Aung San Suu Kyi is 65 today

From Doug Bandow:

Nobel laureate and Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi turned 65 today. She has spent 15 of the last 21 years in prison or under house arrest. There is no end to her, or her nation's, agony in sight.

Burma, renamed Myanmar by the junta, won its independence after World War II. But popular independence leader Gen. Aung San -- Suu Kyi's father -- was assassinated and the new government failed to provide political autonomy to Burma's many ethnic groups, triggering a war which continues to this day.

The military seized power in 1962. Since then only the names of the men wearing the stars have changed. Democracy protests broke out in August 1988 and were put down with massive force; between 3,000 and 6,000 demonstrators were killed. The junta then called a relatively free election in 1990, which Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won in a landslide. The military voided the results and launched a political war against the NLD, jailing Suu Kyi and many of her followers. Periodic protests, such as in Rangoon in 2007, were suppressed brutally.