Aung San Suu Kyi's trial resumes in Myanmar

YANGON, Myanmar – Riot police deployed outside Myanmar's main prison Friday as the trial of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi resumed, a week after the ruling generals blocked efforts by the U.N. chief to save her from a possible five-year prison term.
The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate is charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by harboring an American man who swam secretly to her lakeside home and stayed for two days.

Khin Moe Moe, a lawyer and a member of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, was scheduled to appear as a defense witness during Friday's session, which a Myanmar official said restarted Friday inside Yangon's Insein prison where Suu Kyi is being held.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The trial has drawn condemnation from the international community and Suu Kyi's local supporters, who worry the ruling junta has found an excuse to keep her detained through elections planned for next year.

Suu Kyi has been in detention for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, mostly at her Yangon residence.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on an official visit to Myanmar last Friday and Saturday, failed to gain Suu Kyi's release or even visit her in prison.

Ban said Myanmar's junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe told him repeatedly that "he really wanted to agree to my request" to see her but because Suu Kyi was on trial he did not want to be seen as interfering with the judicial process — or being pressured by the outside world.
"I am deeply disappointed that they have missed a very important opportunity," Ban said last weekend.

Also being tried on the same charges are two women members of Suu Kyi's party, who were her sole companions while under house arrest. The American, John Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Missouri, is charged with trespassing.

The mostly closed-door trial started May 18. The court at first allowed only one of four defense witnesses to take the stand, while approving 23 prosecution witnesses, of whom 14 took the stand, according to Suu Kyi's lawyers.
On appeal, the Yangon Divisional Court ruled that Khin Moe Moe also could be heard but maintained the disqualification of prominent journalist and former political prisoner Win Tin and party vice chairman Tin Oo, who is under house arrest.
Security around Insein prison was tight as usual with roads leading to the prison blocked with barb-wire barricades manned by police. Truck loads of riot police were also deployed around the prison facility.

About 100 Suu Kyi supporters gathered, as they have during earlier court sessions, to give her support, sitting and standing as close as they could to the prison gates.

The defense has not contested the basic facts of the case but argues the relevant law has been misapplied by the authorities. They also assert that any intrusion was the responsibility of the security forces guarding the house.

Yettaw has pleaded not guilty and explained in court that he had a dream that Suu Kyi would be assassinated and he had gone to warn her. Family and friends have said he was working on a book and wished to interview her.

Thank: AP -yahoo news

Nobel Peace Prize

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. The decision of the Nobel Committee mentions

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.
...Suu Kyi's struggle is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades. She has become an important symbol in the struggle against oppression...
...In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means”

— Oslo, 14 October 1991
On 19 February 2008, nine Nobel Peace prize winners (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Mairead Corrigan, Rigoberta Menchú, Prof. Elie Wiesel, Betty Williams and Jody Williams) released a statement calling for the rulers of Burma to "create the necessary conditions for a genuine dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all concerned parties and ethnic groups in order to achieve an inclusive national reconciliation with the direct support of the United Nations."
Some of the money she received as part of the award helps fund London-based charity Prospect Burma, who provide higher education grants to Burmese students.

Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi Meets with Lawyers

By VOA News
30 May 2009


Aung San Suu Kyi (file photo)

Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyer says Burmese military authorities allowed the detained opposition leader to meet with her defense team for two hours Saturday in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison.

Attorney Kyi Win told VOA Burmese Service that the Nobel peace laureate is in good health.A spokesman for her National League for Democracy Party, Nyan Win, also said the court has postponed final arguments in Aung San Suu Kyi's trial from next Monday to next Friday.

He said no reasons were given for the delay.Aung San Suu Kyi is on trial for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest.U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking in Singapore Saturday, called on Burma's military government to release the pro-democracy leader and to begin a dialogue with the opposition.

Saturday marks the sixth anniversary of a deadly attack on a motorcade carrying Aung San Suu Kyi, an event known as the Depayin massacre.The trial against Aung San Suu Kyi stems from a visit by an intruder who swam to her lakeside home in early May and stayed overnight.

The American intruder, John Yettaw, is also on trial. If convicted, Aung San Suu Kyi could be sentenced to a prison term of up to five years. She has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest. The sole defense witness allowed to testify argued in court Thursday that it was the job of government guards outside Aung San Suu Kyi's home to keep intruders out.

Burma's military government lashed out Thursday at foreign critics of the trial. Deputy foreign minister Maung Myint said during a Europe-Asia summit in Cambodia that the trial is an internal legal issue, not linked to politics or human rights.

The international community has condemned the trial as a pretext to extend the opposition leader's house arrest and bar her from elections next year.

Political beginnings

Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to take care of her ailing mother. By coincidence, in the same year, the long-time leader of the Socialist ruling party, General Ne Win, stepped down, leading to mass demonstrations for democracy on 8 August 1988 (8-8-88, a day seen as auspicious), which were violently suppressed. On August 26, 1988, she addressed half a million people at a mass rally in front of the Shwedagon Pagoda in the capital, calling for a democratic government.[8] However in September, a new military junta took power. Later the same month, the National League for Democracy (NLD) was formed, with Suu Kyi as general secretary.

Influenced by both Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence
and by more specifically Buddhist concepts, Aung San Suu Kyi entered politics to work for democratization, helped found the National League for Democracy on 27 September 1988, and was put under house arrest on 20 July 1989. She was offered freedom if she left the country, but she refused.

One of her most famous speeches is the "Freedom From Fear" speech, which begins:

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

Born 19 June 1945(1945-06-19)Rangoon, Burma
Residence Rangoon
Occupation Prime Minister-elect

Known for Leader of the National League for Democracy,

Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
Religious beliefs Buddhist

Personal life-Aung San

Aung San Suu Kyi was born on 19 June 1945 in Rangoon. Her father, Aung San, founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burma's independence from the United Kingdom in 1947; he was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. She grew up with her mother, Khin Kyi, and two brothers, Aung San Lin and Aung San Oo in Rangoon. Her favourite brother Aung San Lin drowned in a pool accident when Suu Kyi was eight. Her elder brother migrated to San Diego, California, becoming a United States citizen. Suu Kyi was educated in English Catholic schools for much of her childhood in Burma.

Daw Khin Kyi gained prominence as a political figure in the newly-formed Burmese government. She was appointed Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal in 1960, and Aung San Suu Kyi followed her there, graduating from Lady Shri Ram College with a degree in politics in New
Delhi in 1964.

Aung San Suu Kyi continued her education at St Hugh's College, Oxford, obtaining a B.A. degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics in 1969 and a Ph.D. at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 1985. She was elected an Honourary Fellow in 1990.[8] She also worked for the government of the Union of Myanmar.

In 1972, Aung San Suu Kyi married Dr. Michael Aris, a scholar of Tibetan culture, living abroad in Bhutan. The following year she gave birth to their first son, Alexander Aris, in London; their second son, Kim, was born in 1977. In 1988 Suu Kyi returned to Burma at first to tend for her ailing mother but later to lead the pro-democracy movement. Michael’s visit in Christmas 1995 turned out to be the last time that Suu Kyi and Michael met, as Suu Kyi remained in Burma and the Burmese dictatorship denied him any further entry visas.[8] Michael was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 which was later found to be terminal. Despite appeals from prominent figures and organizations, including the United States, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Pope John Paul II, the Burmese government would not grant Michael a visa, saying that they did not have the facilities to care for him, and instead urged Aung San Suu Kyi to leave the country to visit him. She was at that time temporarily free from house arrest but was unwilling to depart, fearing that she would be refused re-entry if she left, as she did not trust the junta's assurance that she could return.

Michael died on his 53rd birthday on March 27, 1999. Since 1989, when his wife was first placed under house arrest, he had seen her only five times, the last of which was for Christmas in 1995. She also remains separated from her children, who live in the United Kingdom.
She is a Theravada Buddhist.

On 2 May 2008, after Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, Suu Kyi lost her roof and was living in virtual darkness after losing electricity in her dilapidated lakeside residence. She used candles at night as she was not provided any generator set.