BAGO (MYANMAR): Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday made her first political trip outside the repressive nation’s main city since her release from seven years of house arrest, a crucial journey that will test the limits of her freedom.
The last time the democracy icon travelled into the countryside to meet supporters, assailants ambushed her entourage in an attack that eventually saw her detained and later placed under a long house arrest from which she was released last November.
Suu Kyi’s one-day voyage to meet supporters Sunday in two towns north of the main city of Yangon was proceeding peacefully despite a government warning that it could trigger riots.
In the town of Bago, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate greeted more than 300 supporters at a pagoda as crowds shouted “Long Live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi!” Maw Thuza, a 35-year-old woman watching the scene, said, “I can die happily now that I’ve seen her.” Suu Kyi was travelling in a three-car convoy followed by about 27 more vehicles filled mostly with journalists and supporters. Some people stood along the roadsides to wave as she passed.
Security agents, with wireless microphones protruding from their civilian clothes, monitored the visit. Bago is about 50 miles (80 kilometres) north of Yangon. (AP)