Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi ready to shun non-violence

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Myanmar's opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi could alter her policy of non-violence. She gave this indication while speaking from a secret location in Yangon to a select audience at a BBC studio in central London on Monday afternoon.

Responding to a question, Suu Kyi said just as Nelson Mandela had changed his stance on political unrest, "it's possible" she might change her long-standing commitment to non-violence.

Expanding on her new position, she added: "I have said in the lectures I do not hold to non-violence for moral reasons but practical and political reasons.'' She described Mahatma Gandhi as the father of non-violence and noted that he had said that between cowardice and violence, he would choose violence any time.

BBC clandestinely recorded Suu Kyi's two lectures. The first of these was played out to a private gathering and will be broadcast on June 28.

She said widespread availability of internet-based technology in the Arab world – which is not the case in Myanmar – had been a crucial factor in the success of uprisings in the region.

Suu Kyi said the Myanmarese people wished to emulate success of Arab democratic movements. "The similarities between Tunisia and Burma are the similarities that bind people all over the world who yearn for freedom."

She said her defiance of Myanmar's military junta by making her broadcasts amounted to "exercising my right to freedom of communication". The National League for Democracy, under her leadership, won elections in 1990, but the junta annulled the outcome. Suu Kyi has either been under detention or some other form of restriction ever since.
 
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