George Petras, USA TODAY
Mar. 20, 2021
Suu Kyi is the daughter of General Aung San, a Burmese military officer credited as the founder of the Tatmadaw – the same group detaining her today – and a popular revolutionary icon who helped Burma win independence from Britain in the late 1940s.
He was assassinated in 1947, when Suu Kyi was 2 years old. Her mother was Daw Khin Kyi, a Myanmar ambassador to India.
General Aung San, leader of the Burmese government, who was assassinated in the Council Chambers in Rangoon, on July 19, 1947.ASSOCIATED
President Barack Obama and Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi hold a news conference at her residence in Yangon, on Nov. 19, 2012.NICOLAS ASFOURI, AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Mar. 20, 2021
Under arrest since Feb. 1, "The Lady" is Myanmar's most popular leader
Aung San Suu Kyi, at the center of the Myanmar military coup, is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and human rights champion who has fallen from favor with the international community.
Suu Kyi, 75, is the de facto civilian leader of Myanmar who has spent years under government house arrest. She's often been compared to Nelson Mandela, the South African leader who ended apartheid in the early 1990s after being imprisoned for 27 years.
Medicals students display images of deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a street march in Yangon, Myanmar, on Feb. 28, 2021.AP
Suu Kyi is the daughter of General Aung San, a Burmese military officer credited as the founder of the Tatmadaw – the same group detaining her today – and a popular revolutionary icon who helped Burma win independence from Britain in the late 1940s.
He was assassinated in 1947, when Suu Kyi was 2 years old. Her mother was Daw Khin Kyi, a Myanmar ambassador to India.
General Aung San, leader of the Burmese government, who was assassinated in the Council Chambers in Rangoon, on July 19, 1947.ASSOCIATED
Suu Kyi studied at Oxford University in England in the early 1960s. She met Michael Aris, a historian, and they married in a Buddhist ceremony in 1972. They had two children.
In 1988, she returned to Myanmar, awash in political protests, to care for her mother. She ended up leading the pro-democracy movement.
Suu Kyi spent nearly 15 years under house arrest between July 1989 and November 2010 for her efforts to end military rule. The Nobel committee announced her award in 1999, while she was still in detention.
That same year, her husband died of cancer. The military denied him a visa to see her and she did not leave the country because she feared the military would prevent her return.
After her release, Suu Kyi received the Congressional Gold Medal in September 2012, an award from the U.S. Congress for distinguished achievement.
She and her political party, the National League for Democracy, won election victories in 2012 and 2015. Because her children were considered foreign nationals under Myanmar law, Suu Kyi could not become president. Her official title was state counselor.
She met with President Barack Obama in Myanmar in 2012 and again in 2016 during an official White House visit. U.S. economic sanctions against Myanmar, in place for nearly 20 years, were lifted a month later, with political reform as the reason.
But things changed in 2016-17, when the army began a massive crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority in Myanmar. Thousands were forced to flee the country and Suu Kyi was severely criticized for doing little to stop it. In 2019, she told the International Court of Justice that Myanmar did not persecute the Rohingya.
Some organizations have called for her Nobel to be rescinded, but that's unlikely to happen, the Washington Post reported.
Suu Kyi remains popular in Myanmar, where she is known as "The Lady."
Published 3:35 PM GMT Mar. 20, 2021 Updated 3:35 PM GMT Mar. 20, 2021
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