WA Post Editorial on Dr. Michael Ar

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Subject: WA Post Editorial on Dr. Michael Aris


The Washington Post, March 29, 1999 

Michael Aris 

      EVERY NOW and then a single, sad event can pierce the fog of
everyday distractions and illuminate, for all
      of us, the true nature of something or someone that has been in
plain sight all along. Such a moment is
      provided by the untimely death Saturday of Michael Aris, 53, an
honorable and respected Oxford University
      professor of Tibetan studies. The instructive event was the
refusal by Burma's dictators to provide a visa
      to Mr. Aris to visit his wife before he died. What is illuminated
is the heartlessness, the sheer brutal
      stupidity, of that nation's military rulers. 

      Of course, for the 48 million people who have the misfortune to
be ruled by Burma's junta, as well as for
      their friends around the world, this is not a revelation. Any
number of people could testify to the evil of
      the regime: the families of students shot dead for taking part in
peaceful demonstrations; the admirers of
      the Belgian honorary consul who died in jail for the crime of
owning a facsimile machine; the thousands of
      political prisoners who have suffered, or suffer today, in the
notorious Insein Prison; the tens of thousands
      of innocent peasants who have been pressed into slave labor. 

      But the names of most of those victims, both unwitting and
courageously witting, never will be known to
      most of us. We do know, however, the name of Aung San Suu Kyi,
Mr. Aris's wife -- widow, now -- and the
      rightful ruler of Burma. She and Mr. Aris met as students at
Oxford long ago; they raised two sons, both
      now in their twenties; they held fast to a loving marriage
against long odds. As devoted a wife and mother
      as she was, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, felt she
owed more to her country and the cause of
      democracy, and her husband supported her in that to the end. 

      Her National League for Democracy overwhelmingly won a
parliamentary election in 1990, even though
      Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest at that time. The

generals refused to honor the people's will,
      and they have kept Aung San Suu Kyi more or less locked up ever
since. Their fondest wish is for her to
      leave the country, because they fear her integrity and
popularity, but she will not give them that
      satisfaction. So they punished her by refusing to allow her
husband or sons to visit her. 

      When Mr. Aris knew he was dying of cancer, he asked once more for
a visa, without publicity, without any
      wish to cause embarrassment or score political points. He simply
wished to see his wife, from whom he
      had been barred for three years, one more time. Even this, the
thugs who have turned all of Burma into a
      prison would not allow. And so he died without having seen her.
"I feel so fortunate to have had such a
      wonderful husband, who has always given me the understanding I
needed," Aung San Suu Kyi said in a
      statement devoid of politics. "Nothing can take that away from
me." 

      Through their corruption and repressiveness, Burma's rulers have
isolated themselves from the world.
      Only a few profit-seekers -- Unocal of the United States, Total
of France, arms merchants of China and
      Singapore, drug dealers throughout the world -- engage in
commerce with them. This latest act of
      inhumanity will reinforce the dictators' pariah status and, one
can hope, hasten their demise.