Aung San Suu Kyi accepts Nobel peace prize
Peter Beaumont in Oslo Saturday 16 June 2012 Burmese pro-democracy leader says prize, awarded in 1991, helped shatter her sense of isolation during house arrest
Aung San Suu Kyi delivers her acceptance speech during the Nobel peace prize ceremony in Oslo. Photograph: Daniel Sannum-Lauten/AFP/Getty Images
In an event hailed as the "most remarkable in the entire history of the Nobel prizes", Aung San Suu Kyi,
the Burmese democracy campaigner, delivered her acceptance speech for
her peace prize in Oslo's vast City Hall more than two decades after it
was awarded.
Given the prize in 1991 – but by then under house arrest by Burma's military junta – it was left to her two sons, Alexander and Kim, to travel toNorway to
receive the peace prize that year. Able to travel freely after 21
years, Aung San Suu Kyi stood in front of a packed hall, in which
Norwegian dignitaries rubbed shoulders with Buddhist monks in saffron
robes and Burmese guests in traditional costumes, to deliver her
long-delayed acceptance speech in a moment of high emotion.
