Italian and the English transcription of the speech:

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“We are together with Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people these days. Because we have lived much of our lives with them and because we will continue to live Burma’s new future with them. The military coup is terribly “old”, a thing of the past.

The young lives of the Burmese youth cannot be stolen from them this way, all the young people who have their whole lives ahead: work, freedom, solidarity, communication with the Internet – of being citizens of the world. Who is the Tatmadaw, the army, to prevent this? At this moment we do not know where Aung San Suu Kyi, the other leaders and some activists are: we know that they have been arrested. We know that yesterday Aung San Suu Kyi was on trial and that within 24 hours she was going to be charged of another treason (with terrible punishments – up to the death penalty). She was accused of keeping illegally imported walkie talkies at home, and was provisionally sentenced to house arrest at her home in Yangon. The President of the Republic, U Win Myint was also put under house arrest.

 We wish to know where they are and above all we want them to be released immediately. There is no justification – I want to tell the Army Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who says what they did was inevitable. We say instead that there is no justification: certainly not inevitable!

We are all citizens of Myanmar. Today, everywhere in the world, democracy is at stake: in the squares, on the continents. From the squares of the United States, to those of Russia, from the Arab countries to Turkey, Egypt, Hong Kong … Everywhere on the surface of the globe the overwhelming force of the peoples is asking for justice and freedom; and we see that the repression of the military forces is immediately triggered in retaliation. Perhaps it means that democracy is gravely at risk for the future of the world, because there are only a few people who are holding the levers of economic and financial power in their hands … Well, it should be known that we have not passed the twentieth century in vain. I am at Casa Cervi, the home of the Resistance to Nazi-Fascist oppression: the twentieth century has not passed in vain!

 Peoples, consciences, have taken their destiny in hand, a destiny of democratic constitutions, of peoples’ sovereignty, of free elections, which no army can obscure or block. In her electoral speech before the elections, in the middle of the pandemic crisis, Aung San Suu Kyi spoke of politics as “caring for the garden”: the garden is the country, the garden is the people. Taking care of the garden means freeing it from weeds, obstacles, holes, hollows; it means sowing seeds, making flowers and fruits grow. And it means cultivating this garden all together. The game is open between democracy and authoritarianisms and dictatorships that do not want to know. So you must know that there is public opinion in the field, there are citizens of the world.

Democracy in Myanmar is our democracy, we have the right to demand that Aung San Suu Kyi and all other prisoners be released immediately; we have the right because Aung San Suu Kyi does not belong only to the Burmese people, it belongs to the whole world. Who is the Tatmadaw to prevent this? Be strong! We lend our voices to the voice of Aung San Suu Kyi and her people because they, in recent years, spoke for us when they chose democracy. Together we will open a new path to the history of Myanmar and to the history of the world”. 

Albertina Soliani