Myanmar democracy icon marks 65th birthday in confinement; global calls for her freedom

Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi turns 65

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 65th birthday Saturday locked in her dilapidated lakeside compound as global calls for her freedom erupted at rallies and prayer vigils around the world.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate plans to celebrate by providing lunch for the three dozen construction workers helping to renovate her crumbling two-story mansion, said her lawyer Nyan Win.

Suu Kyi cannot attend a birthday party planned in her honor at the suburban Yangon home of a fellow opposition party official.

Suu Kyi has now spent 15 birthdays in detention over the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest. Global condemnation over her imprisonment has failed to change the military junta’s harsh attacks on all dissent or soften their stance on Suu Kyi, whose steely grace, charisma and popularity have remained in tact despite her long confinement.

“It is very sad that she cannot celebrate her birthday in freedom,” said Nyan Win.

Members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy opposition party are planting 20,000 trees around the country, mostly on the grounds of Buddhist monasteries, to mark the occasion and they will offer meals to monks as part of prayers for her release, he said.

Ahead of historic elections planned for later this year, Suu Kyi remains the biggest threat to the ruling junta. Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been dominated by military rule since 1962.

The upcoming elections will be the first in two decades. Suu Kyi’s party overwhelmingly won the last election in 1990, but was never allowed to take power.

Under new election laws, Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are effectively barred from taking part in the polls. The NLD has called the laws unfair and undemocratic and is boycotting the polls, which critics have dismissed as a sham designed to cement military rule. The party was disbanded after refusing to register for the elections by a May 6 deadline.

Suu Kyi’s detention was extended by 18 months in August 2009 when she was convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest by briefly harboring an American intruder. The sentence will keep her locked away during the elections.

Events to mark Suu Kyi’s birthday started earlier this week with the majority planned for later Saturday, including rallies in New York and Washington. Evening vigils, concerts and Buddhist prayer ceremonies were scheduled in Auckland, Dublin, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto and various cities in Britain.

On Friday, dozens of activists gathered in front of the Myanmar Embassy in Manila, carrying large posters of Suu Kyi staring out from barbed wire. Holding yellow flowers and reciting poems, they sang “Happy Birthday” and sliced a cake with candles forming the number 65.

“Calling for her immediate release is our best gift for (Suu Kyi) for her birthday,” said activist Yuen Abana.