Carleton University Honours Aung San Suu Kyi

22 February 2011: Canada’s Carleton University is to award an honorary doctorate to Burma’s pro-deomocracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at a special ceremony to be held in the campus today.

A Doctor of Laws honoris causa will be awarded in absentia in a ceremony where the Hon. Flora MacDonald, a former Conservative MP who has devoted her post-political career to international humanitarian work and has met Aung San Suu Kyi, will give a key speech.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent most of the last 20 years in some form of detention because of her efforts to bring democracy to the military-ruled nation, has become an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the Asian country formerly known as Burma, a statement by the University noted.

Burma’s 66-year-old democratic icon was finally released on 13 November 2010 after another set of elections that left the military-backed parties in control.

Aung San Suu Kyi has won numerous international awards, including the Rafto Human Rights Prize (1990), the Nobel Peace Prize (1991), the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought (1990) from the European Parliament and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000).

She was also awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for her promotion of international understanding, goodwill and friendship among peoples of the world by the government of India.

In 2007, the Canadian government made her an honorary Canadian citizen, one of only five people to ever receive the honour.

She is the author of several books, including Freedom from Fear and Other Writings (1995), The Voice of Hope (1998), Letters From Burma (1998), Aung San of Burma: A Biological Portrait by His Daughter (1991) and Burma’s Revolution of the Spirit: The Struggle for Democratic Freedom and Dignity (1994).

She was born in June 1945 in Rangoon. Her father, General Aung San, negotiated Burma’s independence from the British Empire in 1947 but was assassinated by his rivals that same year. After living abroad for many years, Ms. Suu Kyi returned to Burma in 1988 to care for her critically ill mother and helped found the National League of Democracy to focus the revolt against then-dictator General Ne Win.

Carleton University is a comprehensive university located in Canada’s capital of Ottawa, Ontario.

Van Biak Thang
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