Former Myanmar political prisoner Dr Sean Turnell to deliver 2023 Plimsoll lecture at UTAS
Dr Sean Turnell, the former economic advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi who survived 650 days in a Myanmar prison, will deliver the 2023 Plimsoll lecture at the University of Tasmania.
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Economist Sean Turnell lost so much weight after 650 days in a Myanmar prison that he had to borrow a belt to keep his clothing in place for the flight home.
Nearly a year after his sudden release, the former political prisoner will arrive in Hobart on Thursday to deliver the 2023 Plimsoll lecture at the Sir Stanley Burbury Lecture Theatre at UTAS.
Dr Turnell will share his extraordinary story of working as an advisor to democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, their subsequent trial as co-defendants, and the sustained campaign from home that eventually secured his release.
“The way that people swung in behind me was itself a sort of foreign policy,” Dr Turnell said.
“That support from Australia was something that had a powerful impact on the prison guards, on the military in Myanmar, and it sent a really strong signal.
“The fact that the my government and community both stood up for me sent a really strong statement of Australian ideals.
“My Burmese friends could not imagine such a thing.”
Dr Turnell said he was able to pass the time in prison thanks to some excellent reading material by embassy staff.
But he could never reconcile the bitter irony of reading Robert Hughes’s convict epic The Fatal Shore while himself clasped in leg irons.
The Australian economist said he remained a defender of Suu Kyi’s legacy, saying that while her government had certainly make mistakes, it was hamstrung by the established power structures of Myanmar.
“The whole time I was there, which was five years, the military was always there waiting to come in. We felt it all the time,” Dr Turnell said.
“So Suu Kyi always faced the dilemma – how far could she go without the military coming in?
“And my argument would be that she was proven right.”
Dr Turnell will launch a book about his Myanmar experiences, titled An Unlikely Prisoner, later this year.
He will deliver the 2023 Plimsoll lecture from 6.00pm to 7:30pm on Thursday at the Sandy Bay campus.
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