Page 3723 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
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Nobel Peace Prize
MR HUMPHRIES (9.38): Prompted by Mr Collaery's comments, I feel compelled to rise and record my party's congratulations to Ms Aung San Suu Kyi as well, on the basis of her winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. Clearly, the benefit that that particular award brings to Burma is to remind the world that Burma is still facing a very sustained period of military rule. The reminder that this provides to the world that Burma remains one of the isolated places in the world which have not yet experienced the winds of change the rest of the world is now enjoying is, I think, very timely.
The world saw elections there two years ago, thus providing the chance that Burma would leave the very closed society that had been characteristic since the end of British rule at the end of the Second World War. That hope was dashed by military takeover following that election and the detention of Aung San for two years since that election. I sincerely hope, as my colleague Mr Collaery indicated, that we will see very soon a change of heart on the part of the Burmese Government and, in fact, that we will see, as a result of this award, a greater recognition of the role that people like Aung San have played in bringing Burma into the modern world.
As a woman, she deserves congratulations for being able to lead a fight of the kind that she has led, even from the effective barrier of a prison, in raising the profile of her country's plight and attempting to lead it in a way which is not characteristic, necessarily, of that society. It is one where women are not necessarily seen as people who have the same rights as men, although I could not fail to observe that she comes from a part of the world where women leaders are not uncommon. Nonetheless, it is a great achievement for her, and on behalf of my colleagues here in the Assembly I extend our congratulations also on her award of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nobel Peace Prize : Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
MR STEFANIAK (9.40): Like my colleagues Mr Collaery and Mr Humphries, I express my congratulations on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to this dedicated freedom fighter. I note my friend Mr Humphries' comments in relation to the winds of change not yet having touched Burma. There are a few other places in the world where that is still true, I suppose. China still has a repressive regime. Yugoslavia still has a repressive communist regime trying to enforce its rule on the various states there. We are seeing a lot of bloodshed there at present in the Croatian republic.
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