Disgraced Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma, was taken into custody along with President Win Myint and other members of the National League of Democracy by the country’s military in early morning raids. According to the military-run TV, Myawaddy, the army has taken over the control of the country, handing over power to commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing.
The development came hours before the country’s parliament was expected to convene following a November election that Suu Kyi’s party, National League of Democracy, won in a landslide.
NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt told news agency AFP that given the situation, ‘we have to assume that the military is staging a coup.’ Nyunt, however, urged people to ‘not to respond rashly’ and ‘act according to the law.’
A report by news agency Reuters said that phone lines to Naypyitaw, the capital, were not reachable in the early hours of Monday. The news agency quoted a witness confirming that soldiers had been deployed outside city hall in the main city of Yangon.
State-run MRTV television said in a Facebook post that it was unable to broadcast due to technical issues. “Due to current communication difficulties we’d like to respectfully inform you that the regular programmes of MRTV and Myanmar Radio cannot be broadcast,” the Facebook post by MRTV read.
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Al Jazeera quoted its correspondent as saying, “It does feel like this is the beginning of a military takeover.” The BBC’s South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, said that this looked like a full-scale coup, despite the military promising only last week to abide by the constitution which it drafted more than a decade ago.
Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been declared, according to military-owned TV, and power has been handed to the commander in chief of the armed forces, Min Aung Hlaing.
Reacting to the military coup in Burma, the Indian ministry of external affairs said, “We have noted the developments in Myanmar with deep concern. India has always been steadfast in its support to the process of democratic transition in Myanmar. We believe that the rule of law and the democratic process must be upheld. We are monitoring the situation closely.”
75-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi came to power in 2015 after a landslide election victory. This had followed her years of house arrest by the country’s military.
However, she showed her ugly side soon after assuming power as she embarked on a well-planned genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s western Rakhine state. She faced international condemnation for her role in facilitating the genocide of Rohingya Muslims, but the disgraced leader remained unfazed by the global shaming.