Kim Aris would much rather stay out of the spotlight. But when his mother Aung San Suu Kyi was once again imprisoned after Myanmar’s military coup in 2021, he realised he could no longer remain silent. As a part of his mission to draw attention to his mother’s plight and the continuing struggle of the people of Myanmar, he came to Prague last week.
There he attended the democratic Forum 2000 Conference to remind the world that wars raging closer to home have not brought an end to those that have been devastating countries thousands of miles away for years.
His mother is now 81 and her family do not know exactly where she is being held or in what conditions. In an interview with Chechia’s Seznam Zpravy daily, he asks: if he, as her own son, does not stand up for his mother, how can he expect anyone else to do so?
When you look at Myanmar today, more than five years after the coup, what kind of country do you see?
I see a country torn apart by civil war, with people on the ground facing a very, very desperate situation. The military continues to bomb civilians regularly and refuses to stop its brutality against the population despite international pressure.
And yet, despite all this, I don’t think the situation is quite as straightforward as the rest of the world tends to portray it.
The people of Burma have shown incredible strength over the past five years, and the military is nowhere near as strong as it would like the rest of the world to believe. In fact, I would say the country is more united today than it has been for decades. It’s just very difficult for the outside world to see that at the moment.
We are witnessing something of a diplomatic rehabilitation of regime leader Min Aung Hlaing. He was warmly received in Malaysia, and the United States has begun direct talks with his government. What do you think of these developments?
I think those who are now trying to negotiate with the military are going to be very disappointed when they realise that the military is making promises it simply cannot keep.
Are you referring, for example, to American efforts to gain access to Myanmar’s rare earth mineral deposits?
Yes. But those minerals are not being mined in areas controlled by the military. Many of the promises the military is making concern things it simply cannot deliver. And even if it could deliver them, we’ve known for decades that the military frequently breaks its promises.
When was the last time you heard from your mother directly?
I’ve received just one letter from her in the past five years. That must have been about three years ago now.
This summer, photographs finally emerged showing her meeting representatives of the Red Cross. When you first saw those pictures, did they reassure you, or did they raise even more questions?
At first, I wasn’t even sure whether to believe that the meeting had actually taken place. After all, over the past five years, the military has put out a great deal of false information about my mother’s health and whereabouts.
For example, they claimed she had been transferred to house arrest, and we know that isn’t true. But when I found out that the photograph was genuine—or at least that one of them was—it gave me some hope that she was, at least, still alive.
Do you think the military is afraid of Aung San Suu Kyi herself or of what she continues to represent?
They’re definitely afraid of her. Why else would they keep her locked up?
And she really is a symbol for the people. People in Burma recognise how much she has sacrificed for them over the past 30 or 40 years. They know that she has been willing to stay in Burma, to remain with them and go through the same hardships they’ve had to endure.
Your mother remains a symbol of democracy for many people. But is there anything from her time in government that you personally disagree with? I’m thinking, for example, of the Rohingya crisis.
No, I’ve never had a problem with any of her decisions. She was in an extremely difficult position, and the international community failed to understand just how delicate that situation was.
I think it’s much clearer now that she simply wasn’t able to do everything she might have wanted to do. But I believe she did more for the Rohingya than anyone else, and people don’t realise that.
They say she remained silent on the issue, even though what she actually said about it would fill entire volumes. They say she went to The Hague to defend the military. But they say that without ever having properly listened to what she actually said there. So my advice to people is this: go and listen to what she said. Find out exactly what she did to help the Rohingya.
She initiated the establishment of the Kofi Annan Commission the day after she came to power. That was before the issue had even become a major concern for the international community. She was taking steps to help the Rohingya, and representatives of the Rohingya community I’ve spoken to have told me that she did everything she could for them.
Most people associate Aung San Suu Kyi with politics or the Nobel Peace Prize. Was it difficult growing up with someone who was both a parent and such a prominent public figure?
I grew up with it, and I think that, when you’re a child, everything just seems normal. You don’t know any other way of life, so you don’t really know what’s normal and what isn’t. From a very early age, I was aware of what she represented, but I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive. She can be my mother and, at the same time, a very prominent political figure.
You’ve said before that you never wanted to become involved in politics, and that your mother didn’t want that for you either. Yet here you are, travelling, campaigning and speaking publicly about Myanmar. When did you realise that staying out of the spotlight was no longer an option?
When they put her in prison five years ago, I realised I had to speak out. After all, I’m her son. And if I don’t do anything, how can I expect anyone else to stand up for her?
How much of what you’re doing today is about your mother personally, and how much is about Myanmar itself? If your mother were released tomorrow, would you continue campaigning for democracy in Myanmar?
I think my mother would do a pretty good job of that herself. If I manage to secure her release, then I can feel that I’ve done my job well too.
For much of her life, Aung San Suu Kyi was seen as the daughter of Aung San, the general who played a key role in Burma’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule. Do you sometimes feel that you, too, are defined by your mother’s name?
I suppose I do, to some extent. After all, it’s very difficult not to have that image hanging over you. But at the same time, I’m doing this because I want to. I think it’s important that we all try to do whatever we can. People often don’t realise that they’re capable of doing much more than they think.
As a child, did you understand why your mother chose to stay in Myanmar rather than live a safe life with her family in Britain?
Yes, I did. I was actually with her when she was first placed under house arrest, so I saw what was happening with my own eyes. In some ways, it felt like a natural continuation of what had been happening before, because we’d been watching the situation in Burma gradually deteriorate.
I can’t say it was easy, but I think that, because I was a child at the time, I was somehow able to accept it. It’s difficult to explain. I think adults often find it harder to deal with change. And if she’d been imprisoned five years ago without my having already spent decades living with our separation, I think it would have been much harder.
What was it actually like when your mother was first placed under house arrest? Can you describe what happened?
When they first came to arrest her, they arrived with several trucks to take away the student revolutionaries who were staying in the house as well. I remember watching them being taken away. Then they put barbed wire around the entire compound, set up guard posts, cut the telephone lines and stopped us from leaving the house.
But at least we were still in her own home, and her own doctor was allowed to visit her. Even after I returned to England, I could send her parcels, and sometimes we were able to communicate. The past five years have been completely different.
You mentioned the student movement earlier. Is the revolution still visible on the streets of Myanmar today?
Yes, it is. It may not be as visible as it once was, but there is still an enormous amount of resistance across the country. In some places, like Yangon, things might appear quite normal. Other journalists I’ve spoken to who have been there have told me that everything looks remarkably normal. But it certainly isn’t. There are still huge numbers of people doing everything they can to change the situation. They’ve simply gone underground, so they’re not as visible as they used to be.
Do you ever feel that the junta has forced you into a role you would never have chosen for yourself?
Yes. I wouldn’t be doing this otherwise.
And what would you be doing?
Spending time with my children and working. I’m a trained carpenter.
How do you explain to your children what’s happening to their grandmother, and what’s happening in Myanmar more generally?
We’ve been talking about it for years, and they’ve had to come to terms with it too. They understand what’s happening in Burma. I still try to protect them as much as I can. Being in the public eye isn’t easy, and I want to keep them as far away from all that as possible.
Do you believe you’ll ever see your mother again?
Yes, I do. She’s been released before, and the situation in Burma could change at any moment. Even if the resistance doesn’t achieve victory in the near future, I think there’s still a chance that she could be released.
The interview first appeared in Czech at Seznam Zpravy. Daniela Kucerova is the new outlet’s foreign news department editor. Her main area of focus is Asia, particularly China and neighboring regions.