Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I join with the members for Page, Kooyong and Fremantle in welcoming the release from detention of Aung San Suu Kyi. She has been detained, on and off, for 15 of the last 21 years. Her detention came about because of her leadership of the National League for Democracy, which won over 80 per cent of the vote in the 1990 election. Aung San Suu Kyi is a woman whose efforts to promote democracy in Burma can rightly be described as truly heroic. For as long as the Burmese military junta has attempted to cling to power through a corrupt regime that is in clear defiance of the will of the Burmese people, Aung San Suu Kyi has been prepared to sacrifice personal comfort and safety in the face of a repressive regime to stand up for the democratic rights of the Burmese people.

Aung San Suu Kyi, in her famous ‘freedom from fear’ speech in 1990, said:

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

Her words so accurately characterise the plight of millions of people around the world whose lives are at the mercy of a despotic government whose aims are not to enhance the welfare of the people but to consolidate their power by subverting democracy and, ultimately, destroying it. This fear has characterised tyrannous regimes throughout history and has no better characterisation than a number of the communist regimes of the 20th century. Aung San Suu Kyi’s fight for democracy is not only for the people of Burma but for everyone who suffers, or has suffered, due to the lack of democratic rights.

It is fitting that a motion such as this should be moved in the Australian parliament. As a free and democratic country, Australia should show support to those who fight for freedom in a country ruled by fear and oppression. Australia has never had to fight for democracy. We are the beneficiaries of a long-established Western tradition. Yet Burma ceased to be a democracy in 1962 when General Ne Win led a military coup. This remarkable turn of events led Burma on a path to socialism and tyranny. Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988, originally to care for her mother, herself a prominent Burmese political figure. Her father was a famous commander of the Burma Independence Army. She came to lead the pro-democracy movement, which became particularly vocal after the retirement of General Ne Win. On 26 August 1988, she famously addressed half a million people at a mass rally in front of the Shwedagon pagoda in the capital. She was detained under house arrest in 1990, along with many others, by the newly established military junta. She was released in 1995, placed under detention again in 2000 and released in 2002. In 2003, pro-government militia attempted to assassinate her, but her driver managed to get her to safety. She was detained for a third time.

Aung San Suu Kyi was willing to undergo extreme harassment, arbitrary arrest, years of home detention and an attempt on her life in order to secure democracy in Burma. She was forced to forgo a home life to fight for the freedom of her people. She was separated from her husband and her children and has never met her grandchildren. Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from prison on 13 November, after years of incarceration, represents an important step forward for democracy in Burma. For now, Aung San Suu Kyi is free to travel the country and speak to her people, reviving the pro-democracy movement. But we can be in no doubt that the regime will be observing her activities very closely. Throughout Aung San Suu Kyi’s promotion of freedom in her country she has eschewed those who have called for violent resolution. Her path, while a difficult and long one, has always been a peaceful one. This has taken great moral courage. Her commitment to peace was recognised by her award of the Nobel peace prize in 1991.

Despite her recent release, there can be no doubt that the country is still tightly and brutally controlled by a military regime that cares nothing for individual rights. There are still more than 2,200 political prisoners, and these are only the prisoners we are aware of. Before the most recent election the military junta changed the constitution to stop Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy contesting the election. It is no surprise, then, that the military regime was returned in an election that was not free or fair. Aung San Suu Kyi deserves both our admiration and our support, and it is fitting that we pay tribute to her in the Australian parliament.

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