ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

Myanmar’s Junta Cries Foul as Kim Aris Pleads For Proof His Mother Is Alive

Rights groups say ASEAN and the international community must have direct access to Aung San Suu Kyi.

Flags from the 11 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the plenary session of the 48th ASEAN Summit in Cebu, Philippines, May 8, 2026.

As ASEAN leaders were prepping for last weekend’s annual summit in Cebu, French President Emmanuel Macron was filing away a letter from Kim Aris, the son of Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It was a plea for help. Forty-eight-year-old Aris just wants proof that his mother is still alive.

He wants Macron to at least encourage the junta and its newly anointed president, Min Aung Hlaing, to offer a bit more than glib statements regarding his mother after her apparent move from prison to a “designated residence” somewhere in Naypyidaw.

One would think that Suu Kyi’s son would be entitled to an address. Her treatment is unnecessarily nasty and indicative of a junta in dire need of a reality check. That was evident when it cried foul, and played victim, claiming “discriminatory measures” were locking it out of ASEAN.

It also said from the sidelines of the 48th ASEAN Summit that positive developments were taking place in Myanmar and that this had been “well recognized” by the majority of ASEAN states since it held elections in January – polls that were widely regarded elsewhere as a sham.

True, Cambodia and Laos – rarely on the right side of history of late – and neighboring Thailand did congratulate Min Aung Hlaing on his appointment as “president.” But that’s hardly a majority.

Vietnam and Brunei remain quiet. But Timor-Leste has initiated a war crimes investigation, while Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines are ensuring the regime from Naypyidaw remains on the outside.

Despite five years of dithering by the bloc, ASEAN leaders did maintain their blacklisting of the country’s military leadership as host Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos complained there had not been “any progress in Myanmar.”

Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan was blunt: “We still feel uncomfortable, because oppression is still taking place, atrocities towards their own citizens are still occurring.”

To........

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