02 Feb Myanmar coup: Aung San Suu Kyi detained; military seizes power

On wee hours of February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military once again ousted the democratically elected government, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders. The military has been crying foul over the November 2020 elections in which Suu Kyi’s government had won a landslide victory. Myanmar’s generals have been alleging fraud in the election, citing unsupported evidence.
A one-year state of emergency has been declared, which is likely to leave the fragile economy in tatters. The UN said it was a “serious blow to democratic reforms”, with the most world leaders in EU, US and UK opposing the coup.

Suu Kyi has urged her supporters to “protest against the coup”, in a letter stating that
the military’s actions would put the country back under a dictatorship.

After 15 years under house arrest, Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was finally released in 2010. In 2015, her party National League for Democracy (NLD) won the freest elections in 25 years, after decades of military rule. Now after a mere five years, she once again appears to be bound by the Tatmadaw, the military which has ruled over Myanmar for most of the last 50 years.