Aung San Suu Kyi

Her Excellency

Aung San Suu Kyi
Her Excellency; Aung San Suu Kyi
အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်
1st State Counsellor of Myanmar
	In office; 6 April 2016 – 1 February 2021
President	Htin Kyaw; Win Myint
Preceded by	Thein Sein (Prime Minister, 2011)
Minister of Foreign Affairs
	In office; 30 March 2016 – 1 February 2021
President	Htin Kyaw; Win Myint
Deputy	Kyaw Tin
Preceded by	Wunna Maung Lwin
Minister of the President's Office
	In office; 30 March 2016 – 1 February 2021
President	Htin Kyaw; Win Myint
Preceded by	Aung Min; Hla Tun; Soe Maung; Soe Thein; Thein Nyunt
President of the National League for Democracy
	Incumbent
	Assumed office ; 18 November 2011
Preceded by	Aung Shwe
Leader of the Opposition
	In office; 2 May 2012 – 29 January 2016
President	Thein Sein
Preceded by	Sai Hla Kyaw
General Secretary of the National League for Democracy
	In office; 27 September 1988 – 18 November 2011
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Member of the Burmese House of Representatives; for Kawhmu
	In office; 2 May 2012 – 30 March 2016
Preceded by	Soe Tint
Succeeded by	Vacant
Majority	46,73 (71.38%)
Personal details
Born	19 June 1945 (age 79); Rangoon, British Burma; (now Yangon)
Political party	National League for Democracy
Spouse(s)	Michael Aris; (m. 1972; died 1999)
Children	2, including Alex
Parents	Aung San (Father); Khin Kyi (Mother)
Residence	54 University Avenue
Alma mater	University of Delhi; St Hugh's College, Oxford; University of London
Awards	Rafto Prize; Sakharov Prize; Nobel Peace Prize; Jawaharlal Nehru Award; International Simón Bolívar Prize; Olof Palme Prize; Bhagwan Mahavir World Peace; Congressional Gold Medal
Signature
Website	Party website
	Aung San Suu Kyi's voice
	from the BBC programme Desert Island Discs, 27 January 2013
	Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Aung San Suu Kyi (born 19 June 1945 in Yangon, Burma) is a human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and State Counsellor of Myanmar.

Suu Kyi was not able to be president. Instead, she became the State Counsellor of Myanmar.^[2] She brought some democracy to her country with nonviolence. She is the leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma and a famous prisoner. She has been under house arrest several times. Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize in 1990, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992, she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru peace prize.

She is sometimes called Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Daw is not part of her name, but a title for older women. This name shows respect for her.^[3] She is called Amay Suu by the people, meaning Mother Suu.

On 1 February 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested and removed from power by the military during a coup d'état. The military thought the government changed the results of the November 2020 Myanmar general election.^[4] On February 3, Suu Kyi was accused of breaking Myanmar's import laws.^[5] On February 16, Myanmar police filed a second criminal charge against her, this time for breaking the country's Natural Disaster Law.^[6] There were more charges and in December 2022 she was sentenced to 33 years in prison, later reduced to 27 years.^[7]

Personal life

Aung San Suu Kyi was the third child in her family. Her name "Aung San" comes from her father, who is also named Aung San; "Kyi" comes from her mother; and "Suu" comes from her grandmother.^[8]

Her father helped to make Burma independent from the United Kingdom in 1947. He was killed in the same year. She grew up with her mother, Khin Kyi, and two brothers, Aung San Lin and Aung San Oo in Yangon. One of her brothers, Aung San Lin, drowned when Suu Kyi was eight.^[8] Her other brother, Aung San Oo currently lives in San Diego, California and is an American citizen.^[8]

Suu Kyi went to Catholic schools for much of her childhood in Burma. She learned English in school.

Khin Kyi, Suu Kyi's mother, became famous as a politician. She became the Burmese ambassador to India in 1960. Aung San Suu Kyi went to college in India at the Lady Shri Ram College for Women in New Delhi.^[9] Suu Kyi continued her education at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and learned about philosophy, politics, and economics. She also went to the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London in the 1980s.

She moved to New York and worked at the United Nations. In 1972, Aung San Suu Kyi married Michael Aris (1946-1999), a professor of Tibetan culture who lived in Bhutan. She had met Aris when they were both students at Oxford. In 1973, she gave birth to her first son, Alexander, in London; and in 1977 she had her second son, Kim.

Political career

Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to take care of her sick mother. That year, the long-time leader of the socialist ruling party, General Ne Win, retired.

She admired Mohandas Gandhi's use of nonviolence.^[10]^[11] She was also inspired by Buddhism.^[12] Aung San Suu Kyi worked for democracy and helped make the National League for Democracy on September 27th 1988. Because Suu Kyi was working against the government, she was asked to leave the country, but she did not.

She was arrested in 1989 and placed in prison in 1990. This was after an election which her party, the National League for Democracy, won, but they were not allowed to be in charge of the country. Between 1990 and 2010, she was almost always in her home, which is called house arrest. Burma released her in November 2010. Suu Kyi was going to be released in 2009, but when a man entered her home she was kept on house arrest for another year because she had broken the rules of the house arrest.

After she was released from house arrest, she was elected to be State Counsellor. When she was State Counsellor, Burma had serious problems with the genocide of the Rohingya.

Political belief

Suu Kyi on the front of Ms. magazine in 2012

When she was asked what democratic models Myanmar could look to, she said: "We have many, many lessons to learn from various places, not just the Asian countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia and Indonesia". She also cited "the eastern European countries, which made the transition from communist autocracy to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, and the Latin American countries, which made the transition from military governments". She added that "we wish to learn from everybody who has achieved a transition to democracy, and also (...) because we are so far behind everybody else, we can also learn which mistakes we should avoid."^[13]

Book

Authored

Letters from Burma (1998) with Fergal Keane ISBN 978-0140264036
The Voice of Hope (1998) with Alan Clements, ISBN 978-1888363838
Freedom from Fear and Other Writings (1995) with Václav Havel, Desmond M. Tutu, and Michael Aris, ISBN 978-0140253177
Der Weg zur Freiheit (1999) with U Kyi Maung, U Tin Oo, ISBN 978-3404614356
Letter to Daniel: Despatches from the Heart (1996) by Fergal Keane, foreword by Aung San Suu Kyi, edited by Tony Grant ISBN 978-0140262896
Burma's Revolution of the Spirit: The Struggle for Democratic Freedom and Dignity (1994) with Alan Clements, Leslie Kean, The Dalai Lama, Sein Win ISBN 978-0893815806
Aung San of Burma: A Biographical Portrait by His Daughter (1991) ISBN 978-1870838801, 2nd edition 1995
Aung San (Leaders of Asia Series) (1990) ISBN 978-9990288834
Burma and India: Some aspects of intellectual life under colonialism (1990) ISBN 978-8170231349
Bhutan (Let's Visit Series) (1986) ISBN 978-0222010995
Nepal (Let's Visit Series) (1985) ISBN 978-0222009814
Burma (Let's Visit Series) (1985) ISBN 978-0222009791

Edited

Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson. Edited by Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi. (1979). Vikas Publishing house, New Delhi.

Mentioned in

Aung San Suu Kyi (Modern Peacemakers) (2007) by Judy L. Hasday, ISBN 978-0791094358
The Lady: Aung San Suu Kyi: Nobel Laureate and Burma's Prisoner (2002) by Barbara Victor, ISBN 978-0571211777, or 1998 hardcover: ISBN 978-0571199440
Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi (2007) by Justin Wintle, ISBN 978-0091796815
Tyrants: The World's 20 Worst Living Dictators (2006) by David Wallechinsky, ISBN 978-0060590048
Aung San Suu Kyi (Trailblazers of the Modern World) (2004) by William Thomas, ISBN 978-0836852639
No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs (2002) by Naomi Klein ISBN 978-0312421434
Mental culture in Burmese crisis politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy Archived 2008-05-12 at the Wayback Machine (ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa Monograph Series) (1999) by Gustaaf Houtman, ISBN 978-4872977486
Aung San Suu Kyi: Standing Up for Democracy in Burma (Women Changing the World) (1998) by Bettina Ling ISBN 978-1558611979
Aung San Suu Kyi: Fearless Voice of Burma (Newsmakers Biographies Series) (1997) by Whitney Stewart, ISBN 978-0822549314
Prisoner for Peace: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Democracy (Champions of Freedom Series) (1994) by John Parenteau, ISBN 978-1883846053
Des femmes prix Nobel de Marie Curie à Aung San Suu Kyi, 1903-1991 (1992) by Charlotte Kerner, Nicole Casanova, Gidske Anderson, ISBN 978-2721004277
Aung San Suu Kyi, towards a new freedom (1998) by Chin Geok Ang ISBN 978-9814024303
Aung San Suu Kyi's struggle: Its principles and strategy (1997) by Mikio Oishi ISBN 978-9839861068
Finding George Orwell in Burma (2004) by Emma Larkin ISBN 1594-20052-1

Awards

Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize (1990)
Sakharov Prize (1991)
Nobel Peace Prize (1991)
Prize for Freedom of the Liberal International (1995)
Freedom of City of Dublin, Republic of Ireland (1999)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000)
Jawaharlal Nehru Award (1993)
Olof Palme Prize
Companion of the Order of Australia (Australia's Highest Civil Honour)
UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance & Non-Violence (2002)
Four Freedoms Award in the category Freemdom from fear (2006)
Honorary Canadian citizenship, (2007)
Congressional Gold Medal (2008)^[14]
Honorary President of the LSESU
Doctorate of Letters honoris causa from Colgate University^[15]

Aung San Suu Kyi Media

Aung San Suu Kyi at her constituency in Kawhmu township during the 2012 by-election campaign.
Suu Kyi meets with Edgardo Boeninger of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in 1995.
US Senator Jim Webb visiting Aung San Suu Kyi in 2009. Webb negotiated the release of John Yettaw, the man who trespassed in Aung San Suu Kyi's home.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at a conference in London, during 5 countries tour of Europe, 2012
The ceremony of the Sakharov Prize awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi by Martin Schulz, inside the European Parliament's Strasbourg hemicycle, in 2013
The 2009 celebration of Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday in Dublin, Ireland
Aung San Suu Kyi greeting supporters from Bago State in 2011
Aung San Suu Kyi addresses crowds at the NLD headquarters shortly after her release.
Aung San Suu Kyi meets with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Yangon (1 December 2011)
Aung San Suu Kyi (Center) gives a speech to the supporters during the 2012 by-election campaign at her constituency Kawhmu township, Myanmar on 22 March 2012.