The Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi defied warnings from her country’s Government and made her first tentative foray outside Rangoon since her release eight months ago, after seven years of house arrest.
She flew to the great Buddhist temple complex of Bagan yesterday for what members of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), described as a holiday. She is spending it with her youngest son, Kim Aris, 33, and is not expected to give speeches or take part in any public political activities.
“It’s my first holiday in 13 years. She also needs a break,” Mr Aris said. “We’re going to stay here for four days. I’m very happy.”
The trip may be a means of testing the will of the Burmese dictatorship in anticipation of a more ambitious programme of travelling later in the year.
After the announcement that Ms Suu Kyi intended to give a series of public speeches in regional towns outside the country’s biggest city, the Government ordered the party to desist from all political and social activity, in effect outlawing it as an organisation. The Government also made a veiled threat about Ms Suu Kyi’s safety.
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A commentary in the state media said: “We are deeply concerned that if Daw [Madam] Aung San Suu Kyi makes trips to countryside regions there may be chaos and riots, as evidenced by previous incidents.”
The last time that Ms Suu Kyi travelled outside Rangoon, in 2003, she narrowly escaped with her life after her convoy was set upon by government-sponsored thugs who killed scores of her supporters outside the town of Depayin. She was arrested, tried, returned to detention and not set free until last November.
Her trips outside Rangoon have often ended in confrontation. In 1998 the car that she was travelling in was stopped outside the city and a 13-day stand-off ensued.
Mr Aris, a British citizen, was briefly reunited with his mother in November after a separation of more than a decade, during which he was frequently denied a visa to visit her.
When Mr Aris was 14, he and his brother Alexander, then 18, collected the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf in 1991.
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The NLD won a landslide election in Burma in 1990 that has never been recognised by a regime, and dissent has often been brutally crushed. The junta officially dissolved itself this year and was replaced with a government of civilians after much criticised elections that were held just before Ms Suu Kyi’s release.
The vote was widely denounced for being fraudulent and was boycotted by the NLD. The new President, Thein Sein, is a former general, as are many of his ministers.