Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi,is a Burmese social democratic stateswoman, politician, diplomat and author who serves as the First and incumbent State Counsellor and Leader of the National League for Democracy. She is also the first female Minister of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar and the Minister of President's Office in President Htin Kyaw's Cabinet, and from 2012 to 2016 was a Pyithu Hluttaw MP for Kawhmu Township...
NationalityBurmese
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth19 June 1945
CountryMyanmar
Aung San Suu Kyi quotes about
My attitude is, do as much as I can while I'm free. And if I'm arrested I'll still do as much as I can.
The Nobel Peace Prize opened up a door in my heart.
The judiciary in Burma is not independent. It's widely known, everybody knows that.
One person alone can't do anything as important as bringing genuine democracy to a country.
War is not the only arena where peace is done to death.
It's very difficult to have any faith in the sincerity of the SLORC about stamping out drug production if they find it so easy to forgive a drug baron whom at one time they said they would never, never forgive and would never, never regard as anything but a drug runner. The SLORC is far more aggressive in its attitude toward the National League for Democracy than against drug traffickers.
The [Burmese] government appears to be more interested in stamping out political activity than drug addiction. Very few university students on the campus could get away with engaging in political activities, but they seem to be able to get away with taking drugs. We have heard that it is very easy to obtain drugs on the university campuses.
I still oppose "Visit Myanmar Year," and I would ask tourists to stay away. Burma is not going to run away. They should come back to Burma at a time when it is a democratic society where people are secure - where there is justice, where there is rule of law. They'll have a much better time. And they can travel around Burma with a clear conscience.
So, I think that for the authorities to say now that calling for sanctions will prevent dialogue is a ploy to stop us from supporting sanctions. It has to be the other way around: dialogue first, then we stop our call for sanctions, because sanctions make people understand that you cannot exercise repression and at the same time expect international support.
It is essential to institute a legal framework that would ensure justice and improve the quality of life in Burma immediately, because the greatest suffering among the people at the moment is caused by lack of justice and lack of the rule of law.
We have been making constant efforts, all the time, to start dialogue with the SLORC, but you know it takes two. We don't want a monologue. We would like a substantive political dialogue among the SLORC, political leaders including myself, and leaders of ethnic groups-exactly as stipulated in the U.N. General Assembly resolution on Burma.
Unless there is free and fair competition, there can't be healthy economic development. And what we have in Burma now is not an open-market economy that allows free and fair competition, but a form of colonialism makes a few people very, very wealthy. It's what you would crony capitalism.
If the restrictions on the work of my party and on me personally are not removed in the very, very near future - that is in a matter of days - I think the United States should start thinking seriously of sanctions. This is really about as bad as it has ever been.
Because of rampant inflation, living standards have been dropping for the great majority of the population. The people are poorer because standards of health and education have fallen. And conditions in the rural areas are worse off than they have ever been. So, you cannot equate the so-called open-market economy adopted by the SLORC with any real development that benefits people.