Myanmar’s Military Takes Over Power In coup, Detained Aung San Suu Kyi, Others
LAGOS FEBRUARY 1ST (NEWSRANGERS)-Myanmar’s military TV station announced Monday the army has declared a one-year state of emergency after taking power and detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other top ruling party leaders.
The coup comes after escalating tensions between the civilian government and the military following last November’s elections, which Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party won.
Myanmar was ruled by the military until 2011. But it had been “celebrated as a rare case in which generals willingly handed over some power to civilians” after it respected the 2015 election win of the NLD party, the New York Times notes.
The military announced that the country’s army chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was now in charge.
NLD spokesperson Myo Nyunt told Reuters that 75-year-old NLD leader Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were among those “taken” in early-morning raids Monday local time.
Communications were disrupted in the capital Naypyitaw and Yangon, as soldiers took up positions in the main commercial centre’s city hall, Reuters notes.
State TV went off air hours before parliament had been due to sit for the first time since the NLD’s November election win.
The NLD won enough seats to form a government last November, but other parties and the military said the elections were not fair.
The election commission rejected allegations of fraud, but the military has said in recent days that it would “take action” over the outcome, the BBC notes.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “grave concern and alarm” at the developments in Myanmar in a statement soon after the coup.
White House Spokesperson Jen Psaki said in an earlier statement the U.S. was “alarmed” by reports that the military “has taken steps to undermine the country’s democratic transition,” including the arrest of Suu Kyi and others.
President Biden has been briefed on the situation by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Psaki said, calling on the military to release the detained officials and “adhere to democratic norms and the rule of law.”
Suu Kyi won a 1991 Nobel during her nonviolent campaign for democracy that saw her placed under house arrest for a total of 15 years.
Her reputation has been damaged by her coming to the defense of a military crackdown on Myanmar’s Rohingya, amid claims that they committed genocide on the Muslim group.
Axios
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Posted by News Rangers
on Feb 1 2021. Filed under International, National.
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