Myanmar Coup After Hours

[David76]

Myanmar's military has seized power after detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior members of her governing party.

All authority has been given to the top army commander and a one-year state of emergency has been declared, a statement on military TV said.

The coup follows a landslide win by Ms Suu Kyi's party in an election which the army claims was marred by fraud.

She urged her supporters to "not accept this" and "protest against the coup".

In a letter written in preparation for her impending detention, she said the military's actions put the country back under dictatorship.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, was ruled by the armed forces until 2011, when democratic reforms spearheaded by Aung San Suu Kyi ended military rule.

She spent nearly 15 years in detention between 1989 and 2010. She was internationally hailed as a beacon of democracy and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

How did the coup unfold?

In the early hours of Monday the army's TV station said power had been handed over to commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing.

Ms Suu Kyi and other leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) were arrested.

Soldiers blocked roads in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, and the main city, Yangon. The state broadcaster went off air.

Data and communications services have been disrupted. Banks said they had been forced to close and queues formed at cash machines.

One Yangon resident told Reuters news agency: "I don't know what is happening. I am a bit scared."

The military says it found millions of irregularities in parliamentary elections lost by the army-back opposition in November. The election commission has rejected the fraud claims.

But the army had threatened to "take action" and now says it will use its emergency powers to organise a new vote.

What has the reaction been?

The United States has condemned the coup, saying Washington "opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede Myanmar's democratic transition".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for the release of all government officials and civil society leaders and said the US "stands with the people of Burma in their aspirations for democracy, freedom, peace, and development. The military must reverse these actions immediately."

In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the coup and Aung San Suu Kyi's "unlawful imprisonment".

European Union leaders have issued similar condemnations.

Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne urged the Myanmar military "to respect the rule of law" and "release immediately all civilian leaders and other who have been detained unlawfully".

Strange situation this - she seems to have been a massive apologist for this regime when it comes to brutality and ethnic cleansing but now she's got on the wrong side of them again

 

[Mouth]

Aung San Suu Kyi torpedoed her own reputation to defend the military's genocide of the Rohingya. I fear she won't find many willing to speak out on her behalf.

 

[Gromit]

My sympathy is with the people of the country. They've never had good governance.