Aung San Suu Kyi's honour for her independence hero father

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday addressed a crowd of thousands in the biggest celebrations honouring her independence hero father in memory, underscoring her legacy months before momentous elections.

In scenes reminiscent of her triumphant election campaign three years ago, Suu Kyi addressed a huge crowd in her father's central Myanmar birthplace, with many supporters waving her party flag or portraits of Aung San as an earnest young revolutionary in a military cap.

"If we want to inherit from my father, we have to build a real democratic nation," said an emotional Suu Kyi, adding that his "sincerity" had ensured his legacy endured.

Known affectionately as "Bogyoke", or General, Aung San is adored in Myanmar and credited with unshackling the country from British colonial rule and embracing its ethnic minorities in a vision of unity that unravelled catastrophically in the military-dominated decades that followed his assassination.

Suu Kyi was just two years old when her father died in 1947.

Yesterday's rally is the centrepiece of countrywide celebrations far more extensive than in previous years.