It was a whirlwind 17 days for Burma/Myanmar opposition leader and international human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi on her first post-imprisonment tour of America. Her packed schedule included a meeting with president Obama, being presented the Congressional Medal of Honor, discussions and lectures at Yale and Harvard, and addressing Burmese communities across the country to a rock star's welcome.

Despite the bright lights and high praise heaped upon the longtime dissident, frustration is mounting among an ever larger circle of human rights activists, ethnic groups and international journalists. They're upset at what they see as Suu Kyi's failure to address the terrible violence and ensuing humanitarian crises in Burma's ethnic areas. Kuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News, explained the situation:

"Aung San Suu Kyi is now a full-fledged politician, not a non-partisan icon like Gandhi who never hesitated to speak his mind…Is it better to be the leader of tthe nation than being the leader of a political party?"

You would never know her star is tarnished from her victory tour last week, but since her release after 15 years of house arrest in 2010 and election to parliament in which her National League for Democracy (NLD) party won 43 out of 44 seats they contested, Suu Kyi's public image as a champion for human rights is under seige. Throughout the tour, Suu Kyi clung to her standard response to criticism- that believing in and working towards the enforcement of the just rule of law will solve all longstanding woes and conflicts. While condemning ongoing abuses, she believes that the action to end rights abuses must come from within the existing semi-civilian government, in which she has a severely limited role.

According to The Irrawaddy, a newsmagazine covering developments in Burma, Suu Kyi took on such criticisms directly in her address to the Burmese community of New York at Queens College on September 22nd, saying "There are people who criticized me when I remained silence on this case. They can do so as they are not satisfied with me. But, for me, I do not want to add fire to any side of the conflict."

Myanmar's movement from longtime pariah to a country on the brink of a major political thaw, lead by president U Thein Sein, is being lauded by international leaders as welcome progress and coincides with an easing of the United States' ban on imports from the country. However, hundreds of miles from the praised changes in Naypitaw, armed conflicts between government troops and minority rebel groups like the Shan State Army (SSA) and Kachin Independence Army (KIA) rage on and off in resource rich minority territories, frequently spilling over into ethnic villages where sanctioned rape, indiscriminate killing and forced labor have come to define decades of turmoil between government forces and minority groups like the Shan and Kachin. Along with the sectarian violence flaring between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya muslims in the west, the Shan and Kachin states in the east experiencing fallout from one of the world's longest ongoing armed conflicts continue to present a dilemma for Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD party.

The picture being drawn by those in power and portrayed worldwide appears much rosier than reality. With all of the encouragement and praise directed towards the ongoing slow thaw in Myanmarโ€™s ruling body, a major danger is revealing itself as incidents between government troops and villagers—and a booming drug trade-- are routinely swept under the rug in favor of happy talk about democratization.

According to a Shan villager in Lashio township, Northern Shan State speaking under the condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal, abuses by government troops continue in earnest. Villagers are forced to "guide [government troops] to the whereabouts of the (SSA). Sometimes some of villagers were beaten by the Burma army soldiers until death when they were being questioned and could not give the answer. Anyone suspected will get arrested and detained and beaten", the villager said.

No one can ever doubt that Suu Kyi deserved every honor bestowed on her, including her Nobel Peace Prize awarded for selfless work on behalf of the people of Burma. In the more remote ethnic areas of her home country, however, the abused and voiceless can only hope that such efforts can be applied to their reality in her new role as parliamentarian.