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She is the most glamorous political figure on the world stage, an Asian Joan of Arc whose story seems likely to end in triumph after decades of despair and sacrifice. Yet little is known of Aung San Suu Kyi's true character, apart from the one dimensional images portrayed in the mass media. She has compelled one of the most repressive and paranoid regimes in the world to see the error of its ways in a non-violent campaign of Gandhian scope and proportion, a feat that has cost the lives of innumerable of her supporters because of the Nazi-like contempt of the military for their countrymen.

If that seems like overstating the case, it must be recognized what an important role she has played for both sides in helping to open up her country as a bridge to the outside world which either side could employ without loss of face. There was simply no other figure in Burma who could have played that role, acceptable to both east and west, as a figurehead in overcoming entrenched positions.

But as the world waits to see whether the Burmese regime will make good on its promises, she remains just that, a figurehead, though one with substantial popular backing throughout the country. But it is support without any ideological or organizational backing with which to move forward. There the regime still holds many

of the cards. But how does that place her when it comes to elections, faced with a military machine that has been able to manipulate the governance of the country since it obtained its freedom from the British in the late 1940s?

So far the junta has been the prime beneficiary of the publicity and within Suu Kyi's own organization the sudden turn of events, with the regime electing to make advances to the symbol of Burmese democracy, has meant that there has been precious little time, or inclination, to examine what the next stage might be.

It must have come as something of a surprise, then, when the first sign of a split emerged within weeks of the breakthrough. It came in the form of an announcement from Suu Kyi that she would be willing to stand as a member of parliament in a by-election when the long-promised polls take place.

She made the revelation in a meeting with the 88 Generation Students' group, which sprang out of the seminal protests of 1988 and which has kept the flame of opposition alive during the dark years of Suu Kyi's incarceration. The 88 group has already declared that it will not contest elections as long as so many people remain in detention or in jail on various charges. Many of Suu Kyi's supporters and admirers both inside and outside the country had assumed that she would maintain this stance along with the 88ers as a means of keeping pressure on the regime. There remain hundreds, if not thousands, of detainees held from the monk-led protests of 2007, most notably two influential dissidents, Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi, who were given 65-year jail terms after the unrest.

Suu Kyi was quoted as saying that she believed that her joining parliament would 'further increase friendship and co-operation among all of us and also speed up the process of dialogue leading towards national reconciliation', according to Soe Tun, an opposition activist who has been in hiding within Burma and only recently emerged after reaching an accommodation with the regime.

There have been indications from the regime that there will be further prisoner releases early in the new year, most probably to coincide with the 64th anniversary of independence from Britain, but many will believe that Suu Kyi is conceding too much too soon. An earlier suggestion that she might accept a ministerial post seems to have been transformed into the possibility of her becoming an MP but in accepting the senior post she would surely have had better access to the leadership, perhaps even a cabinet post. As an ordinary MP she can expect none of that. So it looks as though the opposition already has a fairly serious rift on its hands.

This disagreement is just one aspect of the inability to maintain contact while the movement's figurehead has been basically incommunicado. But perhaps the most damaging facet of the last few decades has been the fact that her significant supporters have been taken out of circulation by detention, harassment or murder; there has been a vacuum in operational ability, experience and currency with the modern ways of conducting politics through social networks.

Her organizational supporters are now old men whose backing may have been unwavering but they are most likely now not able to take on their military antagonists with the energy and verve necessary.

So far the bargain has been strikingly one-sided: the government won a visit from the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — which only happened with Suu Kyi's approval — and has had only to pay lip service to progress towards democracy in return thus far. The Americans have opened the way for IMF and World Bank assistance and already hold-out governments, such as the South Koreans, are to resume aid. Japan, which has been helpful with practical assistance to Suu Kyi over the years, is expected to follow suit. Even high-level defence exchanges with the Chinese followed Clinton's visit as Beijing sought to take the measure of the change.

But why has the regime decided to go forward with their prime antagonist at this time? Peter Popham's definitive new biography, The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi*, points the way. To begin with, they know that her 'political pedigree' as the daughter of General Aung San, the heroic figure who courageously defied first the Japanese and the later the British to win freedom for his country, is impeccably irreproachable. And she, perhaps surprisingly, believes that the army remains the key to the nation's stability, at least for now.

As she puts it: 'I don't pretend that I don't owe my position in Burmese politics to my father…I'm doing this for my father. I'm quite happy that they see me as my father's daughter. My only concern is that I prove worthy of him.'

As she told The New York Times: 'I know a split in the army is against the interests of the nation. In the end we need their co-operation to get where we want, so the people can get what they want with the least amount of suffering. We just want what my father wanted: a professional army that understands that a really honourable army doesn't engage in politics.' When her father took to politics he resigned his army commission and refused even to take a military pension.

Suu Kyi maintains that she was brought up to see the army as friends and so she cannot hate them in the same way the people do — that she finds sad.

Perhaps that is why, despite several times coming very close to killing her, the generals have maintained a curious respect for her family at a certain level, which Burmese tradition demanded, despite behaving viciously to her late husband, Michael.

It is to her enormous credit that she has maintained that level-headed assessment of the army despite all that they have down to her over the years: years of harassment and horror as she travelled thousands and thousands of miles by boat, car and cart through Burma's blazing heat along roads barely worth the name while the army kept watch and made things as difficult as they could for her.

Her courage is no Hollywood fantasy. Campaigning in Danubyu, she was suddenly told the town was under martial law and was ordered not to address the people. As they walked through the town an official of the State Law and Order Restoration Commission (SLORC) ordered them not to walk in procession. Suu Kyi's secretary wrote in her diary: 'Three warnings were given to the effect that if we did not break up they would shoot to kill.' Later they left the town and when they returned, still under threat, six or seven soldiers jumped down from their jeeps and took up positions, three or four kneeling and three standing. The kneeling chaps pointed their guns somewhat low, at our midriffs, the standing ones' guns pointed upwards.' The commander threatened to shoot if they blocked the road.

Suu Kyi takes up the story: 'In front of me was a young man holding our NLD flag. We were walking behind in the middle of the street heading home for the night, that's all. Then we saw the soldiers across the road, kneeling with their guns trained on us. The captain was shouting to us to get off the road. I told the young man with the flag to get away from the front, because I didn't want him to be the obvious target. So he stepped to the side. They said…they were going to fire if we kept on walking in the middle of the road. So I said, “Fine, all right, we'll walk on the side of the road”' — and they all moved to the sides. But for the young captain, Myint U, it was too little too late. He said he would shoot if they walked to the side.

Her secretary then observed what happened next: 'At this point Ma Ma (Suu Kyi) walked out into the middle of the road, the boys after her, and by that time she was so close to the soldiers she brushed past them. They stood petrified, clutching their arms to their chests and looking pale.' Suu Kyi thus made herself a singular, easy target for the troops. At that moment a major ran up from the rear ordering Myint U not to fire and telling the troops to lower their guns. The captain tore off his epaulets in frustration, shouting: “What are these for, what are these for?'

Later Suu Kyi recalled: 'It seemed so much simpler to present them with a single target.' Indeed. Suu Kyi seems destined to continue to present her enemies with a single target. Let's hope she continues to outsmart them and does not meet the same fate as Joan of Arc..
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