‘Burmese' in metro Atlanta react to political prisoner's release

When political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi was released from captivity Saturday in Myanmar, Myat Aung, hearing the news in her Duluth home, smiled with hope for her native land.

Aung was a fourth-grader waving a banner during the pro-democracy protests that swept that southeast Asian country in 1988. Now 31 and working in advertising, she saw the dissident's release as a positive sign for her relatives and the 50 million who live there amid oppression and poverty.

"She is the face of our hope," Aung said. "Her release brings a new era of hope."

But Aung hardly has great expectations for the place she still calls Burma, refusing to accept the name as changed by the military government. Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Ong San Soo Chee) has spent more than 15 of the past 21 years in prison or detained in her lakeside home. The government has let her go before, only to rearrest her as her popularity soared.

If anything, Aung is happy for the release of a woman who has sacrificed so much for her people. Though she doubts the country's ruling generals will allow Suu Kyi to oppose them for long.

Several thousand Burmese refugees, fleeing political oppression, live in metro Atlanta, making this among the country's top resettlement areas for those seeking freedom in the U.S., said John Arnold, World Relief of Atlanta's resettlement director. Many of them settle in the DeKalb communities of Clarkston and Stone Mountain and work in the state's plentiful poultry factories. Churches have adopted them. Some Burmese have started their own Buddhist temples. They join in soccer tournaments around town, and commemorate Suu Kyi's birthday by staying inside their homes to honor her house arrest.

Back home, Aung Lwin learned to love freedom as a faraway dream; here in Atlanta he has come to live that dream.

Lwin was an angry 25-year-old throwing rocks during the 1988 protests. He recalled government soldiers confronted people and "started shooting everywhere." Here in Atlanta, when he and other Burmese wanted to oppose Myanmar's crackdown on monks seeking democracy, the group protested in Atlanta's Freedom Park beside the tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.

Lwin and his wife stayed up late Friday checking and woke early to learn the good news. Now, he said he is happy, but still angry.

"She was a victim. She should never have been arrested," said Lwin, 46, a transportation agent living in Austell.

He fears for her safety.

"I don't think she will just shut her mouth," he said. "People will be fighting for freedom. Maybe peacefully, maybe by force."

Morris Mang, who left Myanmar fearing he was to be jailed for his politics, said he hopes her release will draw the eyes of the world. Suu Kyi is considered among the most famous political prisoners in the world, and he believes it is only when the U.S. and other world leaders apply pressure that life there will change.

"Everyone should be free," said Mang, 40, of Clarkston. "We are born to be free."

Burmese in metro Atlanta have a strong bond with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate some 9,000 miles away. They call her "The Lady" and speak proudly of her defiance of soldiers aiming rifles at her while leading a march in 1989. They sympathize that her husband was refused permission to visit her before he died of prostate cancer. And they've made her a national hero akin to South Africa's Nelson Mandela for her efforts to deliver democracy.

"She cares more about the people and the movement than her own life," Aung said.

Aung said she plans to celebrate the release with Lwin and other Burmese friends. They'll talk about what might happen in that country. She'll bring up her hopes that the government will open talks with Suu Kyi and her followers.