Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Alan Little. My guest today is the son of one of the most

extraordinary political figures of our age. Ang San Suu Kyi gained admirers around the world as a political

prisoner and an icon of human rights as she led the struggle for democracy in her native Myanmar. But to do

it, she had to walk away from her life as a suburban housewife

and young mother in England, while her two young sons were still children. She became the mother

of a nation, but her own sons grew into adulthood in her absence. It was a choice she consciously

made and which they lived with. One of those sons, Kim Aris, has maintained a silence all his life,

but now in his 40s and a father himself, he's chosen to speak out. When his mother finally won

power in democratic elections, her reputation suffered a devastating decline when she backed her

country's military after a brutal crackdown against the minority Muslim Rohingya people.

She was, in the end, toppled, and the country plunged into civil war.

She is, again, a prisoner of the military.

Her family doesn't know anything about how she's being treated.

Her son believes the democratic world has turned its back on her and her desperate country,

now riven by the violence

she devoted much of her life to resisting. What will be her fate and that of Myanmar?

Kimaris, welcome to hard talk. Hi, Alan. How do you do? You've been silent all your life and you're in your

mid-40s now and you've finally decided to seek the limelight and to speak out.

Why did you stay quiet for so long and why have you decided to seek a platform now?

Well, I just feel that the situation in Burma is so desperate and there's so little news coming out on what's going on over there.

Someone needs to be saying something.

And again, my mother's been locked up for completely false

...