Myanmar: UN envoy concerned about health of Aung San Suu Kyi

The United Nations special envoy for Myanmar expressed concerns about the health of the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi following a recent visit. The concern comes amidst the envoy’s plans not to visit Myanmar unless a meeting with Suu Kyi is granted.

Speaking at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore Monday, UN special envoy for Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer expressed her concern about Suu Kyi’s health more than a year since she was ousted by the generals in a coup back in February last year. Heyzer added that she would not visit Myanmar unless she can visit the ousted leader.

“I am very concerned for her health and condemn her sentence for hard labor,” said Heyzer, referring to the sentence by the junta-backed court to the ousted leader on charges of electoral fraud that fueled the coup by the generals.

Suu Kyi was already convicted by the junta for several other charges in the closed-door trials, with sentences that go up to 17 years in prison.

Heyzer also said she expressed these concerns with the coup leader, Min Aung Hlaing during her visit to Myanmar back in August. Heyzer called on the coup leaders to allow Suu Kyi to return home.

This was one of Heyzer’s six requests during her visit, including a call to end executions, to release children who protested the coup and are detained, an end to the violence including air strikes, the release of political prisoners, and meeting Suu Kyi.

The generals seized power in February last year, plunging Myanmar into political and civil unrest, and sparking nationwide protests against the coup. The military responded with a brutal crackdown, killing hundreds and detaining thousands, receiving international condemnation.

In recent months, the military has faced off against an armed resistance movement.

Malaysian foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN to take urgent action to provide humanitarian assistance and enforce the peace process in Myanmar Monday.

The 10-member bloc has been pushing the junta to adhere to the peace plan agreed upon shortly after the coup, but the lack of progress has led to some countries expressing frustration toward the junta.

Saifuddin said he wrote to the ASEAN Secretary-General Saturday to ask for updates as he had yet to receive a word from the bloc’s leaders since the meeting in Cambodia back in August.