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http://www.independent.co.uk A birthday party without the star guest One thing is certain about Aung San Suu Kyi's 65th birthday tomorrow – it will rain. This is the monsoon season in Burma and each day brings a torrential downpour. After years of decline, her dilapidated lakeside villa in Rangoon – where she has spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest – is finally being renovated. New terracotta roof tiles should keep the rain out and workmen have been busy this week repairing cracks in the once-grand portico and felling a coconut tree that was swaying dangerously close to the house. The rain will clear the still, muggy air over Lake Inya, and Ms Suu Kyi may choose to walk across her lawn to the shore, to watch herons and cormorants circle their prey. She won't be alone: two policemen are constantly stationed by the water, after an American man swam to her house last year. The icon of Burma's democracy movement will receive a card, cake and a bunch of flowers from senior party members, to be delivered by a family friend who is able to visit her most days with groceries and supplies. "We have already organised that," said Nyan Win, her close adviser and spokesman for her now defunct National League for Democracy (NLD) party. "And if she wants anything else for her birthday, we will get it." Ms Suu Kyi may decide to re-read letters from her younger son Kim and her sister-in-law Lucinda that were delivered to her a month ago. Her husband, the Oxford professor Michael Aris, died of cancer in 1999 and she did not risk returning to Britain to visit him on his deathbed, fearing that she would not be allowed back to Burma. The military authorities have denied visas to her two sons, Alexander and Kim, whom she has not seen for years. Another certainty: Ms Suu Kyi won't be attending the party held in her honour in Rangoon's Ten Mile suburb. This evening, her female friends and supporters will gather at a sprawling house, and prepare huge vats of chicken curry and rice to feed the expected 500 guests. As the sun rises, senior party members and loyal friends will arrive to give alms to the cinnamon-robed Buddhist monks filing past the front gates. "We will eat, talk and laugh. This is our way of marking her birthday," Nyan Win said. Hundreds of party activists, friends and supporters have been invited to the celebrations at the home of May Hnin Kyi, who 20 years ago was elected as the member of parliament for Mandalay but was never able to take up her seat because the military junta dismissed the NLD victory. As is the case at any NLD event, military intelligence officers will be stationed outside, noting down names and taking photographs. The party-goers risk arrest and harassment, but they don't care; many will be former political prisoners and their families, who feel they have little left to fear. Most Burmese prefer to keep a lower profile, and are too preoccupied with the daily struggle of feeding their families to pause to consider the birthday. "Many people will not notice it," explained one local journalist. Those with internet access – which at a cost of 60p an hour wipes out most people's daily wage – may try to mark the birthday online, risking reprisals from the authorities. With sites like Twitter and You Tube blocked, many young, urban Burmese are tentatively using Facebook to post articles from foreign newspapers and jokes about the political situation. "All I wanna say is that / They don't really care about us," read one post, invoking a Michael Jackson lyric. Thida, a 36 year-old primary school teacher, described her silent way of marking the birthday of Burma's leading lady. "We can't celebrate. We daren't even talk about it. But I will go to the pagoda and light candles. So will many people. We will know it's for her."
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