Kim Aris, 47, received in her mother’s place the honorary Italian citizenship that the municipality of Abbiategrasso decided to grant to the Burmese leader. For more than three years in prison, not even her family knows where she is being held or what her health conditions are, even though she is turning 79 these days. Her son explained that the international community did not understand the measures Aung San Suu Kyi took with the Rohingya.
Abbiategrasso () – Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and State Councilor of Myanmar, will turn 79 on June 19. But it will be one more birthday that she will spend in prison: after spending a quarter of her life under house arrest for her democratic commitment against the military regime, she was imprisoned again in 2021 during the last coup d’état, which was followed by a violent conflict. civil. The military junta fights against resistance groups, which in turn are made up of ethnic militias and other paramilitary formations.
No one knows where Aung San Suu Kyi is, not even her children, Alexander and Kim Aris, who grew up and still live in the United Kingdom. Here she studied Suu Kyi and met her future husband, Michael, before returning to Myanmar in 1988 to join peaceful protests against the military dictatorship. When she was detained, her husband was only able to visit her five times before dying from a tumor in 1999.
The youngest son, Kim, now 47 years old, received on June 15 in Abbiategrasso the honorary citizenship that the municipality of the province of Milan decided to grant to the Burmese leader. He expressed concern about the health conditions of “maymay”, the Burmese word for “mother”, and called for her to be released. “I last spoke to her almost three and a half years ago, before the coup,” he tells . In 1991, when she was awarded the Nobel Prize, her children, Alexander, who was eighteen at the time, and Kim, who was only 14, had also received the recognition.
The citizenship ceremony, chaired by the mayor of Abbiategrasso Cesare Nai, was attended by numerous personalities, including the deputy Umberto Maerna, Andrea Sala, councilor of the Lombardy region, Albertina Soliani, former parliamentarian and friend of Aung San Suu Kyi, Alessandra Schiavo, Italian ambassador in Yangon when the coup occurred, Father Gianni Criveller, director of the PIME Center in Milan, Mother Valentina Pozzi, superior general of the Sisters of Mary Reparatrix, Salvatore Restuccia, president of Avis Abbiategrasso and Claudio Tirelli, president of the “Obiettivo sul Mondo” association, which promoted the meeting.
Kim Aris is confident that the violence will end and the Army will be defeated, and believes that the only possible path for Myanmar is “the Burmese definition of peace”, according to which “the factors that threaten peace must be eliminated: discrimination , inequality and poverty. No one is free until everyone is free.”
But “since the coup occurred I have only received one communication from my mother, a letter at the beginning of this year,” he explains. “It was the first real sign that she was still alive. There is no news about her whereabouts or what her health status is. Last year around this time we learned that she was not well, that she was sick, that she had dental problems. At that time the military allowed me to send an aid package, to which I attached a letter. The one I received in January was her response. Not even her lawyers can see her,” she adds. He explains that her accusations against her and the reports that she is under house arrest are completely false. “We suspect that she is still in Naypyidaw prison. “My mother has a house in Yangon, but the military is trying to sell it,” so it would be absurd to think that she has been moved there. “It may be true that she was released from prison and then taken back to prison, but there is no possibility of independently verifying this.”
Kim and Alexander, like their father previously, had their Burmese citizenship revoked. “Over the years I have come and gone to Myanmar. I was with her when she was first put under house arrest, I was about 12 years old. Since then I have been able to visit her a few times, but her decision depended on the different military leaders who followed one another, there was no rule or coherence. Even when she was released, I didn’t have the chance to see her much, because she was very focused on rebuilding the country.” Aung San Suu Kyi was elected head of government in 2015 and confirmed in 2020, and progressively opened Myanmar to democracy and trade. international, trying, as far as possible, to keep the powerful Burmese army away from politics.
A life given by his people, made up of dozens of different ethnic groups and religions. And it has been precisely in faith where Aung San Suu Kyi found the strength to continue in her fight for freedom and democracy: “I think what still prevents her from giving up is the education she received as the daughter of the father of homeland, Aung San”, who fought for the independence of Myanmar from the British colonial empire and, by one of those jokes of fate, was also the founder of the Burmese Army. But not only that: “His Buddhist religion must also have given him a lot of strength. , and especially meditation,” Kim Aris continues. “I’m sure that during the times of house arrest he continued to meditate, too. Doesn’t Aung San Suu Kyi’s son meditate? “I’m not particularly religious,” he says. “I couldn’t decide if I preferred one religion or another, I have always seen them all fighting against each other. “I’d rather not get involved.”
Struggles like those that have shaken Myanmar for more than three years. The latest updates speak of almost 3 million displaced people and almost 19 million people in need of humanitarian assistance out of a population of more than 56 million. “The creation of a federal State is a possibility,” says Aris. “But it will still take a long time to rebuild the country and return it to the democratic path. There are many different factions that are only now learning to work together. “I think that’s the only good thing this military coup has brought, forcing people to work together like they’ve never done before, although it’s sad that it took all of this for that to happen.”
At this moment, the fiercest clashes are taking place in the western state of Rakhine, on the border with Bangladesh, inhabited by the Rohingya, a minority of Muslim religion that in 2017 was persecuted by the Burmese army. At that time Aung San Suu Kyi was also accused of being complicit in “genocide”: “The international media was completely wrong. Obviously people might think I’m biased because I’m her son, but just look at what was happening at the time. Of course, he didn’t say what some wanted to hear,” explains Kim Aris. “But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t doing everything he could to try to improve the situation. Her top adviser was a Rakhine Muslim who was murdered at Yangon airport. And at the same time she was following all the advice that the UN experts gave her. But no one remembers to mention those things.”
“There were good reasons for my mother not to report what was happening, because it would probably have caused bloodshed before it actually happened. The international community thought they knew better.” Instead, the Burmese were clear from the beginning that Aung San Suu Kyi was trying to stay in power without going against the Army, which controlled a quarter of Parliament and the most important ministries. “From the outside it was not possible to understand that the situation was delicate, that democracy was still being built, that it was an unfinished work. The situation with the Rohingya is not simple. People wanted me to say that a genocide was taking place, but that was it. “It’s too hasty a way to label a complex situation; ‘genocide’ is a very specific word.”
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