Protests likely to fall on deaf ears
For the woman known affectionately as “The Lady”, her birthday will likely pass like any other of her latest, two-year-old house arrest, during which the regime has allowed her daily basics such as vegetables and little else.
Suu Kyi may be able to hear of the protests on a short-wave radio, but few expect the global calls for her release to sway the country’s reclusive generals, who have shown themselves impervious to international demands, even in the face of crippling US and European sanctions.
Turning 60 is an important birthday in strongly Buddhist Burma, marking the completion of a fifth cycle through the traditional calendar based on 12-year periods.
But her friends and relatives said the junta was unlikely to allow Buddhist monks to her rambling lakeside home in Yangon for religious ceremonies, something it had at times permitted in the past.
Her National League for Democracy alliance scored a landslide victory in 1990 elections but was never allowed to take office.
Suu Kyi’s latest incarceration began in May 2003.
