Today, I begin a series of the inspirational women of the 20th century. This story first appeared in the NY Times April 12, 2012.

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the leading pro-democracy opposition leader in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, one of the world’s most isolated and repressive nations.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi spent most of the past two decades under detention after her party, the National League for Democracy, won an overwhelming victory in the 1990 elections but was denied power by the military junta, which has ruled since 1962. She was released from house arrest on Nov. 13, 2010.
Since taking office in March 2011, Myanmar’s new president, U Thein Sein, a former general, has signaled a sharp break from the highly centralized and erratic policies of the past. His government has freed a number of political prisoners and taken steps to liberalize the state-controlled economy. It has also made overtures to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi.
A year after her release, the new government proposed amendments to the electoral laws that would include lifting a ban that prevented “convicts” from joining political parties.
In January 2012, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi announced that she would run for a seat in the country’s parliamentary election in April 2012, in which her party, the National League for Democracy, would enter the new political structure for the first time.
After weeks of campaigning in Myanmar’s extreme heat, during which she suffered bouts of ill health, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi — and her party, the National League for Democracy — emerged victorious. 
On April 2, her party announced that it had won nearly every seat in the closely watched by-elections, a startling result that showed strong support for the opposition even among government employees and soldiers.
Her party’s apparent landslide added to the enormous symbolism of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s own election to Parliament after 15 years of house arrest and the violent suppression of her supporters. After her win, she was ebullient and spoke of the “beginning of a new era” in a brief address to a tightly packed crowd outside her party’s headquarters.
This is the first time Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi will hold public office. But despite her global prominence, she will be joining a Parliament that is still overwhelmingly controlled by the military-backed ruling party.
From Dissident to Politician
During her campaign for Parliament, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi transformed herself from dissident to stump politician. 
It is difficult to overstate her popularity in Myanmar. During campaign trips across the country for her party, she received a rock-star greeting. A gathering of her supporters in Mandalay in March resembled a political Woodstock, with tens of thousands of people clogging the streets for hours to greet her motorcade and cramming themselves into a field where she spoke.
Yet by inserting herself into the cut and thrust of Burmese politics, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is placing some of her hard-fought prestige on the line.
Increasingly she is being asked to propose solutions to her country’s woes rather than merely lamenting them. Being elected to Parliament will be a nuts-and-bolts test of whether she can help bring prosperity to a constituency that gets its water by pulling buckets out of a well
Myanmar’s economic prospects today are uncertain. Poverty is jarringly endemic, especially in rural areas. Years of mismanagement by a corrupt and inept military leadership have left Myanmar without a functioning banking and finance system.
By entering politics at this delicate stage, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is imparting legitimacy on a government run by the same generals, now retired, whom she battled against for two decades. If the reform process currently under way in Myanmar falters, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi may be held partly responsible, analysts say.Myanmar state media published the final list of winners of the election, confirming that the opposition party led by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi won 43 seats in Parliament, while the ruling party and a smaller ethnic-based party won one seat each.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the United States would name its first ambassador to the country since 1990 and that a mission from the Agency for International Development would begin coordinating American assistance for programs in democracy building and health. Restrictions on operations by non-governmental organizations are also to be lifted.
A Meeting With the U.S. Secretary of State
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s announcement of her intention to rejoin the political system came shortly after President Obama disclosed that he was sending Mrs. Clinton on a visit to Myanmar in December 2011, the first by a secretary of state in more than 50 years.
On Dec. 1, Mrs. Clinton met separately with the country’s new president, U Thein Sein, and then with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, underscoring the Obama administration’s cautious efforts to nurture a thaw in relations between the countries. In each meeting, Mrs. Clinton delivered a letter from President Obama, expressing support for the democratization of Myanmar.
On Dec. 2, Mrs. Clinton again met with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi; both meetings took place at the lakeside residence where Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi spent much of the last two decades under house arrest. Appearing with Mrs. Clinton on the porch of the house, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi endorsed the new American engagement with the country’s autocratic government and called on other countries, including China, to support Myanmar’s nascent efforts to build a freer, more open society and economy.
That these two women met at all — and appeared together before international and local journalists — was itself a measure of the changes that have swept Myanmar, since Mr. Thein Sein took office in March. 
Mrs. Clinton said that the United States would loosen some restrictions on international financial assistance and development programs in Myanmar, in response to a nascent political and economic opening in the country. The U.S. and Myanmar also agreed to discuss upgrading diplomatic relations — which were suspended for two decades — and exchanging ambassadors, a step that could transform American diplomacy in Southeast Asia.
Dissolution of Her Party
The junta had experimented with lifting her house arrest in 2002, but detained her again a year later after ecstatic crowds gathered to cheer
for her wherever she went. In August 2009 she was convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest after a bizarre event in which an American man swam across a lake and spent at least one night on the grounds of her home. All told, she has spent 15 of the last 21 years in confinement.
In November 2010, Myanmar’s main military-backed party won an overwhelming victory in the first election in 20 years, in a vote that was carefully engineered by the military to assure its continued grip on power. The election was widely seen as an attempt to legitimize military rule behind a mask of civilian government, after a half century of unambiguous military rule. But Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the>National League for Democracy, declined to take part, saying campaign rules were undemocratic and unfair, and her party was officially dissolved.
After her release in the same month, she said that she intended to lead what she calls a nonviolent revolution, rather than an incremental evolution. She said her use of the term “revolution” was justified because, “I think of evolution as imperceptible change, very, very slowly, and I think of revolution as significant change. I say this because we are in need of significant change.”
But she said that unlike some of her supporters in the West, she did not see regime change as a goal. “What we want is value change,” she said. “Regime change can be temporary, but value change is a long-term business. We want the values in our country to be changed. We want a sound foundation for change. Even if there’s regime change, if these basic values have not changed, then one regime change can lead to another regime change and so on and so on.
Since her release, she had met twice with representatives of the new government, who delivered uncharacteristically conciliatory overtures toward her in the local media. If the government is treading softly with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 66, it is partly because of the potential leverage she holds in convincing Western nations to drop economic sanctions against the country.
On Aug. 19, 2011, she was invited to meet President Thein Sein of Myanmar. During the meeting, which lasted about an hour, Ms. Aung San
Suu Kyi and the president  held “frank and friendly discussions” to “find ways and means of cooperation,” according to the state-run broadcast.
Freedom From House Arrest
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was freed on Nov. 13, 2010, just six days after an election engineered by the military to give it control over a civilian Parliament and government. Though the military will still hold power, there will be new political institutions and new officeholders who could alter the dynamics of her interactions with the government.
Her lawyers said she had been released without conditions, but it remained unclear what role the government expected her to play, what long-term limits it intended to set on her activities or whether it intended to open a dialogue with her.
She said she would be willing to meet with anybody, even the leader of the junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
On Nov. 23, 2010, she was reunited with her youngest son, Kim Aris, after a decade-long separation during which she said she never felt that they had been apart. The decision to grant him a visa was a symbolic gesture of leniency by the junta.
She positioned her movement as an active opposition to the military leaders. But she has taken pains not to be confrontational, leaving open the possibility of a new relationship with the generals who had imprisoned her.
In arranging for her release, the military had asked her to agree not to leave Yangon and not to give public speeches. When she refused, she was asked at least to wait awhile before speaking. She refused again and proceeded with her address.
In what seemed a gesture of conciliation, the main government newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, reported her release in positive terms, saying that she had been granted a pardon because of good behavior and that the police “stand ready to give her whatever help she needs.”
It said she was being treated with leniency because she is the daughter of the nation’s founding hero, U Aung San, a general who was assassinated in 1947, and “viewing that peace, tranquillity and stability will prevail and that no malice be held against each other.”
A Trespassing Incident

On Aug. 11, 2009, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest and sentenced to three years of hard labor, but her sentence was commuted to a new term under house arrest of up to 18 months.
The trial resulted from a May 5 incident, when an American man, John >William Yettaw, swam across a lake to her home.  Her lawyer said Mr. Yettaw told her he was a Mormon and prayed extensively while he was in her house. Her arrest came two weeks before the statutory expiration of her most recent six-year detention and many analysts saw it as a legal ploy to allow the junta to extend her confinement.
Her lawyers said she did not report the intrusion or make Mr. Yettaw leave immediately because he complained of cramps and because she did not want him or the security officers who guard her house to get in trouble.
Mr. Yettaw was convicted of illegally entering a restricted zone and breaking immigration laws, and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Background
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced awng san sue chee, with each
syllable equally stressed) is the daughter of General Aung San, the nation’s independence hero, who was assassinated by political rivals on July 19, 1947. She became caught up in the pro-democracy movement in 1988, when she returned home from Britain to nurse her dying mother. Myanmar was then in the midst of protests against years of eccentric autocracy under General U NeWin.
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent campaign for democracy, remains the symbol of the hope for those opposed to the junta, and apparently of the junta’s fears as well. When the country’s revered Buddhist monks joined protests over rising prices in the fall of 2007, the military allowed them to proceed — untilone of the processions led to her home and she came to her gate to greet them. A brutal crackdown swiftly followed.