The Coup:
On Monday morning, 1st February, the people of Myanmar woke up to a military coup d’état that overthrew the country’s recently re-elected democratic party. Civilian leaders have been detained and arrested, while the internet has been shut off in major cities. The military has seized control of the country’s infrastructure, suspending television broadcasts, and a state of emergency has been declared for a year- returning the country to full military rule after a brief span of democratic governance.
This coup comes right in time, as the parliament was scheduled to hold its first session for the leaders to be sworn in. Following the election results on November 8th 2020, the country’s leading civilian party - The National League for Democracy (NLD), had a landslide victory, winning 83% of the seats and defeated the military-linked Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). The USDP rejected the emerging results and demanded re-election, trying to argue in the country’s Supreme Court that the election results were fraudulent.
Many leaders of the ruling NLD party, including Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint, have been detained. After the arrests, the military issued its first formal charges against Aung San Suu Kyi for illegally importing communication devices. Members of Myanmar’s parliament and cabinet ministers remain confined. An unverified Facebook post claimed that Aung San Suu Kyi is being held at her official residence. The junta has announced a new list of cabinet members, comprising both retired and active military members. In the process of reasserting command, the army, known as the Tatmadaw, has destroyed Myanmar’s fragile democracy. The military has now handed full control and power to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
Myanmar’s history of a fragile democracy:
After years of civilian protests and unrest, a Quasi-democracy was established in Myanmar in 2011 when the military implemented parliamentary elections and other reforms, ushering in a return to civilian rule. The military had been in power since 1962 after the first coup had General Ne Win overthrow a fragile government. While Myanmar maintained a civilian-military system of governance, with obtaining 25% of the seats in the parliament and veto power. It is now clear that the balance of power was unequal and one side of the government outweighed and outmanoeuvred the other. The coup has cut short the NDP’s governance after a mere five years and Myanmar’s fragile system of a hybrid civilian-military democracy has come crashing down.
Despite her popularity in Myanmar, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi’s international reputation has deteriorated over the years and, as the coup proves, her governance has failed to placate the military as well. Over the years, she has accommodated the army and defended its atrocities carried out against the Muslim minority of Myanmar. The Rohingya Muslims faced decades of persecution, but it was General Min Aung Hlaing who allegedly led the campaign of violence and brutality which forced them to flee the country. Three-quarters of a million Rohingya have fled Myanmar and have been driven to exile as refugees in Bangladesh. This intense persecution of the country’s ethnic minorities is a product of a society where the army is deeply entrenched in its every aspect.
In 2019, before the International Court of Justice, she dismissed it as an internal conflict where the army may have used disproportionate force. Aung San Suu Kyi maintained close relationships with the military, and NLD cultivated an alliance with senior officials. However, her relationship with General Min Aung Hlaing was said to have been fraying over the years. General Min Aung Hlaing was supposed to retire this year, but the coup has given him complete and total authority.
Mixed reactions from world leaders:
The current events in Myanmar have been met with adverse reactions and responses from all around the world. Countries such as the United States of America, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia have all criticized the military-led coup. US President Joe Biden released an official statement expressing the military’s overthrowing of the elected government as “a direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and the rule of law.” and has warned the reinstating of sanctions. Similarly, UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also condemned the coup and “unlawful imprisonment of civilians, including Aung San Suu Kyi, in Myanmar.”
Conversely, China has referred to the coup as an “internal conflict” leading to a “cabinet reshuffle”. During the United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday, China refused to support a joint statement regarding the issue. The countries part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) such as Thailand, Philippines and Cambodia, issued statements that mirrored China’s response. contrasting the statement released by ASEAN’s Chairman:
“We reiterate that the political stability in ASEAN Member States is essential to achieving a peaceful, stable and prosperous ASEAN Community. We encourage the pursuance of dialogue, reconciliation and the return to normalcy in accordance with the will and interests of the people of Myanmar.”
What does this mean for the people of Myanmar?
For most citizens of Myanmar, this is the second military-led coup in their lifetimes. Since Myanmar gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1948, its civilians have been subjected to decades of unrest because of the relentless civil wars. Although the semblance of restored democracy in the country was accompanied by stratocracy, it gave people hope for a future where they could live their lives free of the military’s rule. This coup and the following year of emergency - riddled with curfews, internet and social media blocking threatens the years of protests and bloodshed fought in the quest for democracy. The condition of Aung San Suu Kyi’s detainment is yet to be made public knowledge. Lovingly called “Mother Sue” by the people of Myanmar, Suu Kyi spearheaded Myanmar’s struggle for democracy. Due to the constrictive curfew set by the military, residents have resorted to banging cooking pots from their homes in an act of civil disobedience. Doctors and staff working at government hospitals have either stopped working, unless emergency cases or wore red ribbons to protest the junta’s takeover, citing their lack of empathy at the time of a pandemic.
The possible reinstating of sanctions on Myanmar by the United States and its allies may also lead to further the regression of Myanmar’s economy. Many fear that these sanctions and the military’s full control of the economy may revert the country to the “Burmese model of capitalism”, which wreaked havoc on the poverty-stricken people of Myanmar.
Although the junta has said that re-elections will take place in a year, civilians are skeptical of its possibility considering the state of complete autonomy that the military has explicitly established in Myanmar with this coup. With powerful world leaders, human rights groups, the United Nations and the people of Myanmar - all condemning this coup d’état, the impertinent question of the hour seems to be whether this will be the rise of a military dictatorship and, the end of democracy in Myanmar as we know it.
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