Myanmar's Ousted Leader Aung San Suu Kyi Seen in Rare Photos After Receiving Gift From King Charles
Seven Lights
Myanmar’s military government released rare photographs showing detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi receiving two books sent by Britain’s King Charles III, together with a sealed letter and a sealed diplomatic pouch, in a delivery completed on Monday, the BBC and The Guardian reported. Critics described the images as a stunt by the country’s military to end its diplomatic isolation, The Guardian said.
A presidential spokesperson said on social media that home ministry officials handed over two gardening books on soil, “along with one sealed envelope and a sealed diplomatic pouch,” The Guardian reported. The BBC identified the books as “Soil to Table” by British gardeners Bridget Elworthy and Henrietta Courtauld and “Soil: The World at Our Feet,” the catalogue from an exhibition held in London last year. The Guardian noted that King Charles is known for an interest in planting and the environment.
Photographs showed Suu Kyi in a pale green Burmese traditional blouse and an olive-coloured skirt, seated across a table from two men in white shirts and smiling in a wood-panelled room, the BBC and The Guardian reported. The statement accompanying the photographs gave no details on her state of health or on what else was discussed, the BBC said.
Suu Kyi, 81, has been detained since the military ousted her government in 2021 and imprisoned for what are widely viewed as trumped-up charges, the BBC said, and is serving multiple sentences under house arrest at an undisclosed location in the capital, Naypyidaw, The Guardian reported. She was initially sentenced to 33 years in jail following the coup and was moved to house arrest in June, the BBC noted. The daughter of assassinated independence hero Gen Aung San, she has spent much of her life in and out of house arrest for pro-democracy activism, and the country’s rulers have been cautious about imprisoning her given her domestic standing and international prominence, particularly in Britain, where she lived and married an Oxford academic, The Guardian said. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her non-violent struggle for democracy, the BBC said.
Suu Kyi won a 2015 election before the coup, which triggered an ongoing civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people according to the conflict monitor ACLED, The Guardian reported. Her whereabouts and health had been difficult to determine until an August visit by the International Committee of the Red Cross, when the government released photographs of the encounter — the first confirmed foreign contact with her since a letter to her son two-and-a-half years ago, the BBC said.
Her London-based son, Kim Aris, welcomed the gifts but warned against their exploitation, saying in a statement, “We must not allow the military regime to use such selective disclosures to create an illusion of normality or gain international legitimacy,” and adding, “My mother’s fundamental human rights continue to be violated,” according to The Guardian. He has for years campaigned for his mother’s release and said in August that she appeared to be “in good health” based on the ICRC photographs, the BBC said. CNA reported that Kim Aris had his first call with his mother in five years and that she sounded “fairly healthy.”
Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing was installed as civilian president in April after elections widely condemned as neither free nor fair, The Guardian and the BBC said. Barred from western countries and accused of crimes against humanity, he has been on a diplomatic blitz within Asia and is also talking to the US, the BBC said. ASEAN had barred him from its summits for not following a bloc-brokered peace plan, and he has since visited Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, receiving an honour guard during a trip to Malaysia this month, The Guardian said. He remains under US sanctions for human rights abuses, including the 2016-2017 mass killings and expulsions of Rohingya Muslims that Washington considers a genocide, The Guardian added.