As the genocidal horrors in Myanmar unfold, I am kicking myself for having risked my skin to go see then sainted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
This event occurred in Rangoon (now Yangon) in 1996 when Suu Kyi was the revered democratic opposition leader resisting the nation’s brutal military regime. The western media loved her, as it always does third world female politicians fighting dictatorships and thugs. The saintly Suu Kyi was even given a Nobel Prize by Sweden’s always giddy liberals.
To get to Suu Kyi’s compound in suburban Rangoon, I rented a car and a terrific driver named Mr. Alexander, and we wove our way through many police checkpoints, risking arrest at each one. Somehow we managed to get to her compound to hear the famous lady speak. She looked very lovely and fragile.
Like my fellow journalists, I felt great sympathy for her. Unlike them, I wondered how, if she ever came to power, this frail, bird-like creature could hold together wild and crazy Burma, a turbulent nation of 43 million that is a stew of scores of angry ethnic groups and religions – a sort of Asian Yugoslavia. As I feared back then, she was proven unfit for this heavy task.
American Raj: Liberati…
Best Price: $5.99
Buy New $23.63
(as of 06:30 EDT – Details)
Once rich Burma was bankrupted and dirt poor after many years of dictatorial rule by eccentric army general Ne Win who terrorized his people and practiced necromancy, other black arts and socialism. Gen. Win used the large Burmese Army to battle the nation’s many ethnic secessionists: Shan, Karen, Mon, Wa, Chinese. He persecuted the Rohingya Muslims of Rakhine state.Ne Win was finally kicked upstairs by younger army generals. They continued the brutal dictatorship and…