‘Can’t let my mother languish in prison,’ says Aung San Suu Kyi’s son in appeal to world

Kim Aris, a British national himself, urges the world to do more to help Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi’s son has lashed out at Myanmar’s junta and claimed the country’s military rulers have not given him any information on her imprisonment.

“I can’t let my mother languish in prison,” Kim Aris, the youngest son of the ousted leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, told the BBC in an interview.

Mr Aris, a British national, urged the world to do more to help Ms Suu Kyi.

“It was better that I stayed out of politics. My mother never wanted me to be involved. But now that she has been sentenced, and the military are clearly not being reasonable, I think I can say what I want,” he said.

Ms Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government was toppled by the military junta on 1 February 2021 and she has since been given a 33-year prison sentence in a series of trials.

Ms Suu Kyi’s son said he has tried to contact the Burmese embassy in the UK, the British Foreign Office and the International Red Cross, but nothing has happened.

He also told the British broadcaster that he does not have any information about his mother or her health condition.

The international community must start “doing something, including putting a proper arms embargo on the military, and even supporting those who are trying to fight the military”, Mr Aris said. He said they must also “start lobbying more strongly” for the release of his mother.

He added that the world should provide “proper aid for the people of Burma who are going through such hard times ... and have nobody supporting them, other than the people of Burma”.

Ms Suu Kyi returned to Myanmar in 1988 from the UK, and her two sons have mostly been separated from their mother since.

“The military will never win this war. It’s just a matter of how much longer it goes on,” he told BBC Burmese in an exclusive interview.

“The sooner they hand back power to my mother, and the democratically elected government, the sooner things can start to progress in their country,” he said.

Mr Aris, however, did not answer questions about criticism that has been levelled against her mother when she ruled the country.

Ms Suu Kyi has been accused of ignoring crimes of humanity against the country’s Muslim minorities. She had appeared at The Hague in 2019 to deny claims her nation’s armed forces raped, killed and terrorised hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya people during a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Rakhine state.