The Lawsuit
Aung San Oo is estranged from his sister; while Suu Kyi has become the leader of the Burmese National League for Democracy party, Oo is close to the ruling military junta. In 2000, Oo brought legal action against Suu Kyi in the Rangoon High Court demanding a half-share in the family home, where she had been held under intermittent house arrest from 1989 to 2010. There was widespread speculation among observers at the time that Aung San Oo would then sell his half-share to the junta, but the High Court ruled against Oo, much to the surprise of the same observers, who had assumed that it would bring down whatever verdict was preferred by the junta. The Burmese Lawyers' Council describes the lawsuit as an attempt by the junta to publicly humiliate the leader of the National League for Democracy. The Burmese Government in exile claims that had Aung San Oo won his case, he would have put Aung San Suu Kyi in an extremely precarious position. In the Time article it is also reported that the junta may have used this legal manoeuver to "back Aung San Suu Kyi into a corner", despite advice to the contrary by the visiting former Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto the year before the lawsuit.
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