This is the story of Aung San Suu Kyi. Mother to two sons, fate and history conspired to bring her to the forefront of Myanmar's push for democratic freedom, the world rushing to build her up as an icon of democracy.But an impossible political choice saw her international allies desert her and the world turn away as Myanmar sunk back into military rule.In this Independent TV documentary, Geordie Greig explores whether Aung San Suu Kyi was cancelled by those who once lauded her and decorated her with awards including the Nobel Peace Prize?
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00:00You've become quite an extraordinary icon of hope. Is that a burden?
00:22Yes, if people base their hopes on you, then of course it's a responsibility.
00:29A housewife from Oxford, mother of two British boys, Aung San Suu Kyi, now aged 79, is today
00:37the world's most famous female political prisoner. And for six short years, she was the leader
00:45of the world's youngest democracy.
00:48He was a woman leader who was principled and honourable and iconic, stepping into the role
00:54of her father, wanting a democracy in her country.
01:00Caught between her safety in the West and imprisonment in her mother country, she sacrificed
01:06her freedom.
01:07I don't really believe in fate. You choose to do what you do and you reap the fruits
01:15of your deeds.
01:18Targeting and killing the Rohingya Muslim minority, UN experts say Myanmar's army acted
01:24with genocidal intent.
01:25Well, let's get over to The Hague live in the Netherlands. Anna Holligan is at the court
01:31following what has been a remarkable hour or two of testimony.
01:36She suffered the greatest fall from grace. A woman the world rejected. A woman cancelled.
01:43When you say sorry, why won't you speak to us?
02:03Myanmar. 2024. A country all but cut off from the outside world. In a prison cell near the
02:12new capital, Napidaw, a 79-year-old woman who spent 30 years fighting a brutal military
02:19dictatorship is locked up in a prison, facing a further 27 years behind bars.
02:27This is Aung San Suu Kyi, a controversial figure, but just 10 years ago, a woman celebrated
02:37around the world.
02:48I spoke with my mum just before the coup, so that was just over three and a half years
02:55ago or thereabouts.
02:58Today Kim Airis, her youngest son, battles for the freedom of his mother as well as to
03:04arrest Myanmar for a military dictatorship.
03:07That would be me and my brother and our grandfather. I mean, I've always been very proud of my
03:16mum. It can be difficult at times, but it's, you know, something that I'm certainly proud
03:23of.
03:26What's been done to my mother is just an extension of what's been done to the people of Burma.
03:30So the two go hand in hand.
03:33Well, that's my grandfather, General Aung San of Burma. He's not someone I've ever met,
03:44unfortunately. And my mother was, what, three years old when he was assassinated, so she
03:50didn't get to spend much time with him.
03:55General Aung San was this brilliant mercurial figure who fought alongside the Japanese initially
04:03inside Burma, trying to wrest it from the control of the British, and then switched
04:10sides towards the end of World War II to the British side.
04:13I have come to London in response to the invitation of His Majesty's government in order to discuss
04:20the constitutional questions of Burma. The demand of our people is complete independence.
04:26And became seen by them as the most trustworthy and powerful figure in the Burmese fight for
04:34independence. But in 1947 he was, and most of his closest colleagues were, slaughtered
04:40by a political rival while they were having a meeting in the middle of Rangoon.
04:46Tsu Chi was a small child, the youngest of his children when this happened, and she came
04:54to have a powerful sense that it was her destiny to do what he had been unable to do because
05:04he died.
05:05This is also a family tragedy. Tsu Chi, watching as the military seized power in the first
05:11of several coups long after her father had brought democracy and independence to Myanmar
05:18in 1962. The young Tsu Chi moved to Oxford where she studied politics, philosophy and
05:26economics at St Hugh's College. Kim meets with one of his mother's university friends
05:32to discover how the city that was once their home shaped her life.
05:38This was in St Hugh's?
05:39This is at St Hugh's and that's Sue, absolutely characteristic, brave, uncompromising, looking
05:48straight at the camera, lots of strength of character. And I had a terrific time with
05:55her as undergraduates at St Hugh's. We had a lovely group of friends, lots of international
06:01figures. So the first thing, the first thing I remember about my friendship with Sue was
06:07that she taught me all about Burma, her pride in her father.
06:12After finishing her education, Tsu Chi married Michael Ayres, a British historian who studied
06:19Tibetan and settled together as a family in the city of dreaming spires.
06:26My initial impression of her was of course a great beauty, very nice, very unpretentious,
06:35shopped in the market in Gloucester Green, cycled back with her handlebars covered in
06:43heavy bags full of groceries, a woman having children with the usual kind of problems that
06:48young mothers have and somehow dead straight. I would say that her integrity and her feeling
07:02for truth was apparent in the smallest things that she did.
07:09This life was upended in 1988 with the news that her mother was fatally ill in Myanmar
07:16following a stroke.
07:18Once she had left, did you have any sense that this was going to be for a long time?
07:27Not at first. At first we thought it would be temporary, just while she went back to
07:32look after her mother. But obviously when she got caught up in politics, we realised
07:39that it could be some time.
07:44During the months that she was by her mother's bedside in Rangoon, there was an uprising
07:51of students and workers against the regime. For the first time since the army had taken
07:59over in 1962, their power was challenged by an uprising.
08:06Because Suu Kyi was the daughter of General Aung San, she was besieged by people in the
08:13opposition movement asking her, look, come and help us, please, you would make a difference.
08:18She resisted. She had two children. She was a dedicated mother. But in the end, she was
08:24persuaded and she and other prominent people in the opposition formed the National League
08:30for Democracy.
08:31Was there a stage at which you realised that she would go back to Burma? Or was it only
08:40when she stayed out there that...
08:42No, it was clear from the beginning of my friendship with her that this was the most
08:48important thing in her life, the country.
08:52She always told my father she would go back.
08:55It was an agreement between them that he would accommodate that. He would encourage it. He
09:02would help her.
09:05He certainly fulfilled that.
09:07Yes, that huge debt.
09:12That August, Suu Kyi made her first public speech in front of a crowd of 150,000 people
09:24demanding democracy in her home country.
09:27It was the moment that the tide turned and you could see this huge mass of an audience
09:37of thousands all listening and the whole country behind her in her movement towards democracy.
09:48She was the prow of the boat that was going to take them into a democratic state was what
09:56I thought this symbolic occasion was. Certainly, I think that's how it's remembered by the
10:05people in Myanmar.
10:07Have you considered, and I'm sure you have, why they regard you as such a potent threat?
10:12Because I have the support of the people. The people are not afraid of me. And because
10:18they're not afraid of me, they tell me what they think.
10:21Very soon she became the symbol. She's not a glamorous figure. She wasn't a glamorous
10:24figure, but she was a figure who conveyed a serene beauty, I think, in terms of the
10:30iconography, which was very, very effective. And I think they found it difficult to deal
10:35with the woman.
10:37In 1990, the military junta held free elections for the first time in almost 30 years, with
10:44Suu Kyi's NLD party winning. But the military junta refused to cede power. Aung San Suu
10:53Kyi was placed under house arrest for the first time. The start of being captive over
11:00more than three decades.
11:02I was actually with her when she was first put under house arrest. I realised what was
11:07happening, even though I was very young. A number of trucks took away the students, set
11:13up a perimeter around the house, along with barbed wire and guards, cut off the phone
11:20lines.
11:22This may have been just before my mother was put under house arrest, or perhaps slightly
11:28afterwards. I'm not sure. Maybe when my brother and my father came to join us after she was
11:34put under house arrest. I would have been about 12 back then. No date on this.
11:50And this will be the Nobel Peace Prize. My brother gave the acceptance speech there.
11:57I stand before you here today to accept on behalf of my mother, Aung San Suu Kyi, this
12:05greatest of prizes, the Nobel Prize for Peace.
12:11In recognition of her struggle for her country's freedom, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the
12:15Nobel Prize for Peace, as she became an important symbol in the struggle against oppression.
12:23Freedom denied her by the military junta.
12:29Theirs is the prize, and theirs will be the eventual victory in Burma's long struggle
12:37for peace, freedom and democracy.
12:43Although it's nearly three years since I was last allowed to see my wife by the military
12:51rulers of Burma, and it's now many months since I could speak to her on the telephone,
12:58last year she was able to ask me to represent her here today. She wants me to convey to
13:06you now, as clearly as I can, her sincerest thanks for this public recognition of the
13:15justice of her cause.
13:17We need maximum attention on what is happening to the National League for Democracy.
13:24For 15 of the next 20 years, Suu Kyi served various forms of house arrest, while her husband
13:31Michael continued to campaign in the West.
13:38Michael is diagnosed with terminal cancer and given months to live. Suu faced the first
13:45of many impossible choices, leaving Burma to be with her family, knowing that she would
13:50be barred from re-entering the country or stay to fight on her own for her people.
13:57I would have, in your place, felt when Suu had the choice of coming back to England when
14:08your father was dying and never returning to Burma, or staying there, relatively powerless,
14:18but at her post. I would have thought that is a very simple decision, it's not difficult,
14:28it's painful and I'm behind her in it. Did you feel that?
14:35It was one of the hardest points in my life, probably, having to see my father go downhill
14:43so rapidly and knowing that really she didn't have a choice in that. After having sacrificed
14:52so much already, he certainly didn't want her to be coming back for him at that point.
14:59In 1999, Michael died. In the ten years following her first arrest, Michael had only seen her
15:08five times.
15:10A 62-year-old mother of Suu, a life the democracy people call her here, she is at the gate of
15:26her house, waving to them, cheering, the crowd is pushing. Thousands of Burmese people out
15:31on the street, they've been patiently waiting outside party headquarters for hours, but
15:36now they've heard that Aung San Suu Kyi has been released.
15:39There was a wonderful moment of transition where we all felt that democracy was burgeoning
15:44and that the military junta, which was what it was, I mean there was a military regime,
15:49it was making concessions and she was being allowed at last to have the freedom of movement,
15:56there were going to be elections and she was wanting to stand to become the leader in her
16:01country and so there was a great excitement at that moment.
16:04I was there in 2015 during the whole election campaign, we followed her around everywhere,
16:10I was there the night they won, standing outside NLD, their party headquarters, people were
16:17just jubilant and so I think in terms of stakes for world democracy, it was almost shocking
16:25that Myanmar had made this turnaround to seemingly become this sort of human rights respecting
16:32democracy. It's hard to kind of recapture now because of everything that's happened
16:36since but you really felt how optimistic and positive and exciting things were.
16:45I think there was a great deal of attention on what was happening over there, after all
16:50Burma was the world's youngest democracy and that was a significant thing and it still
16:57is and the fact that it had achieved that without too much bloodshed was also very significant.
17:16The West celebrated the new frontier of democracy and Suu Kyi had their icon of freedom.
17:24In Myanmar, laws were concocted which made it impossible for her specifically to be the
17:30leader of her country. The Orwellian tactic of a dictatorship was used to make power impossible
17:37for her to exercise while in theory she was named as leader.
17:45But Realpolitik rarely has time for icons.
17:50For much of that first term of Daw Suu's government, the feeling was electric. We were creating
17:56a new country and the enthusiasm would just bubble up within everyone in the government.
18:03I was hoping to use economic reform as the basis to assist the political transition.
18:09So I'm an economist but a firm believer that economic conditions are often foundational
18:15to the politics of a particular country. So I went there to help out with friends of
18:20mine who had become the economic reformers in her government, just to try to change the
18:25circumstances, the material circumstances of the country if you like, and just embed
18:31democracy that bit better.
18:36There's an argument that her approach to government was naive. She would go into meetings, again
18:43with an Indian delegation for example, of 20 people from the Indian foreign ministry,
18:49and it would be Aung San Suu Kyi and her best friend on the other side of the desk. And
18:56there was a sort of amateurism about her approach to government which didn't help her really.
19:02Possibly a reflection of her fantastic self-confidence.
19:07She was a hugely complex personality. So when she was speaking to English speakers,
19:15she would come across as very, very English, very Oxford actually. I came to believe, and
19:21I still believe, that there's something profoundly Burmese and Burman about her. And I think
19:26she was very conscious of being her father's daughter and carrying on her father's task.
19:31I was two when he died, and later I did research on his life because I wanted to know more.
19:37I wanted to know what he was like.
19:40Do you regard him as a hero?
19:42Yes, I do.
19:44Do you think you've inherited any of that from your father?
19:47Well, I think my father, like me, was not born courageous. He said when, he has said
19:52and other people have said, that when he was quite little he was also frightened of the
19:56dark. You know, he was frightened of ghosts and things like that, and so was I. So I feel
20:01very close to him because I feel that like him I had to struggle to overcome my weaknesses.
20:07That sense of being Burmese, of being Burman, and of being heir to Burmese history through
20:15your father, I think was very profound. I think people often underestimate and misunderstand
20:22the specifically Burmese quality.
20:26She's incredibly smart, and she uses her intelligence in every aspect of her work,
20:31but particularly politics. I think she's a good reader of people as well, which is helpful
20:36in a politician.
20:38The person I visited in, it must have been 2012, the beginning of 2012, was a person
20:45of, an inspirational person of great principle. It shone through what strong principles she
20:51had, how unyielding she was. I know that she'd spent so long under house arrest, and
20:57most people would have given up in that time, but she didn't give up.
21:02She was conscious of her own dignity, which is an important thing in Burmese culture.
21:09So it was all done, not in a sort of slapdash way, but in a very measured way, the way she
21:15spoke to people, whether she was speaking in English or, especially when she was speaking
21:19in Burmese. And people loved her for it. I think with all the support the NLD has had
21:25over the years, a lot of that is a product of the affection that ordinary Burmese feel
21:30for Sue, because she expresses something not just about herself, but about the country
21:34and about them. I think that's very important. She was reflecting back to them a sense of
21:39what it was to be Burmese.
21:42I think dealing with the deep state, and I know that's a controversial expression these
21:53days, but I think it's actually very real in Myanmar, as represented by the military
21:58and all the organs of state. So dealing with them, trying to bring about change in, say,
22:04civil service, for instance, that have been grown up over the decades to serve a military
22:09state, dealing with that, trying to get reform through that sort of system was just incredibly
22:15difficult. She was held up as this democracy icon and all that. But interestingly enough,
22:20as a person, she never wanted that sort of adulation. And she said to me, as she did
22:25to many other people, look, I'm a politician. I have to make compromises. I've got to do
22:30the best I can by the country, but I am not this sort of iconic figure that many people
22:36have built me up to be. Now, admittedly, at times she was able to use that to her advantage,
22:42but, boy, did it become her disadvantage later, when the sort of cancel culture first emerged
22:48with respect to her.
22:53The context of her position in power, in government, she actually had very limited power because
22:59of the constitution that the military had written in 2008, which, first of all, disbarred
23:05her from actually being president, because there was a clause that said that the president
23:12couldn't be married to a foreigner, and obviously that immediately, that was designed for her.
23:19The military also controlled, under the constitution, several key ministries, the Ministry of Home
23:25Affairs, Defence and Border Affairs. They controlled the military's budget, and they
23:29also had a proportion of seats in the parliament specifically reserved for the military.
23:36Becoming a politician ties your hands in many ways. I think a lot of people's expectations
23:42of what she should have been able to do straight away were quite unrealistic, really.
23:48I mean, there was a feeling among some people that the NLD government, and Sue in particular,
23:54should try and move faster to dismantle the power of the military. This is a really, really
23:59difficult thing to do.
24:01She was still seeing it as a negotiation, where she was trying to tease it towards a
24:08much more democratic form of government, but there was no doubt as to who was in control,
24:13and I think she saw that if she wasn't, to some extent, colluding with them, that she
24:21was likely to lose any kind of position at all.
24:24Sue's father had been the great hero of Burmese independence, a great military hero, and of
24:30course, her senior advisors were almost all former generals. But the fact that she was
24:35her father's daughter, and he was the founder, essentially, or the joint founder of the Burmese
24:40army, the modern Burmese army. Sue had also demonstrated in the NLD that the NLD was not
24:45itself anti-military, and this is something that Sue herself said to me repeatedly.
24:50We're not against the military, we aren't a strong military.
24:53Which meant that they could let the NLD have some say in certain aspects of domestic policy,
25:00but on the soft side. The key, hard defence and national security decisions, and the key
25:06decisions about the role of the army in politics, would be reserved to the army, and they thought
25:10that would do the trick. Sue agreed to this, which is why she then becomes a political figure.
25:19Looking back, whether the military intended it or not, that was part of the trap they
25:24had set for her.
25:25Myanmar has begun to blossom since the end of outright army rule in 2016, in 2011 rather.
25:32The government has since opened the country to international investment and launched
25:36sweeping reforms.
25:38While the military junta presented a willingness to help democratic reform in Myanmar, in parts
25:44of the country they were cracking down harder than ever on any dissent.
25:49The most visible victims were the Muslim Rohingya.
25:54The military with whom she was obliged to share power, that was the deal, embarked on
25:59a very vicious campaign to suppress dissidents in Arakan state, which is to the far west
26:08side of Burma, abutting Bangladesh. It's always been a place where there's a lot of turmoil,
26:16it has a very mixed population of Muslims and Buddhists. And the Muslim population is
26:21essentially called Rohingya, and the Burmese state has for a long time denied their right
26:28to citizenship.
26:30The military are interesting on this in that these are not sophisticated people in the
26:35ways of the world at all, but there's a certain rat cunning amongst the senior military leadership
26:41and a deep understanding, I think, of some of the pressure points of Burmese society
26:46so that they were able to use some inherent racism against Rohingya and some of the other
26:53minorities as well to deliver a certain degree of support for what they were doing.
27:04Gunshots pepper the air at the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Witnesses say it's
27:10the sound of Rohingya civilians being fired upon by Myanmar's military.
27:15The Associated Press news agency has released video. It says it confirms reports of a massacre
27:20of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
27:26What was happening to the Rohingya, the Muslim population of Myanmar, was shocking and more
27:34and more stories were coming out about mass killings, the destruction of villages and
27:39firing, burning of them, the mass rape of women. And we were hearing more and more evidence
27:45of this. And so there was a great deal of alarm and we were very concerned that this
27:50was happening while she was in partnership with the military.
27:54I would have meetings with her every couple of weeks. We would mostly talk about economics
27:59but of course the issues like the Rohingya and so on would come up. And I know absolutely
28:05for certain that she was horrified beyond measure of what was happening and sought desperately
28:11ways to try and bring it to an end.
28:13But the issue for me was always, would Sue have authorised a pogrom against the Rohingya?
28:20No, she would not. She wouldn't have launched a pogrom and she was not responsible for this.
28:24It was the army that did it. The issue then became, is Sue going to condemn this?
28:37It's very, very difficult to bring a case of genocide before the International Court
28:42of Justice. I mean the thresholds are very, very high. Genocide really has to be about
28:47the extermination of a people.
28:51When I heard she was actually going, I thought I'd misread the sentence. I thought I'd
28:57misread their statement.
28:58To everyone's amazement, she didn't do this just through lawyers. She turned up herself
29:05to be an advocate before that court, the International Court of Justice.
29:10You couldn't say with a straight face anymore that she was doing some complicated game or
29:16playing some game behind the scenes. No, she was their main defender at the Hague.
29:21Mr. President, it cannot be ruled out that disproportionate force was used by members
29:26of the defence services, in some cases in disregard of international humanitarian law,
29:33or that they did not distinguish clearly enough between ARSA fighters and civilians.
29:39There may also have been failures to prevent civilians from looting or destroying property
29:45after fighting or in abandoned villages. But these are determinations to be made in the
29:51due course of the criminal justice process, not by any individual in the Myanmar government.
29:59Please bear in mind this complex situation and the challenge to sovereignty and security
30:05in our country when you are assessing the intent of those who attempted to deal with the rebellion.
30:12Surely, under the circumstances, genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis.
30:18It felt like the embodiment of all the little betrayals that had happened up to that point,
30:23because those other things had been in isolated incidents or in just maybe not saying something
30:28when she could have spoken up or things like that. But, you know, it's in the flesh,
30:35it's in a room, it's in that Grand Hall of Justice and it's Aung San Suu Kyi denying,
30:42playing down, watering down crimes against humanity. It's shocking.
30:50So she was being asked to put herself in a position of direct opposition to the military,
30:54something which was very popular among segments of the Burmese population,
30:58knowing that whatever she said would not have an impact on the military's behaviour in Rakhine.
31:06I think my mother was painted in such a light over the Rohingya situation
31:12in that people thought that she was ignoring the plight of this Muslim minority in Burma,
31:18which wasn't the case at all. She was doing everything in her power to try and rectify the situation.
31:24And her chief advisor at the time was a Rakhine Muslim,
31:29who was assassinated with his grandchild in his arms at Rangoon Airport.
31:34A lot of these things are largely ignored, if not completely ignored,
31:39and everything that she was doing is not talked about.
31:43What is talked about is what she was not saying.
31:47And people wanted her to say things which, quite frankly, wouldn't have helped the situation at all.
31:54It would have only antagonised the military and made the situation worse for everybody.
32:05After Aung San Suu Kyi spoke at the Hague,
32:08many of those who had previously lauded her for championing democracy began to distance themselves.
32:15A serious blow to her credibility came when human rights group Amnesty International
32:22withdrew their Ambassador of Conscience award, something they had never done before or since.
32:29The Ambassador of Conscience is the highest Amnesty honour,
32:33and it's meant to inspire people to protect human rights, to support human rights,
32:38and to inspire others to take action for human rights change.
32:43And when it was awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi, she was still under house arrest, I believe,
32:49and she, at the time, really represented the hopes of Myanmar. There's no denying that.
32:55Her position on the Rohingya and the crackdown that was happening,
32:59which was led by the Myanmar military, was almost the opposite of that.
33:04She was becoming an apologist for human rights abusers.
33:08She was becoming a shield for the Myanmar military.
33:13And it would be almost impossible or untenable to have that kind of person
33:19be Amnesty's Ambassador of Conscience. It wouldn't make any sense.
33:22It would make a mockery of the award itself in the very term.
33:26The view grew in the West that Suu Kyi had left her principles behind by siding with the junta.
33:33But her actions elsewhere suggest it was a far more complicated path she was trying to tread.
33:42Well, I think we should certainly be careful to look at some of the things she did actually do
33:48in response to the Rohingya crisis.
33:50For example, she set up the Kofi Annan Commission to try to find solutions
33:55to the appalling situation in Rakhine State.
33:59And that's often overlooked by her critics, and we should remember that.
34:03And, of course, the Kofi Annan report came out offering some really credible ways forward,
34:09and then the whole situation with the Rohingyas escalated almost immediately.
34:15So I think there are things she did that we should remember and give her credit for.
34:21But, as I say, she made mistakes, not least defending the military and the Hague.
34:25I think that it's all too easy for us to have expectations which are too high.
34:32And the reality of dealing with those things on the ground is very, very difficult indeed.
34:37And what came through to some extent in her advocacy was a sense that she was defending
34:43and she has always defended the legacy that she felt her family had,
34:47and that she had because of her father, who was the great man of Burma.
34:52And he was the person who created this army.
34:55But somewhere in her being there is this business about preserving his legacy.
35:02But there's also a nationalism that isn't the sort of modern nationalism.
35:08We all feel a sense of national pride about the places we come from.
35:13But what we relish nowadays is civic nationalism,
35:17a nationalism that embraces minorities and new arrivals, new immigrants,
35:23and peoples who live within your society who may not be part of the mainstream.
35:28And that didn't happen in Burma.
35:31At the time when the Rohingya were at their lowest,
35:35like being killed in the thousands, being raped, having their houses burned down,
35:39she didn't say anything.
35:41She didn't rise to their defense.
35:44I know people have said that maybe my mother made some mistakes,
35:49and perhaps she did, but I don't think that there were that many options to talk to her.
35:56The way she was trying to do things was the least likely to result in the bloodshed that has now happened.
36:07And I think, obviously, over the Rohingya situation,
36:12my mother's name was no longer the shining beacon that it once was.
36:19What people internationally were saying, I'm sure they think, would have counted as progressive.
36:25But actually, if you want to have an impact, you have to make sure that the NLD, and Suu in particular, survive in government.
36:34And that's the thing that was at risk.
36:36The alternative to Suu wasn't a sudden outbreak of democratic feeling among the military.
36:41It was another military coup. It was always another military coup.
36:45And I think the fact that her friends internationally, and other supporters internationally,
36:51then drained away because of this, was a key factor in the military's decision to launch the coup in 2021.
37:01Because they thought they had Suu where they wanted her.
37:04Because her big asset was always the international support she commanded.
37:08If she doesn't command us any longer, we can ignore her. We can overthrow her.
37:12So, you know, I think it was actually a disgrace.
37:16And this is not, you know, the attacks on the Rohingya, the massacres of the Rohingya, the pogroms, were themselves a disgrace.
37:21But the way you deal with this is not to destroy the one democratic hope that Burma has, in my opinion.
37:28I think what she was trying to do was to make the military indebted to her,
37:34and to give her, and the civilian government more broadly, a certain leverage over the military.
37:41I think that was a miscalculation, you know, because I think the military were never going to allow any sort of leverage over their activities.
37:50And, of course, later events demonstrated precisely that.
37:53But, yeah, so my own view is that it was well-intentioned, but a well-intentioned political miscalculation.
38:12With her reputation on the international stage left in tatters,
38:17the generals saw a chance to remove her party, the NLD, from any power.
38:24While the world sat in Covid quarantine, the generals launched another coup.
38:31The day I was arrested was the 6th of February, five days after the coup itself.
38:42I was aware, even before I was arrested, that Aung San Suu Kyi and all the other ministers had been arrested.
38:48In fact, most of them had been picked up on the very first day of the coup.
38:52I'd been in a hotel in Yangon, quarantined because of Covid.
38:57I get an email from somebody saying that they were a staff member of the hotel,
39:01saying to me that the military had taken over the hotel, that it was time to get out.
39:08I was taken to a local police station for the first few hours, put in this dreadful cell,
39:14which, unfortunately, was sort of the preface for all the cells that would follow,
39:19in that it was, you know, decrepit and filthy and rat-infested
39:23and, you know, just about everything you can imagine that would horrify one about a cell.
39:27So I was taken to this police station, held there for a few hours.
39:31Then I was ultimately taken to the headquarters of the Special Investigation Unit,
39:37where I was put into this basically square box, where I was then held for the next two months
39:44and underwent interrogation in that room.
39:48A little bit of ill-treatment, not the sort of torture that my Burmese colleagues had meted out to them,
39:53but severe ill-treatment anyway.
39:57At one point they tried to set my hair on fire and other points was, you know, punched and things like that.
40:04But I never got the full measure that my Burmese colleagues did,
40:08which was to have electrodes attached to them and to be very severely beaten or anything like that.
40:13I think throughout that period I feared for my life.
40:16I didn't really fear that they would kill me,
40:19because I thought that the repercussions of that would be too severe even for them.
40:23But what I did fear was that the anxiety, the ill-treatment, the incredible heat,
40:28because of this room, this box was not air-conditioned, of course,
40:31and Rangoon is a very, very hot place.
40:34So I actually feared that my body would fail me.
40:36You know, I was 57 at the time. I feared I might just have a heart attack.
40:41Now, Myanmar's deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her Australian economic adviser Sean Turnell
40:46have been charged with violating the country's Official Secrets Act.
40:50The charges come almost eight weeks after the military seized power in a coup
40:54and as the junta continues a violent crackdown on opponents to the new regime.
40:59When the military staged a coup in February, it cited electoral fraud as its justification.
41:06Leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other top officials were detained
41:09and charged with offences ranging from breaching coronavirus rules to corruption.
41:15Now, nearly 10 months after the coup, the junta has added election fraud to the list.
41:20Many analysts say the junta's intention is to ensure she stays out of politics.
41:26I think if the military decides to release her, drop the charges or suspend the sentence
41:32or whatever distortion of the legal system they decide to do,
41:36it will be with assurances that she won't play a role in politics in Myanmar in the future.
41:42The last day I saw Aung San Suu Kyi was the final day of our trial, the day of conviction.
41:48And of course, being Myanmar under the military, there was no doubt that we would be convicted
41:53as soon as we were charged. You know, we knew a year later we'd be found guilty
41:58and that's exactly what happened. So that's the last day I saw her.
42:03The former leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was ousted from power in a military coup
42:08earlier this year, has been sentenced to four years in prison.
42:12A spokesman for the military-backed government said she was found guilty of inciting unrest
42:17and violating COVID restrictions during last year's election campaign.
42:21It's the first in a series of verdicts she's facing that could see her be sent to prison
42:26for the rest of her life.
42:28The prison cells that political prisoners are held in Myanmar are rudimentary,
42:34if not just plain terrible, quite frankly. They're usually built of concrete
42:41with no distinguishing features inside. They're usually painted white.
42:46The cells are completely open. Apart from the weather, they're completely open to other elements
42:51such as rats and spiders and centipedes and these awful black tarantulas.
42:57Political prisoners in Myanmar are held in their cells throughout the day.
43:01There's usually only two periods in the day that they're allowed out.
43:04So the cells are not conducive of any sort of comfort at all.
43:09They're really little more than animal pens.
43:12After 650 days behind bars, Australian professor Sean Turnell has been freed from a Myanmar prison.
43:18All of it does take a toll. You know, the physical deprivation, the constant anxiety,
43:24the fear, the incredible insecurity of not knowing when or if you're going to be released
43:31definitely takes a toll on you. And I think your morale just gradually reduces over time.
43:38It's a bit up and down, you know, different events during a particular day can help, etc.
43:45But I think there is a longer term trajectory downwards.
43:48I think life for Daw Su now must be incredibly difficult.
43:53She has a number of underlying health conditions that she has to deal with.
43:57The conditions that she's being held under are quite awful.
44:01And it's my understanding that her conditions have not really improved that much.
44:06So, you know, the physical surroundings in which she lives are not very conducive at all.
44:12She's 79 years old. I mentioned the health conditions.
44:16I think all those strengths and so on are with her still, and so she'll be getting through it.
44:22But I think they're the sort of conditions, the sort of situation that most people would buckle under quite quickly.
44:28So, you know, I worry about her. I think all of those people who know and love her worry terribly about her.
44:36Well, she is a political prisoner on trumped-up charges.
44:40Imprisoned by a military regime in what seemed to be very harsh circumstances in Naypyidaw at the moment.
44:47And we might disagree with things that she has said and done.
44:51But she has been the strongest force for democracy in Burma, in Myanmar, in a generation.
44:58And she is imprisoned because she was that force for democracy.
45:04Aung San Suu Kyi's fall was complete.
45:08The generals locking her away in confinement.
45:11The outside world barely registering her absence.
45:15The junta unfettered.
45:18It's also estimated that more than 2,600 people have been killed in the military's crackdown on dissent so far.
45:25Since last year's coup, the junta has deployed attack helicopters and fighter jets
45:30against armed rebels opposing its rule.
45:35Was her downfall a trap set by the military?
45:38Or was she the architect of her own political disgrace?
45:43Now that people no longer regard my mother as the icon they once did,
45:49there's no longer the light shining on Burma.
45:52So the military are able to get away with a lot more than they could in the past.
45:57It's hard to put into words how awful it is.
46:00Every day, people are arrested.
46:03Every day, fighter jets bomb schools, houses, monasteries.
46:09People cannot express themselves.
46:13People cannot protest.
46:15There are 20,000 people behind bars, 20,000 people.
46:19Myanmar has brought back the death penalty.
46:21They've executed four people.
46:24Myanmar has brought back the death penalty.
46:26They've executed four people.
46:28Something like 12 million schoolchildren have no access to education.
46:32The health care system, other systems have almost completely collapsed.
46:41After the military staged the coup, the Burmese populace basically came out in peaceful protest
46:50and were met with a complete, brutal crackdown.
46:56The military shot people in the streets.
46:59Eventually, the people realised that peaceful protest wasn't going to go anywhere at this point.
47:07So the country has been in full-on civil war for the last three years.
47:13And the people have been woefully ill-equipped and receiving no help from external sources.
47:24Whilst the military have had fighter jets and all sorts of other weaponry to train against their own people,
47:34and they're quite willing to do so.
47:37Failed state, we can throw around that word, but there's a full-blown civil war going on in several parts of the country.
47:44As I said before, it's a nightmare.
47:47I think maybe that part has been forgotten of how bad it is and how bad it is getting.
47:55I'm not exaggerating that there's someone arrested, killed, or someone who has to flee, abducted, beaten, tortured,
48:04almost every day in Myanmar today.
48:06It's no exaggeration.
48:10There were something like 20,000 political prisoners in jail, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi,
48:16and we should remember them as well as her.
48:19But on the other hand, there are also increasing reports that the military itself is under the most pressure it's been since the coup.
48:26The KNLE won't give us the exact numbers on the size of their fighting force.
48:32They want to keep the military junta in the dark.
48:35But they will say that their army has more than doubled since the start of this conflict,
48:40and they are training more all the time.
48:43There are signs here and there of the military actually losing ground,
48:48losing up to 15,000 defections from the army, something which never happened in the past.
48:55So it's clear that although the situation is extremely bleak, it's not ended.
49:02And there is the conceivable possibility that Suu Kyi might actually come out of there
49:08and still recognised by the vast majority of her people as their legitimate elected leader.
49:14But the conditions under which she's been held and insane and wherever she is now have been very punishing, I think.
49:22And, you know, she's ageing, as we all are.
49:25She will, at some point, disappear from the scene.
49:31Is that the end of the NLD? No, I don't think it is.
49:33The NLD will transform into something else. You can't get rid of the idea.
49:38Maybe it does feel sometimes like Myanmar has been forgotten.
49:42And I guess that the answer to that, or at least what Amnesty says, is accountability.
49:50So what we can't forget is the people who are responsible for this crisis.
49:56The person who is in charge now, Min Aung Hlaing, was the same person in charge during the Rohingya crisis.
50:01Nothing's happened to him, other than global condemnation, calls for investigations.
50:07But you can't allow someone to trample on human rights and then be surprised when they do it all over again.
50:13You won't do it through a military dictatorship.
50:18You can keep these things suppressed for a while, but they will recrudesce, they will come back.
50:23And the end result is just endless suffering for people,
50:28and the destruction of people's aspirations, both personal and political.
50:32And I think that's a great tragedy.
50:39A woman the world rejected.
50:42The treatment of Suu Kyi had seen her cause barely register with those outside of Myanmar.
50:50Is this ailing fighter for democracy now a victim of cancelled culture?
50:57Or does she deserve her fall from grace?
51:01I think she has been cancelled, and she was cancelled before that term.
51:06Cancel and cancelled culture became what it is now, something one hears every day.
51:12I think her ardent supporters are her ardent supporters, and not much has changed.
51:17And it's undeniable she still has a lot of support, and she's still revered by many, many Myanmar people.
51:24But I think it's really like, just to go back to the Rohingya again, I mean, they were her supporters as well.
51:32And so it's really those people that she let down.
51:39Her journey is a complicated one, and I would say that we should neither demonize nor idolize her.
51:47She is, on balance, a truly courageous, remarkable person who fought with extraordinary persistence and determination for her country's democracy.
51:58On the one hand, she's criticized very understandably for not speaking up for human rights, not defending those minorities, not trying to prevent a genocide.
52:09But on the other hand, she was trying to deal with a military, and she had really no power to actually stop what was happening.
52:19I think it's possible to be critical of that, but also say, we should be campaigning for her release.
52:24She is not a non-person, and we might suspend judgment on our view of her in history.
52:33But nevertheless, this is a person utterly unjustly treated by a military dictatorship, and so we should not forget her.
52:45I think she's still a great figure, because I think that to her people, and just now we're seeing people being crushed.
52:53We saw many people, those young people who took to the streets and who demonstrated and who were moaned down, many killed, many thrown in prison.
53:02I mean, what has been happening, and we don't get enough news of this from Myanmar, is shocking.
53:09And there's no doubt that for the people who took to the streets against the takeover, the coup by the military, they believe in her still.
53:19I still see her as being a vitally important figure in the business of building democracy in very difficult places.
53:26And I think that, like all of us, she's flawed, but by God, her strength of character in many ways is the thing that she'll be known for, and that we should relish in her.
53:41She always thought of herself as a politician, negotiating difficult issues and trying to find difficult compromises.
53:49I mean, she did this, some of it well, some of it not so well, but that's the nature of politics.
53:53And I think a lot of people outside seem to have fallen for the view that she was indeed a secular saint, and therefore she deserved this sort of condemnation
54:03for failing to meet the exalted standards that they had set for her, without actually thinking about whether any of these standards were real or achievable.
54:13And I think that's, for me, the biggest betrayal.
54:18Meanwhile, her country suffers under the most brutal regime.
54:23To many, she's the last flame of hope, albeit barely flickering, with the junta wanting her snuffed out.
54:35Well, her legacy remains to be seen. This is a continuing story. There are twists and turns all the way.
54:46For her to be set free, I think the revolution needs to be won, basically.
54:54If you had a message to the military today, if they were listening, if they were watching, what would you say?
55:03To hand power back to the people, to step down and stop brutalising their own people.
55:09I've lived with this for so many years. You learn to keep on hoping, and eventually things do change.
55:18Change is inevitable, one way or another. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.
55:38To be continued...
56:08To be continued...