All Living Nobel Peace Laureates gather to honour Aung San Suu Kyi

On 8th December 2001 all living Nobel Peace Laureates will gather in Oslo to honour fellow Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, at an occasion which will mark the 10th anniversary of her own Peace award and the centennial anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize itself. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest in Burma.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s unrelenting commitment to the peaceful pursuit of democracy and human rights exemplifies all that the Peace Prize represents. The Oslo ceremony led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu will issue a call for her release, and that of 1500 other political prisoners detained by Burma’s ruling military junta. U2’s Bono is expected to send a personal message.

The Burma Campaign UK and London’s Burmese community will celebrate the occasion at London’s Candid Gallery, with celebrity performances from Maureen Lipman, Mark Thomas and one of Burma’s best-known pro-democracy singers Mun Awng.

The London event will be linked to the Oslo ceremony and to at least thirty other events organized by over one hundred non-governmental organizations around the globe through satellite and the internet.

Yvette Mahon, Director of the Burma Campaign UK said: “Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention for the very reasons that won her the Peace Prize in 1991. She has no army or guns. She has never threatened violence. She is leader of an entirely peaceful revolution, and as such she continues to frighten one of the most ruthless military regimes in the world. She is wholly deserving of this honour and we are grateful to the Nobel Committee for choosing to salute her on this occasion.”

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said: “Aung San Suu Kyi, your inspiring leadership is crucial. By your own determined passive resistance you encourage the finding of a peaceful, non-violent way for the forces of freedom, truth and democracy to emerge from the current atmosphere of unjust repression. I pray that your efforts may contribute to lasting world peace, for the practice of genuine non-violence is something of an experiment on this planet. If it ultimately succeeds in places like Burma, it will surely open the way to a far more peaceful world in the future.”

“While the world is taking a determined stand against international terrorism, it should not forget one of the world’s most courageous and principled champions of human rights and democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi”, said Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The international show of support comes during a stalemate between the ruling military regime and the democratically elected leadership of Burma. The regime and Aung San Suu Kyi began informal talks just over one year ago. There has been little discernible progress in the situation since that time.

Notes for Editors:
Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the National League for Democracy; the party that won over 82% of the parliamentary seats in Burma’s last democratic elections in 1990. Burma’s military rulers have held her under house arrest for most of the last eleven years.

For further information please contact:
Yvette Mahon: 0207 281 7377(w) 07957 301346(m) or
John Jackson: 0207 281 7377 (w) 07961 357 391(m)

For further information on the Oslo ceremony contact:
Trine Johansen, Oslo: 47 22 11 23 40/ 47 951 49 875 or
Tom Andrews, Washington DC: 202-721-0111
http://www.burmapeacecampaign.org

The Oslo event will be shown on: http://www.worldviewrights.org

A message from Aung San Suu Kyi
During my years of house arrest I have learnt my most precious lesson from a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, many of whose verses reach out to that innermost, elusive land of the spirit that we are not always capable of exploring ourselves:

‘If they answer not your call, walk alone: If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall, O Thou of evil luck, open the mind and speak out alone. If they turn away and desert you when crossing the wilderness, O Thou of evil luck, trample the thorns under the tread, and along the blood-lined track travel alone. If they do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm, O Thou of evil luck, with the thunder-flame of pain ignite thine own heart, and let it burn alone.’

There are no words of comfort in the poem. No assurances of joy and peace at the end of the harsh journey. There is no pretence that it is anything but evil luck to receive no answer to your call, to be deserted in the middle of the wilderness, to have no one who would hold up a light to aid you through a stormy night. It is not a poem that offers heart’s ease, but it teaches you that a citadel of endurance can be built on a foundation of anguish. How can anybody who has learnt to ignite his heart with the thunder-flame of his own pain ever know defeat? Victory is ensured to those who are capable of learning the hardest lessons that life has to offer.

I would wish you all a happy journey, one that is free from trouble and defeat. But such fortune is not ensured to all of us. So for those of you who will have to face the usual - and at times more than usual - quota of disappointment and sorrow, I would like you to remember on the darkest nights of storm that there are those who do not know you, but who understand your trouble and who care, because they themselves have known the absence of a comforting light. And in those times when your lives are full of light, I would like you to think of the ones who are deprived of the basic requirements of a meaningful existence, those who dare to hope that salvation is around the corner.

Please let your voices be heard in the name of democracy and human rights in Burma and elsewhere in the world.

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