Aung San Suu Kyi urges patience

Burma's military freed Aung San Suu Kyi in May

Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said she is confident political change is on its way.

But in an exclusive interview with the BBC, she warned that the process could be slow and urged people to be patient.

It could achieve a lot if everyone in Burma could stop saying something is good if it is not good, or say something is just if it is not just

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi told the BBC World Service and News Online programme Talking Point that discussions between her party and the ruling military junta had made some progress since her release from house arrest in May, but there was "some way to go".

She also stressed that it was still too early to encourage foreign tourists to visit Burma.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner took calls from around the world and replied to hundreds of questions sent in to BBC News Online.

She played down her own role in the fight for democracy in Burma, and the price she had paid.

"I made a choice, I didn't make any sacrifices," she said.

Asked about the prospects of political reform, she said she was hopeful of progress by this time next year.

She noted that the struggle in South Africa "went on for decades" and therefore "you can't say it is taking too long" in Burma.

"We are confident change will come - not as quickly as most of us would wish, but it will come," she said.

Trust for UN envoy

Talks between Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and the ruling junta have been mediated by UN envoy Razali Ismail.

She called the generals "human beings like the rest of us"

Aung San Suu Kyi denied one caller's suggestion that Mr Razali, a Malaysian, was a puppet of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Mr Razali was a "good friend of Burma", she said.

His slow progress - he has made several trips to Burma without achieving significant success - was "in the nature of the process", she added.

Relationship with generals

Aung San Suu Kyi also said she felt "no personal animosity" towards the ruling generals, who deny her National League for Democracy the landslide victory it achieved in 1990 national elections.

"I get along with them well enough. After all it was my father who founded the Burmese army and I do have a sense of warmth towards the Burmese army," she said.

She said that her father, the country's independence hero General Aung San, was her greatest inspiration.

She said that she hoped to complete his work for the country.

Tourism

Aung San Suu Kyi urged foreign travellers keen to visit Burma to be patient.

"We have not yet come to the point where we encourage people to come to Burma as tourists," she said.

The democracy leader refused to speculate about when that might be but said that she did not think it was impossible that political change could take place "within months".

Aung San Suu Kyi said she had realised that one thing she could ask all her people to do in the meantime was to refuse to support injustice "simply because they are afraid".

"It could achieve a lot if everyone in Burma could stop saying something is good if it is not good, or say something is just if it is not just," she said.

The programme, which is part of a series of special programmes to mark the 70th anniversary of BBC World Service, will go out in full on Sunday 15 December at 1400 GMT on World Service Radio.

A full video version and transcript will appear on BBC News Online from midnight on Thursday at 0000 GMT.