Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi told an LSE audience that fairness and freedom can only be restored to her country under the rule of law.
Speaking on her first visit to the UK for 24 years, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said that unity in Burma and a new constitution could only be achieved within a legal framework. “This is what we all need - unless we see that justice is to be done, we cannot proceed to genuine democracy”, she told an audience of students, staff and visitors.
She said that she condemned violence wherever it occurred, but that a full understanding of its causes was key: “Resolving conflict is not about condemnation, it’s about finding the roots, the causes of that conflict and how they can be resolved in the best way possible.”
The leader of the National League of Democracy in Burma, who has spent much of her life under house arrest on the orders of the country’s military rulers, was speaking as part of a round-table discussion at LSE featuring academic and legal experts.
LSE Director Judith Rees reminded listeners that the event was taking place on Aung San Suu Kyi’s 67th birthday and that everyone wanted to celebrate that she was able to enjoy the day in freedom.
Professor Rees said: “Your trip to the UK will go down in history and I’m sure that it’s an emotional trip for you.”
She also invited the crowd to sing Happy Birthday, adding: “It’s a tribute not just to you but to all those who have campaigned for freedom in Burma.”
Alex Peters-Day, General Secretary of LSE’s Students’ Union, presented the guest with a surprise present - a photograph of her late father taken in London in 1947 - and with an LSE baseball cap, a traditional gift for visiting leaders.
The panel discussion also involved LSE professors Mary Kaldor and Christine Chinkin, Burmese activist and visiting fellow Dr Maung Zarni, Oxford professor Nicola Lacey and barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice QC.
Professor Kaldor ended the event by passing on a question from a student who’d asked Aung San Suu Kyi how she had found her strength to continue her campaigning. She answered: “It’s all of you, and people like you, who give me the strength to continue. And I suppose I have a stubborn streak in me.”
Speaker(s): Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor Nicola Lacey, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, Dr Maung Zarni
Recorded on 19 June 2012 in Peacock Theatre, Portugal Street.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is Chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Member of Parliament of Kawhmu constituency in Burma. She was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991.
Christine Chinkin, FBA, is currently Professor in International Law at the London School of Economics. She has widely published on issues of international human rights law, law, including as co-author of The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis.
Nicola Lacey holds a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College, and is Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory at the University of Oxford, having previously held a chair at the London School of Economics. Nicola’s research is in criminal law and criminal justice, with a particular focus on comparative and historical scholarship. In 2011 she won the Hans Sigrist Prize for scholarship on the rule of law in modern societies.
Sir Geoffrey Nice QC is a barrister; he is a signatory of Harvard’s Crimes in Burma report. Sir Geoffrey is a member of Burma Justice Committee and works with NGO's and other groups seeking international recognition of crimes committed in conflicts; represents government and similar interests at the ICC.
A Burmese native, Dr Zarni is a veteran founder of the Free Burma Coalition, one of the Internet's first and largest human rights campaigns and a Visiting Fellow at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, LSE. His forthcoming book, provisionally titled Life under the Boot: 50-years of Military Dictatorship in Burma, will be published by Yale University Press.
Mary Kaldor is professor of Global Governance in the Department of International Development and Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at LSE. She writes on globalisation, international relations and humanitarian intervention, global civil society and global governance, as well as what she calls New Wars.
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