Suu Kyi says ready to lead Myanmar to democracy

LONDON/OXFORD, England (Reuters) - Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi announced in Britain on Tuesday that she was prepared to take the helm as the leader of her people, the strongest signal yet she saw herself as someone who could lead her country one day.

Myanmar's then-ruling junta freed the Oxford-educated Nobel Peace Prize laureate from house arrest in 2010, ushering in a period of reform and enabling her to travel abroad for the first time in decades.

Asked by the BBC if she was prepared to lead her people, given the prospect of national elections in 2015, Suu Kyi replied: "If I can lead them in the right way, yes."

Even so, any bid for Myanmar's presidency looks unlikely, since it would require changing a junta-drafted constitution designed to protect the country's still-powerful military.

Now a symbol of non-violent political resistance, Suu Kyi, 67, left her two sons and husband in Britain in 1988 to nurse her dying mother in Myanmar, where she was swept up in pro-democracy protests that the military brutally crushed.

She languished under house arrest for much of the next two decades, unable to spend much time with her sons or be with her husband before he died of cancer in 1999.

She was released in November 2010 after an election that installed President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government - ending nearly 50 years of military rule - which has launched a series of dramatic reforms.

These included holding by-elections in April in which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 43 seats in Myanmar's fledgling parliament.

While Thein Sein, a former general, announced on Tuesday a "second wave" of reforms, Suu Kyi was hailed as a hero on her visit in Britain as part of a broader European tour.

Given star treatment on her 67th birthday on Tuesday, she received a standing ovation when she addressed a packed auditorium at the London School of Economics at the start of her emotional comeback to Britain.

"It's all of you and people like you that have given me the strength to continue," she said, to whoops and cheers from the audience. "And I suppose I do have a stubborn streak in me."

She then travelled to the city of Oxford, where she read politics, philosophy and economics in the 1960s and lived for many years with her husband, the late academic Michael Aris, and her two sons: Kim, now 35, and Alexander, 39.

"Welcome back! Welcome back!" chanted a crowd of about 200 activists and residents who gathered in central Oxford for a glimpse of Suu Kyi as her motorcade glided through the medieval alleys of Britain's oldest university town.

STRIPPED OF CITIZENSHIP

Peter Khin Tun, 54, a doctor who fled Myanmar 18 years ago, said: "We are very proud of her. I feel very close to her. That's why I came here. She is true to herself. Nowadays it's very rare to see someone with a sincere heart."

While in Oxford, Suu Kyi was expected to meet her sons and other family members, some of whom she had never met, in a private reunion - a moment certain to be both joyful and painful for a woman who refused to leave Myanmar for decades for fear that its military leaders would not let her back in.

"I missed them (her sons), and they missed me, but as I said, when I looked at the lives of my colleagues it was much worse," she told Britain's Sky News.

"I don't justify it, I think that everybody must accept responsibility for what they do. I accept responsibility for what I did and what I am, and so must my sons."

Myanmar's constitution, which was ratified after a heavily rigged referendum in 2008, reserves a quarter of parliamentary seats for military personnel chosen by the armed forces chief.

It also disqualifies presidential candidates with spouses or children who are citizens of a foreign country. Alexander and Kim became British after the military junta stripped them of Myanmar citizenship in 1989.

Constitutional amendments require the support of 75 percent of parliament, including at least some military delegates, which even Suu Kyi will struggle to get.

"Do we think it can be amended? Yes, we think so, because we think that it's possible to work together with the military to make them understand why we think that this constitution will not move us in a positive direction," she said in London.

Suu Kyi's age - she will be 70 in 2015 - and uncertain health might also make a leadership bid untenable. She collapsed with exhaustion at least twice during her election campaign in March, and was sick again while touring Europe.

On Wednesday, she was due to be presented with an honorary degree by Oxford University and to address the Oxford Union debating society. On Thursday, she is due back in London to address both houses of parliament, a rare honor.

Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, the assassinated leader of Myanmar's struggle for independence from British rule.

In her London speech, Suu Kyi spoke about the importance of the rule of law in Myanmar.

"The reason why I've emphasized the rule of law so much in my political work is because this is what we all need if we are to really proceed towards democracy," said Suu Kyi, who was sworn into Myanmar's parliament last month.

"Unless people see that justice is done and seen to be done, we cannot believe in genuine reform."

(Additional reporting by Avril Ormsby and Mo Abbas in London, and Andrew R.C. Marshall in Bangkok; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Robert Birsel)

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