The Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in the midst of her first visit to the United States in more than three decades. After spending 15 years under house arrest, Suu Kyi was recently elected to parliament and allowed to travel abroad as part of the ruling Burmese junta’s efforts to ease its global isolation. Speaking in Washington, Suu Kyi called for an easing of sanctions on Burma.
Aung San Suu Kyi: “In the last years of military rule, United States sanctions were blamed for all the economic ills of Burma, not just the economic ills, but other ills, as well, and there is great eagerness for these sanctions to be removed. On my part, I do not think that we need to cling on to sanctions unnecessarily, because I want our people to be responsible for their own destiny.”