The military coup in Myanmar, explained
On Monday, Myanmar’s military staged a coup. The country’s leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was detained, as were other top politicians, journalists and activists. The military announced over its television network that a one-year state of emergency was in place and its army chief was now the country’s leader.
The key players
Aung San Suu Kyi: Once lauded as an international symbol for human rights, Suu Kyi remains a popular figure in Myanmar despite denying strong claims that her security forces waged a genocidal war against the Rohingya Muslims.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing: The army chief who not only commands the military, but had control over one quarter of seats in Suu Kyi’s Parliament. Before last November’s election, he expressed interest in becoming President.
To understand the coup, you need to understand how powerful Myanmar’s military is. In 2015, Myanmar, a country of 54 million in south-east Asia, was praised as a rare case in which a dictatorship was able to transition towards democracy. Suu Kyi, 75, came to power in a landslide election in 2015 after decades of democratic activism.
But the military was careful to keep some power.
It required that one in four parliamentary seats were given to them, as well as three cabinet positions.
It wrote the country’s constitution
In direct opposition to Suu Kyi’s wishes before becoming leader, it engineered brutal ethnic conflict against the Rohingya Muslims.
The trigger for the coup: last November’s election
After Suu Kyi’s party won the election convincingly, and pro-military parties performed badly, the military argued that the election had been rigged. International election observers say if there was any fraud, it wasn’t significant enough to alter the result.
But that didn’t stop Aung Hlaing from making the argument. His message over military television today: that the military was taking over because of voter fraud and Suu Kyi’s failure to postpone the election because of COVID-19.
“The doors just opened to a different, almost certainly darker future. Myanmar is a country already at war with itself, awash in weapons, with millions barely able to feed themselves, deeply divided along religious and ethnic lines… I’m not sure anyone will be able to control what comes next.”
Myanmarese author and historian Thant Mint-U, speaking to The New York Times on Monday.