No change

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi does not share the quiet optimism of international observers that Myanmar, also known as Burma, is undergoing a period of transition.

"The problem is that people are filled with the desire for change, they want to believe there is change even though in fact there hasn’t been any real change yet," she told an audience in Berlin.

However, a lot has happened over the past six months. Myanmar citizens went to the polls last fall for the first time in over two decades. Parliament met for the first time in January and the junta was officially disbanded at the end of March.

Just for show

And life for Aung San Suu Kyi herself has also improved. After years in detention, she was finally released from house arrest last winter. She now has Internet access, can give interviews and has become fully engaged in the pro-democracy movement once again.

But she thinks the military’s overtures toward democracy are just for show. "Until political prisoners are released and until they are all allowed to take part in the political process of the country, I do not think that we can call it real change."

Aung San Suu Kyi spoke on Tuesday via a telephone line from Yangon to a group of students and journalists in Berlin. She had expressly requested an audience with international students about the situation in her country and that is how this unusual podium debate came about.

After some secretive behind-the-scenes organization, for fear the Burmese secret services would try to disturb the proceedings, Suu Kyi was connected to Berlin’s Hertie School of Governance. The debate was hosted and recorded by Deutsche Welle TV.

The 65-year-old activist said that she had set her hopes on young, educated and politically-engaged people, pointing out that students were the ones fighting for change not only in the Arab world but in Myanmar too.

"This is one of the greatest changes I’ve seen since my release from house arrest," she said. "Seven years ago, the young people in Burma were not so interested in politics but now they are much more - partly because they are frustrated and partly because they are beginning to see that they have got to bring about the change themselves. They are much more self-reliant."

Sanctions should be kept up

Suu Kyi recently reiterated her call for sanctions against Myanmar to be maintained as she is convinced that international pressure on the military regime needs to be kept up. For her, the sanctions do more good than harm to her country as they affect those who are in power more than those who are subjected to the regime.

"When you ask people in Burma what they think the greatest problems are they always say inflation, the prices, the cost of living. So it is the day-to-day problems that matter most to them. The cost of living, the lack of employment and these have nothing to do with sanctions."

Suu Kyi's line is not shared by everybody in Myanmar’s opposition movement, which is split into several factions.

However, as she told her audience in Berlin, the network of people working for democracy is growing – and many people together can create one thing – a strong Burmese society.

Author: Adrienne Woltersdorf / act
Editor: Ziphora Robina