THE heroine of Burmese democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, said yesterday she believed the Burmese people and her opposition party were stronger than before her arrest six years ago.
She rejected suggestions that time, political repression and economic growth had dampened demands for democracy in a country the Army had run for three decades.
'I am really very happy about the situation; in many ways the people are stronger - quieter but stronger.
'Perhaps because you are stronger inside you can afford to be quieter outside,' she said, pointing out that most Burmese were allowed only limited ways to express their aspirations.
And Ms Aung San Suu Kyi did not think the Burmese people might settle for economic growth rather than democracy.
'Economic growth [in the last six years] has not really reached the whole country. It has reached only a privileged elite and I do not think that has in any way changed the people's feelings.' She flatly refused to reveal her strategy or timetable, saying: 'Do you really expect me to lay all my cards on the table?' However, she did say that despite the depredations of the military, the hard-core members of her National League for Democracy - which won 80 per cent of the vote in the aborted 1990 general election - were in fine form.
Before and after that election the military arrested, expelled or forced into exile nearly all of the first and second rank leadership of the party. Yet, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi said: 'I'm very pleased with the situation at the NLD . . . it's sorted out the sheep from the goats - they are better and stronger and slimmer for it.
