Suu Kyi falls ill during Mandalay rally

Sunday, 04 March 2012 14:53 Mizzima News  ...

Mandalay (Mizzima) – Saying she felt dizzy and tired, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi stopped her speech on Saturday here before the biggest crowd yet in her campaign to win a seat in Parliament.
National League for democracy officials said Suu Kyi experienced motion sickness on the flight from Rangoon to Mandalay, and, while speaking, she told the huge crowd before her that when people surged against each other it made her dizzy.

The New York Times quoted her saying, “I would like to tell you frankly that I’m feeling weak today and my speaking capacity is reduced. I’m going to take some rest.”

A short while later, she left the venue to rest in her hotel room. “She is feeling better now. She's taking a rest,” Nge Nge, a physician and aide told The Associated Press.

The 66-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate has conducted a tiring, steady campaign across the country during the past two weeks, traveling to the far south and into the western ethnic regions. Her campaign trips have seen huge crowds line the roads, forcing her miles-long caravan to take up to four or five hours to travel short distances. Tens of thousands of cheering supporters clogged the roads starting at Mandalay's airport, slowing her convoy to a crawl until she arrived at an open field where tens of thousands of people awaited her.

“I haven't see such a huge crowd since 1988!” he told the crowd. That year Burma’s military regime brutally cracked down on democracy activists, starting a period of severe repression that included the death and jailing of many civilian activists.

“The road ahead is rough and tough,” Suu Kyi told the crowd in the open field on the outskirts of Burma’s second largest city. "Democracy is hard to achieve and even if it is obtained, it will not be easy to sustain. We all have to work hard.”

The Voice of America quoted her saying:

“It is difficult to achieve democracy. And after we achieve democracy, it is hard to maintain. We have to do a lot of work, and we have to take things slowly.”

Nge Nge said Suu Kyi was scheduled to speak at another rally near Mandalay on Sunday.

Recently, NLD officials have complained that the Burmese authorities had denied it permission to speak at appropriate venues in several cities. In the first week of February, she abandoned plans to speak in Mandalay after authorities failed to approve her use of a football stadium. The same problems arouse in other cities, said NLD officials, who held a press conference last week to discuss the issue.

“We're not happy with the way in which our right to campaign freely is restricted in some areas,” Suu Kyi said his week. “Not in too many areas, but still I would hesitate to say that everything is going smoothly and everything is in line with the basic principles of democratic elections.”

A free and fair April 1 by-election is a condition for the removal of more sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union.

http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/6694-suu-kyi-falls-ill-during-mandalay-rally.html