Five Years, One Phone Call: Suu Kyi Speaks to Son for First Time Since 2021

Aung San Suu Kyi, 81, has spoken to her son for the first time in more than five years, with Kim Aris reporting she is mentally sharp and physically strong despite living in near-total isolation. Aris said he does not believe anyone besides military or police personnel is with her, and that she has no access to newspapers, radio or television.

Aris, who lives in the United Kingdom, spoke to his mother on Thursday at the Myanmar embassy in London. He has not been able to confirm her location but said he believes she is held at a fenced-off residence in Naypyidaw surrounded by scrubby land. He described the call as part of a public relations campaign by Myanmar's military leaders.

Suu Kyi was deposed in the 2021 military coup and has been moved to an unspecified location in the capital since. She has spent much of her life since the late 1980s in and out of house arrest for leading pro-democracy movements, and she was detained on charges that Aris called politically motivated.

Activists have demanded proof of life for Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. She was photographed during a Red Cross visit in August, and a government spokesperson released images last week of her receiving two gardening books that Britain's King Charles had given her as gifts. Aris said such displays are stunts the regime has used before to suggest his mother is treated fairly.

Former junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has sought to rebuild diplomatic ties abroad and swapped his military fatigues for civilian clothes in April after elections that were widely condemned as a sham. The 2021 takeover triggered a civil war that conflict monitors say has killed more than 100,000 people.

Suu Kyi became state counsellor after her party won a 2015 election under a civilian-military power-sharing arrangement. Her international standing later suffered after the mass killings and expulsions of Rohingya Muslims in 2016 and 2017. At the International Court of Justice in The Hague, she acknowledged that military units might have used disproportionate force but defended the government against genocide accusations.

Aris said his mother was never silent on the Rohingya crisis and that Myanmar began a domestic inquiry and appointed former UN chief Kofi Annan to lead a commission under her leadership. He said she was always walking on a tightrope as state counsellor, knowing the military could remove her power at any time.