Naypyidaw: Is Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi still alive?
Nobody has heard of the detained former Myanmar leader for the last several years and her son Kim Aris now fears for her life.
He has not heard from his 80-year-old mother in years, and has received only sporadic, second-hand details about her heart, bone and gum problems since a 2021 military coup that deposed her government, Aris told Reuters.
The junta that controls things in the country now has announced elections to be held later this month. The international community has dismissed this as a sham aimed at legitimising military rule. Aris also believes so.
“She’s got ongoing health issues. Nobody has seen her in over two years. She hasn’t been allowed contact with her legal team, never mind her family,” he said in an interview in Tokyo. “For all I know, she could be dead already.”
“I imagine (Myanmar junta leader) Min Aung Hlaing has his own agenda when it comes to my mother. If he does want to use her to try and appease the general population before or after the elections by either releasing her or moving her to house arrest, then at least that would be something,” he added.
Myanmar’s military has a history of releasing prisoners to mark holidays or important events.
Su
u Kyi was freed in 2010 days after an election, ending a previous long period of detention largely spent at her colonial-style family home on Yangon’s Inya Lake. She went on to become Myanmar’s de-facto leader after elections in 2015, the first openly contested vote in a quarter century. her international image was later tarnished by accusations of genocide committed against her country’s Muslim Rohingya minority, as reported by The Telegraph.
Suu Kyi is now serving a 27-year sentence for offences including incitement, corruption and election fraud, all of which she denies.
Aris believes she is being held in the capital Naypyitaw, and in the last letter he received from his mother two years ago she complained about the extreme temperatures in her cell during the summer and winter months.
Aris worries that people are forgetting about Myanmar with conflicts erupting all over the world.
“Because of the upcoming elections that the military are trying to stage, which we all know are completely unfair, and so far from being free that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so lamentable, I need to use this small window of opportunity,” he said.
“In the past, when my mother was held in higher regard by the international community, then it was much harder for people to ignore what’s happening in Burma. But since her position was undermined through the crisis in Rakhine, that’s no longer the case,” he added, using the country’s former name.
Aris, a British national, said that during his trip to Japan, he met with various Japanese politicians and government officials to press them to take a stronger stand against the junta and reject the elections.