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Many are excited after the November 13 release of Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Awn Sahn Sue Chee). The media, particularly in the West, has suddenly started covering Burma and the `Lady’ as Suu Kyi is lovingly called in her country. But one wonders as to how long this `honey-moon’ is going to last as the media has a short memory and it keeps moving to new `sexier’ stories without ever looking back.
President Obama called Suu Kyi “a hero of mine,” adding, “whether Suu Kyi is living in the prison of her house, or the prison of her country, does not change the fact that she, and the political opposition she represents, has been systematically silenced, incarcerated and deprived of any opportunity to engage in political processes that could change Burma.”
It is good to know that Obama is realistic enough to realize that a revolution has not been brought about with her release. As one cynic in Burma commented after the release: “I’m afraid there will be no people power in Burma, only people’s funerals.”
Just a day after her release, Suu Kyi in a speech at the headquarters of the NLD (National League for Democracy) appealed to the world and her people to keep fighting for political reform.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize laureate, and the daughter of Burmese independence hero General Aung San, who was assassinated when she was only two, lived much of her early life abroad. But she returned to her country in 1988 to care for her sick mother, and in late August that year, she addressed a gathering of almost half a million pro-democracy protesters in Rangoon. A month later, the military cracked down, and killed hundreds.
Suu Kyi helped found the NLD in the aftermath of the bloodshed, and overwhelmingly won the 1990 national elections. The generals, however, who have ruled Burma since a 1962 coup and call the country Myanmar, ignored the results. The NLD leader was detained and spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest. In 1999, she refused to visit her dying British husband in case the generals refused to allow her to re-enter the country; this should be compared with our Benazir Bhutto who did not miss the first opportunity to leave the country for greener pastures in the West, by jumping her bail, which her followers depict as `a sacrifice for democracy.’.
Suu Kyi’s last house arrest took place after an army-backed mob attacked her supporters in the town of Depayin, killing dozens. That sentence was set to expire in 2009, but was extended after an American Vietnam War veteran who said he was on a mission from God swam unannounced to her lakeside home, contravening the conditions of her confinement.
It is an impressive struggle spanning more than two decades but Suu Kyi has so far not been able to free Burma from the iron grip of dictatorship. During the years that she was imprisoned, the junta’s power only increased. The prospects for political change thus remain bleak.
The ruling junta has stacked innumerable legal impediments as well against her coming to power. The 2008 Constitution, approved by 93% of the electorate, has reserved 25% of the parliamentary seats for the military. Additionally, key leadership posts, like the presidency, cannot be filled by civilians. A constitutional clause obviously targeting Suu Kyi disallows a Burmese from holding an office who has been married to a foreigner; her late husband was a British academic.
It is thus still a long-drawn struggle. The least that we in Pakistan can do is to lend her moral support, as our `people’s government’ remains silent on the issue. 
Anees Jillani is an advocate of the Supreme Court and a member of the Washington, DC Bar. He has been writing for various publications for more than 20 years and has authored several books.
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