Lecture late, but delivered

Oslo – Aung San Suu Kyi pledged to keep up the fight for freedom as she finally delivered her Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Norway at the weekend, 21 years late.

The Myanmar democracy leader was under house arrest when she was awarded the prize in 1991 but told how it ‘‘opened up a door in my heart’’ and encouraged her in the struggle against military rule.

After a year that included sweeping changes in her homeland, she pledged to work for national reconciliation but also pointed to remaining political prisoners and continued ethnic strife in her country.

‘‘My party, the National League for Democracy, and I stand ready and willing to play any role in the process of national reconcili- ation,’’ Suu Kyi said.

The Nobel prize winner, whose two-week European tour is to include a speech to both houses of the British Parliament and a visit to Oxford, where she studied and lived for many years, looked emotional as she received a thunderous standing ovation in the cavernous Oslo City Hall, packed with dignitaries and Myanmar exiles.

She encouraged cautious optimism in her country’s transition to democracy under the quasicivilian rule of former general Thein Sein.

‘‘If I advocate cautious optimism, it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith,’’ she said.