MEDFORD, Massachusetts -- If news coming out from Myanmar is to be believed, Aung Sang Suu Kyi is now on a water-only hunger strike.
Following the tradition of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, whose prolonged fasting halted the sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims in the 1940s, Suu Kyi is attempting to pressure the military junta into easing its viselike grip on her and her followers.
Since the May 30 incident in which Suu Kyi's entourage was ambushed by pro-junta sympathizers, leading to her indefinite house arrest for the third time in a decade, hundreds of her supporters from the National League for Democracy, or NLD, have been imprisoned. What can Suu Kyi achieve with her hunger strike?