(June 18, 2012) Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi finally received her
1991 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, on Saturday after spending 15 years under
house arrest, and said her country's full transformation to democracy was still far
off. "What the Nobel Peace Prize did was to draw me once again into the world of
other human beings outside the isolated area in which I lived, to restore a sense
of reality to me," Suu Kyi said as the packed crowd, led by Norway's King Harald and
Queen Sonja, rose in a standing ovation at the ornate Oslo City Hall. The 66-year
old democracy leader of Myanmar, formerly Burma, said much remained to be resolved
in her country. Hostilities have not ceased in the far north; to the west, communal
violence resulting in arson and murder were taking place just several days before
she started her first visit to Europe in nearly a quarter of a century. There still
remain political prisoners in Myanmar, formerly Burma, she said noting the best known
detainees have been released, but the remainder, the unknown ones, will be forgotten.
Suu Kyi who spent much of the past 24 years under house arrest, was freed in late
2010. She won a seat in Myanmar’s parliament in a by-election two months ago, but
she is touring Europe on a personal basis.