Yangon (dpa) – Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate who was detained for 15 years by Myanmar's military junta, is evoking military connections in her campaign for parliament on April 1. Many people in Myanmar and the international community are looking to Suu Kyi as the country's big hope as it frees itself from decades of dictatorship, but the specter of a man in uniform has essentially become her running mate. “I was born into an army family,” she proudly told thousands at a campaign event in the eastern Shan State. “I am the daughter of general Aung San, father of independence.” Suu Kyi's picture appears alongside her father's on billboards, stickers and T-shirts. Larger-than-life portraits welcome visitors to the offices of the National League for Democracy in her election district, Kawhmu, about 90 minutes drive south-west of Yangon. “We are going to vote for her because she is the daughter of Aung San,” Thet Kay Ya said while reading a newspaper in village tearoom. Aung San has been dead nearly 64 years, assassinated by political rivals in July 1947 at the age of 32. The dashing general led the fight against British colonial rulers, and he would have become the first president six months after independence in January 1948 if he had survived. He is celebrated as one of the nation's greatest heroes. “We did not know Suu Kyi when she came back to Burma in 1988,” Yangon bookshop owner Myint Kyu said, referring to the start of her political career. “She had spent many years abroad.” Myint Kyu is currently looking for everything he can find about the family for his shop. Selling such books had been taboo for decades until a civilian, albeit pro-military government, took office a year ago. Suu Kyi came back to her homeland in 1988 to care for her sick mother as mass protests against the junta's mismanagement of the country broke out. She became an opposition leader and cited her father as her inspiration. “I could not as my father's daughter remain indifferent to all that was going on,” she said. “This national crisis could in fact be called the second struggle for national independence.” Suu Kyi proved a dilemma for the generals as she became the resistance's icon. The rulers tried to wipe the general and his daughter from collective memory. His likeness vanished from bank notes, and she was put under house arrest. “The opposite happened,” Myint Kyu said. “We still hung portraits of the general on our walls, and when Big Brother questioned us, we would say he is our national hero. Of course, we also secretly honored his daughter with those portraits.” Suu Kyi has begun an ambitious project for what would have been the 100th birthday of her father. A three-hour documentary is planned for a premiere on February 13, 2015. “They can try to erase the image of the general from everywhere but not from the hearts of the Myanmar people,” director Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi said. “He showed us how to fight, how to endure, what freedom tastes like.” The film is expected to cost 30 million dollars. US billionaire George Soros has reportedly promised to finance the project. If Suu Kyi wins a parliament seat on April 1, as expected, she will have to move out from the patriarch's shadow. “We don't mind that she is sailing on her father's coattails now,” Myint Kyu said. “But in one or two months, we will want to hear what she can do for our future.” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/wBUr1 Tags: Campaign, featured, Myanmar, Suu Kyi Section: Features, Latest News, Southeast Asia
