Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years under house arrest, became the country’s foreign minister and de facto civil leader. The military still controlled much of the government, parliament and the economy, but Myanmar was no longer isolated from tropical totalitarianism.
In 2018, Mr. Kyaw Moe Tun was dispatched to Geneva as an ambassador and representative at the United Nations offices there. While the hesitant political transition unfolding in Myanmar had won admirers like President Obama, who visited him twice, the reality of the military’s reflective brutality intruded on the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, a campaign that intensified in 2017.
Instead of condemning systematic executions, rapes and village fires, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, defended the generals. There have been few protests in Myanmar over the brutal persecution of ethnic minorities. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi defended the military in The Hague, where Myanmar was accused of genocide against the Rohingya. Myanmar diplomats, including Kyaw Moe Tun, joined the queue, gaining the country’s international contempt.
Last October, Mr. Kyaw Moe Tun presented his credentials as Myanmar’s permanent representative to the United Nations. At home, rumors of a coup simmered ahead of the November elections, which the National League for Democracy won by an overwhelming victory. The military screamed and conversation about a coup increased.
On February 1, the military, led by General Min Aung Hlaing, arrested the country’s civilian leadership, subsequently accusing Aung San Suu Kyi and the country’s president of obscure crimes. Dozens of officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were detained after participating in the civil disobedience movement.
On missions abroad, envoys agonized over what to do. Daw Chaw Kalyar, now at the Myanmar embassy in Berlin, recalled how, when she was a high school student in 1988, she had marched in mass protests before security forces killed hundreds or possibly thousands of people. Since the February 1 coup, more than 60 people have been shot and killed by security forces.