Suu Kyi received the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding by the government of India and the International Simón Bolívar Prize from the government of Venezuela. In 2007, the Government of Canada made her an honorary citizen of that country,[12] the fourth person ever to receive the honour.[13] In 2011, she was awarded the Wallenberg Medal.[14] On 19 September 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi was also presented with theCongressional Gold Medal, which is, along with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States.[15]
On 1 April 2012, her party, the National League for Democracy, announced that she was elected to the Pyithu Hluttaw, the lower house of theBurmese parliament, representing the constituency of Kawhmu;[16] her party also won 43 of the 45 vacant seats in the lower house.[17] The election results were confirmed by the official electoral commission the following day.[18]
On 6 June 2013, Suu Kyi announced on the World Economic Forum’s website that she wants to run for the presidency in Myanmar's 2015 elections.[19]
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A family portrait, with Aung San Suu Kyi (in white) as a toddler, taken in 1947, shortly before her father's assassination.
Aung San Suu Kyi derives her name from three relatives: "Aung San" from her father, "Suu" from her paternal grandmother, and "Kyi" from her mother Khin Kyi.[20] She is frequently called Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Daw is not part of her name, but is an honorific, similar to madame, for older, revered women, literally meaning "aunt."[21] She is also often referred to as Daw Suu by the Burmese (or Amay Suu, lit. "Mother Suu," by some followers),[22][23] or "Aunty Suu", and as Dr. Suu Kyi,[24] Ms. Suu Kyi, or Miss Suu Kyi by the foreign media. However, like other Burmese, she has no surname (see Burmese names).
Aung San Suu Kyi was born on 19 June 1945 in Rangoon (now named Yangon).[25] Her father, Aung San, founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burma's independence from the British Empire in 1947; he was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. She grew up with her mother,Khin Kyi, and two brothers, Aung San Lin and Aung San Oo, in Rangoon. Aung San Lin died at the age of eight, when he drowned in an ornamental lake on the grounds of the house.[20] Her elder brother emigrated to San Diego, California, becoming a United States citizen.[20] After Aung San Lin's death, the family moved to a house by Inya Lake where Suu Kyi met people of very different backgrounds, political views and religions.[26] She was educated in Methodist English High School (now Basic Education High School No. 1 Dagon) for much of her childhood in Burma, where she was noted as having a talent for learning languages.[27] She is a Theravada Buddhist.
Aung San Suu Kyi's return to Burma in 1988, the long-time military leader of Burma and head of the ruling party, General Ne Win, stepped down. Mass demonstrations for democracy followed that event on 8 August 1988 (8–8–88, a day seen as auspicious), which were violently suppressed in what came to be known as the 8888 Uprising. On 26 August 1988, she addressed half a million people at a mass rally in front of theShwedagon Pagoda in the capital, calling for a democratic government.[25] However in September, a new military junta took power.
Influenced[38] by both Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence[39][40] and more specifically by Buddhist concepts,[41] Aung San Suu Kyi entered politics to work for democratisation, helped found the National League for Democracy on 27 September 1988,[42] but was put under house arrest on 20 July 1989. Offered freedom if she left the country, she refused.
One of her most famous speeches was Freedom From Fear, which began: "It is not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."[43]
She also believes fear spurs many world leaders to lose sight of their purpose. "Government leaders are amazing", she once said. "So often it seems they are the last to know what the people want."[44]
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