Interviews with Khin Ohmar

Well, Daw Aung Saw Suu Kyi is still the leader of our movement, both inside and outside the country and across diaspora – the majority, I would say. If she is released by the regime like today, if she gets onto the street tomorrow, the whole country will follow. No matter what ethnic groups, no matter from what class.

Even that element within the military regime – and they are supportive pillars – will follow Daw Aung Saw Suu Kyi. It has happened before, and I believe it will happen again. And that is the only and primary reason why this regime continues to keep her confined in this house arrest.

So her leadership is [in] no doubt and is not questionable. She didn’t have to make it up to that. It’s just for being who she is. And the people see that in her. And people follow her for what she’s able to do and how she’s able to lead.

So there are people who say this may be a disadvantage for the movement, because she’s been targeted all the time. But my question then is, “If she is not there, what is it going to be for the movement? If she’s not there, where the Burmese democracy movement right now, all along with the ethnic movement?”

In 1988, when tens of thousands of us on the street confronted this military regime, and [were] even, you know, shot and killed, the whole world didn’t really know much of it. But only when Daw Aung Saw Suu Kyi, came into the picture of our democracy movement, the whole world come to know about the cause of Burma. And she has been, not only domestically among the people, but she’s been able to organize, I guess[BJF1] . I think I will say she’s been able to bring the people inside and outside the country and across the globe.

Not behind her, but it’s actually behind democracy. It’s not about Daw Aung Saw Suu Kyi. And it’s not about her personal charisma. It’s about democracy and how we believe in democracy and how we want to achieve democracy and how we want to live in a democratic society, how we long for freedom. And I think that is what she represents. And that is why people are behind her, not only in the country but also outside.

Khin Ohmar is a Burmese democracy activist who lives and works in Mae Sot, Thailand. She is a leader of the Women’s League of Burma, the main umbrella organization for women’s organizations in exile and inside Burma.

Khin has served as a spokesperson for the Burmese democracy movement in the United Nations General Assembly and in other international forums. She also serves as coordinator of the Burma Partnership, a regional coalition of civil society groups supporting democracy in Burma, and she is an organizer of the ASEAN civil society and human rights consultation processes.

Admitted to the United States as a refugee after being persecuted for her participation in the 1988 student demonstrations, Khin became a United States citizen and worked for refugee and human rights organizations in Washington, D.C., before moving back to the Thai-Burma border area in the late 1990s.