* Suu Kyi on first trip abroad since returning home in 1988
* Due to attend economic conference in Bangkok
* Myanmar president not attending Bangkok meeting – sources
By Martin Petty
BANGKOK, May 29 (Reuters) – Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung
San Suu Kyi ventures outside Myanmar for the first time in 24
years on Tuesday in an unmistakable display of confidence in the
liberalisation taking shape in her country after five decades of
military rule.
The bright lights of Bangkok will greet Suu Kyi when she
arrives in the Thai capital late on Tuesday, a stark contrast to
her dimly lit home city of Yangon, where daily power outages
have sparked protests by people testing the limits of freedom
under a new quasi-civilian government.
The democracy leader who spent 15 years in detention during
Myanmar’s fight against dictatorship will give a speech this
week at the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok, a
sprawling city that boomed as Suu Kyi’s Myanmar wilted under
sanctions and decades of inept army rule.
Until now, Suu Kyi has refused to leave Myanmar during brief
periods of freedom from her years of detention, fearing the
generals she was challenging would not let her back.
Her decision to leave the country she had only expected to
return to temporarily in 1988 comes after a year of dramatic
change unthinkable in March 2011, when junta strongman Than Shwe
made way for a government stacked with his proteges following
elections seen as rigged to favour an army-backed party and held
while Suu Kyi was under house arrest.
But over the 18 months since the election which the
army-backed party won, the changes have been staggering.
Suu Kyi has since been released and is now a parliamentarian
having been convinced by reformist President Thein Sein, a
former junta heavyweight she says is sincere and trustworthy, to
contest a by-election and take part in a political system
devised and dominated by retired and serving soldiers.
HUGE SIGNIFICANCE
Hundreds of political prisoners have been freed, protests
legalised, media censorship eased and dialogue with ethnic
minority rebels is moving forward, as is economic
liberalisation.
The reforms have convinced Suu Kyi to support the suspension
of Western sanctions after staunchly advocating embargoes to
squeeze the generals. The reforms have also convinced her that
she is free to go abroad, and will be allowed back.
“After the 2010 elections, no one believed this would
happen, it’s beyond our expectations,” said Kyaw Zwa Moe, a
Myanmar exile and editor of the Thailand-based English-language
edition of the Irrawaddy magazine.
“To see her leave the country and attend an event like this
is hugely significant, even for Thein Sein’s government. The
world has looked to her as a leader of our country and it’s a
chance for her to convince the international community to help
prevent these reforms from pausing.”
Thein Sein was also due to give a speech at the same forum
in Bangkok, but has since cancelled his visit, according to
Myanmar government sources, who requested anonymity.
But while a boon for Myanmar, Suu Kyi’s international
exposure and new role as a parliamentarian will likely add to
the burden of expectations placed upon her by a public who have
for years seen her as their sole hope for change.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of the leader of Myanmar’s campaign
for independence from British rule, spent years away from home,
including many in Britain after marrying a British academic,
Michael Aris.
She returned to her homeland in 1988 to take care of her
dying mother and got caught up in a student-led democracy
uprising that swept the country that year and which the military
eventually crushed. Suu Kyi was first detained in 1989.
From the on, she refused to leave, even after her husband
was diagnosed with cancer. Aris died in 1999.
She is also due next month to visit Switzerland, Norway and
Britain.
She will give an address in Geneva to an international
labour conference on June 14 and will spend a week in Britain
from June 18, during which she will give a speech to both houses
of parliament.
(Editing by Robert Birsel)
