I had breakfast with Suu Kyi’s mother

The news that Nobel Peace Prize Awardee Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been released from years of  “house arrest,” has won a seat in Burma’s Parliament triggered memories of her mother Daw Khin Kyi, whom I met in August 1960 when she was the ambassador of Burma (Myanmar) to India, with concurrent accreditation to the Royal Kingdom of Nepal.

At the time, I was with Philippine Ambassador Manuel A. Alzate for the presentation of his credentials as non-resident envoy of the Philippines in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital at the foothills of the Himalayas. When I informed Ambassador Alzate that there was another foreign ambassador staying at the “Sital Niwas,” Nepal’s Palace-guesthouse also scheduled to present her credentials to Nepal’s King Mahendra, he instructed me to invite the ambassador to have breakfast with us the next morning.

I told Ambassador Alzate: “Sir, she is a lady ambassador from Burma named Daw Khin Kyi.”

“With more reason, invite her. Remember Napoleon’s advice to his diplomats never to forget women!” the ambassador replied with a smile.

So, I went posthaste to the suite of the Burmese ambassador and conveyed to her the invitation. She replied with a smile: “Young man, please tell His Excellency, your ambassador, that I am the one inviting him and you to have breakfast with me tomorrow morning.”

When I relayed to Ambassador Alzate Khin Kyi’s reply, he said: “Hijo, we shall go then to have breakfast at the suite of the Burmese ambassador tomorrow.”

At the breakfast with the lady ambassador, we had freshly baked bread, scrambled eggs, butter, orange marmalade, fresh milk, tea, cereals and lots of fresh fruits served by Nepalese waiters in white uniform. Our breakfast conversation ranged from diplomatic life to the presentation of credentials and, of course, politics—and the role of women in their countries and in the world.

From that meeting, we learned that Khin Kyi was a widow. Her husband Aung San, who negotiated Burma’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, had been assassinated by his political rivals that same year. Khin Kyi subsequently took active part in the politics of her country and was later appointed in 1960 as ambassador of Burma to India and Nepal. Ambassador Alzate remarked that he, too, was a political ambassador.

Then Khin Kyi said she admired the women of the Philippines because they were more liberated than Burmese women and enjoyed equal rights with Filipino men; that there were many Filipino women who were members of Congress or occupying high positions in government, and even in the private sector. “Excellency, your appointment as ambassador will pave the way for more active participation of women in the affairs of your country,” Ambassador Alzate retorted. Then he asked her: “Excellency, may I ask what will you wear during the presentation of your credentials to the King tomorrow?”

She replied with pride, if not with a sense of nationalism: “Excellency, I am going to wear the traditional Burmese attire for ladies.”

Ambassador Alzate made no further comments. We had brought with us stripe dark pants and morning coat and a top hat to match—definitely, a Western formal attire, although we also had with us barong tagalog made of jusi. (But due to the cold weather in Kathmandu, the Philippine ambassador chose to wear the Western attire during the presentation of his credentials.)

Since that breakfast encounter in Kathmandu, the Philippine ambassador and his wife Doña Miling became good and close friends of Ambassador Khin Kyi. Back in New Delhi, India, the Burmese ambassador mentioned to them a teenage daughter of hers left behind in Rangoon (now Yangon), but she would follow her soon to New Delhi, she said, to study.

It turned out that the daughter she was referring to was Aung San Suu Kyi who, in later years, became active in the politics of her country and is known to the world for leading the Burmese people in their opposition to the military government in their country, and who was placed under “house arrest” for years by the military, which took over the Burmese government in 1990. Recently freed, Suu Kyi is of late in the limelight after winning a seat in Burma’s Parliament.

Looking back, if her late mother, Khin Kyi who became our friend in 1960 were alive today, she would be happy to know that the Philippines, whose ambassador she met in Kathmandu many years ago, was one of the Asean countries instrumental in the release of Suu Kyi. And she would be even happier to see that her daughter is on the threshold of becoming an elected member of Myanmar’s Parliament.

Rodolfo A. Arizala is a retired Philippine ambassador. He now resides in Santiago, Chile, but acknowledges Infanta, Quezon, Philippines, as his original home.