Recalling a Birthday Marked in Silence

Today, Myanmar people congratulate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as she turns 75. To mark the occasion, The Irrawaddy revisits this commentary published on her birthday in 2008, at which time Myanmar?s then pro-democracy leader was under house arrest, as she had been for 13 of the previous 19 years. The dramatic changes that have occurred since then seem only to confirm Irrawaddy English editor Kyaw Zwa Moe?s observation in the article?published less than a month after the military regime extended her detention?that the fate of Myanmar and the woman who was then its most famous prisoner of conscience are inextricably intertwined.