Ten years of freedom end: myanmar's tarnished heroine sees dark days return

A decade ago, there was such hope. In the dusk of a cool November evening in 2010, Myanmar's feared military dropped the barricades on University Avenue that had separated Aung San Suu

Kyi from her people for so long. As The Guardian reported the elation then: > In _longyis_ and sandals, Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters ran the 400 > yards to the front gate of her 

home. One woman, a portrait of "The > Lady" pinned to her shirt, wept as she ran, calling out her name. > They pushed against the ancient, sagging bamboo fence, singing and

> chanting, "long live Aung San Suu Kyi". Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest was greeted with similar rapture around the world. Prime ministers and presidents

hailed her liberty as the dawn of a new democratic era in her nation, so long under the ruthless jackboot of an uncompromising military junta. The daughter of the Father of the Nation –

General Aung San, who had founded the _tatmadaw_ and helped win his country its independence - had become, through the confinement of 15 years of house arrest out of 21, an icon of peaceful

democratic resistance. Throughout her detention, Aung San Suu Kyi was unimpeachable. Lauded with prizes - the Nobel, the Sakharov, the US presidential medal of freedom – she represented

grace and dignity in the face of brutal repression. But in the decade since her release, Aung San Suu Kyi transitioned from democratic icon to working politician, and fell hard from her

pedestal. Her demise, in the west's eyes, was slow, before it was swift. The 2015 election saw her National League for Democracy win resoundingly. Unable to become president (because

her children, with late academic Michael Aris, are foreign nationals), she became instead state counsellor and foreign minister, the country's de facto leader. But the deals she needed

to make with a military that still – by dint of the country's new constitution - controlled 25% of parliamentary seats as well the government's key ministries, meant she was

fundamentally weakened. The promised economic liberalisation was meek and cronyistic, and the longed-for development for the country's poorest never came. Concerns grew that her

acquiescence brought legitimacy to a regime still controlled by those in uniform, and which remained deeply undemocratic. But most glaring was her unwillingness or inability to condemn the

atrocities of the military her father founded, as it waged a genocide against the Rohingya minority in the country's west – torching villages, raping and murdering those who could not

escape over the border into Bangladesh. The world called on Aung San Suu Kyi to defend the most marginalised, the most oppressed in the nation she led. Instead of defence, there was

dissemblance. "The situation in Rakhine state is complex and not easy to fathom," she told the international court of justice in the Hague, saying allegations of genocide were an

"incomplete and misleading factual picture of the situation". Aung San Suu Kyi is, and has always been, a Burmese nationalist, her concept of nation deeply bound up in ethnic

identity. The plight of Myanmar's multifarious ethnic minorities (not just the Rohingya) has always been her blind spot. The daughter of the country's greatest nationalist hero, it

is a core tenet of her personal and political philosophy. But while she has fallen unceremoniously in the eyes of the international community, she remains adored in Myanmar. In elections in

November last year, her party performed even better than it did in 2015, securing her another five years in power. Yet the military has refused to accept the result, and seized power on

Monday, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and many other leading figures from the ruling party. It alleges the election was undermied by fraud – a claim observers say has little credence. In

Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi's detention by the army will be seen as a return to the dark days of oppressive military rule. The army announced it will take control of the country for a

full year, and introduced a state of emergency. Phone lines and mobile internet was cut in many areas. Given Aung San Suu Kyi's status as a national icon, the army's actions could

easily backfire, said David Mathieson, an independent Myanmar analyst. "I don't think [the military] can count on the inaction of a lot of people around the country," he said.

"You've got a generation who grew up with her in house arrest, and a younger generation who grew up with her being free, and really supporting her," he said. "And there

are a lot of people in ethnic states who can't stand her, or [her] party – but hate the military," he added. Around the world, despite Aung San Suu Kyi's irreparably tarnished

reputation, the military seizing control has been met with universal and vociferous condemnation. Inside the country, there is a deep sense of uncertainty. "The doors just opened to a

very different future," author and historian Thant Myint-U wrote. "I have a sinking feeling that no one will really be able to control what comes next. And remember Myanmar's

a country awash in weapons, with deep divisions across ethnic & religious lines, where millions can barely feed themselves."