The Lady and the Peacock (67 page)

Age sixty-five when he became President, Thein Sein had been Prime Minister throughout the Saffron Revolution and its bloody repression and had come to power through a grotesquely fixed election. But despite all that, it gradually emerged that he was very different from his predecessors: He was serious about bringing real reforms to his country, and he believed that it would be possible to do so in conjunction with Aung San Suu Kyi. He did not see her as a menace, a subversive or an agent of foreign powers but as a person whose unwavering commitment to democracy had given her unrivaled influence both at home and abroad. He had the wit and the courage to see her not as an enemy to be destroyed but, potentially at least, as a vital ally.

The feeling was reciprocated. During the twenty-plus years that she had been back in Burma, Suu had never had anything good to say about its rulers. But Thein Sein was different, and she never missed an opportunity to tell foreign interviewers that he was “a good listener” and that she trusted him. More than an ally, he was shaping up to be her partner. When Suu announced her intention to run for parliament in the by-elections to be held on April 1, 2012, Thein Sein responded, in his first-ever interview with a foreign newspaper, the
Washington Post
, by floating the idea that she might be appointed a minister in his government. The fact that such an idea was no longer remarkable is a measure of how far Burma had traveled since Suu's release in November 2010.

This was the good news that Burma had waited two decades to hear. Now the reforms came thick and fast, and even if many of them were superficial—the reform of censorship, for example, left intact the machinery of government that scrutinizes every word that gets into print—they changed the tenor of life. Suddenly, after two decades during which they had been taboo, Suu's image and her words were everywhere. The first release of political prisoners was followed by two more, the third of which included Min Ko Naing, the most important student leader in 1988, and U Gambira, one of the monks who led the Saffron Revolution. And two days before that, the government announced its first-ever ceasefire with the Karen National Union, raising the prospect of an end to the civil war that had been raging since 1949.

Initiatives like these were enough to persuade Hillary Clinton that President Obama's policy of engagement was finally beginning to pay dividends, and in December 2011 she became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Burma since John Foster Dulles in 1955. Her meetings with Thein Sein were complemented by two warm encounters with Suu. And in January 2012, Suu finally began traveling again. The huge crowds that came out to cheer her in Pakkoku, the town where the Saffron Revolution started, and everywhere else she went were proof that her popular appeal was undiminished.

Suu welcomes Hillary Clinton to her home on December 2, 2011, during the first visit to Burma by a U.S. Secretary of State since 1955.

That shouldn't have been a surprise. For most of the past twenty-four years—the decades which are this book's main subject—Burma has seemed one of the most hopeless places on the planet, one where no sooner did the spirit of freedom and democratic reform flicker into life than it was extinguished. But the Burmese have never had the luxury of despair: After all, it was their country, their future, their destiny, and however slim the hope of change, it was all they had to cling to. Suu, with her calm resolve, was the embodiment of that slim, stubborn hope.

Steadfastness: That was the example Suu set for her fellow citizens. And now, almost miraculously, it is beginning to receive its reward.

PROLOGUE

1
. “A voter can choose not to vote,” one such homily noted:
New Light of Myanmar
, October 2010.

2
. 94 percent of the seats: NLD won 392 seats out of 447, about 80 percent; its ethnic ally the Shan State NLD won 23 seats; other ethnic NLDs won another 7 seats, giving a grand total of 94.4 percent.

3
. State employees and others were dragooned: interview with expatriate aid worker in Rangoon, November 2010.

4
. We discussed how to take advance votes from members of thirty civil societies in Rangoon:
Irrawaddy
website, November 2010.

5
. We have won about 80 percent of the seats: Agence-France Presse wire, November 8, 2010.

6
. NLD-Liberated Areas: Burmese political parties are barred by law from having branches overseas, hence the name of this party, staffed by exiles from Burma and loyal to the NLD in Burma.

7
. There is no legal basis for detaining her any longer: Agence-France Presse wire, November 13, 2010.

8
. Soldiers armed with rifles and tear-gas launchers pushed aside the barbed-wire barriers blocking University Avenue:
Los Angeles Times
, November 14, 2010.

9
. The previous week an NLD veteran, one of the party's founders, released from prison after nineteen years, had told me: U Win Tin, interviewed by the author in November 2010. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi: Daw is the honorific prefix used for women of middle age and above; “Ma” for younger women.

PART ONE

1
. insisted on being described as a housewife: on her visa application for Japan in 1986; interview with Noriko Ohtsu.

2
. Thant Myint-U, grandson of U Thant, in his book,
The River of Lost Footsteps
, casts Suu as little more than a footnote: “She wasn't facing the Raj . . . These were tough men who played a very different game” in Thant Myint-U,
The River of Lost Footsteps
, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2006) p.337.

3
. Michael W. Charney, in his
History of Modern Burma
: see “Aung San Suu Kyi's personal connections to the West . . .” in Michael Charney,
A History of Modern Burma
, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p.169. Her positive role for the mass of Burmese is disposed of in the phrase: “ASSK was . . . becoming a permanent symbol of popular opposition to the government,” p.177.

4
. A previous biographer, Justin Wintle, comes to the eccentric conclusion: Justin Wintle,
Perfect Hostage
, Hutchinson, 2007, pp.419–20.

5
. Aung San was a boy from the provinces, shy, a poor speaker, with abrupt manners, and prone to long unexplained silences : Aung San Suu Kyi,
Aung San
, 1984.

6
. But the Burmese experience was very different: see “Intellectual Life in Burma and India under Colonialism” in Aung San Suu Kyi,
Freedom from Fear
, Penguin Books, 1995.

7
. In lower Burma the British had refused to accept the authority of the
thathanabaing
, the senior monk authorized by the king: cf. Donald Eugene Smith,
Religion and Politics in Burma
, Princeton University Press, 1965.

8
. big enough to scare away the crows: tour guide in Mandalay to author, March 2008.

9
. They “proclaimed the birthright of the Burmese to be their own masters”: Aung San Suu Kyi in her short biography of her father, included as “My Father” in
Freedom from Fear
.

10
. Burmans and Indian Muslims: Burman refers to the ethnic group, who have been dominant and the majority for some centuries.

11
. the Japanese
tatemae
, what appeared on the surface, might speak of Burmese independence, but the
honne
, the unspoken reality, would be that “mighty Nippon” remained firmly in charge behind the scenes: cf. Takeo Doi,
The Anatomy of Dependence
, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1973.

12
. William Slim, the British general: see Field Marshal Viscount Slim,
Defeat into Victory
, Pan, 2009 (first published 1956), p.594.

13
. He told journalists that he wanted “complete independence”: Aung San Suu Kyi, “My Father,” op cit.

14
. Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when her father died, “too young,” as she put it, “to remember him”: Aung San Suu Kyi, Preface in
Aung San
, p.xiii.

15
. how a great civilization, which had been under the thumb of the imperialists for far longer than Burma, had not lost its soul: cf. “Intellectual Life in Burma and India under Colonialism” in Aung San Suu Kyi,
Freedom from Fear
.

16
. A Burman to all outward appearances, but entirely out of harmony with his surroundings: cf. ibid, p.113.

17
. Rammohun Roy set the tone for the Indian Renaissance: ibid.

18
. General Ne Win: the head of the army; information from author's interview with Bertil Lintner and others.

19
. From her earliest childhood: Michael Aris, Introduction,
Freedom from Fear
, p.xviii.

20
. Again and again she expressed her worry that her family and people might misinterpret our marriage and see it as a lessening of her devotion to them: ibid.

PART TWO, CHAPTER 1: LATE CALL

1
. sewing, embroidery: cf. interviews with Alan Clements, Aung San Suu Kyi,
The Voice of Hope
, Rider, 1997.

2
.
shinbyu
: the coming of age ceremony which all Burmese Buddhist boys undergo: cf. Donald Eugene Smith,
Religion and Politics in Burma
and George Scott (aka Shway Yoe),
The Burman, His Life and Notions
, Macmillan,1882. (George Scott published his book under the pen name of Shway Yoe, leaving the impression that the author was Burmese.)

3
. MPhil: author interview with Anna Allott.

4
. Michael and Suu were about to turn in for the night: on March 31, 1988.

5
. In Burma health care is ostensibly provided free of charge: Aung San Suu Kyi,
Letters from Burma
, Penguin, 2010, no. 44, Uncivil Service (2).

6
. Outside on the city streets, the mood was dark and growing darker: the main source for my detailed description of the events of 1988 and 1989 is
Outrage
by Bertil Lintner, Review Publishing, 1989.

7
. It emerged in April that the regime had sought and obtained from the UN the humiliating status of “least-developed nation”: cf. David I. Steinberg,
Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know
, OUP USA, 2010, p.77.

8
. Rather than soothing the already inflamed temper: Bertil Lintner,
Outrage
, p.71.

9
. Sir, may I request you . . . not to get involved or you will regret it: quoted in
Outrage
, p.72.

10
. We held a big meeting on the Prome Road campus [north of the city center] on June 21st: quoted in
Outrage
, p.75.

11
. The word ‘monsoon' has always sounded beautiful to me:
Letters from Burma
, no. 29.

12
. In a letter to her parents-in-law: private information.

13
. an island of peace and order: Michael Aris, Introduction,
Freedom from Fear
, p.xvii.

14
. “When we first arrived,” Michael wrote: unpublished letter from Michael Aris to Anthony Aris, August 5, 1988.

15
. Dear delegates: quoted in Bertil Lintner,
Outrage
, pp.83–4.

16
. “The atmosphere,” Michael wrote: unpublished letter from Michael Aris to Anthony Aris, August 5, 1988.

17
. “The nation,” wrote Bertil Lintner, “and possibly even more so the diplomatic community in Rangoon, was flabbergasted”: Bertil Lintner,
Outrage
, p.85.

18
. Sein Lwin's takeover: unpublished letter from Michael Aris to Anthony Aris, August 5, 1988.

19
. “Dissatisfaction among the public gave way to hatred,” wrote Lintner. “‘That man is not going to be the ruler of Burma”: Lintner quoting an unnamed Western diplomat in
Outrage
, p.90.

20
. During the uprising of 1988 he sent messages of solidarity to Burmese students in Tokyo: author interview with Dr. Maung Zarni, who also provided the subsequent analysis of the operation of the dynastic principle in Burma.

21
. She, like the whole country, was electrified: Michael Aris, Introduction,
Freedom from Fear
, p.xviii.

22
. Suu's house quickly became the main center of political activity in the country and the scene of such continuous comings and goings as the curfew allowed: ibid., p.xx.

PART TWO, CHAPTER 2: DEBUT

1
. She must also have known the truth behind the rumor: this story came from a Burmese source who requested anonymity.

2
. Ne Win himself was among the people she invited over for lunch: information from Aung San Suu Kyi, reported orally to Ma Thanegi and recorded in the latter's diary. All quotes from Ma Thanegi come from unpublished diaries and other writings in the author's possession, used with her permission.

3
. Perhaps he had noticed the flag flying at her gate: the diaries of Ma Thanegi.