'For all I know, she could be dead' says son of Myanmar's Suu Kyi
Kim Aris, the son of Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, says the lack of reliable information about his mother has become so severe that he cannot be sure he would even be informed if she died in custody.
Aris said he has not heard directly from Suu Kyi for years and has received only occasional, secondhand updates since the military coup in 2021.
The information he has been given suggests the 80-year-old is struggling with multiple health problems, including issues affecting her heart, bones and gums.
He also said Suu Kyi has been kept isolated, with no contact with her family and no access to her legal team.
Aris said nobody has seen her in more than two years, leaving her condition, and even whether she is still alive, shrouded in uncertainty.
While rejecting the junta’s planned election as a staged exercise meant to legitimise military rule, Aris said the vote could still create a narrow opportunity for authorities to soften Suu Kyi’s situation.
He suggested the military leadership might use her to calm public anger by shifting her to house arrest or releasing her around the election period.
A spokesman for the military authorities did not respond to requests for comment, according to Aris's account.
Myanmar’s armed forces have previously freed detainees to mark significant events or holidays. Suu Kyi herself was released in 2010 shortly after an election, ending a long period of detention, much of it spent at her family home in Yangon.
She later became the country’s de facto leader after the 2015 election, Myanmar’s first openly contested vote in decades. However, her international standing was later damaged by allegations linked to atrocities against the Rohingya minority.
The country has been in turmoil since the 2021 coup, which sparked armed resistance and left large areas contested.
Suu Kyi is serving a 27-year sentence over offences including incitement, corruption and election fraud, all of which she denies.
Aris said he believes she is being held in Naypyitaw. In the last letter he received from her, around two years ago, she complained about extreme heat and cold in her cell during summer and winter.
He also voiced concern that, as conflicts flare elsewhere in the world, Myanmar is slipping from international attention.
During his visit to Japan, he said he met politicians and officials to urge stronger pressure on the junta and to push back against elections scheduled to be held in phases from December 28, 2025.
Aris, a British national, argued his mother was not complicit in what the United Nations described as a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya in 2016–17, and noted that Myanmar’s constitution limited the civilian leadership’s control over the military.
He said she acknowledged war crimes may have occurred when addressing an international tribunal in The Hague in 2020, but denied genocide.
Asked what Suu Kyi might think of his lobbying, Aris said he believed she would be saddened that he had to step into the spotlight — but insisted he felt he had no choice.
Reuters
