Suu Kyi: Nobel Peace Prize shattered my isolation

[June 16, 2012]  OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi says the Nobel Peace Prize she won while under house arrest 21 years ago helped to shatter her sense of isolation and ensured that the world would demand democracy in her military-controlled homeland.

Suu Kyi was speaking Saturday at the start of her long-delayed acceptance speech to the Norwegian Nobel Committee inside Oslo City Hall.

"Often during my days of house arrest it felt as though I were no longer a part of the real world," Suu Kyi said.

Receiving the Nobel accolade in 1991 "made me real once again," she said.

Suu Kyi said her Nobel cast an enduring spotlight on the struggle for political freedom in Myanmar: "We were not going to be forgotten."

[Associated Press; By SHAWN POGATCHNIK]

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