What Myanmar is signaling to Asean by rejecting access to Suu Kyi

BANGKOK – As Aung San Suu Kyi turned 81 recently, some have reiterated calls for her release or access to her.

But these calls have been ignored or turned down, including the latest request from Asean member states to meet the deposed Myanmar leader, who has been imprisoned since a military coup in 2021.

Analysts say the Myanmar regime’s continued refusal to be pressured by Asean shows it believes that the grouping is somewhat toothless.

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“Asean needs Myanmar more than Min Aung Hlaing deems Myanmar needs Asean,” said Hunter Marston of the Lowy Institute, referring to the Myanmar regime’s leader.

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READ: PH renews call to free Suu Kyi after Myanmar rejects Asean envoy

The latest rebuff of Asean came in end June. At a news conference on June 30, the regime’s spokesperson Khaing Khaing Soe said: “Aung San Suu Kyi has been prosecuted under the law and is serving sentences.”

“Therefore she is not allowed to meet with international representatives,” she added.

This marked the second time that Asean chair the Philippines’ Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro was unable to meet Suu Kyi. Her previous attempt was during a visit to Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw on Jan 7, where she met then acting president Min Aung Hlaing.

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“They want to signal they are in control of the situation and dictate who can visit Aung San Suu Kyi and when,” said Marston, who is director of the South-east Asia program at the Lowy Institute.

READ: Son of Myanmar’s Suu Kyi demands proof of life from military gov’t

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“The fact that only former Thai foreign minister Don Pramudwinai and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi have managed to secure visits shows who the junta really trusts and who it views as its most important foreign partners,” Marston told The Straits Times.

Pramudwinai met Suu Kyi on a visit to Naypyitaw in July 2023, two years after the coup, and Wang reportedly met her during his April 25 visit this year to the Myanmar capital.

Restricting her visitors is the regime’s way of retaining its political leverage, some analysts suggest.

“I see this largely as a diplomatic card the regime continues to hold,” Amara Thiha, a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center, a US think-tank, told ST.

Myanmar’s highest-profile political prisoner Suu Kyi is serving her remaining sentence of some 18 years after several rounds of reduced jail time from the original 33 years by the regime.

She was convicted on charges which included violating Myanmar’s official secrets act and corruption, and many have described the allegations against her as false and politically motivated.

By keeping her locked up, the junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has also succeeded in staging a tightly managed election, which many had labelled a sham early this year.

READ: Myanmar mass prison sentence cut trims Suu Kyi’s jail term

The 69-year-old then relinquished his military chief post and assumed the position of president in April.

But Min Aung Hlaing has remained steadfast in governing Myanmar according to his terms. He has largely ignored Asean’s Five-Point Consensus peace plan laid out after the coup to help resolve the violent strife in Myanmar.

Since the putsch, at least 100,000 people have died, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, an independent global monitor on conflicts.

The grouping has been frustrated with Min Aung Hlaing and has repeatedly called on him to fully implement the peace plan, which calls for an end to violence and the granting of humanitarian aid access, among other conditions.

One of the conditions is to allow the Asean special envoy to meet all parties concerned, which should encompass a session with Suu Kyi.

Yet she has largely been held incommunicado since her incarceration, and following reports that the regime placed her under house arrest in April, Suu Kyi has not been seen or heard by independent sources.

“It (Myanmar’s military government) rejects access to Aung San Suu Kyi precisely because such access would imply that Asean has some legitimate supervisory role over Myanmar’s internal political settlement,” observed Phyo Win Latt, an independent historian of Myanmar.

“The junta wants Asean recognition, but not Asean scrutiny,” he said.

A son’s cry for proof of life

To Suu Kyi’s 48-year-old son Kim Aris, it is deeply disappointing that the regime has rejected Asean’s request to meet his mother, but he is not surprised. “They continue to isolate my mother from the world, raising serious questions about what they are trying to hide,” he told ST.

The Myanmar regime has regularly claimed that Suu Kyi is “in good health” but has not allowed Aris to visit or speak with his mother for five years now.

The regime reasoned that she is a convicted prisoner and is therefore not allowed to meet foreign visitors – an excuse her son rejects.

For more than five years since the coup, Asean has kept up with its ban on Min Aung Hlaing attending the leaders’ summits. The grouping wants him to fulfill the peace plan conditions before it will consider having him back at the table.

But Amara Thiha of the Stimson Center pointed out that Min Aung Hlaing sees Asean threatening him with the peace plan as being unfair.

He told ST that from Naypyitaw’s point of view, Asean does not intervene in other member states’ disputes such as the ongoing Thailand-Cambodia territorial disagreement.

“They ask why Myanmar should be the exception, and see no reason to comply,” he explained.

And though the detained democratic leader may not be involved in the current resistance against the regime, history has shown that Suu Kyi has the ability to galvanize citizens and achieve sweeping electoral victories. The regime would not want a repeat of 2010 – when her party swept elections after her release from house arrest.

That is a risk the regime is not willing to take.

“The regime still sees her voice, even in a diminished political moment, as potentially disruptive,” historian Phyo Win Latt said.

“She remains a symbolic asset, a political hostage and potentially a scapegoat in the regime’s dealings with Asean and the wider international community,” he added.

Who has the upper hand?

Some believe that spurning Asean’s request to meet Suu Kyi would drive a bigger wedge between Min Aung Hlaing and the regional group as member states may prolong his ban at the leaders’ gathering.

But analysts suggest otherwise.

“The regime is not overly concerned about being marginalized within Asean,” Amara Thiha observed. “They calculate that what Asean can offer on the Myanmar conflict is limited, while the countries with the greatest influence on the ground are the ones actively engaging.”

READ: Myanmar mourns as post-coup conflict death toll hits 100,000

In turn, the regional member states have remained divided over whether it is time to re-engage Min Aung Hlaing now that he has assumed the role of president and formed a quasi-civilian government.

Observers like Phyo Win Latt feel Min Aung Hlaing, who engineered his way to the presidency, is now asserting his new role by outrightly denying Asean’s request. “To Asean, the regime is saying, ‘You may engage us, but only on terms we define.’ To domestic audiences, it is saying, ‘We remain sovereign, unpressured and in control”.

But Suu Kyi’s son pleads with the international community not to soften their stance on the regime and to take serious, coordinated action to help Myanmar.

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“The world must not turn away. World leaders must not neglect what is happening in Burma,” Aris said, referring to Myanmar by its colonial-era name.  /dl