BANGKOK – Myanmar’s civil leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and other officials were detained in operations in the early hours of Monday, the government said, as the country teemed with rumors of an impending coup.
A spokesman for the government’s National League for Democracy confirmed the arrests, and the internet appeared to be down in two major cities in Myanmar.
Myanmar was celebrated as a rare case in which generals voluntarily handed over some power to civilians, honoring the results of the 2015 elections in the Southeast Asian nation that initiated the post of National League for Democracy.
Supporters of that party spent years in prison for their political opposition to the military. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the patron saint of the political party, spent 15 years under house arrest and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her non-violent resistance to the junta that arrested her.
But the army, led by General Min Aung Hlaing, maintained important levers of power in the country, and the arrest of senior government leaders seemed to prove the lie in its commitment to democracy.
“The doors opened for a very different future,” said Thant Myint-U, a Myanmar historian. “I have a feeling that no one will really be able to control what comes next.”
“Remember that Myanmar is a country full of weapons, with deep divisions between ethnic and religious lines, where millions are barely able to feed themselves,” he added.
The turmoil was ostensibly sparked by concerns about fraud in the November elections, which caused an even greater crushing victory for the National League for Democracy than five years earlier. The government party won 396 of the 476 seats in parliament, while the military’s prosecuting party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, won just 33.
The Union of Solidarity and Development Party screamed, as did the political parties representing hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities who were deprived of their civil rights shortly before the vote because the areas where they lived were supposedly overrun for the elections to take place. Members of the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority, who were victims of what international prosecutors call the military’s genocidal campaign, were also unable to vote.
“They should have resolved it from the start,” said U Sai Nyunt Lwin, the vice president of the Shan Nationality League for Democracy, which represents the Shan ethnic group, referring to disputes between Aung San Suu Kyi’s forces and the military, which grew after the November election.
The arrests came just two days after António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, warned against any provocation. Mr. Guterres urged “all actors to give up any form of incitement or provocation, demonstrate leadership and adhere to democratic norms and respect the outcome of the November 8 general elections”.
In recent years, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, once celebrated as an international human rights champion for her awareness campaign against the junta while under house arrest, has emerged as one of the military’s greatest public defenders. Despite a mountain of evidence against the military, she has publicly rejected accusations that security forces have waged a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya.
But with his national popularity lingering and his party receiving another electoral mandate, the generals began to visibly lose patience with the facade of civilian government they had designed.
Last week, an army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a coup, and General Min Aung Hlaing said the constitution could be repealed if the law were broken. Armored vehicles appeared on the streets of two cities, frightening residents unaccustomed to seeing this firepower crossing urban centers.
But on Saturday, the military appeared to back off, issuing a statement saying that, as an armed organization, it was subject to the law, including the constitution. Another statement on Sunday said it “was one that adheres to democratic norms”.
The arrest of key civilian government leaders took place just hours before the opening session of Parliament began after the November elections.
The country buzzed with rumors of a coup for days, prompting a series of diplomatic missions, including that of the United States, on Friday, “to urge the military and all other parties in the country to adhere to democratic norms.”
“We are opposed to any attempt to alter the outcome of the elections or prevent Myanmar’s democratic transition,” said the joint diplomatic statement.
The military responded with its own statement on Sunday, urging diplomatic missions in the country “not to make unjustified assumptions about the situation”.