Myanmar’s junta allowed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained, 81-year-old former leader of the country, to meet with a humanitarian organization on Monday, offering a rare public glimpse of her amid growing concerns about her health.
The government released photos of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, meeting with Arnaud de Baecque, the local representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross, in the capital, Naypyidaw. In an email, Mr. de Baecque confirmed he had met her but declined to comment further.
Francisco Javier Pavón, a spokesman for the Red Cross in Myanmar, said in a statement that the visit had included the opportunity to speak with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi in private as well as the opportunity for her to exchange news with her family.
“As is customary in the I.C.R.C.’s detention work, observations and recommendations related to the visit are shared exclusively and confidentially with the detaining authorities,” he said.
Since being arrested by the military in a coup that overthrew her democratically elected government in 2021, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been in detention on a slew of charges widely seen by international observers as manufactured by her captors. While the junta has since reduced her original decades-long prison sentence, leaving her now with around 13 years left to serve, she has been seldom seen in public and has been denied contact even with her lawyers, leading to increasingly troubled speculation about her health.
In recent months, Kim Aris, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s younger son, has been demanding proof of life for his mother, who he has said has heart problems that require medical attention.
Following the meeting with the Red Cross, several photos of which were published by the Myanmar government — including images of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi smiling and shaking Mr. de Baecque’s hand — Mr. Aris said he remained cautious.
“I am yet to receive independent confirmation from the I.C.R.C. of the meeting, or of my mother’s condition or well-being,” he told The Times in an email on Monday. “ I sincerely hope this marks the beginning of greater humanitarian access, including direct contact with my mother, access for our family, and regular, independently verified information about her well-being.”
Neither Mr. de Baecque nor Mr. Pavón of the Red Cross commented on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s health, citing the terms of confidentiality underpinning such visits.
“That confidentiality is what allows to obtain access in the first place,” Mr. Pavón said.
The long-awaited proof of life for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi comes months after a parliamentary election that was widely seen as a sham and elevated Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the coup, to president in April. Since then, his government has portrayed itself as a peaceful civilian administration even as it has intensified bombings of unarmed populations.
Earlier this year, state media reported that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had been moved from prison to house arrest, a move that some analysts interpreted as an attempt by the military-backed government to sanitize its image by appearing benevolent to the leader it had deposed.
But Hunter Marston, the director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, a research institute based in Sydney, said he believed that the military’s recent showing of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi signaled something very different — growing boldness among its leaders.
“It’s a sign that Min Aung Hlaing and his government feel more confident now, and can dangle this proof of life as a way to show what they’re capable of,” he said.
Even though it faced steady international pressure to release Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, he said, the military-backed government was likely to be wary of doing so.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi spent about 15 years under house arrest during a previous period of military rule, and she was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. From 2016 to 2021, she led an elected government in a rare power-sharing agreement with the military — which has had a firm hand on Myanmar’s politics since the country’s independence from the British Empire in 1948. While Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s international reputation was tarnished during that period, amid criticism that she downplayed the military’s violent campaign against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, she remains the country’s most beloved and influential political figure.
“They could conceivably release her now that they’ve had elections and there’s no meaningful opposition party in the country,” Mr. Marston said. “But I don’t think they’re going to do so because they are still afraid of Aung San Suu Kyi inspiring grass-roots opposition.”
Mr. Aris, her son, said that his ultimate goal remained unchanged — to see his mother free, along with the thousands of other political prisoners detained under the military-backed government.
The officials of that government, he added, had gotten his mother’s birthday wrong on the pink-frosted cake in one of the photos they had published. Underneath the words “Happy Birthday Aunty Suu,” rendered in a dark icing, appeared to be the date June 29.
His mother’s birthday, Mr. Aris said, was June 19.
