Aung San Suu Kyi was speaking on the eve of the 10th anniversary of a bloody army crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners in Burma.
Speaking from her National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters in Rangoon, she said: "I don't think there will be anybody in Burma who does not remember what happened 10 years ago - painfully and with deep regret."
Burmese opposition activists have been marking the eve of the anniversary with protests to demand the government convene a parliament of members elected at a poll in May 1990.
The NLD won the poll by a big margin, but the result was ignored by the military.
"We are determined to do everything we can to make good our promise to the people that we are going to bring democracy to Burma," Aung San Suu Kyi said.
She said the military government must understand "they cannot achieve everything by force".
"This is a day on which we should renew our resolve to work for democracy and to build up the kind of system in which people by the thousands are not shot down simply because they have asked for something they have a right to demand," she said.
Earier, the NLD rejected an invitation to meet senior government officials, because, it said, the party leader was not allowed to be present.
The military government refuses to meet Aung San Suu Kyi.
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