That’s some happiness to smile over.

Reporting from Yangon, Myanmar — Opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed Saturday in Myanmar after years in detention as a huge crowd presented flowers and chanted “Long Live Suu Kyi.”

Soldiers armed with rifles and tear gas launchers pushed aside the barbed-wire barriers blocking her street at 5:15 p.m., leading to a gleeful dash the final 100 yards to her gate. Twenty minutes later, the slight pro-democracy opposition figure known here simply as “the lady” popped her head over her red spiked fence to a roar from jubilant supporters.

“It’s very happy to see the people,” she said, barely audible over the chanting. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen you.”

Suu Kyi, whose been in detention for 15 of the last 21 years in a country under brutal military rule, promised to speak at greater length Sunday at the headquarters of her political party.

“I’ll have a loudspeaker then,” she said to laughter. “I won’t say anything more now, since you can’t hear me anyway.”

Her party, the National League for Democracy, won by a landslide in 1990 but the results weren’t honored by the regime. And it was forced to disband recently after deciding to boycott last weekend’s controversial election. Full election results have not been released, but Union Solidarity and Development Party officials, the party backed by the regime, have indicated it has won close to 80% of the seats.