The world demands freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi – and her people

‘The Lady’ of Myanmar is a flawed champion of democracy, but a champion nonetheless

The reduction in her sentence of detention from 33 years to 27 is hardly likely to appease her supporters inside or outside her country (EPA)

Kim Aris, the youngest son of Aung San Suu Kyi, spoke to The Independent about his mother: “She is a courageous symbol of freedom and democracy still shining brightly in a dark regime. The world awaits and must demand freedom and justice for her.”

The world should respond to his call, and reject the pretended clemency of the military junta in Myanmar, which announced that Suu Kyi has been pardoned for five of the 19 offences of which she had supposedly been found guilty.

The reduction in her sentence of detention from 33 years to 27 is hardly likely to appease her supporters inside or outside her country, so it is hard to fathom the motive behind it. But whatever the reasons for it, the international community must ignore what Mr Aris rightly calls “political games”, and increase the pressure on the military dictatorship which put an end to the country’s imperfect but precious democracy two years ago.

Suu Kyi is a champion of democracy, but her claim to modern liberal sainthood – she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 – had always been complicated by her status as a hereditary leader, the daughter of General Aung San, the founder of the nation who was assassinated in 1947. But the hereditary principle coexists with democracy in many countries, including Britain, where ministers govern in His Majesty’s name, and the United States, which at one point seemed likely to alternate presidents called Bush and Clinton for a quarter of a century.

More significantly, Suu Kyi disappointed many of those who had such high hopes for her soon after she won the election in 2015 that put an end to half a century of military rule. She denied the seriousness of the persecution of the Rohingya minority, which continued under her government and which continued to force hundreds of thousands to flee, mostly to Bangladesh.

Yet she held a candle of hope for freedom and democracy for a long time and remains a brave symbol against tyranny. Often just called “The Lady”, she remains hugely popular in Myanmar. Her life story of suffering for a cause, often imprisoned or under house arrest, unable to see her sons for long periods, unable to see her husband before he died in 1999, inspired millions. Her non-violent campaign against military rule, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, raised her moral standing to impossible heights before it was brought down in her complicity with the ethnic persecution of the Rohingya, although her admirers point out that all dealings in dictatorships can lead to distortions and regrettable errors.

Derek Mitchell, former US ambassador to Myanmar, once said: “We have to be mindful that we shouldn’t endow people with some iconic image beyond which is human.” We have to remember that the noblest principles must be fought for and implemented by mere human beings. This is a lesson to bear in mind in the adulation of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president fighting a just war against Vladimir Putin’s aggression. He may not always meet the idealised standards set for him.

Yet it is only through such imperfect moral leaders that progress is made and freedom extended and defended. The world should rally to the defence of Suu Kyi, but above all to the defence of the principles of freedom and democracy for which she stands, as an imperfect symbol of courage against adversity.