Aung San Suu Kyi and the DJ
Years ago, I can remember Dave Lee Travis on Radio 1 on Sunday mornings, whilst I was writing Artemis. I suspect as a young mother in Oxford, Ms Suu Kyi was listening to the same program.
Aung San Suu Kyi then went back to Burma to care for her dying mother and for twenty four years she couldn’t return to the UK, as she feared any return to her family would mean the Generals wouldn’t let go back to Burma. She couldn’t even return for the death of her husband, Michael Aris.
But during those years of isolation in Burma, she did at least have the BBC World Service, which kept her in touch and she listened to the shows of Dave Lee Travis, who briefly met her yesterday.
In some ways I can understand her isolation, although I’ve never suffered like she has. When I had my stroke in Hong Kong, there was only CNN, that I could understand on the television. But at least, I could get BBC Radio 5 at most times through the Internet. Never has a broadcasting channel been so important to my sanity.
Today, Aung San Suu Kyi is praised in the first leader of The Times. The last sentence is something we should all remember.
She not only represents a better future for Burma, but testifies to the resilience of the human spirit in extreme adversity.
I very much agree with that. She has also been an extreme example to me, as to how to cope with the worst that life can throw at you. But then I’m not alone and thousands of miles from my friends and family.
In
Democracy: Burmese Style
I’ve just noticed this article on The Times web site.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the imprisoned Burmese democracy leader, will be forced to quit her political party and banned from taking part in elections, under new laws published today by the country’s military dictatorship.
The laws bar from membership of a political party anyone serving a prison sentence, thus excluding Ms Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has 60 days to expel non-eligible members and register with the election commission if it is to take part in elections promised for later this year.
Democracy? What democracy!
But at least the Burmese have their supporters and protectors; the Chinese. But then the Chinese know all about how you enforce human rights!
Gary McKinnon and Aung San Suu Kyi
In Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi is being tried on a trumped up charge, that will probably put her out of the limelight and into a dark and brutal prison for ever.
Today, Gary McKinnon has been allowed to be extradited on a fast-track process to the USA, where if found guilty, he will probably be consigned into a dark and brutal prison for ever.
Nobody should be extradited from this country without a full hearing in the British Courts. And if the punishment that is likely to be imposed on conviction, is much higher than that in the UK, then the extradition should not be allowed.
But then Blair signed those rights away! And the United States have not kept their side of the bargain.
The Anonymous Widower 