Aung San Suu Kyi’s freedom is not a favour to be granted

It is only one measure of the cruel treatment meted out by the ruling junta to the former leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, that she has not been able to speak to any members of her family since 2021.

Her youngest son, Kim Aris, has now been able to contact her by telephone through the embassy of Myanmar in London, and he confirms that, aged 81, still under house arrest, she is frail and suffering from tendonitis, a debilitating disease that causes inflammation and pain around the joints. There can be little doubt that the five years she spent in prison since being ousted in the 2021 coup have weakened her physically – but the suffering has not diminished her spirits, nor her determination to serve her country.

As Aris reminds the world, “a single conversation cannot restore the years taken from her or the rights she is still denied”. But there is also a political message: the military-controlled government of Myanmar should not be able to use Ms Suu Kyi’s plight and “privileges”, such as a 20-minute phone call, as diplomatic leverage to make deals with other countries.

His request is plain: “Please do not let the world mistake that moment for her freedom. One conversation is not regular family access. Family access is not freedom. My mother must never be held hostage or used as a bargaining chip for diplomatic recognition, sanctions relief or political advantage.”

This is indeed the immediate political danger, and one that Ms Suu Kyi would surely loudly warn the international community about were she in a position to do so. The Myanmar regime has been reaching out to the United States and regional powers such as Malaysia, Thailand and other prosperous players in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) in a bid to win trade deals, have sanctions lifted and, no doubt, pursue opportunities for personal enrichment.

The current leader of Myanmar, former general Min Aung Hlaing, won a rigged election at the beginning of this year, and has been slowly trying to move Myanmar out of its isolation, shunned by other countries for its long record of crimes against humanity and the hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, of which Ms Suu Kyi is only the most prominent.

The new president has been following a policy of “calibrated re-engagement” with the rest of the world – very much on his own terms. Myanmar has enviable reserves of critical minerals and has emerged as an unenviable major base for scammers; thus, its neighbours and the Americans have an interest in coming to terms with its current unpalatable government. Ms Suu Kyi is telling them not to fall for it.

Aung San Suu Kyi must be freed. Without condition. The Independent has been leading this campaign since we produced a documentary in December 2024 examining her earlier political career and legacy, titled Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi.

If nothing else, Ms Suu Kyi should be allowed her liberty, with the other political captives, because she poses no physical threat to anyone. Her basic human rights have been violated for too long. It is her right to carry on her work for her benighted country, which has for most of its time since independence from Britain in 1948 been ruled by a succession of ruthless generals who turned it into a kind of hermit kingdom.

Indeed, that slide into isolation began shortly after Ms Suu Kyi’s father, slated to be its first sovereign prime minister, was assassinated. Such is the mercenary nature of the current Myanmar regime’s treatment of Ms Suu Kyi that photographs of her receiving gifts of some books sent to her by the King were used for propaganda, as if she was somehow being treated well and at liberty. That is far from the truth.

Even now Ms Suu Kyi is her country’s best hope. After a long struggle to bring Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, to democracy, and for which she won the Nobel Peace Prize, Ms Suu Kyi eventually served as state counsellor, head of government, from 2016 to 2021.

It was a brief period of some respite for her people. There is no point denying that her reputation became tarnished because of her role in government during the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, many of whom had to flee to Bangladesh for their lives.

Her defence of the Myanmar military before the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 2019 was at the very least a grave error of judgement, though some claim she was tricked into it by the generals. She herself ordered an inquiry into what happened; Kim Aris has led an international campaign to clear her name.

In any case, that doesn’t justify her continued incarceration, which has nothing to do with those tragic bloody events and everything to do with the present dictatorship. Ms Suu Kyi should be given the opportunity to speak for herself about the past – and the future of her country, and that should be unconditional. As her son puts it, “freedom is not a favour to be granted or a concession to be negotiated”.