The Lady and the Peacock (68 page)

4
. I replied that I would never do anything from abroad, and that if I were to engage in any political movement I would do so from within the country: Aung San Suu Kyi, “Belief in Burma's Future” in
Independent
, September 12, 1988.

5
. U Kyi Maung, a colonel in the army who had been imprisoned for years for opposing Ne Win's coup: cf. Alan Clements, Aung San Suu Kyi,
The Voice of Hope
, interview with U Kyi Maung, p.x.

6
. He met her first, he said, “by chance, at the home of a mutual friend here in Rangoon. It was back in 1986”: quoted in
The Voice of Hope
, p.236.

7
. A Burmese Muslim whose tall figure and craggy face betrayed his roots in the subcontinent: interview with Bertil Lintner, Burmese sources.

8
. “He took her round Rangoon,” said Lintner, who subsequently got to know him: interview with author.

9
. “My impression when I arrived was that the situation was extremely tense,” he said later: quoted in Bertil Lintner,
Outrage
, p.91.

10
. The first serious demonstration actually occurred on the afternoon of August 3: Dominic Faulder, “Memories of 8.8.88” on
Irrawaddy
website.

11
. A fifteen-year-old schoolboy called Ko Ko took to the streets of central Rangoon on August 6th along with thousands of others: interview with author, Rangoon, November 2010.

12
. “Despite its overwhelming superiority of force, the regime is today under siege by its people,” Seth Mydans wrote in the
New York Times
: Seth Mydans, “Uprising in Burma” in
New York Times
, August 12, 1988.

13
. “The euphoric atmosphere prevailed all day,” wrote Bertil Lintner:
Outrage
, p.97.

14
. The tanks roared at top speed past [Sule] pagoda, followed by armored cars and twenty-four truckloads of soldiers: Mydans, op cit.

15
. staff at the hospital where her mother had once worked believed the army had killed 3,000 civilians in cold blood: quoted in
Los Angeles Times
, August 17, 1988.

16
. Aung San Suu Kyi played no part in the demonstrations: interview with Indian journalist Karan Thapar in July 1988.

17
. As Bo Kyi, one of the leaders of the students, put it, “When we staged demonstrations in 1988, in March, April, May”: author interview with Bo Kyi, Mae Sot, November 2010.

18
. But Maung Maung had lost whatever intellectual respectability he might once have claimed when he wrote the official hagiography of Number One: Gustaaf Houtman, “Aung San's
lan-zin
, the Blue Print, and the Japanese occupation of Burma” in
Reconsidering the Japanese Military Occupation of Burma
(1942–45), edited by Kei Nemoto, ILCAA, Tokyo 2007; Patricia Herbert, Obituary of Dr. Maung Maung in
Guardian
, July 13, 1994.

19
. “I was twenty-six,” Nyo Ohn Myint remembered: interview with author, Chiang Mai, November 2010.

20
. I appealed to her to meet the student movement. She said no [...] Aung San's bravery—everything: interview with author.

21
. On August 15th, she and Hwe Myint, one of her earliest political allies, wrote to the Council of State: xerox of original document courtesy of Martin Morland.

22
. nursing her gravely ill mother, keeping her sons up to the mark with their studies: private information.

23
. U Win Tin, a stubbornly contrarian journalist who had been silenced for years by Ne Win . . . Three groups formed around her, he explained: interview with author, Rangoon, November 2010.

24
. Despite his communist background and the help he was providing to Suu, Thakin Tin Mya, her gatekeeper, was a member of the ruling BSPP: cf. Thierry Falise,
Aung San Suu Kyi: Le Jasmin ou la lune
, Editions Florent Massot, Paris, 2007. Translated here by the author.

25
. So please don't launch any attacks on him, and don't incite the people to do so, either: quoted in
Aung San Suu Kyi: Le Jasmin ou la lune
, p.73.

26
. Ralph Fitch, an English merchant who saw the pagoda in 1586, called it “the fairest place, as I suppose, that is in the world”: quoted in Norman Lewis,
Golden Earth
, Eland, 1983, p.272.

27
. a misty dazzlement: quoted in Norman Lewis,
Golden Earth
, pp.272–4.

28
. the focus during the 1920s and 1930s of the first mass demonstrations against British rule: see Gustaaf Houtman,
Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics
, ILCAA, Tokyo (available on Google Books) for an illuminating account of the transgressive effect, for the ruling generals, of Suu's appearance at the national shrine.

29
. Overnight thousands of leaflets were printed, stigmatizing Suu as the puppet of a foreign power: cf. Thierry Falise,
Aung San Suu Kyi: Le Jasmin ou la lune
.

30
. One of her advisers urged her to don a bullet-proof vest for protection. “Why?” she retorted. “If I was afraid of being killed, I would never speak out against the government”: Thierry Falise,
Aung San Suu Kyi: Le Jasmin ou la Lune
, p.78.

31
. “We didn't go along the main road,” Nyo Ohn Myint the lecturer recalled: interview with author.

32
. In those days the population of Rangoon was about three million: interview with author.

33
. It has been said with some authority that she read her speech from a prepared text: a full video of the speech can be found on YouTube. An English translation is published in
Freedom from Fear
.

34
. “It was so direct and down to earth,” said Bertil Lintner: interview with author.

35
. “Reverend monks and people!” she shouted:
Freedom from Fear
, pp.192–8.

36
. See note 15, Part Two, Chapter 2.

37
. My first impression was that she was just another general's daughter: quoted in documentary
Aung San Suu Kyi—Lady of No Fear
directed by Anne Gyrithe Bonne, Kamoli Films, Denmark 2010.

PART TWO, CHAPTER 3: FREEDOM AND SLAUGHTER

1
. And it was Aung San Suu Kyi—the “governess” as she has been labeled, the Burmese “Mary Poppins,” the “Oxford housewife,” the political ingénue: epithets favored by Justin Wintle.

2
. one paper called
Phone Maw Journal
, named after the student whose killing by the army in March had ignited the revolution, informed its readers: cf. Lintner,
Outrage
.

3
. “The Rangoon Bar Association took its courage in both hands and issued a signed protest calling for change,” he recalled: Martin Morland, “Eight Minutes Past Eight, on the Eighth of the Eighth Month,” unpublished essay.

4
. a student recently returned from Rangoon called Pascal Khoo Thwe was caught up in the excitement: cf. Pascal Khoo Thwe,
From the Land of Green Ghosts
, Harper Collins, 2002.

5
. A young woman called Hmwe Hmwe who had joined the democracy movement in Rangoon traveled to Mandalay: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.119.

6
. In Mandalay, the young monks' organization. . . had resurfaced: ibid, pp.119–20.

7
. The army evidently hoped that things would get so out of hand that the people would have had enough and beg the old regime to come back: Morland, “Eight Minutes Past Eight, on the Eighth of the Eighth Month,” op cit.

8
. On September 5th, four men and one woman were caught outside a children's hospital: Lintner,
Outrage
, pp.121–2.

9
. the future of the people will be decided by the masses of the people: quoted in
Outrage
, p.126.

10
. his pithy formulations of how to apply the simple truths of Buddhism to solitary confinement had a powerful influence on Suu herself: see Part Four, Chapter 3.

11
. “I thought to myself, let's see what this lady is up to,” he said later. “Now is the time, a revolution is stirring: quoted in Alan Clements, Aung San Suu Kyi,
The Voice of Hope
, p.237.

12
. From the age of seventeen until nearly fifty, my life was a struggle: ibid., p.279.

13
. Two years later, accused of involvement in an abortive coup, he was sacked and jailed: cf. Thant Myint-U,
The River of Lost Footsteps
.

14
. My [old army] colleagues urged me to address the public: quoted in Alan Clements, Aung San Suu Kyi,
The Voice of Hope
, p.275.

15
. “We agreed that I would meet her,” he remembered, “and that I would go alone”: ibid., p.276.

16
. “On September 16th,” as Burma historian Michael Charney records, “the State Council announced that”: Michael Charney,
A History of Modern Burma
, p.158.

17
. sweep everything aside, bring everything down, rush in on human waves shouting their war cries to the cheers of outsiders, and establish their occupation: Michael Charney,
A History of Modern Burma
, p.157

18
. Any high-ranking army officer who had taken an armed infantry unit into the capital and declared his support for the uprising would have become a national hero immediately: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.127.

19
. The city of Rangoon, and indeed the whole country, ran disturbingly smoothly without Big Brother: Morland, “Eight Minutes past Eight, on the Eighth of the Eighth Month.”

20
. Nyo Ohn Myint recalled, “My first job was buying fried rice at the restaurant nearby . . .”: interview with author.

21
. In order to bring a timely halt to the deteriorating conditions on all sides all over the country: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.131.

22
. It had started drizzling shortly after the brief radio announcement: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.132.

23
. Walking through Rangoon was an eerie experience: Terry McCarthy, “Fragile Peace Settles on Rangoon” in
Independent
, September 21, 1988.

24
. Some people began banging pots and pans inside their houses in a desperate show of defiance: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.132.

25
. Through loudspeakers mounted on the military vehicles, the people were ordered to remove the barricades: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.132.

26
. A spokesman for Tin Oo commented, “This is a coup d'état by another name. This ruins everything”: quoted in Terry McCarthy, “Burmese Army Coup” in
Independent
, September 19, 1988.

27
. All through the night we were kept awake by the noise of machine gun fire: interview with author.

28
. “It is better that I should be taken off to prison,” she told them: quoted in author's interview with Nyo Ohn Myint.

29
. The machine gun was pointed straight at the front gate: interview with author.

30
. At least 100 people—and perhaps four times that number—were shot dead in the streets of Rangoon yesterday: Terry McCarthy, “Burmese Army Coup” in
Independent
, September 19, 1988.

31
. No one in the large column that marched down past the old meeting spot near the City Hall and Maha Bandoola Park saw the machine-gun nests: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.133.

32
. The Burmese Red Cross was working furiously to gather the wounded and dead from the streets: Terry McCarthy, “Burmese Army Coup” in
Independent
, September 19, 1988.

33
. police mingled with the crowds to observe us, having prudently abandoned their uniforms: Pascal Khoo Thwe,
From the Land of the Green Ghosts
, HarperCollins, 2002, p.173.

34
. “We fled,” he said, “because we realized that this time it was different”: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.147.

35
. Suppression associated with the coup led to between 8,000 and 10,000 deaths: Michael Charney,
A History of Modern Burma
, p.161.

36
. I went up there with a couple of other journalists and we had a long chat in her living room looking over the lake: interview with author.

37
. I would prefer not to remain in politics if I can avoid it: quoted in Terry McCarthy, “Burma Opposition will not Give in to Army Rule” in
Independent
, September 20, 1988.

38
. “We do not wish to cling to state power long,” he insisted. On the contrary, he spoke of “handing over power to the government which emerges after the free and fair general elections.” “I am laying the path for the next government,” he said, and “I will lay flowers in the path of the next government”: quoted in Gustaaf Houtman,
Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics
, p.44.

39
. “It's going back to the 1962 formula,” a man near the Sule pagoda in central Rangoon told McCarthy: Terry McCarthy, “Fragile Peace Settles on Rangoon” in
Independent
, September 21, 1988.

40
. During the day he carries a revolver: quoted in Terry McCarthy, “Ne Win Still Fights for Control” in
Independent
, September 28, 1988.

41
. someone who had spent nearly half her life in England, a country where the words “Glorious Revolution” refer to an event, exactly three hundred years before, in which no lives were lost and which set British democracy on such a big, fat keel that it has been gliding forward ever since: the overthrow of King James II by British parliamentarians, who invited the Protestant William of Orange to invade the country and replace him. The agreement between William and Parliament, resulting in the Bill of Rights of 1689, created the unwritten but still effective English Constitution and drastically reduced the risks of a return to an absolute monarchy.