Free Suu

  
AUNG SAN SUU KYI: A CELEBRATION OF COURAGE

Agnès Callamard, executive director, ARTICLE 19

A speech delivered on the occasion of ARTICLE 19’s celebration of

Aung San Suu Kyi’s 60^th birthday

Aung San Suu Kyi turned 60 years old last week. ARTICLE 19, like hundreds of organisations and individuals across the world, joined a world wide movement of protest and condemnation, calling for her unconditional release and the release of other Burmese political prisoners detained for the peaceful expression of their views and acts of dissent.

As we were doing this, feelings of profound sadness, incredulity and rage were overwhelming

Profound sadness that ASSK and many others in Burma are silenced, tortured, separated from their loved ones, isolated.

Profound sadness because of the pointless killings and the sufferings

Incredulity that these mindless abuses are still going on

Incredulity that the Myanmar authorities have continued to systematically suppress human rights and the right to freedom of expression, in the most pointless fashion

Incredulity because the Myanmar authorities have buried themselves into a big Hole, and in the process they have buried the whole Burmese people

And then Rage –

Rage against military authorities playing Russian roulette with people’s aspirations

Rage against a government at war with its minorities while it should celebrate them

Rage against the cowardice and senselessness of their policies

Rage against all of those who stand by and do nothing, while they could, condoning by their actions or silences oppression, torture and killings of thousands;

Rage because hundreds of children would have known nothing else but the violence and the fear of adults, and life as refugee in squalid camps across the borders.

Sadness, incredulity and rage are the antidotes to fear. They are the antidotes to inaction.

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

We are privileged tonight in that we live in a society where the rule of law dominates –

We are privileged tonight because we are bearing witness for those who know no fear and have paid dearly for their courage.

The Myanmar authorities may have broken Aung San Suu Kyi’s piano

But they cannot prevent her from playing

They may have muffled the organ

But the music keeps playing

And we keep on listening

To this music

And we play it over and over

And we keep on hearing the words

And we act on them over and over, using our own instruments, our own voices

Aung San Suu Kyi comes from an extraordinary and powerful tradition;

A tradition exemplified by Nelson Mandela, as Desmond Tutu reminded us last week

A tradition of world class, fearless leaders

who through their words and actions are compelling us to move, to stand, to act

Hear this…

Hear the music, the piano, the words:

We stand tonight, not only in compassion,

Not only to pay tribute,

Not only to honour Aung San Suu Kyi, and through her, the Burmese people

But we also stand tonight in solidarity and in action.

We will not relent in our condemnation of your abuse of power and treachery We will not relent in our condemnation of your betrayal of human rights and of the democratic aspirations of a people

You may have imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi ‘s body

But not her spirit and her courage;

You may have imprisoned a country

But not the voices, and certainly not the courage

And I can assure you

You have done nothing to our determination and our solidarity.

Article 19 defends and promotes freedom of expression and information. This speech was given to commemorate Suu's 60th birthday in June 2005