Aung San Suu Kyi: Your strength kept me going (as well as my stubborn streak)

 
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19 June 2012

Pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi spoke today of the strength she had drawn from her supporters around the world in standing up to the Burmese military junta.

On her first visit to the UK in 24 years – much of which she has spent under house arrest in Rangoon – the Burmese opposition leader paid tribute to the warmth that had kept her going.

The Nobel laureate was received with enthusiastic applause by an audience at the London School of Economics at the start of a four-day visit to Britain.

She is to meet Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague and address Parliament on Thursday.

Ms Suu Kyi, whose 67th birthday is today, took part in a panel discussion on the rule of law at the LSE.

She was also presented with a framed photograph of her father, General Aung San, taken in London in 1947.

Asked where she had found the strength to oppose the Burmese regime for so long, she said: “During this journey I have found great warmth and great support among people all over the world.”

She said she had been welcomed “as if I was one of them,” when in Thailand, adding: “This I have found in Switzerland and Norway, yesterday evening in Ireland and now here in England.

“So it’s people like you who have given me the strength to continue.”

To laughter, she added: “And I suppose I do have a stubborn streak in me.”

Ms Suu Kyi also delivered an impassioned plea for reforms in Burma to be underpinned by the rule of law.

“Unless justice is done and seen to be done we cannot believe in genuine reform. We have to know that reform is based on the rule of law,” she said.

She also urged foreign investors to be mindful of the impact their business might have in Burma.

“Investors must take responsibility for the results of the business that they do inside our country. It’s not just environmental consciousness, but also consciousness of possible long-term results.”

Later today, Ms Suu Kyi was visiting Oxford, where she lived in the early 1980s with her late husband, Michael Aris and their two sons.

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