SUU KYI’S RELEASE

FROM ONE PRISON TO ANOTHER

Aung San Suu Kyi’s release is a gamble for Burma’s ruling junta. Will its post-election confidence prove to be misplaced?

The Diplomat, November 15, 2010

For Burma’s ‘black magic’ generals, known for consulting astrologers over every major move, November 13 must have seemed an auspicious enough day to release arch foe and democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Her gently decomposing mansion on Inya Lake in north Rangoon has been barricaded with its celebrity prisoner inside for the past seven years.  Altogether, Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest here. But on Saturday, crowds started to build outside the army barricades on University Avenue. By late afternoon, the crowd of hard-core supporters—many bravely wearing t-shirts emblazoned with her image—began chanting her name and drawing closer to the barricades.

The soldiers began to get nervous. Reinforcements arrived in the form of helmeted riot police, armed with tear gas and stun grenades, who threatened to disperse the crowd unless it moved back. Army cameramen and ‘MI’ operatives filmed everyone, particularly the dozen or so journalists who had broken cover to report on events. At that point, no-one knew if ‘the lady’ would be released or if the country faced another, bloody, crackdown.

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