WorldMyanmar
Aung San Suu Kyi's son speaks to her for the first time in five years
Kim Aris said hearing his mother's voice meant more than words could express, but warned that one call was not family access for the 81-year-old, still held under house arrest in Naypyidaw.
Key points
- Kim Aris said he spoke to his mother for the first time in more than five years on Thursday.
- Aung San Suu Kyi, 81, has been detained since the February 2021 military coup.
- Myanmar's rulers have been loosening her detention as the general who ousted her seeks legitimacy as president.
The son of Myanmar’s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Thursday that he had spoken to his mother for the first time in more than five years.
“Today, I was finally able to speak with my mother, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, after more than five years. Hearing her voice again means more than words can express,” Kim Aris, who lives in Britain, wrote on Facebook. Photographs with the post appeared to show him outside the Myanmar embassy in London. He did not say how the call was arranged.
He thanked supporters, saying their voices had helped make the moment possible, but struck a note of caution. “But my mother is 81 and remains unjustly detained. One conversation is not regular family access,” he wrote.
The Nobel peace laureate was ousted in the February 2021 coup and held in near-total isolation for years. Myanmar’s authorities say she was moved from a prison in Naypyidaw to house arrest in April. In August they released pictures of her meeting the Red Cross representative, and on Monday they said she had received a package from Britain’s King Charles III, including two books about soil and a “sealed diplomatic communication”.
Min Aung Hlaing, the general who led the coup, was installed as civilian president earlier this year after an election analysts call a charade. They say the easing of Suu Kyi’s conditions may be an effort to win international legitimacy.
ASEAN has kept Myanmar’s leaders out of its high-level meetings since 2021 for failing to make progress on the bloc’s Five-Point Consensus to end the violence.