Myanmar’s military staged a coup
During early morning raids on Monday, Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was detained along with her top lieutenants. A military television network announced a one-year state of emergency with full authority transferred to the army chief.
The rounding up of critics of the military continued into Monday night, and the nation’s telecommunications networks suffered constant interruptions. Domestic flights were suspended and the main international airport in Yangon was shuttered.
The coup returned Myanmar to full military rule after just five years of quasi democracy. These photos captured the day when the country’s democratic experiment collapsed. Here’s what we know about the events.
From our correspondent: “The mood in Myanmar seems to be one of shock,” Hannah Beech, The Times’s Southeast Asia bureau chief, told us. “The muscle memory of how to cope with a military dictatorship lives in everyone who survived the bad old days, but few expected another coup and full imposition of military rule.” The coup is “crushing for so many people,” and those who criticized the military in recent years feel “panicked and horrified.”
Allied with the military: Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s relationship with the military had been fraying. She had not spoken to the army chief in at least a year — a dangerous silence in a country where politics are deeply personal. Her detention brought an abrupt end to the theory that she might strike a workable balance between civilian and military power. In the end, she could not protect her people, nor could she placate the generals.
The New York Times
