Myanmar,
a Southeast Asian country that was formerly known as Burma,
has been under military rule in one form or another since 1962, when General Ne
Win staged a coup that toppled a civilian government. The current junta, formed
in 1988, threw out the results of a democratic parliamentary election in 1990
that was overwhelmingly won by the party led by Daw Aung San Sun Kyi, the daughter
of Aung San, one of the heroes of the nation’s independence from the British
Empire 1948.
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi had been held under house arrest for
most of the last 20 years. Her latest term of house arrest was set to
expire after the election 2010, and
there is a legitimate possibility that the junta will free her. Now she is freed.
She gets release today.
The Burmese military
authorities have released the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from
house arrest.
Appearing outside her home in Rangoon,
Ms Suu Kyi told thousands of jubilant supporters they had to "work in
unison" to achieve their goals.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been detained for 15 of the
past 21 years. It is not yet clear if any conditions have been placed on her
release.
US President Barack Obama welcomed her release as "long
overdue". President Obama called Ms Suu Kyi "a hero of mine.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Ms Suu Kyi was an "inspiration",
and called on Burma
to free all its remaining political prisoners.
The election a week ago was a key step in a carefully
planned transition from overt military rule to a nominally civilian government.
But the process has been widely condemned as fraudulent and undemocratic.
Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy refused to
contest the election which means that legally it is no longer a political
entity and by extension, Burma's
most famous democracy campaigner has no official political status.
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