Once the icon of democracy, today in court of genocide

Aung San Suu Kyi, in 1991, was also rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Committee Chairman at the time described as “the outstanding example of power of the powerless”.

Today, three years after becoming a de facto Myanmar leader, she is the focus of criticism by the same international leaders and activists who once supported her.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims, Ringya, have been forced to move from Myanmar to Bangladesh, due to the attacks of exuberance. And Suu Kyi is accused of doing nothing to stop the rapes, murders, and possible genocide. It has refused to condemn the military or accept atrocities committed.

Its few international supporters say she is a pragmatic politician, trying to govern a multiethnic country, with a complex history and a majority Buddhist, a little liked by Rohingy.

They also say the military in Myanmar still maintains serious political power.

For critics, however, it has lost its moral stand and certainly a strong reputation as one who is willing to rise for human rights despite personal cost.

The Way to Power

Suu Kyi, now 73, spent most of her time between 1989 and 2010 in a form of detention, due to her efforts to bring democracy to military-led Myanmar. This fact made him an international symbol of peaceful resistance to oppression.

It led the National League for Democracy to victory in 2015, in the first open elections in Myanmar after 25 years.

The victory came five years after he was released from house arrest.

Even though the Myanmar Constitution did not allow her to become president because there are children who are foreign citizens, Suu Kyi is widely seen as leaders and facts.

Her official title is state adviser. President Win Myint is a close associate.

Political background

Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of the hero of Myanmar's independence, also known as Burma General Aung San.

He was killed during the transition period in July 1947, just six months before independence, and when Suu Kyi was two years old.

In 1960, she went to India with her mother, Daw Khin Kyi, who was appointed Mianmar's ambassador to Delhi.

Four years later he went to Oxford University in the United Kingdom, where he studied philosophy, politics, and the economy. There she met her future husband, academic Michael Aris.

After her life and work in Japan and Butan, she settled in the United Kingdom to raise her children, Alexander and Kim.

When she returned to Myanmar in 1988 to care for her sick mother, Myanmar was in the midst of major political turmoil.

Thousands of students, office workers and monks took to the streets, demanding democratic reforms.

“As my father's daughter, I couldn't be indifferent to everything that was happening”, she said in a speech in Rangon City, August 26, 1988, and took over the leadership of the revolt against then dictator General Ne Wiin.

Inspired by the non-violent civil rights leaders' campaigns in the United States, Martin Luther King, and India's Mahatma Gandhi, she organized gatherings and travelled throughout the country, calling for peaceful democratic reforms and free elections.

However, demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the army, which took power by means of a stamp on September 18, 1988. Suu Kyi was placed in house arrest the following year.

The military government organised the national elections in May 1990, in which the National League for Democracy and Suu Kyia won a convincing victory, but the military refused to give up control.

House arrest

Suu Kyi remained in house arrest in Rango for six years until she was released in July 1995.

It was again taken into house arrest in September 2000, after trying to travel to the town of Mandalaj in opposition to travel restrictions.

It was left unconditionally free in May 2002, but a little over a year later was imprisoned because of a clash between its supporters and a government-backed crowd.

Later, he was allowed to return home but again under house arrest.

Sometimes she was able to meet with officials from her party and chosen diplomats, but she was not allowed to see her two sons or her husband, who died of cancer in March, 1999.

Military authorities allowed her to travel to the United Kingdom when he was very ill, but she was forced to refuse for fear that she would not be allowed to return to Burma.

Returning to Politics

Suu Kyi was not allowed to participate in the November 7th, 2010 elections, the first in Myanmar after two decades, but was released from house arrest six days later.

Her son, Kim Aris, was allowed to visit him for the first time in ten years.

After the new government launched a reform process, Suu Kyi and her party were reunited with the political process.

When the supplementary elections were held in April 2012, she and her party won 43 of the 45 seats in the race, and she was sworn in as deputy and opposition leader.

In May of that year, Suu Kyi traveled outside Myanmar for the first time in 24 years.

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However, she became irritated at the pace of democratic development.

In November 2014, she said Myanmar has not made any real reform and that the United States, which has lifted most of the sanctions against Myanmar in 2012, has been “very optimistic” in the past.

And in June 2015, the Myanmar Parliament failed to remove the military's veto of constitutional changes.

Four months later, on November 8, 2015, Myanmar held its first open elections in 25 years. The National League for Democracy marked convincing victories.

Even though she was not allowed to become president because of a constitutional restriction, Suu Kyi became a de facto leader in 2016.

Since then, its leadership has been determined by the Ringyat crisis.

Following deadly attacks on police stations in the state of Rakhine in August 2017, Myanmar's army launched brutal attacks on the ethnic minority, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee across the border in Bangladesh.

Critics say Suu Kyi did not do enough to convict the army.

She and Mianmar now face a court trial at The Hague-based International Court of Justice, and Suu Kyi travelled to the Netherlands this week, where she will fight charges of genocide against her country.

Since taking power, Suu Kyi and her government have also faced criticism of prosecution of journalists and activists, using colonial-era laws.

Progress has been made in several areas, but the military continues to hold a quarter of the seats in parliament and control of key ministries, including defence, home affairs and border issues. /rel