NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar’s army staged a coup on Monday and arrested top politicians, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a sharp reversal of significant, albeit uneven, progress to the democracy that the Southeast Asian nation has made after five decades of military rule.
An ad read on military-owned Myawaddy TV said the commander-in-chief, senior general Min Aung Hlaing, would be at the helm of the country for a year. He said the confiscation was necessary because the government had not acted on allegations of army fraud in the November elections – in which Suu Kyi’s ruling party won a majority of parliamentary seats in the hands – and because allowed elections to continue despite the Coronavirus pandemic.
The inauguration came the morning that the country’s new parliamentary session would begin and after days of worry about a coup coming. The military maintains that its actions are legally justified (citing a section of the constitution it drafted that allows it to take control in times of national emergency), although Suu Kyi’s party spokesman and many international observers have said which equates to a coup.
It was a dramatic setback for Myanmar, which emerged from decades of strict military rule and international isolation that began in 1962. It also meant a shocking fall to power for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who he had lived under house arrest for years. he tried to push his country towards democracy and became its de facto leader after the National League for Democracy won the 2015 elections.
Although Suu Kyi had been a fierce antagonist in the army while under house arrest, since her release and return to politics, she has had to work with the country’s generals, who never completely gave up on the country. power. Although the 75-year-old has remained very popular in his home, Suu Kyi’s deference to the generals – even defending his repression against Rohingya Muslims whom the United States and others have labeled as genocide – has left its reputation internationally.
For some, Monday’s takeover was seen as a confirmation that the military has maximum power despite the transparency of democracy. New York-based Human Rights Watch has previously described the constitution clause the military invoked as a “pending coup mechanism.”
The embarrassingly poor sample of the party with military support in the November vote may have been the spark.
Larry Jagan, an independent analyst, said the takeover was just a “pretext for the military to reaffirm all its influence over the country’s political infrastructure and determine the future, at least in the short term,” adding that the generals did not i want Suu Kyi to be a part of this future.
The coup now presents evidence for the international community, which had ostracized Myanmar while under military rule and then enthusiastically embraced Suu Kyi’s government as a sign that the country was finally on its way to democracy. It will probably require a reintroduction of at least some of the sanctions the country had suffered for a long time.
The first indications that the army planned to take power were reports that Suu Kyi and Win Myint, the country’s president, had been arrested before dawn.
Myo Nyunt, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s party, told The Irrawaddy online news service that in addition to Suu Kyi and the president, members of the party’s Central Executive Committee, many of its lawmakers and other high-ranking officials had also been arrested. leaders.
Television signals were cut across the country, as well as telephone and Internet access to Naypyitaw, the capital, while passenger flights were on the ground. Telephone service was also reported in other parts of the country, although people were still able to use the Internet in many areas.
As news of military action spread to Yangon, the country’s largest city, there was growing unease among residents who at the beginning of the day had packed up at tea shops for breakfast and were going to buy in the morning.
At noon, people removed the bright red flags from Suu Kyi’s party that once adorned their homes and businesses. Lines were formed at ATMs as people waited to withdraw cash, efforts that were being complicated by Internet outages. Workers at some companies decided to go home.
Suu Kyi’s party posted a statement on one of its Facebook pages in which it claimed that the military’s actions were unjustified and went against the constitution and the will of the voters. The statement urged people to oppose Monday’s “coup” and any return to the “military dictatorship.” It was not possible to confirm who posted the message, as party members did not respond to phone calls.
The actions of the military also received international condemnation and many countries demanded the release of the detained leaders.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expressed “great concern and alarm” over the reported arrests.
“We call on the Burmese military leaders to release all government officials and civil society leaders and to respect the will of the people of Burma as expressed in the democratic elections,” he wrote in a statement, using the old name. of Myanmar.
According to his spokesman, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the events as a “serious blow to democratic reforms”.
A list of people believed to be detained, compiled by political activists, included several non-politicians, including activists, as well as a filmmaker and a writer. These arrests could not be confirmed.
In addition to announcing that the commander-in-chief would be in charge, the military television report said Vice President Myint Swe would be elevated to incumbent president. Myint Swe is a former general best known for leading a brutal crackdown on Buddhist monks in 2007. He is a close ally of Than Shwe, the junta leader who ruled Myanmar for nearly two decades.
In a later announcement, the military said elections would be held in a year and the military would hand over power to the winner.
The military justified its action by citing a clause in the 2008 constitution, applied during the military government, which says that in cases of national emergency, the executive, legislative and judicial powers of the government can be handed over to the commander-in-chief.
It is just one of many parts of the letter that ensured that the military could maintain definitive control over the country. The military is allowed to appoint its members to 25% of Parliament seats and controls several key ministries involved in security and defense.
In the November polls, Suu Kyi’s party won 396 of 476 seats for the real elections in the lower and upper houses of Parliament.
The military has accused there of massive election fraud, especially with regard to voter lists, although it has not provided convincing evidence. Last week the State Trade Union Electoral Commission rejected his allegations.
Concern over a takeover grew last week when a military spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a coup when a journalist asked him to do so at a press conference on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the military chief told senior officials in a speech that the constitution could be revoked if the laws were not properly enforced. An unusual deployment of armored vehicles on the streets of several major cities also sparked fears.
On Saturday and Sunday, however, the military denied that it had threatened a coup, accusing unnamed organizations and media of misrepresenting its position.