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Suu Kyi's battle takes toll on sons



Suu Kyi's battle takes toll on sons

The Statesman (New Delhi)
September 5, 2000

Dominic Kennedy (The Times, London)

YANGON, Sept. 4. -- The stubborn refusal of Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, the
Myanmar Opposition leader, to abandon her country's struggle for
democracy has inflicted a terrible to on her British family.

She admits that her sons Alexander (26), and Kim (22), implored her to
return to Britain to see their father Michael Aris on his death bed last
year. "Imagine how hard it was to say no to them," she was quoted as
saying.

"After all, their greatest wish was to see me leave. They were desperate
to get me out of the country and they thought my husband's illness gave
them the perfect opportunity."

Her sons have had to cope without a mother for much of their formative
years. Mrs Suu Kyi returned to Myanmar in 1988 to nurse her dying
mother. She was adopted as leader of the democracy movement largely
because her father Aung san was the hero of Myanmar's struggle for
independence from Britain in the 1940s.

The brothers have been forced to tread a diplomatic tightrope. On the
one hand, they have acted as surrogates for their mother in the West,
accepting awards on her behalf and making carefully-phrased speeches of
thanks. On the other, they have to avoid upsetting the Myanmar military
regime in case it denies them permission to visit her. Both men have
made discreet visits to her home in Rangoon.

Alexander said at Northern Illinois University, where he is a teaching
assistant in mathematical sciences, "I don't talk to the press. I don't
give interviews."

He did step into the global limelight in 1991 when, as an 18-year-old
Oxford undergraduate, he travelled to Oslo to receive his mother's Nobel
Peace Prize.

Mrs Suu Kyi refused to collect her 600,000 pounds prize in person
because the Myanmar military said she could never return.

The same fear forced her to stay in Myanmar even as her husband, a
brilliant Tibetan scholar at Oxford, was dying of prostate cancer. The
couple met in London in the 1970s.

When he knew he was terminally ill, Dr Aris petitioned the Myanmar
government for a visa so that he could visit his wife. His entreaties
were rejected.

As ever, the Myanmar authorities tried to put a compassionate spin on
their actions. They said that Myanmar's medical facilities were too
primitive to treat such a sick man. The ruling State Peace and
Development Council helpfully offered the democracy leader an exit visa
so that she could visit him, but there was no guarantee she would be
allowed back.