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History of Burma

Traditional kingships and other local governments that evolved among Burma's peoples over many centuries were largely stripped of their authority after Britain's 19th century conquest of Burma. Colonial administration continued with limited local self-government until the Union of Burma achieved independence in 1948. The new state came into being as a parliamentary democracy and, although beset by ethnic strife as minority peoples demanded autonomy from the Burman majority, survived as a representative government until an army coup in 1962.

A military-dominated regime led by the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) held power for the next 26 years. There were no free elections, and freedom of expression and association were almost entirely denied. Resistance to the regime occasionally flared, and student and worker demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s were brutally crushed. Torture, political imprisonment, and other human rights abuses were common. Throughout this period, costly guerrilla wars with ethnic opposition groups along the country's frontiers continued.

Under the BSPP's isolationist "Burmese Way to Socialism," the country's economy steadily deteriorated, and by mid-1988, rice shortages and popular discontent reached crisis proportions. The police slaying of a student sparked demonstrations by university students that were soon joined by monks, civil servants, workers, and even policemen and soldiers in cities and towns all over Burma. On the eighth of August - "8-8-88''- hundreds of thousands of people nationwide marched to demand the BSPP regime be replaced by an elected civilian government. Soldiers fired on crowds of unarmed protesters, killing thousands.

On 18 September 1988, the army finally responded to calls for democracy by announcing a coup by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) (renamed the State Peace and Development Council in November 1997). The junta's next action was to open fire with machine guns on demonstrators in Rangoon and other cities. The carnage was immense. While the exact number will never be known, it is estimated that as many as 10,000 people were killed. Thousands more were arrested. Many were tortured. Amnesty International reported in December 2000 that about 1,700 political prisoners still remain jailed under harsh conditions, and that torture "has become an institution" in Burma. The SLORC pledged that elections would be held after "peace and tranquility" were restored in Burma.

But the run-up to the elections inspired little confidence in the process. Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the most popular opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was placed under house arrest in July 1989. Many other senior NLD officials were jailed. The NLD had little access to media and few resources compared to the SLORC-backed National Unity Party (NUP).

To most observers' surprise, a free vote did take place on 27 May 1990. Of 485 parliamentary seats contested, the NLD won 392 (over 80%). Ethnic minority parties opposed to the SLORC won 65 more seats. The army-front NUP won only ten seats, a resounding rejection of military rule that demonstrated not only the depth of the Burmese peoples' alienation from the military regime, but also the failure of the generals to recognize their own unpopularity.

The junta's response to this overwhelming defeat was simply to change the rules. It declared the election was not for a parliament, but for some members of a constituent assembly to consider a new constitution. Repression intensified. Many NLD elected representatives were arrested. Some have died in prison. Others fled into exile. An elected opposition member of parliament, Dr. Sein Win, is Prime Minister of the government-in-exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), which is among the many pro-democracy Burmese groups working internationally for change in Burma. In 1999-2000, the junta widened its campaign of intimidation against the grass roots of the NLD, as well as its leadership. State media reported almost daily the "resignations" of thousands of NLD members around the country. Many NLD leaders were put under house arrest or detained.

Today, the junta rules by decree. Any return to civilian rule will possibly be under a new constitution. The NCGUB and the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB), comprised of several ethnic groups and others who have been fighting against the military regime, have jointly produced a draft democratic constitution. A military-controlled "National Convention" has been charged by the junta with promulgating a new national constitution. The draft document, which enshrines military dominance of any future government and marginalizes Burma's ethnic minorities, has already been rejected by the democratic opposition. The NLD withdrew from the National Convention in November 1995, and the charter drafting process has remained stalled since. There are indications that the military regime is laying the ground for a return to some form of elections. One sign is the increasing prominence of the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a nominally non-partisan civic mass organization created by the SLORC in 1993. The USDA may be converted to a front political party for the military if the generals finally seek to put a civilian face on their rule.

After six years of house arrest, during which she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Aung San Suu Kyi was released in July 1995. Early in 2001, she is again under de facto house arrest after repeatedly being blocked from visiting NLD supporters outside Rangoon. She continues to defy military intimidation and military decrees by speaking out against the dictatorship. In late 2000, junta generals and NLD leaders began the first substantive discussions in over a decade. While welcomed by all sides, their progress is uncertain. Burma's struggle for democracy, sadly, is far from over.

Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Ong San Soo Chee), Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate, symbolises the struggle of Burma's people to be free.

She was born on June 19th, 1945 to Burma's independence hero, Aung San, who was assassinated when she was only two years old.

Aung San Suu Kyi was educated in Burma, India, and the United Kingdom. While studying at Oxford University, she met Michael Aris, a Tibet scholar who she married in 1972. They had two sons, Alexander and Kim. On March 27 1999, while Aung San Suu Kyi was in Burma, Michael Aris died of cancer in London. He had petitioned the Burmese authorities to allow him to visit Suu Kyi one last time, but they had rejected his request. He had not seen her since a Christmas visit in 1995. The government always urged Suu Kyi to join her family abroad, but she knew that she would not be allowed to return.

Aung San Suu Kyi had returned to Burma in 1988 to nurse her dying mother and was immediately plunged into the country's nationwide democracy uprising. Joining the newly-formed National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi gave numerous speeches calling for freedom and democracy. The military regime responded to the uprising with brute force, killing up to 5,000 demonstrators. Unable to maintain its grip on power, the regime was forced to call a general election in 1990.

As Aung San Suu Kyi began to campaign for the NLD, she and many others were detained by the regime. Despite being held under house arrest, the NLD went on to win a staggering 82% of the seats in parliament. The regime never recognized the results of the election.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been in and out of arrest ever since. She was held under house arrest from 1989-1995, and again from 2000-2002. She was again arrested in May 2003 after the Depayin massacre, during which up to 100 of her supporters were beaten to death by the regime's militia. She is currently under house arrest in Rangoon.

She has won numerous international awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom. She has called on people around the world to join the struggle for freedom in Burma, saying "Please use your liberty to promote ours".

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