BANGKOK, Thailand - Radiating joy and strength, the woman known throughout Myanmar as "The Lady" stood before a cheering crowd yesterday for the first time in years and proclaimed, "It's a new dawn for the country."
Freed yesterday morning after 19 months of house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the pro-democracy movement, said it was time to move forward from a period of fence-mending to the beginnings of substantive change in the former Burma.
After a year and a half of what were called confidence-building talks with the military leadership, "the next step is discussions about policy," Suu Kyi said.
She offered no specifics, but said her task now is to do "everything I can to make sure that democracy comes to Burma."
That will likely mean slow and careful moves rather than the confrontations that have marked her relations with the country's military junta since it nullified a parliamentary election in 1990 in which her party, the National League for Democracy, won 82 percent of the seats.
In a signal of an emerging new relationship, the government spokesman, Col. Hla Min, said there would be no restrictions on her movements and activities, "because we are confident that we can trust each other."
It appeared from the events and statements made yesterday that Myanmar was moving into a tentative new phase of its history after more than a decade of political and economic paralysis that followed the 1990 election.
"Basically, that's history," said David Steinberg, a professor at Georgetown University who is a leading expert on Myanmar. "It was unfortunate, but in the 12 years since that time they've had a political stalemate. And that stalemate seems now to be in the process of breaking, and that's progress."
That also seemed to be the assessment of the United States, which tends to be sensitive to the views of Suu Kyi. The latest State Department report on Myanmar, issued in February, dropped its customary reference to the nullified election and spoke instead of a process of democratization and improvement of human rights.
U.S. officials welcomed Suu Kyi's release, but said they believe it is premature to talk about lifting the economic and other sanctions in place against the country's government.
"It's a very important first step toward real political dialogue," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "We hope that the regime is serious about moving ahead with political reform and national reconciliation."
