The son of Burmese opposition icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been granted a visa to visit his mother, more than a week after she was freed from seven years under house arrest.
Kim Aris had arrived in Bangkok days prior to her 13 November release but there was a delay in issuing the visa, likely due to the sensitivity of his status. The 33-year-old is the youngest of Suu Kyi’s two sons, whom she had with her late husband, Michael Aris.
“He has got his visa already and he is trying to come today,” Suu Kyi’s lawyer Nyan Win told AFP, adding that the 65-year-old opposition leader planned to welcome her son at Rangoon airport.
Up until her release, the two had had no contact for a decade. The conditions of her house arrest meant she was not allowed to use a telephone, nor have visitors other than her doctor and lawyer.
The Burmese government in 1997 denied a visa to Michael Aris after he learnt he was dying from prostate cancer. The scholar of Tibetan studies, who met Suu Kyi while they were both at college, died in 1999, having only seen his wife on five occasions since she returned to Burma in 1988.
