I still oppose "Visit Myanmar Year," and I would ask tourists to stay away. Burma is not going to run away. They should come back to Burma at a time when it is a democratic society where people are secure - where there is justice, where there is rule of law. They'll have a much better time. And they can travel around Burma with a clear conscience.

Even one voice can be heard loudly all over the world in this day and age.

Some believe that the only way to remove the authoritarian regime and replace it with a democratic one is through violent means. I would like to set the precedent of political change through political settlement, not through violence.

It is incorrect to say there have been no reforms at all in Burma; there have of course been reforms, but we still need to do more for the people. To become a democratic society we have to continually be reforming.

Calamities that are not the result of purely natural phenomena usually have their origins, distant and obscure though they may be, in common human failings.

When you decide to follow a certain path, you should follow it to the end and not be diverted from it for personal reasons.

Part of our struggle is to make the international community understand that we are a poor country not because there is an insufficiency of resources and investment, but because we are deprived of the basic institutions and practices that make for good government.