When Aung San Suu Kyi wakes up on Sunday there will be no crowds of well-wishers outside her lakeside home in the Burmese capital, Rangoon, singing happy 60th birthday, no piles of cards and presents to open, and no party preparations to finalise.
The only people greeting the pro-democracy campaigner and Nobel peace laureate will be an elderly housekeeper, the housekeeper’s daughter and — if he is granted what is becoming increasingly rare permission — Ms Suu Kyi’s doctor.
Burma’s military junta has banned everyone else, apart from an elderly man who delivers groceries to the house, from going anywhere near the leader of the country’s opposition National League for Democracy.
Suu Kyi, whose NLD won 82% of the seats in Burma’s last general election in 1990, has never been allowed to take office. The generals who have ruled Burma since 1962 have kept her in detention or under house arrest for almost 10 of the last 16 years.
A dozen ”guards” from her NLD party were stationed at her home until last December, but the authorities insisted half of them be removed. Refusing to be dictated to, Suu Kyi said that if some had to go they might as well all go.
The last visit from a foreigner was more than a year ago, when Red Cross medics were allowed to give her a check-up. There will not even be congratulatory phone calls, as the line was disconnected several months ago.
”She has never been as isolated as she is now,” said Debbie Stothard, of the Bangkok-based human rights group Altsean. ”It is so bad that we are not even sure how she is, although we think she is in reasonably good health.”
But while there will be no open celebrations in Burma, activists around the world will protest against her incarceration and demand that the generals replace their constitutional convention with a genuine democratisation process.
Modelled on the 1988 ”Mandela at 70” campaign for the then imprisoned South African leader, ”Suu Kyi at 60” involves demonstrations at virtually all Burmese embassies, thousands of people placing themselves under house arrest in solidarity, and the rock band REM beaming a song live to Burma during a Dublin concert via a Norwegian television station.
The Irish singer Damien Rice has also written a song for the birthday, Unplayed Piano, in reference to one of Suu Kyi’s passions, which she can no longer enjoy as her instrument has broken.
”This pure and inspirational human being who did nothing wrong has been locked up by other human beings despite most people wanting her to be their leader,” Rice said.
Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK, which is organising events in Britain, said: ”The idea is to raise awareness about her and about the situation in Burma. We also want to spur the international community into action … Unless we see concerted pressure put on the junta we could be seeing Aung San Suu Kyi spend the rest of her life in jail.”
Outsiders agree that the situation in Burma has significantly deteriorated since the prime minister and head of military intelligence, Khin Nyunt, was arrested last October and hundreds of his cohorts were purged. In a report this week, Amnesty International said the number of political prisoners had increased to about 1 350.
This week the International Labour Organisation, which has favoured engagement for the last five years, reversed its policy. On Friday, even the former Malaysian prime minister and long-time junta ally, Mahathir Mohamad, said it was time to release Suu Kyi and for the generals to step down. – Guardian Unlimited Â