Suu Kyi appeals to the world to free Burma

London, June 18 (ANI): Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who celebrates her 65th birthday on Saturday, has made a desperate appeal to the world to use their liberty to help her country gain independence from military rule.

"I want to repeat and echo her own words - 'Please use your liberty to promote ours'. I want to add more to it. Please bring more and more liberty to us, to our country, Burma. We are starving for it and we are waiting for someone or some institutions or some countries to bring it to us," The Independent quoted Suu Kyi's friend and senior political ally U Win Tin, as saying.

Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was forced to shut down after it decided it could not participate in an election due later this year when she and over 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars or under house arrest.

Despite being under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years, Suu Kyi has been permitted occasional meetings with diplomats and lawyers.

The Burmese military junta has claimed that this year's elections will mark a crucial staging point in Burma's journey to full democracy. It is a claim that has been met with scepticism and derision by most independent observers.

Former British Prime Minster Gordon Brown has said that till the time Suu Kyi is not free, one cannot talk about a free world.

"As long as [Mr Mandela's] dream of universal education and eradicating poverty is unrealised, then there is no justice. It is our duty, whatever position we are in, to fight for Aung San Suu Kyi to be free, and democracy to prevail," the Independent quoted Brown as saying.

Experts are of the opinion that despite the junta's efforts to isolate her, she remains the sole person who could perhaps unite Burma. (ANI)