Suu Kyi urges women leaders to support Myanmar's freedom

0 Comments | Asian Political News, Jan 24, 2000

MANILA, Jan. 17 Kyodo

Myanmar democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi urged women political leaders Monday to help her country attain freedom.

In a videotaped message to the Global Forum of Women Political Leaders, Suu Kyi said she looks "forward to the time when Burma too will be able to host the kind of meeting" that is being held in Manila.

Suu Kyi added Myanmar would be able to host a meeting if it becomes "a free society. I hope you will all help us to become a free society."

The democracy leader also called on women political leaders to work for stronger civil societies, to inject into politics women's compassion, desire to nurture, to care for the generations to come and to take seriously their role as "happiness maker."

"The great majority of us are trying to be happier than we are because our conditions are not happy. Especially in a country like Burma -- where we suffer from a lack of human rights -- there is a daily effort to make our lot better, safer, to make our lot happier in the world," she said.

Former Philippine President Corazon Aquino, in a speech at the same conference, lauded Suu Kyi for remaining "steadfast to the cause of democracy in her homeland" despite continuing to be a virtual prisoner of the military junta since 1989.

Aquino, who galvanized opposition to the late Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and who was catapulted into power following a popular revolt in February 1986, said the Myanmar leader and the late Mother Teresa are her role models.

"By curtailing her (Suu Kyi's) freedoms, the junta had hoped to subdue her efforts to restore democracy and silence her call for national reconciliation. But her struggle for freedom of her people persists, her principles remain firm," Aquino said.

She called Suu Kyi "the rightful leader of Burma."

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won the 1990 election in Myanmar, but was never allowed by the military junta to assume power.

Aquino, in her speech, said, "Politics must not remain a bastion of male dominance, for there is much that women can bring into politics that would make our world a kinder, gentler place for humanity to thrive in."