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Aung San Suu Kyi's mansion gates to be auctioned
A set of gates that became an enduring symbol of Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyiâs years under house arrest are to be auctioned, a businessman who now owns them said Saturday
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set of gates that became an enduring symbol of Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi's years under house arrest are to be auctioned, a businessman who now owns them said Saturday.
The gates -- painted in the yellow and red colors of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party -- were once located at the entrance to the crumbling Yangon mansion where Myanmar's most famous political prisoner was confined for much of the 1990s and 2000s because of her outspoken opposition to military rule.
'They are my own property. I bought them while I was working on landscaping in Daw Suu's compound after her release from house arrest,' Soe Nyunt, a restaurant owner, told AFP, using an honorific for Suu Kyi.
The businessman, an NLD supporter, said he would sell the gates to raise money both for the construction of the party's new headquarters, and for upcoming centenary celebrations marking the birth of General Aung San, Suu Kyi's father and the founder of modern day Myanmar.
When her house arrest was finally overturned in 2010-- shortly before military rule was replaced with a quasi-civilian reformist government -- large crowds of jubilant supporters surrounded the gates, clamouring to catch a glimpse of Suu Kyi and hand her bouquets of flowers.
The gates have since been replaced.
