2012-05-29
The Burmese opposition leader leaves the country for the first time in more than two decades.
Aung San Suu Kyi leaves the Bangkok airport after arriving in Thailand from Rangoon, May 29, 2012.
Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in Thailand on Tuesday on her first foreign trip in 24 years, during which she will attend international economic talks and visit Burmese refugees and migrants.
The pro-democracy icon’s trip to Bangkok, where she will address the World Economic Forum’s meeting on East Asia on Friday, marks a new step in her political career since her release from house arrest in 2010.
The 66-year-old Nobel laureate, who is expected to meet with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra,, had spent the majority of the past two decades under house arrest in Rangoon during the rule of Burma’s former military junta.
During the brief periods when she was free, she had refused to travel abroad for fear of being refused reentry to her homeland by the generals who considered her a threat to their grip on power.
But following reforms undertaken since Burma’s new, nominally civilian government came to power last year, Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads the opposition National League for Democracy, contested and won a seat in parliament in a landmark vote in April.
