Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the political opposition party in Burma.  Burma’s official name is Republic of the Union of Myanmar, but as the USA, Canada, Australia and United Kingdom still use the name Burma, so will this article.

She is internationally known as a symbol of peaceful resistance, having been inspired by leaders such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi. She is a practising Buddhist.

Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon on 19th June 1945. Her father, Aung San, founded the Communist Party of Burma and negotiated independence for Burma from British rule. He was assassinated in 1947. Her mother, Khin Kyi was also a politician and held diplomatic roles in India and Japan.

While studying abroad, Aung San Suu Kyi married a scholar of Tibetan culture, Dr Michael Aris, with whom she had two sons, Alexander and Kim in the late 1970s. She gained a PhD from the University of London in 1985. Dr Aris was not granted a visa for entry to Burma, and was unable to live with her when she returned to the country, initially to look after her sick mother. He was able to visit her only five times before his death in 1999. She was also unable to see her children, since she was afraid to leave the country for fear that she would be prevented from re-entering.

Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988, after studying abroad, to find Burma in turmoil. Many people who spoke out against the rule of Dictator U Ne Win were tortured and killed. Aung San Suu Kyi set up the National League for Democracy to oppose the brutal regime, among public demands for democratic reform of the country. Her party won 59% of the vote in an election in 1990, gaining 392 of the 485 Parliamentary seats. However, she was unable to take up leadership of the country, as the regime refused to accept her party’s victory, and she had been held under house arrest since 1989. 

Aung San Suu Kyi continued to speak out as far as she was able and her efforts were recognised by awards from many countries around the world, including the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991, which she was unable to travel to Norway to accept, being held under house arrest in Burma.

Throughout her period of house arrest Aung San Suu Kyi petitioned for release. She was supported by many governments around the world, and the United Nations, who continued to petition the ruling junta in Burma on her behalf. President Barack Obama of the United States personally advocated for her release. She was finally released on 13 November 2010.

In 2011, her party the National League for Democracy confirmed it would reconstitute itself as a political party, and Aung San Suu Kyi led the party through a hard-fought campaign to victory at the election for 45 of 47 parliamentary seats left vacant by people who had taken government posts, and this time her victory was confirmed. Aung San Suu Kyi took her oath of office on May 2 2012, and on July 9 2012, she took her place in Parliament for the first time.

On 21st June 2012, she was finally able to attend the Oslo City Hall to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sources www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific

www.biography.com