Free Aung San Suu Kyi

The military junta that runs Myanmar has sought to silence its leading critic by holding her under house arrest for 13 of the last 19 years. Yet the longer Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention, the more powerful she becomes.

The generals first locked her away in 1990, but if they believed she would fade from view, they were badly mistaken. The next year, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. When a reporter visited in 1996, thousands of Burmese were still flocking to her house on weekends to catch a glimpse of her. When protests swept the country in 2007, the Buddhist monks who led the marches pointedly linked their cause to hers by directing the crowds past her house.

How can a lone 63-year-old woman hidden away in an increasingly dilapidated lakefront villa remain such a potent symbol? It’s partly her pedigree: She is the daughter of Aung San, a hero of Burmese independence who was assassinated when she was a baby. It’s partly her story: She returned to her native country in 1988 to nurse her ailing mother after nearly three decades living abroad, and within months emerged as its leading opposition figure.

More important, though, are her quiet dignity and endurance, and the enormous sacrifices she has made for her cause. Among other things, she has been separated for long periods from her two sons and was denied permission to see her husband, British scholar Michael Aris, during the three years before he died.

Other than the generals themselves, it’s hard to imagine anyone who doesn’t look forward to the day when Suu Kyi is released. That’s why it was so disturbing when she was put on trial this week for violating the terms of her house arrest.

The charges stem from a bizarre incident earlier this month in which a 53-year-old American man swam across Inya Lake and appeared, uninvited, in Suu Kyi’s garden. He was asked to leave, but when he complained of exhaustion, he was permitted to stay overnight. While swimming away the next day, he was arrested. The government appears to be using the incident as a pretext for extending Suu Kyi’s house arrest, which expires in a few days; at the moment, however, she is being held on the grounds of Insein Prison, facing a possible five-year prison term.

Our position on all this seems so obvious that it shouldn’t need repeating: Suu Kyi should never have been under house arrest in the first place for her courageous activism on behalf of democracy. She should never have been required to choose between her principles and her freedom, much less her family.

Now the generals are trumping up new charges to silence her again. How long can this go on? What will it take before they realize that this tactic will not work, just as it hasn’t worked for the last 19 years?