Aung San Suu Kyi speaks of toll her work took on family life

Published on Thursday 18 November 2010 15:49

BURMA's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has said that her recent release from seven years of detention does not signal a softening in the military's harsh, decades-long rule of the Southeast Asian nation.

• Aung San Suu Kyi in her office, sparsely decorated but including a portrait of her late father, Aung San. Picture: AP

In an interview yesterday, Ms Suu Kyi, 65, called her detention illegal and said she was released simply because the decreed period of house arrest had ended.

Speaking in her small office, decorated with little except a vase of flowers and a black and white photograph of her late father, Aung San, who helped lead colonial Burma to independence from Britain, Ms Suu Kyi said: "I don't think there were any other reasons. My detention had come to an end, and there were no immediate means of extending it."

The Nobel Peace laureate, who was freed on Saturday, has made it clear she plans to pursue her goal of a democratic Burma, but has been careful not to challenge the junta.

Her most recent detention began in 2003 after she was blamed for an attack by government thugs on her convoy. It was extended in 2009 when she briefly sheltered an American man who swam uninvited to her decaying lakeside villa.

"I haven't seen any sign of the junta at all since I came out," she said. "They haven't made any move to let us know what they feel about the situation."

She added that her goals would not change, saying laughingly: "I had better go on living until I see a democratic Burma."

Ms Suu Kyi has called for face-to-face talks with junta leader General Than Shwe to reach national reconciliation.

Yesterday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon telephoned Ms Suu Kyi and the pair had a "warm and cordial conversation," Mr Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said. Mr Ban expressed his admiration for Ms Suu Kyi's "courage and dignity as a source of inspiration for millions of people around the world".

Ms Suu Kyi has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years, yet has remained the dominant figure of Burma's battered pro-democracy movement. More than 2,200 political prisoners remain behind bars in the country.

A week before her release, a military-backed political party swept to victory the first elections in 20 years amid widespread accusations that the balloting was rigged.

Ms Suu Kyi acknowledged that her years of political work had been difficult for her family.

"I knew there would be problems," she said of her mid-life decision to go into politics. "If you make the choice you have to be prepared to accept the consequences."

Ms Suu Kyi, who was largely raised overseas, married the British academic Michael Aris and raised their two sons, Kim and Alexander, in England.

But in 1988, aged 43, she returned home to Burma to take care of her ailing mother as mass demonstrations were breaking out against military rule.She was quickly thrust into a leadership role, mainly because she was the daughter of Aung San.

The personal cost has been huge: she was unable to see her husband before he died of cancer in 1999; she has not seen her sons in a decade, and has never met her two grandchildren.

She refuses to leave Burma, even during her brief periods of freedom, fearing she would not be allowed to return.

While her family supported her, she said her sons had suffered particularly badly. She said: "They haven't done very well after the break-up of the family, especially after their father died, because Michael was a very good father.

"Once he was no longer there, things were not as easy as they might have been."

Little is known about her sons, who largely avoid the media. Kim lives in England with his family and Alexander resides in the US. But she added that she always had their support.

"My sons are very good to me," she said. "They've been very kind and understanding all along."