By Jonathan Thang

The Myanmar military detained the country’s de facto leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint in the early hours on Monday, according to National League for Democracy (NLD) spokesperson Dr. Myo Nyunt. Some of the ruling party’s Central Executive Committee members, lawmakers and regional cabinet members have been taken into custody as well. The apparent military coup occurred just hours before the scheduled start of the first session of the new, NLD-dominated Parliament on Monday morning. Mobile phone services have been cut off in Naypyitaw.

The arrests follow last week’s sharp escalation in tensions between the civilian government and the military after the latter made what was perceived as a threat to stage a coup if the government failed to act on its claims of mass fraud in November’s general election. The NLD won the vote in a landslide.

Dr. Myo Nyunt told The Irrawaddy: “This is a military coup attempt, but they can claim it is not, by forcing the President to call an urgent national security meeting for an official handover of power to them,” which would make the military takeover official.

According to the Constitution, only the President can declare a state of emergency and hand over power to the military.

The state-run television service is currently cut off and only the military-owned Myawaddy channel is accessible. Mobile communications are limited to within regions only.

90% of Burmese civilians are disagreed with what the military has claimed for and people are very angry about the military coup. However Aung San Suu Kyi-led government officials are requesting people to remain calm and avoid any violence, people were asked not to come out to the street during the Covid-19 epidemic. Moreover military is trying to misuse the show-up of civilians as violence in the country, (if any civilians come out and do any demonstration). There is no doubt that more than 90% of Burmese civilians are ready to take action against the military if Daw Aung San Suu Kyi ever allows acting. The Burmese civilian has rejected any political parties associated with the Military group on election day. Therefore the dream of becoming President through coalition government has been washed away since the election result shown up. That is the main and the only reason why the military chief trying to take a coup. By the way, the military coup would not ever happen unless the Chinese CCP approved. China can only benefit 100% as long as the military is controlling the country by unfair beneficial agreement on any projects ever done in Burma. Therefore any agreement done by China and the Burmese military would be illegal and the compensation or the price to payback would be huge. If CCP does not lead the Burmese military to turn back on the right track again on time, they both are equally responsible to blame.

The act of military coup is absolutely unacceptable and every government around the world has to use any means to stop the act of military. Any government backing or having a relationship with this illegal military regime would be facing serious reaction from the people of Burma such as total withdrawal of national bilateral relationship in every aspect and potential to canceling any projects in the future etc.

If military leaders are not installing the previous condition upon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD led the government to continue the first session of the new parliament as a result of the November election in 2020, UN-led peacekeeping forces or US-led international peacekeeping force are welcome to help Burmese political condition. Burmese concerned political activists are drawing various options and one of the most effective ones would be “military action with the help of international forces” if needed to be implementing the same as how the US took action on Iran’s military general. All options are being studied now. Therefore military leaders have been given few weeks to return to their previous condition or face severe actions.

Filed under: 1 General News, 2 Burma News |