Aung San Suu Kyi’s supporters plan protests around the world to mark her 60th birthday on Sunday, demonstrating outside Myanmar’s embassies in a dozen countries to demand her release from two years’ house arrest.
The woman known simply as ”The Lady” will only be able to hear of the protests on her short-wave radio, one of the few links that she has with the outside world from her rambling lakeside home where she lives in isolation under 24-hour guard.
Few expect the protests to sway Myanmar’s reclusive military leaders, who have ignored United States and European sanctions imposed as the junta has stalled on its own ”road map” to democracy, leaving the nation one of the poorest in Asia.
But activists hope the demonstrations will draw the world’s attention to the Nobel peace laureate’s plight.
”We can demonstrate to Aung San Suu Kyi and to the military that there are a lot of people who support her,” said Michele Keegan, one of scores of activists who plan to lock themselves indoors for 24 hours on Sunday in solidarity.
”Basically what we’re trying to do is show that it’s not just a few small voices calling for her release, that there are a lot of people around the world, and in the region” who want her freed, Keegan said.
The so-called ”Arrest Yourself” parties are planned in 16 countries — including Britain, France, Germany, Singapore, Spain and the United States — to raise awareness and money for Myanmar’s pro-democracy struggle.
Other activists are taking to the streets in London, Paris, Seoul, New Dehli, Tokyo and a dozen other capitals to protest outside Myanmar’s embassies.
The disobedience began on Thursday in Kuala Lumpur, where Malaysian police arrested 68 Myanmar activists protesting outside the Myanmar embassy. Public gatherings without a permit are illegal in Malaysia.
Yet lending his voice to the chorus of indignation was one of Malaysia’s most influential figures, former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who called on the ruling generals to release Aung San Suu Kyi.
While in power, Mahathir was an important Yangon ally who engineered Myanmar’s entrance into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). But on Friday he said freeing Suu Kyi ”would make things easier for everyone”.
In Yangon, the National League for Democracy (NLD) said the party had standing instructions not to accept any gifts for Aung San Suu Kyi.
”Whatever donations were made to the NLD headquarters on her birthday should be given to those still in jail and to their families outside for their children’s education,” a party source said.
Relatives and friends close to Aung San Suu Kyi said they welcomed the international appeals for her release, which one family friend described as ”the best gift for her 60th birthday”.
International music television station MTV is running spots urging viewers to e-mail the Myanmar junta with their concerns for the dissident.
San Francisco has named June 19 ”Aung San Suu Kyi Day”, while Edinburgh is giving her its ”Freedom of the City” award — to be received by her 28-year-old son Kim, one of her two children by late British husband Michael Aris.
In Washington, ranking US Representative Tom Lantos will lead protests in front of Myanmar’s embassy and attempt to deliver 6 000 birthday cards for Aung San Suu Kyi.
”It will be interesting to see how they react,” his spokeswoman Lynne Weil said.
Thailand’s respected Thammasat University in Bangkok plans to bestow an honorary degree on Aung San Suu Kyi as part of day-long activities on Sunday.
And top Irish musician Damien Rice is releasing a new single called Unplayed Piano on the dissident’s birthday, written after the star learned that she has been deprived of one of her few pleasures, playing the piano at home.
A group of 14 Nobel laureates also issued a joint statement ahead of the birthday, calling on the international community to maintain pressure, including sanctions, against the junta.
”They remind Burma’s military leaders that they cannot reconcile with the world until they reconcile with their own people,” said the group, including Desmond Tutu, who helped galvanize global opinion against racist apartheid rule in South Africa, and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet’s Buddhists.
Also trumpeting the call for freedom was the Norwegian Nobel Committee itself, which described Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle as ”one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades”.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD scored a landslide victory in 1990 elections, considered free and fair by the international community, but the junta never allowed the winners to take office.
She has spent much of the last 15 years under house arrest, with her latest detention beginning more than two years ago. ‒ Sapa-AFP