St Hugh's College, Oxford, obtaining a B.A. degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1969. After graduating, she lived in New York City with a family friend and worked at the UN for three years, primarily on budget matters, writing daily to her future husband, Dr. Michael Aris. In 1972, Aung San Suu Kyi married Aris, a scholar of Tibetan culture, living abroad in Bhutan. The following year she gave birth to their first son, Alexander Aris, in London; their second son, Kim, was born in 1977. Subsequently, she earned a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 1985. She was elected as an Honorary Fellow in 1990.^[26] For two years she was a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) inShimla, India. She also worked for the government of the Union of Burma.

In 1988 Suu Kyi returned to Burma, at first to tend for her ailing mother but later to lead the pro-democracy movement. Aris' visit in Christmas 1995 turned out to be the last time that he and Suu Kyi met, as Suu Kyi remained in Burma and the Burmese dictatorship denied him any further entry visas. Aris was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 which was later found to be terminal. Despite appeals from prominent figures and organizations, including the United States, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Pope John Paul II, the Burmese government would not grant Aris a visa, saying that they did not have the facilities to care for him, and instead urged Aung San Suu Kyi to leave the country to visit him. She was at that time temporarily free from house arrest but was unwilling to depart, fearing that she would be refused re-entry if she left, as she did not trust the military junta's assurance that she could return.

Aris died on his 53rd birthday on 27 March 1999. Since 1989, when his wife was first placed under house arrest, he had seen her only five times, the last of which was for Christmas in 1995. She was also separated from her children, who live in the United Kingdom, but starting in 2011, they have visited her in Burma.

On 2 May 2008, after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, Suu Kyi lost the roof of her house and lived in virtual darkness after losing electricity in her dilapidated lakeside residence. She used candles at night as she was not provided any generator set. Plans to renovate and repair the house were announced in August 2009. Suu Kyi was released from house arrest on 13 November 2010.

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Aung San Suu Kyi,also called Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (born June 19, 1945,Rangoon, Burma [now Yangon, Myanmar]),politician and opposition leader of Myanmar, daughter of Aung San (a martyred national hero of independent Burma) and Khin Kyi (a prominent Burmese diplomat), and winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991.

Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when her father, then the de facto prime minister of what would shortly become independent Burma, was assassinated. She attended schools in Burma until 1960, when her mother was appointed ambassador to India. After further study in India, she attended the University of Oxford, where she met her future husband, the British scholar Michael Aris. She and Aris had two children and lived a rather quiet life until 1988, when she returned to Burma to nurse her dying mother, leaving her husband and sons behind. There the mass slaughter of protesters against the brutal and unresponsive rule of military strongman U Ne Win led her to speak out against him and to begin a nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights in that country.

In July 1989 the military government of the newly named Union of Myanmar (since 2011, Republic of the Union of Myanmar) placed Suu Kyi under house arrest in Yangon (Rangoon) and held her incommunicado. The military offered to free her if she agreed to leave Myanmar, but she refused to do so until the country was returned to civilian government and political prisoners were freed. The newly formed group with which she became affiliated, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won more than 80 percent of the parliamentary seats that were contested in 1990, but the results of that election were ignored by the military government (in 2010 the military government formally annulled the results of the 1990 election). The news that Suu Kyi was being given the Nobel Prize set off intense vilification of her by the government, and, since she was still being detained, her son, Alexander Aris, accepted the award in her place.

Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest in July 1995, although restrictions were placed on her ability to travel outside Yangon. The following year she attended the NLD party congress, but the military government continued to harass both her and her party. In 1998 she announced the formation of a representative committee that she declared was the countrys legitimate ruling parliament. Michael Aris died in London in early 1999. Prior to his death, the military junta denied him a visa to visit Suu Kyi in Myanmar, and Suu Kyi, anticipating that she would not be allowed to reenter the country if she left, remained in Myanmar.

The junta once again placed Suu Kyi under house arrest from September 2000 to May 2002, ostensibly for having violated restrictions by attempting to travel outside Yangon. Following clashes between the NLD and pro-government demonstrators in 2003, the government returned her to house arrest. Calls for her release continued throughout the international community in the face of her sentences annual renewal, and in 2009 a United Nations body declared her detention illegal under Myanmars own law. In 2008 the conditions of her house arrest were somewhat loosened, allowing her to receive some magazines as well as letters from her children, who were both living abroad.

Here a is a Short Essay on Aung San Suu Kyi:-
Aung San Suu Kyi (born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese opposition
politician and chairperson of the National
League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma . In the
1990 general election, the NLD won 59% of the
national votes and 81% (392 of 485) of the
seats in Parliament .She
had, however, already been detained under
house arrest before the elections. She remained
under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 of
the 21 years from 20 July 1989 until her most
recent release on 13 November 2010,
becoming one of the world's most prominent
political prisoners.
Suu Kyi received the Rafto Prize and the
Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990
and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she
was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for
International Understanding by the government
of India and the International Simón Bolívar
Prize from the government of Venezuela. In
2007, the Government of Canada made her an
honorary citizen of that country, the fourth
person ever to receive the honour. In 2011,
she was awarded the Wallenberg Medal .On
19 September 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi was also
presented with the Congressional Gold Medal ,
which is, along with the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the
United States.
On 1 April 2012, her party, the National League
for Democracy, announced that she was elected
to the Pyithu Hluttaw , the lower house of the
Burmese parliament , representing the
constituency of Kawhmu ; her party also won
43 of the 45 vacant seats in the lower house.
The election results were confirmed by the
official electoral commission the following day.
On 6 June 2013, Suu Kyi announced on the World
Economic Forum’s website that she wants to run
for the presidency in Myanmar's 2015 elections .
Suu Kyi is prohibited, however, from
becoming president within the current
constitution; this cannot be amended without
the approval of at least one military legislator.
As of 2014, she is listed as the 61st most
powerful woman in the world by Forbes .

Aung San Suu Kyi was born on June 19, 1945 in the city of Rangoon, Burma. General Aung San Kyi and Daw Khin Kyi brought her into the world. Her father, General Aung Sun, was the national leader of Burma until his assassination on July 17, 1947. His death would be one of the main contributors to her fight for peace and independence for the country of Burma. She was educated in the city of Rangoon until she was fifteen years old. Her mother would soon become Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal. In 1960 she would travel with her mother to these other countries. While living in these foreign lands she studied politics at Delhi University. She continued her education at St. Hugh's College and Oxford University where she received a BA in economics, politics, and philosophy. During the next several years she worked abroad and met her future husband Dr. Michael Aris. The couple soon married and had two children.
Aung's life was a little different then what most people are accustomed to in the world. Her father was assassinated for his political beliefs and her mother was an ambassador of the country of Burma. Politics played a big role in Aung's life and that is why it is not hard to believe what would soon happen to her. Aung had made her way back to her homeland in 1988, to take care of her sick mother. While in Burma she joined the pro-democracy movement, which was pushing for political reforms in Burma. On August 26, 1988 she addressed a half million people in a rally at the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon. She had preached to these people and called for a democratic government so that the people of Burma could experience freedom. An army unit in the Irrawaddy Delta confronted her almost a year later on April 5, 1989 while she was delivering a speech for democratic freedom. The army unit had orders to aim their weapons at her during the speech waiting for the order to fire. A major had finally ordered the troops back which prevented her from being assassinated like her father. Three months later on July 20, 1989 Aung San Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest in the city of Rangoon.
The elections were going to be held in May of 1990 in which she was declared ineligible. Even though she was unable to run in the election the National League for Democracy had a landslide victory even without her present. She would spend the next six years of her life at her lakeside villa in Rangoon to serve her house arrest. She wrote many speeches and books that were published. During this time she received many awards dealing with her great aspiration toward peace. However, maybe her greatest honor was the Nobel Peace Prize that she won on October 14, 1991. With her prize money of 1.3 million dollars she established a health and education trust for the people of Burma.
Aung San Sunn Kyi was released from house arrest on July 10, 1995. In 2002 authorities arrested her once more. Freed in 2002, the next year the Burmese government again arrested her. She remains in prison in 2006, despite ill health and international protests. She keeps on fighting for democracy and freedom in her homeland of Burma. She has dedicated her life to the citizens of Burma so that they can experience the freedom that they deserve. She has secured her name in Burmese history and will forever fight for democracy.

Short Essay on Aung San Suu Kyi

Ibrahim Gambari, the UN Envoy, met Myanmar pro-democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in November 2006. It was the first time that she was allowed to leave her house since her last meeting with Gambari in May 2006.

During the four-day visit to Myanmar, Gambari, who is the United Nations under Secretary for Political Affairs, also spoke with the officials of the ruling junta including the top leader, senior General than Shwe

According to the United Nations statement, which was issued in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi told the envoy that she “welcomes continued engagement by the United Nations and hopes that it can be of help in addressing the many issues that have been raised by Gambari during his visit”.

Special envoys from the United Nations have visited Myanmar over the years but have had little effect on the conduct of the Junta, which took power in 1988 by crushing a popular uprising.

Image Source: politicoscope.com

The generals then cancelled the results of a democratic election in 1990 when they lost to Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy. She is recipient of a number of prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize and Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding.

In early September, 2007, the army clamped on the Buddhist monks who had led massive demonstrations in protest against the authoritarian army rule. According to unconfirmed reports, many Buddhist monks were killed, a few escaped to Thailand. Sanctions have been imposed by USA but it has had very little impact on the army rule.

The two countries which can influence the army generals i.e., India and China, are reluctant to alienate the army junta for fear of losing the vast mineral resources of the country.

The ASEAN also is not faring any better either and no efforts are seriously being made to pressurise the army rulers to release Kyi or to go slow on their anti-people activities. A senior minister of the military Junta was accorded warm welcome by India in Jan. 2008.

She was visited by John Yettaw an American, who swam across the lake to see her. The army Junta clamped additional jail sentence on Aung San, and arrested Yettaw, who was later released at the intervention of US senator John Webb in mid 2009. The Americans now have changed their policy towards Myanmar from sanctions to reconciliation in 2010.