Boundaries, Nation States and the Path of Displaced Women's Struggle

Pinkaew Laungaramsri
Faculty of Social Science, Chiang Mai University
(Translated by Urisara Kowitdamrong and Pipob Udomittipong)

Introduction
The world community is now celebrating the 21st century's new dimension, the dynamic force and cross-border activities that have united the world. It has crossed over the boundaries, which used to divide states from states not long ago. In this now-familiar "borderless world", nation states have relaxed their guard. Nationalist sentiment has subsided. Networking is prized over obstruction, cooperation over division, and diversity as well as multi-pluralism over tyranny.

Still, some old-style nation states have persisted and survived to exert nationalism. They have incessantly subjugated others, endorsed discrimination and sanctioned oppression. They have also alienated their own citizens unrelentingly.

One of these states, no doubt, is Burma.

Few Thais are aware of or are interested to know that the continued influx of people from Burma to Thailand is a direct result of Burmanization by the Burmese military junta. Burmanization is used to exert Burmese dominance over other ethnic groups, and to oppress both citizens of Burmaes ethnicity and citizens from other ethnic groups. Thailand's indifference to this fact and its profit-oriented policies only serve to strengthen Burma's military force. Worse still, while Thailand has pursued "borderless world" concept in welcoming foreign tourists, investors, business and power groups, it has treated the people fleeing from Burma much differently. The Thai government has discriminated against, oppressed, and restricted the rights of these refugees. They have been pushed outside Thailand's social structure. Consequently, Thais know about the lives and struggles of displaced persons only through illiberal phases such as "alien workers" who know only to "cause problems" or to "steal jobs" from Thais.

Naked Lives, Alienation and the Use of Violence by an Old-style State Nation

"While in Burma, as a Shan, I was looked down upon like a second-class citizen in the eyes of Burmese government. But when I am in Thailand, I am given a refugee-card for Burmese people. Nowhere has the existence of Shan people been recognized. I now start thinking of how we can have our own nation, and our dignity".

- A Shan woman at a village near the Thai-Burmese border

Civil war in Burma has given Burmese troops license to practice sexual violence against local ethnic women with impunity...The sexual violence is systematically used for various purposes from terrorizing local communities to demand total submission, to (the use of women's bodies) declare (Burmese) military force on ethnic women's bodies so as to humiliate opposition force and reward Burmese troops during the time of war

- License to Rape, SWAN and SHRF

We no longer have farms. Burmese troops took away all our assets. There, we could not earn enough to survive. There was no job year-round. It is better here than in Burma. Wages here have allowed our subsistence lives. We have been here for nearly one year. We will not go back. We don't know how to earn a living back there.

- "Quoted in" Krittaya Archawanichkul, Tris Coett and Nin Nin Pine ??(2000: 84) [3 people say the same thing in unison...]

If the boundaries are historical records of human crossings over borders of nation states, the displaced women who crossed the border from Burma have their records full of violence against civilian women and bitter conflicts. On the relationship between nation state and its people, a warm nation is reserved for "national insiders" only. The "outsiders", on the other hand, have been constantly abused by the nation. The worst experiences, women have borne.

The migration of displaced women from Burma is therefore not just about women's hope to find jobs in a country with more economic opportunities. In fact, these women have shouldered all the harsh memories along their path. From the interviews with 173 displaced women from Burma between January 2001 and March 2002 by groups working for the displaced from Burma, Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN) and Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF), it was revealed that Burmese troops in documented cases had committed sexual violence against 625 Shan women and girls from 1996 to 2002. In most cases, the victims were raped in front of Burmese troops. As they were brutal rapes, more than 25 percent of victims died. Up to 61 percent of victims were gang-raped, and many of them were detained for purpose of repeated rapes. In some cases, the victims had been detained and raped for more than four months. Most rapes had been committed in the central Shan State, where more than 300,000 local people were forced to leave since 1996 to areas earmarked for relocations. Many rapes took place when girls and women went out from relocation sites to find food. Many other rapes happened during the time when the victims were forced to serve as porters without pay for Burmese troops, or happened at checkpoints manned by the troops (SHRF and SWAN 2002). These findings were the basis of License to Rape report.

Using women's bodies has become an integral part of the Burmanization, which has been sanctioned by the government. The practice has been used by the Burmese military in opposing the ethnic groups since Burma gained independence from Britain, according to Betsy Apple, author of "School for Rape: the Burmese Military and Sexual Violence". She remarked that widespread rapes were systematic as Burmese troops used rapes as a weapon for ethnic cleansing. Rapes of women from other ethnic groups, in addition to Shan, were also widespread even in areas where ceasefire agreements have been reached. In this context, the women's bodies have become battlefields for power, and powerful communications tools the Burmese nation state used to declare its dominance and victories over other ethnic groups. In this symbolic battlefield, the ethnic alienation has been imagined with ethnic groups being subjugated, humiliated, devastated and crushed to defeat.

Ethnic women in Burma suffer not only from sexual violence and memories of what happened to them, but also from their incomprehension as to why their bodies have been abused and become topography of state's violence. In an interview published in The Nation newspaper on August 23, 2002, a rape victim who survived brutal rapes and migrated to Thailand said, "I have heard about the fight between Shan army and Burmese army for many years. At that time, Shan soldiers killed six Burmese troops and I heard that the Burmese troops wanted to take revenge." She was speaking to a reporter who asked what she thought Burmese troops tortured her, her family and other Shan women. But she was clueless as to why the revenge was directed at civilian women like her, their bodies that are not related to any political conflict and much far away from battle stage.

Sadly, the violence against the displaced women has not ended at the borderline. Today, their torture is ongoing but in different forms and different locations. The scenes of torture have changed from villages in Thai-Burmese border to orange farms, factories, houses, construction sites and police stations on Thai soil. Their abusers have changed from troops to employers and Thai government officials. The displaced women, rejected by both their homeland and country they have sought refuge in, still have naked lives without any protection, solace, or rights as civilians should have. They have lived their hidden lives with worries and vulnerability to abuses, intimidation and tortures. They cannot ask for help from anyone.

In the course of struggle

"My only plea is for Thailand to allow Shan people to take refuge here and to set up their settlement with support from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees"

- A member of Shan Women's Network

"The original Shan people who live here do not want to return to Shan state. They are tool aged and are already taken as Thais. We know that the "Tai Nok" people are struggling for independence in order that they can freely communicate with us again. They used to live there in peace."

- Sunanta, Baan Mae Ai Luang, quoted in Aranya Siriphon in 2005

For migrant women, it is very hard to fight for social acceptance. The narrow vision concerning nationality of both Thailand and Burma with the emphasis on cultural and ethnic unity makes the existence of plural society almost impossible. Under this circumstance, migrant women have to choose various ways to bargain and fight for the wider notion of citizenship beyond the realm of nationality and statehood.

Mobilization and advocacy among organizations of migrant people since 2002 to expose human rights abuse in Burma including the release of License to Rape by SWAN and SHRF is an example of their attempts to educate public to come to term with sufferings of these ethnic women and how the junta in Burma has built their power on extreme brutalization. These women are marginalized in two respects. On one hand, they belong to ethnic minority, and on the other hand they are women. Therefore, they have to take up all risks to fight to make their voices heard. The brave actions of these women bear fruit in a growing awareness across the border. People the world over are aware of brutalization and exploitations waged by the outdated regime of Burma against its own people and many have become involved with efforts for major changes in the country. In Thailand, the state and society in general often lack understanding or hold on to narrow views toward the plights of these migrant people from Burma. They are perceived of being illegal migrant labors who have come over here to evade economic hardships in their own countries. However, the continuous campaign of these brave migrant Shan women sheds light on the fact that a growing number of migrants has been directly attributed to the use of sexual violence and the perpetuation of traditional powers in Burma, which over the years have become more violent. The migrant labor registration policy of Thai state has done little to increase understanding and led to no solutions for the issues.

The ongoing brutalization of Shan people by the Burmese junta over several decades has caused great influx of migrants across the Thai border. Yet, the Thai state still refuses to allow these migrants to set up their own refugee camps here. As a result, many Shan migrant women have to struggle for their survival in Thai society through available options including relying on mutual help among their relatives, their association with the existing Shan communities in Thailand or even setting up their own settlements. These women do not perceive themselves merely as "alien labors" as defined by the Thai state, but as members who are instrumental in the growth of society. Many of them have fled from Burma long enough to have their children grown up here. However close their relationships with the country, they are still not counted as "Thai" and are subject to "statelessness".

The long road ahead

An activist woman gave an interesting remark that relationships between the nation and women are weird. Although theoretically, women can fully become members of a nation, but in actuality, they are often discriminated against by the nation (or the nation state). As a result, they are sometimes treated as being part of the nation, and sometimes not. The experience of migrant women from Burma perfectly attests to this inconsistency. They are brutalized by the nation state and are marginalized in their own society, the act of which becomes a basis for interaction between them and the nation. Their being non-Burman ethnic group in Burma justifies brutality unleashed by the nation state against them. Meanwhile, their non-Thai ethnic characteristics differentiate them as being alien labors and thus have no access to due welfares and social acceptance.

Despite such pressure, many marginalized migrant women do not succumb to their fate. They attempt to challenge the narrow perception and the archaistic state mechanisms. On one hand, they fight to broaden perception toward citizenship beyond the existing criteria based on territory, sovereignty or cultural unity. They claim that these criteria not only outdated, but justify brutal treatment by the state against its own people. They promote the notion of cultural citizenship that embraces ethnic and cultural diversity and differences and should be essential part of the definition of citizenship. Against the Burmese junta, the fight will take a long way to go. But in Thai society, social democracy here should be a key factor that leads to reflection and change of concepts and attitude from inflicting on migrants "otherness", to a more understanding and acceptance of migrants as being part of Thai society.

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References

Krtittiya Artwanichkul, Tris Coett, Nin Nin Pine (2000) Gender, Reproductive Health and Violence: Life Experience of Migrant Labors from Burma, Nakhon Pathom, Demographic and Social Research Institute, Mahidol University

Aranya Siriphol (2005), In the course of migration: Experience of Shan communities and labor trade along Thailand-Burma border from social and cultural perspectives, part of the research project "Power, Space and Ethnic Identity: Cultural politics of the Nation State in Northern Thai Society", Faculty of Sociology, Chiang Mai University, with support from the Thailand Research Fund

Apple, Betsy. 1998. School for Rape: The Burmese Military and Sexual Violence.

Shan Human Rights Foundation (2002) Charting the Exodus from Shan State: Patterns of Shan refugees flow into northern Chiang Mai province of Thailand (1997-2002).

Shan Human Rights Foundation and Shan Women's Action Network (2002) Licence to Rape. Chiang Mai: SHRF

The Nation 8/23/2002

Aung San Suu Kyi : 60 Years of Struggling Behind the Cloud (2)

Mother and Wife, and The Price to be Paid

Suu Kyi wrote in her book "Letters from Burma" that: "I was not the only woman detainee in Burma: there have been - and their still remain - a number of other women imprisoned for their political beliefs. Some of these women had young children who suddenly found themselves in the care of fathers worried sick for their wives and totally unused to running a household. Most of the children, except for those who were too young to understand what was going on, suffered from varying degrees of stress."

On many occasions she was asked about her relationship with her family which lives half a world apart and she would say this of her children: "Of course, there were my own children who had to cope without a mother, but they lived in England, so I was not worries for them." (from an interview with Michele Manceaux, Marie Claire - Singapore edition, May 1996)

From 1996 onward, the junta refuses to allow her husband and children to visit Burma and by the beginning of 1999, Michael became terminally ill and realised that his time was running out. He applied for a visa to visit his wife but the request was turned down by the junta.

The junta wanted to pressure Suu Kyi into exile but she refused the offer to let her leave for London to visit her ailing husband. This came amidst criticism by others that Suu Kyi is failing in her duty as a wife and a mother. Michael eventually passed away on March 27, 1999 at Oxford. The couple's last reunion was during Christmas of 1995.

Michael recorded the happy time they shared in the preface of Suu Kyi's book "Freedom from Fear" that: "The days I spent alone with her that last time, completely isolated from the world, are among my happiest memories of our many years of marriage. It was wonderfully peaceful. Suu had established a strict regime of exercise, study and piano which I managed to disrupt. She was memorizing a number of Buddhist sutras. I produced Christmas presents I had brought one by one to spread them out over several days. We had all the time in the world to talk about many things. I did not suspect this would be the last time we would be together for the foreseeable future."

Michael often told his friends that while Suu Kyi's struggle is known to the world he remains the person who love and understand her most, as Michael wrote in that same preface. "Recently I read again the 187 letters she sent to me in Bhutan from New York in the eight months before we married in London on January 1972… She constantly reminded me that one day she would have to return to Burma, that she counted on my support at that time, not as her due, but as a favour."

As for Suu Kyi, she talked about her relationship with Michael that:
"We don't interfere with each other's beliefs and priorities. For example, my husband is an orientalist and a Tibetologist. I have never tried to stop him from pursuing his interest, although sometimes it was quite exhausting following him around the Himalayas. I did what I could to help him and I think he adopts the same attitude." (from the same interview on Marie Claire Magazine).

When asked about the choice she made as a woman dedicated to the public cause instead or her family, Suu Kyi said: "… I think tradition has always dictated that men are more free to do public work. Women are expected to do both but it's not so in my case because I live apart from my family, so in a sense, I don't have a private life." (ibid).

Life Under Detention

Aung San Suu Kyi was first placed under house arrest on July 20, 1989 by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) which eventually confined her without charge for six years.

Her first taste of freedom came in July 1995.
Life under house arrest in her own home saw Suu Kyi refusing to accept all kinds of deals offered by the junta. She has to sell her household belongings and valuable to survive, leaving only a piano and a dining table. She told a journalist how she passes her days in confinement.

"I refused to accept anything from the military… Sometimes I didn't even have enough money to eat. I became so weak from malnourishment that my hair fell out, and I couldn't get out of bed. I was afraid that I had damaged my heart. Every time I moved, my heart went thump-thump-thump, and it was hard to breath. I fell to nearly 90 pounds from my normal 106. I thought to myself that I'd die of heart failure, not starvation at all." (ibid).

The military junta did not prevented her from corresponding with her family through letters but they read all the letters trafficking in and fro. "They also emphasized that they were doing me a great favour by allowing me to write to my children. But I said I would not accept any favours from them and stopped writing. Then, two-and-a-half years later, they asked my husbands and sons to visit me." (ibid).

Lost Freedom and Road to Democracy

Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for second time on September 21, 2000 for 18 months and gained a brief period of freedom of mobility in 2002.

Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest for the third time by the same junta which by then have changed its name to The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) from June 2003 after a clash between Suu Kyi supporters and government's mob on May 30 while Suu Kyi was visiting local people at Depayin City in northern Burma.

June 19, 2005 marked the 60th birth anniversary of Aung San Suu Kyi who remains under house arrest at her home along Inya Lake, University Avenue, an address that has become symbolic since her father Aung San fought for independence and now her daughter for democracy.

Today, no one knows how she leads her life in confinement but over the past 17 years, Suu Kyi sacrificed her personal freedom and happiness for peace and democracy in Burma. This commitment was reiterated in her very own writings in the book "Letters from Burma" that: "Prison walls affect those on the outside, too"

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Compiled by "The Organising Committee for the 60th Birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi",
translated by Pravit Rojanaphruk

Footnote:
1.Brochure from "One Decade of Aung San Suu Kyi and the Nobel Peace Prize" organised by the Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma (TACDB) on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize, December 8, 2001.

2."Letters from Burma" written by Aung San Suu Kyi

3. Aris, Michael in preface of Aung San Suu Kyi's book, 'Freedom from Fear'

4. www.dassk.org

5.http://nobelprize.org

6. Manceaux, Michele, Marie Claire Magazine, May 1996, Singapore Edition.

7. Klein, Edward, Vanity Fair, October 1995.

Aung San Suu Kyi : 60 Years of Struggling Behind the Cloud (1)

The name Aung San Suu Kyi became known to the wider world after
the 8-8-88 incident in Burma on August 8,1988 when hundreds of thousands Burmese students and citizens rose up to demand democracy from the military dictatorship that has been ruling Burma for 26 years.

That political incident propelled Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma's independence movement leader, General Aung San, to follow a similar political path to her father. She abandoned her academic career and lovely family behind in order to dedicate herself to the struggle for peace and democracy of her motherland by fighting against dictators amidst doubt expressed by the public about her other responsibility as a wife and a mother.

Aung San Suu Kyi returned to her homeland to eventually carry out the fight in March 1988. She would not have a chance to step out of Burma again because of her realization that if she chose to leave Burma, the military junta would never allow for her return again as long as they are in their illegitimate power. Suu Kyi chose to sacrifice her personal freedom in order to remind the world of Burma people's continued sufferings under the harsh military rule and she does it in a non-violent manner.

She told the power that be that: "Love and truth can move people more than coercion."
She said to the Burmese people: " I think many people in Burma will recognize the instinct that makes us look up toward the heavens and the confident inner voice that tells us that behind the deeply banked clouds there is still the sun waiting to shed its light and warmth at the given hour."
Then she conveyed this message to the world community: "Prison may break the body but not the spirit."

Seventeen years of Struggle Against Dictatorship

In the end of March 1988, the 43-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi returned to her home in Rangoon from abroad to care for her ailing mother, Daw Khin Kyi. This coincided with the economic crisis and political turmoil in Burma which led to the resignation of General Ne Win from the chairmanship of The Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) which has seized political control over Burma for the past 26 years.

The dissatisfaction of people towards Ne Win's rule, especially his
economic policy, has been building up continuously and became more intense by September of 1987 when the 25 kyats, 35 kyats and 75 kyats banknotes have been discontinued without allowing people to convert it with the government. This led to the sudden loss of about 75 per cent of the money circulated at that time and Rangoon University students protested by ransacking many shops.

The first major violent incident occured in March 1988 after a feud
between students at a tea house occured. Police arrested those engaged in the brawl but students pressured the authority to release them. This demand was met with brute force unleashed by the authority as many were shot to deaths. Thousands were subsequently arrested and the incident led to massive dissatisfaction among students and citizens. As protests spread nationwide, it became one of the reason behind Ne Win's eventual resignation.

The resignation of Gen. Ne Win on July 23 was followed by a demonstration and call for democracy by hundreds of thousands of people and students in Rangoon. The rally spread nationwide by August 8, 1988 and reached a turning point when millions of Burmese people, including Suu Kyi, took to the street.

Though the duty to her mother ended with Daw Khin Kyi's death on December 27 of that year, the duty to her motherland remains. It's been 17 years since, now that she's turning 60 this year on June 19, 2005.

Over the past 17 years of struggle, Suu Kyi traded her personal freedom in order to remind the world of the on-going suffering of the Burmese people under the junta's iron-fist rule. Her non-violent struggle has not only tarnish the reputation of the junta but also foreign governments which directly or indirectly supported the junta.

As Suu Kyi herself said: "When we ask for democracy, all we are asking is that our people should be allowed to live in tranquility under the rule of law, protected by institutions which will guarantee our rights, the rights that will enable us to maintain our human dignity, to heal long festering wounds and to allow love and courage to flourish. Is that such a very unreasonable demand?"

From Hometown to the Wider World: Building a Loving Family

Aung San Suu Kyi was only two when her father Gen. Aung San, the man Burmese regarded as their "hero of independence" was assassinated in July 1947.

Gen. Aung San led the struggle against the British and Japanese, finally gain independence for Burma on January 4, 1948. After he was assassinated, Daw Khin Kyi, his wife, had to shoulder the responsibility of looking after their three children alone, Suu Kyi being the youngest and the only daughter.

Soon after her father's death, the second son died in a drowning accident while Suu Kyi and her eldest brother, Aung San Oo, grew up under the care of his mother and friends of his late father.

In 1960, Daw Khin Kyi was appointed Burmese Ambassador to New Delhi and Suu Kyi was enrolled at Lady Shri Ram College in that city. Suu Kyi later went up to Oxford to read Philosphy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at St Hugh's College. It was at that ancient university that she met her love and future husband Michael Aris who was reading Tibetan civilisation at the same university.

The year when Aung San Suu Kyi graduated was the same year that her mother completed her term in New Delhi and return to Rangoon. Suu Kyi left for New York to work as assistant secretary to the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions at the United Nations. During those three years, Suu Kyi devoted her evenings and weekends as hospital volunteer reading and consoling financially-deprived patients.

In January of 1972, Suu Kyi married Michael Aris and they both left for Bhutan. Suu Kyi got a job as a researcher for the Bhutanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs while Michael headed the translation Department and tutored members of the Royal Family.

They both return to London in 1973 and stayed there for five years. Michael got a lectureship at Oxford in Himalayan and Tibetan Studies while Suu Kyi gave birth to her first son, Alexander, in 1973 and followed by the second son Kim in 1977. Beside spending time looking after the two children, Suu Kyi became involved in writing and doing research on her late father's life as well as helping Michael with his work.

They both went their own ways between 1985 and 1986 when Suu Kyi received a research grant from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University to work on the lives of her father while Michael received a scholarship from the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Simla, Northern India. Suu Kyi took Kim with her to Kyoto while Michael was joined by Alexander. Suu Kyi later received a scholarship from Indian Institute of Advanced Studies and went to join the family in Simla. It was around this time when Suu Kyi has to fly back to London to care for her mother who was under going an eye surgery.

By 1987, both Suu Kyi and her family returned to Oxfordshire. Suu Kyi enrolled at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies and was working on her doctoral dissertation on Burmese Literature when fate would thrust her into politics and world-wide fame.

Returning Home to Fight for Her Father's Unfulfilled Mission

Towards the end of March 1988, Suu Kyi learnt of her mother's severe illness. She left for Rangoon at once to be near her mother. In her mind was also a plan to set up a chain of libraries but things would soon take a drastic turn.

"When I returned to Burma in 1988 to nurse my sick mother, I was planning on starting a chain of libraries in my father's name. A life of politics held no attraction to me. But the people of my country were demanding for democracy, and as my father's daughter, I felt I had a duty to get involved," Suu Kyi told Edward Klein on Vanity Fair (Oct, 1995).

Her first foray into political activism began on August 15, 1988. It was a week after the Burmese military junta resorted to the use of force to crackdown and kill scores of demonstrators who were calling for democracy on August 8. The incident, which became known internationally as "the 8-8-88 incident" led Suu Kyi to write an open letter to the military junta, calling for the setting up of an independent commission to carry out a general election.

Suu Kyi gave her first political speech on August 26 in front of hundred of thousands who gathered outside the sacred Shwedagong Pagoda with both her sons and her husband at her side providing moral supports.

During that speech, Suu Kyi called for the restoration of democracy and peaceful coexistence among various ethnic groups in Burma which was her father's unfulfilled dream when it was denied by the military and later with the setting up of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) on September 18, 1988.

On Sept 24 of that year, Suu Kyi and her late father's friends along with a group of young students with similar ideology retaliated by forming the National League for Democracy (NLD) in which Suu Kyi was elected as the secretary general of the Party. The NLD then declared the commence of their struggle against dictatorship through peaceful resistance.

The Birth of a Legend of Non-Violent Struggle

The legend began on April 5, 1989 when Suu Kyi, facing with harassment by the ruling military junta during NLD political campaign decided to confront the might of the guns.

Amidst hundreds of watchful eyes, Suu Kyi walked calmly but steadily towards the military barricade with rifles pointing at her in order to prevent her from continuing her journey.

In the end, the military commander on the spot relented and ordered his troops to put the guns down and instead of confronting Suu Kyi, provide her with protection from possible assassination attempt.

Honour and House Arrest

Although the dictatorial regime did not dare using outright violence against Suu Kyi, it resorted to invoking martial law to place her under house arrest for three years beginning July 20, 1989.

Many key party members were also arrested and sent to Insein Prison, notorious for torture of its inmates. Suu Kyi started a hunger strike and demanded that she be sent to the prison to join others as well. Alexander and Kim was with Suu Kyi at that time and Michael flew in from London. Suu Kyi ended her hunger strike only when the junta promised to humanely treat jailed NDL party members.

On May, 1990, despite Suu Kyi being still under house arrest, the NLD Party won a landslide victory in the general election. However, the junta refused to hand over power and demanded that Suu Kyi ended her political career and leave for abroad at once. When Suu Kyi refused, her house arrest order was extended to five and eventually six years.

On October 14, 1991, Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Being under house arrest, her two sons instead flew to Oslo to receive the award on her behalf. The two children carried their mother's photograph to the ceremony amidst thunderous rounds of applause.

Alexander told the Nobel Committee and guests that: "I know that if she is free today my mother would, in thanking you, also ask you to pray that the oppressors and the oppressed should throw down their weapons and join together to build a nation founded on humanity in the spirit of peace."

Suu Kyi soon announced that the monetary prize of 1.3 US million dollars would go to the setting up of a fund towards health and education for Burmese people.

By July 10, 1995, Suu Kyi tasted freedom from house arrest for the first time.