Durban, July 21 - Myanmarese pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Reconciliation and Peace here.

The award is given annually by the Gandhi Development Trust, an organisation started in 2002 by Ela Gandhi, a granddaughter of the Mahatma.

Aung San joins the ranks of such luminaries as Nelson Mandela, who was the recipient last year. Her award was accepted by the Myanmarese prime minister in exile, Sean Win, who is based in Washington. Aung San is currently under house arrest in Myanmar.

Win said Aung San would accept the award on behalf of the suffering people of Myanmar under the repressive military rule there, likening it to the system that prevailed during the apartheid era in South Africa where a white minority introduced repressive laws to subjugate the majority.

'We decided that Aung San was a deserving winner because of her courage and fearlessness in opposing the unjust regime in Burma,' Ela Gandhi told IANS.

'We also made six awards to largely unsung South African heroes and heroines of the struggle against apartheid,' she added.

The recipients of the Satyagraha Awards, instituted in 2003 to mark the centenary of the Indian Opinion, the newspaper started here by then lawyer Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, were selected from the many nominations and motivations submitted to the Trust.