Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi walked out of her home to rapturous cheers from thousands of supporters today after the country's military rulers released her from seven years of house arrest.
"People must work in unison. Only then can we achieve our goal," the Nobel Peace Prize-winner said, smiling as she clenched the tops of red-iron gates bordering her crumbling lakeside mansion in Rangoon, her hair pinned with flowers.
Ms Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention due to her opposition to 48 years of military rule in Burma, which was renamed Myanmar by the junta.
She had her house arrest extended last August, when a court found she had broken a law protecting the state against "subversive elements" by allowing an American intruder to stay at her home for two nights.
Her release gives Burmese democracy activists a powerful voice just days after a widely criticised election and will rekindle debate over Western sanctions on the resource-rich country of 50 million people.
After speaking to supporters, some of whom handed her flowers, Ms Suu Kyi returned inside her home for the first meeting with her National League for Democracy party in seven years.
Supporters had gathered near her lakeside house throughout the day. As the crowd swelled, riot police armed with guns and tear gas ordered the increasingly vocal and anxious supporters to move back from the barricades.
There was also no official comment on her release from the ruling military junta.
World leaders applauded her release, expressed relief and urged the military junta in the former Burma to free more of its estimated 2,100 political prisoners.
Freeing Ms Suu Kyi (65) is seen as the latest effort by the government to gain international legitimacy, coming after Burma held its first elections in 20 years last Sunday. Eighty per cent of the seats were won by the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party.
The vote was widely seen as rigged to make sure the junta won the poll by a landslide. The largest opposition party, the National Democratic Force, said the government parties had introduced “advance votes” which rendered any gains the opposition made null and void. The second largest party, the Democratic Party, also conceded defeat.
Ms Suu Kyi probably poses no threat to the political system now given that the elections have just taken place, although she had vowed not to accept a conditional release if it excludes her from political activity, and has said she will not give up her struggle.
Ms Suu Kyi was first detained in 1989 and freed in 1995. She was detained again in 2000, released in 2002 and detained again in 2003 after she and some supporters were attacked by a gang on a trip to the provinces.
She was given an extra 18 months for allowing a US intruder to stay at her home for two nights last year. The man, John Yettaw, swam across a lake to her home to warn Ms Suu Kyi that “terrorists” would try to kill her, and God had sent him to save her.
Born in 1945, Ms Suu Kyi is the daughter of Burma’s independence hero Gen Aung San. She was educated at Oxford and returned to Burma in 1988, taking part in the revolt against the then dictator, Ne Win. A year later the junta declared martial law and she was placed under house arrest.
The move was also welcomed by Amnesty International secretary general Salil Shetty.
“While Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s release is certainly welcome, it only marks the end of an unfair sentence that was illegally extended, and is by no means a concession on the part of the authorities,” he said.
“The fact remains that authorities should never have arrested her or the many other prisoners of conscience in Burma in the first place, locking them out of the political process," he said, adding that it was now important the authorities ensured her security and “put an end to the ongoing injustice of political imprisonment in the country”.