Don't lose hope, Aung San Suu Kyi tells her people
Source: The Sangai Express / AFP

Sian Powell, November 14 2010: AUNG San Suu Kyi has used her first day of freedom to make it clear she will continue to fight for democracy in Burma.

This report was filed for the The Australian and hence the deadline of November 15 .

And she has called on her supporters not to lose heart in their fight against oppression.

The newly released dissident political leader again courted the military regime's ire last night by telling exultant supporters in the democracy movement that they could "get what they want" .

"If we want to get what we want, we have to do it in the right way," she told cheering crowds at the National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon, adding the "basis of democratic freedom is freedom of speech" .

Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi mobbed by supporters on being freed

Her speech reached out to a splintered opposition movement and a people divided by fear under the rule of a military junta.

"I want to hear the voice of the people.

After that we will decide what we want to do," she said.

"I want to work with all democratic forces.

"I believe in human rights and I believe in the rule of law" .

US President Barack Obama yesterday hailed Ms Suu Kyi as "a hero of mine" after the 65-year-old emerged from her latest stint of detention on Saturday night.

The Nobel laureate had been locked up in her lakeside house for 15 of the past 21 years, isolated from her supporters and unable to protest as Burma slid further into authoritarian rule.

She was sidelined when Burma's monks marched against political oppression in 2007, and she could do nothing during the regime's consequent savage crackdown.

She could not speak for the 2200 other political prisoners�activists, monks, a television comedian and journalists�who have been arbitrarily locked up by the regime.

Nor could she comment on the first elections in 20 years, held this month, amid international claims they were a sham designed to entrench the military rulers' power.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council generals have taken care to maintain a veneer of judicial correctness.

Ms Suu Kyi's latest period of detention�imposed when a deluded American swam uninvited to her lakeside home last year�was scheduled to expire on Saturday after seven years of house arrest.

Supporters waited the whole day, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Ms Suu Kyi's face and slogans of solidarity, until finally the barricades were pulled aside and a slight figure appeared over the metal fence of her compound.

She wound some proffered flowers into her hair, smiled and briefly told the roaring crowd they had to work together.

Yesterday she made her way through the crowds, smiling, before meeting the leaders of the NLD.

Under her aegis, the party won the 1990 elections in a landslide, which was annulled by the generals.

She is risking her newly regained freedom if she condemns the regime too blatantly, or accuses the generals of vote fraud in the November 7 ballot.

Analysts say she will have to tread a very fine line.

Aung Naing Oo, an exiled Burmese political scientist who in 1988 helped lead the student revolt in Burma and who is now linked to the Vahu Development Institute in Thailand, told The Australian that Ms Suu Kyi still had a role to play in Burmese public life.

Although the NLD has been officially dissolved and many of its leaders are now in their 70s and 80s, for many the party remains synonymous with Burma's struggling democracy movement.

"It's important that she's been released, and I hope she can play a role in reconciling different communities," Aung Naing Oo said.

"The task at hand is really tough; she is faced with very formidable enemies" .

He warned that the NLD investigation into allegations of massive vote manipulation in the recent elections could put Ms Suu Kyi on a collision course with the generals and powerful business interests.

"I don't know how she will reconcile the expectations and the challenges," he said.

"There is so much pressure on her" .

Toe Zaw Latt, the Thailand bureau chief for the Democratic Voice of Burma�an exiled television and radio network that broadcasts into Burma�said Ms Suu Kyi needed to be flexible. "She has to be more pragmatic in her approach to the democratic process, as well as to the military government," he said.

Her lawyer, Nyan Win, insisted yesterday that her release was unconditional.

"No restrictions are placed on her," he said.

Julia Gillard was one of many world leaders to applaud Ms Suu Kyi's release.