CNN
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Reports of deposed former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s move to house arrest are “questionable,” her son said Tuesday, adding he believed the ruling military junta wants to keep her location secret to deter resistance attacks on the capital as a civil war rages.
In an interview with CNN, Kim Aris cast doubt on recent reports in Myanmar local media, citing a military spokesperson, that 78-year-old Suu Kyi, the longtime democracy icon and Nobel laureate, had been moved from her prison cell ostensibly due to the unbearable heat.
“It’s hard to know their motives. And as far as whether she’s been moved or not, that’s questionable as well,” Aris told CNN’s Anna Coren. “There’s conflicting reports coming out. In the past, they have said that she’s been moved to house arrest and that has proved to be completely not the case.”
Aris, who lives in Britain, is the younger son of Suu Kyi and her late husband Michael Aris. He said he believes his mother is “either still in prison or she’s in the residence of a military official.”
“Her only house is a house that she has in Rangoon and she’s definitely not there,” he said, using the former name for Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.
In comments reported by several media outlets last week, junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said: “Since the weather is extremely hot, it is not only for Aung San Suu Kyi … For all those, who need necessary precautions, especially elderly prisoners, we are working to protect them from heatstroke.”
Suu Kyi has been detained in military custody since army chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021, ending Myanmar’s brief transition to democracy and plunging the Southeast Asian nation into a raging civil conflict.
Her condition and whereabouts have been kept tightly under wraps by the ruling junta and she has been photographed just once while attending a court hearing in the capital Naypyidaw in May, 2021.
Aris said his mother has been prevented from meeting with her legal counsel.
“I believe they’ve been trying to meet for some time and nothing has come with that. As far as I’m aware, she’s not been able to see anybody outside of military personnel or prison personnel since, well, last year at some point, I think was the last time she saw her lawyers.”
As State Counsellor, Suu Kyi was Myanmar’s de facto leader for five years before being forced from power and detained after her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was re-elected in a landslide election against military-backed opposition in 2020.
She has been hit with a range of charges and is now serving a 27-year sentence following a series of secretive trials.
Aris recently told Reuters he believes the junta was using his mother as a “human shield” as the military fights an armed nationwide resistance determined to oust it from power.
“As the fighting is getting closer and closer, I think it serves the military’s purpose for the resistance forces not to know where my mother is, so they find it harder to target strikes against the military in Naypyidaw. The less they know of my mother’s whereabouts, the harder it is for them,” Aris told CNN.
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Aung San Suu Kyi poses for a portrait in Yangon, Myanmar, in 2010. A month earlier, she had been released from house arrest.
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Suu Kyi, front center, is seen with her parents and her two elder brothers in 1947. Her father, Aung San, was the commander of the Burma Independence Army and helped negotiate the country's independence from Britain. He was assassinated on July 19, 1947. Suu Kyi's mother, Ma Khin Kyi, was a diplomat who was once an ambassador to India.
Karl Malakunas/AFP/Getty Images
Suu Kyi poses with Burmese comedian Par Par Lay, who was part of the pro-democracy act "The Moustache Brothers." Suu Kyi grew up in Myanmar and India but moved to England in the 1960s, where she studied at Oxford University. She returned to Myanmar in 1988 and co-founded the National League for Democracy, a political party dedicated to nonviolence and civil disobedience.
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Suu Kyi sprinkles water over the heads of her followers during a traditional new year ceremony in Yangon in 1989. Five days of celebrations were marked by anti-government protests closely watched by armed troops.
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Suu Kyi poses for a photo in June 1989.
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Suu Kyi addresses a crowd of supporters in Yangon in July 1989. About two weeks later, she was placed under house arrest and charged with trying to divide the military. She denied the charges.
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While under house arrest, Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Price in 1991. She was honored "for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights."
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Suu Kyi speaks to hundreds of supporters from the gate at her residential compound in Yangon in 1995. She had just been released from house arrest, but her political activity was restricted.
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Suu Kyi addresses supporters in 1997, on the 49th anniversary of Myanmar's independence movement.
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Suu Kyi, in a 1999 home video, gives her support to economic sanctions against her country as a means to affect the governing military.
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Suu Kyi poses in front of a portrait of her father in 1999. In 2000, she was once again placed under house arrest.
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An activist holds a Suu Kyi portrait during a protest at the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2009. The protesters were calling on the Chinese government to impose sanctions on Myanmar's military government following a Suu Kyi trial.
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Suu Kyi speaks in Yangon in December 2010, a month after being released from house arrest. She had spent 15 of the previous 21 years under house arrest.
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Suu Kyi is held by her son Kim Aris as she is greeted by supporters during a visit to the ancient temple city of Bagan in 2011.
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Suu Kyi meets US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon in 2011.
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Suu Kyi greets crowds while campaigning in Pathein, Myanmar, in 2012. She was running for a seat in parliament.
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Suu Kyi makes her way through a crowd in 2012, a day after she won a seat in parliament. It was Myanmar's first multiparty elections since 1990.
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Suu Kyi accepts the Ambassador of Conscience Award next to U2 singer Bono during a European tour in 2012.
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Suu Kyi is presented with the Congressional Gold Medal while visiting the US Capitol in 2012.
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Suu Kyi meets with US President Barack Obama in the White House Oval Office. Obama later visited her lakeside villa in Myanmar. It was the first visit to Myanmar by a sitting US president.
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Suu Kyi joins officer cadets for tea while visiting a military academy in Camberley, England, in 2013.
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Suu Kyi speaks during a Nobel lecture in Oslo, Norway, in 2015. She was finally able to receive the Nobel Peace Prize that she won while she was under house arrest in 1991.
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Suu Kyi descends from a stage decorated with a portrait of her late father during a campaign rally in 2015.
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Suu Kyi campaigns in Kawhmu, Myanmar, in 2015.
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Suu Kyi arrives at a polling station to cast her vote in 2015. Her party won a historic majority in the nation's first freely held parliamentary elections. Suu Kyi was not able to become president, however, because of a constitutional amendment that prohibits anyone with foreign relatives from becoming the nation's leader. She was later named state counselor, a role created especially for her.
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Suu Kyi and members of parliament take their positions during the presidential vote in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, in 2016. Htin Kyaw, Suu Kyi's longtime aide, was voted as president.
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Suu Kyi walks with Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the country's military leader, at the Naypyidaw city airport in 2016.
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Suu Kyi and President Kyaw talk at a conference in Naypyidaw in 2016.
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Suu Kyi addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2016.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Supporters rush to greet Suu Kyi in Washington, DC, after she met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Suu Kyi is guided by National Park Service Ranger Heath Mitchell on her visit to Washington, DC, in 2016.
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Suu Kyi met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2017.
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Britain's Queen Elizabeth II greets Suu Kyi ahead of a private lunch at Buckingham Palace in 2017.
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US Vice President Mike Pence meets with Suu Kyi on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Singapore in 2018.
Koen Van Weel/ANP/AFP/Getty Images
Suu Kyi stands before the UN's International Court of Justice in 2019. The nation of Gambia filed a lawsuit in the world court
alleging that Myanmar committed "genocidal acts" against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims. Suu Kyi has repeatedly denied such charges, siding with the military and labeling the accusations as "misinformation."
Aung Shine Oo/AP
Suu Kyi casts her ballot during advance voting in 2020.
Aung Shine Oo/AP
Suu Kyi watches the vaccination of health workers at a hospital in Naypyidaw in January 2021. A few days later, the military detained her in a coup.
Widespread public opposition to the military’s forcible takeover and bloody crackdown on protesters has only grown in the past three years and the pro-democracy resistance movement, which includes many of the country’s powerful ethnic rebel armies, now poses a legitimate threat to the junta.
The military is facing battlefield and territorial losses on multiple fronts across the country, and there are reports of mass defections of soldiers.
The military has since ramped up its violent attacks on civilians, with widespread reports of human rights abuses that amount to war crimes, extrajudicial killings, burning whole villages and indiscriminate use of airstrikes, according to human rights groups. It has also enacted a mandatory conscription law to boost its armed forces with compulsory service.
Since the coup, the junta has locked up more than 20,000 people considered to be political prisoners, according to local advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years under house arrest during a previous military junta, has denied all of the charges levied against her – and rights groups and international observers say her convictions are politically motivated.
Aris said the only communication he has had with his mother since before the coup has been a letter that he received in January.
“That was after I’d sent her a care package along with the letter back from September last year when we heard that she was very unwell and that was the first time I was allowed to send her anything since before the coup,” he said.
Several countries and the United Nations have raised concerns about Suu Kyi’s health and her environment in detention.
“From the letter, I gather that the conditions she’s been held under are pretty barbaric. I think at that time, she was very cold, whereas now, I believe it’s unbearably hot in Burma,” Aris said, referring to the country by its former name.
“And the cell she’s in doesn’t provide any sort of insulation against either the heat or the cold. I also know that she’s been suffering from ongoing dental problems, which is making eating extremely difficult.”
In September, Suu Kyi’s NLD said in a statement it was concerned she was “not receiving adequate medical care” in prison amid reports her health was failing.
Still, Aris said he believes he will see his mother again.
“I don’t think the military will be able to hold on to power for too much longer. The situation in Burma is unsustainable,” he said.
“The economy, well is broken, the health system is broken. There is no law and order in Burma at the moment. And if that is to be restored then the military need to hand back power to the civilian government.”