NBC, msnbc.com and news services
YANGON — Myanmar's military government freed its arch-rival — democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi — on Saturday after her latest term of detention expired. Several thousand jubilant supporters streamed to her residence.
A smiling Suu Kyi appeared at the gate of her compound as the crowd chanted, cheered and sang the national anthem. "I haven't seen you for a long time," the 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize Laureate said to laughter, smiling deeply as she held the metal spikes that top the gate. When a supporter handed up a bouquet, she pulled out a flower and wove it into her hair.
Speaking briefly in Burmese, she told the crowd, which quickly swelled to as many as 5,000 people: "If we work in unity, we will achieve our goal."
"There is a time for quiet and a time for speaking," she also said, the U.K.'s Sky News reported
....
Suu Kyi, 65, whose latest period of detention spanned 7 1/2 years, has come to symbolize the struggle for democracy in the Southeast Asian nation ruled by the military since 1962.
However it was still unclear whether the rulers of Myanmar, also known as Burma, had imposed any conditions on her release and whether she would accept them, NBC News said.
The release from house arrest of one of the world's most prominent political prisoners came a week after an election that was swept by the military's proxy political party and decried by Western nations as a sham designed to perpetuate authoritarian control.
Supporters had been waiting most of the day near her residence and the headquarters of her political party. Suu Kyi has been jailed or under house arrest for more than 15 of the last 21 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment