LONDON: Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi became the first non-head of state to address both houses of Britain’s parliament in a rare honour she used to ask for help in bringing democracy to the former British colony.
Cutting a tiny figure in parliament’s cavernous and historic Westminster Hall, the 67-year-old Nobel Peace laureate and opposition leader received a standing ovation on arrival, introduced as “the conscience of a country and a heroine for humanity”.
“We have an opportunity to reestablish true democracy in Burma. It is an opportunity for which we have waited decades,” she told a forum previously reserved for world leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama yesterday.
“If we do not get things right this time right round, it may be several decades more before a similar opportunity arises again. I would ask Britain, as one of the oldest parliamentary democracies, to consider what it can do to help build the sound institutions needed to build a nascent parliamentary democracy.”
Suu Kyi, only the second woman to address both houses of parliament after Queen Elizabeth, is in Britain as part of a 17-day tour of Europe that has at times been emotional and physically demanding.
On Wednesday, she returned to Oxford to care for her mother. It was supposed to be brief, but Suu Kyi, daughter of assassinated Myanmar independence hero Aung San, was swept into her country’s political turmoil as the military crushed protests.
The Oxford graduate spent 15 of the next 24 years under house arrest, becoming an icon of non-violent political resistance. (Reuters)