Landmark birthday for San Suu Kyi

Burma pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 65th birthday today locked in her dilapidated lakeside compound as global calls for her freedom erupted at rallies and prayer vigils around the world.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate plans to celebrate by providing lunch for the three dozen construction workers helping to renovate her crumbling two-story mansion, said her lawyer Nyan Win.

Ms Suu Kyi cannot attend a birthday party planned in her honour at the suburban Rangoon home of a fellow opposition party official.

Ms Suu Kyi has now spent 15 birthdays in detention over the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest. Global condemnation over her imprisonment failed to change the military junta’s harsh attacks on all dissent or soften their stance on Ms Suu Kyi, whose charisma and popularity remained intact despite her long confinement.

“It is very sad that she cannot celebrate her birthday in freedom,” said Nyan Win.

Members of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy opposition party are planting 20,000 trees around the country, mostly on the grounds of Buddhist monasteries, to mark the occasion and they will offer meals to monks as part of prayers for her release, he said.

Ahead of historic elections planned for later this year, Ms Suu Kyi remains the biggest threat to the ruling junta which has been in power since 1962.

The upcoming elections will be the first in two decades. Ms Suu Kyi’s party overwhelmingly won the last election in 1990, but was never allowed to take power.

Under new election laws, Ms Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are effectively barred from taking part in the polls.