It seemed unthinkable — almost a wild, impossible dream. To speak with Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize winner, just days after her release from 15 years of incarceration in 2010, felt beyond reach.
I had grown up reading about Suu Kyi and her father, Aung San, assassinated at a young age. As a journalist, I pursued every fragment of information about her until that pursuit turned into a quiet obsession. “I must interview Suu Kyi,” I told my then executive editor, Patrick Michael. “Who’s stopping you?” he shot back. “Godspeed, mate,” he added, with a smile that was both a challenge and encouragement.
Calling Myanmar felt like dialling a distant planet.
“Are you crazy? BBC and CNN journalists are still stuck in Bangkok trying to get a visa — and you want to speak to Daw on the phone?” a Myanmar opposition leader in exile in Thailand asked incredulously.
“Yes,” I replied, without hesitation.
“Do you realize she has no mobile phone? The army hasn’t even allowed her a landline.”
“I don’t care. I must speak to her.”
What followed unfolded like a covert operation. A series of discreet fax messages were sent from Bangkok to a spokesperson of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar. Eventually, an elderly NLD leader with access to a mobile phone was arranged to visit her. A precise time was fixed for me to call. Everything depended on timing — down to the minute.
After nearly twenty minutes of relentless dialling, the call finally connected. The phone was passed to a 65-year-old Oxonian whose calm, composed “hello” carried the quiet strength of someone who had endured history and risen above it.
The rest, as they say, is history — a world exclusive.
