Aung San Suu Kyi is state
counsellor of Myanmar and winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for
Peace.
Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, General Aung
San.
He was assassinated during the transition period in
July 1947, just six months before independence, when Ms Suu Kyi was only two.
In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been
appointed Myanmar's ambassador
in Delhi.
Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she
studied philosophy, politics and economics. There she met her future husband,
academic Michael Aris.
After stints of living and working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled in the
UK to raise their two children, Alexander and Kim, but Myanmar was never far from her thoughts.
When she arrived back in Rangoon (Yangon) in 1988 - to look after her
critically ill mother - Myanmar was in the midst of major political upheaval.
Thousands of students, office workers and monks took to the streets
demanding democratic reform.
"I could not as my father's daughter remain indifferent to all that
was going on," she said in a speech in Rangoon on 26 August 1988, and was
propelled into leading the revolt against the then-dictator, General Ne Win.
Inspired by the non-violent campaigns of US civil rights leader Martin
Luther King and India's Mahatma Gandhi, she organised rallies and travelled
around the country, calling for peaceful democratic reform and free elections.
But the demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the army, who seized
power in a coup on 18 September 1988. Ms Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest
the following year.
The military government called national elections in May 1990 which Aung
San Suu Kyi's NLD convincingly
won - however, the junta refused to hand over control.
Ms Suu Kyi remained under house arrest in Rangoon for six years, until she
was released in July 1995.
She was again put under house arrest in September 2000, when she tried to
travel to the city of Mandalay in defiance of travel restrictions.
She was released unconditionally in May 2002, but just over a year later
she was put in prison following a clash between her supporters and a
government-backed mob.
She was later allowed to return home - but again under effective house
arrest.
During periods of confinement, Ms Suu Kyi busied herself studying and exercising. She
meditated, worked on her French and Japanese language skills, and relaxed by
playing Bach on the piano.
At times she was able to meet other NLD officials and selected diplomats.
But during her early years of detention she was often in solitary confinement. She was not
allowed to see her two sons or her husband, who died of cancer in March 1999.
The military authorities had offered to allow her to travel to the UK to
see him when he was gravely ill, but she felt compelled to refuse for fear she
would not be allowed back into the country.
She was sidelined from Myanmar's first elections in two decades on 7 November 2010 but
released from house arrest six days later.
Her son Kim Aris was allowed to visit her for the first time in a decade.
As the new government embarked on a process of reform, Aung San Suu Kyi
and her party rejoined the political process.
When by-elections were held in April 2012, to fill seats vacated by
politicians who had taken government posts, she and her party contested seats,
despite reservations.
"Some are a little bit too optimistic about the situation," she
said in an interview before the vote. "We are cautiously optimistic. We
are at the beginning of a road."
She and the NLD won 43 of the
45 seats contested, in an emphatic statement of support. Weeks later, Ms Suu
Kyi took the oath in parliament and became the leader of the opposition.
And the following May, she embarked on a visit outside Myanmar for the first
time in 24 years, in a sign of apparent confidence that its new leaders would
allow her to return.
However, Ms Suu Kyi became frustrated with the pace of democratic development.
In November 2014, she warned that Myanmar had not made any real reforms in the
past two years and warned that the US - which dropped most of its sanctions
against the country in 2012 - had been "overly optimistic" in the
past.
And in June, a vote in Myanmar's parliament failed to remove the army's veto over
constitutional change. Ms Suu Kyi is also barred from running for president
because her two sons hold British not Burmese passports - a ruling she says is
unfair.
In 2015, the military-backed civilian government of President Thein Sein
said a general election would be held in November - the first openly contested
election in 25 years.
Early on after the vote on 8 November it became clear the NLD was headed
for a landslide victory.
On 13 November, the NLD secured the required two-thirds of the contested seats
in parliament to win a majority in what was widely regarded as a largely fair
vote - although there were some reports of irregularities.
However, hundreds of thousands of people - including the Muslim Rohingya
minority, who are not recognised as citizens - were denied voting rights.
Web address: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977
Introduction Analysis:
What: Aung San Suu Kyi's whole life
Who:Aung San Suu Kyi, Aung San, Ne Win
Where: Myanmar, Yangon
Key words:
Myanmar緬甸
Nobel
Prize for Peace諾貝爾和平獎
NLD(National
League for Democracy)全國民主聯盟
assassinated暗殺
transition過渡時期
dictator獨裁者
democratic民主的
opposition反對黨
confinement限制
defiance反抗
