Aung San Suu Kyi became recognised and greatly admired internationally as an icon of courage and defiance, surpassed only by Nelson Mandela. Her father was the premier of Burma (now Myanmar) and successfully negotiated its independence from Britain in 1947 but was assassinated shortly after when Aung San Suu Kyi was only two years old.

In 1962, the military staged a coup and Burma remained under military rule for the next 50 years. Aung San Suu Kyi rose to prominence in 1988 when she formed the National League for Democracy (NLD) and mobilised popular resistance against the oppression by the military rulers. Aided by strident demands from the international community, this forced the military junta to hold an election in 1990 in which the NLD won more than 80 per cent of the seats in Parliament.

The military rulers refused to accept the results of the election and continued to rule the country for another 20 years. Another election was held in 2010 but was boycotted by the NLD in protest against the rigged arrangements that had been put in place. A minor political party backed by the military claimed victory but the junta would remain in effective control for five more years.

Between 1989 and 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi was kept in prison or under house arrest for a cumulative period of 15 years. Several world leaders and international organisations, including the United Nations, made incessant calls for her release. She received awards and honours from several countries as well as the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her steadfastness in defence of freedom and democracy in Myanmar.

As international sanctions piled up, the military rulers were forced to hold an election in 2015 which was won overwhelmingly by the NLD. A constitutional provision inserted by the military rulers barred her from becoming president on the grounds that she had been married to a foreigner even though her husband, a British citizen who was born in Cuba, had died in 1999, but she was effectively the head of the first real civilian government in more than 50 years. However, the constitutional framework within which this election was held placed the military outside of civilian control and vested in it considerable power.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s stewardship at the helm of government disappointed many in the international community. The brutal repression against the Rohingya Muslim minority in which thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee to Bangladesh was carried out by the military but her vehement defence of it stained her reputation. The curtailment of press freedom and the harassment and jailing of journalists, which she also defended, painted a portrait of an Aung San Suu Kyi that could hardly be recognised.

The astonishment and anger in the international community was palpable. Several cities, countries and international organisations that had conferred honours on her revoked them. Petitions were launched for her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize to be rescinded. Bishop Desmond Tutu, one of her most strident supporters, declared in a letter to her: “For years I had a photograph of you on my desk. You symbolised righteousness. That high esteem has been tarnished by the acceleration of what some have called ethnic cleansing and others a slow genocide. If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.” An icon of freedom, equality, justice and democracy had sold out.

Despite all the international support that she commanded but perhaps because of her age, Aung San Suu Kyi opted to settle for the limited space that the military rulers were prepared to concede her. Mindful of her fall from international grace and inconvenienced by her presence, the military repudiated the results of the 2020 election which the NDL again won by a landslide. Shortly after, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested on what can only be regarded as spurious charges. This past week she was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on two of those charges with several others pending.

The international community, in response, has imposed new sanctions but the widespread indignation and outrage that her persecution would normally evoke has not been forthcoming. She should have paid closer attention to Nelson Mandela’s struggle. On several occasions, South African President PW Botha offered to release him from prison but with conditions that Mandela considered would be a betrayal of his cause. Mandela refused to bow, rejected them and remained in prison.

Had Aung San Suu Kyi consulted Desmond Tutu, his advice would surely have been forthcoming and the situation in Myanmar today might well have been different.

— Bruce Golding served as Jamaica’s eighth prime minister from September 11, 2007 to October 23, 2011.