Myanmar politicians ‘under house arrest’
HUNDREDS of members of Myanmar’s Parliament remained confined inside their government housing in the country’s capital yesterday, a day after the military staged a coup and detained senior politicians including de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, meanwhile, released a statement calling for the military to honour the results of last November’s election and release all of those detained.
“The commander-in-chief seizing the power of the nation is against the constitution and it also neglects the sovereign power of people,” the party said in a statement on one of its Facebook pages.
One legislator said he and some 400 members of parliament were able to speak with one another inside the compound and communicate with their constituencies by phone, but were not allowed to leave the housing complex in Naypyitaw. He said police were inside the complex, with soldiers outside. The legislator said the politicians, comprised of members of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party and various smaller parties, spent a sleepless night worried that they might be taken away, but were otherwise OK.
The takeover took place on the morning politicians from across the country had gathered in the capital for the opening of the new parliamentary session and followed days of worry that a coup was coming. The military said the seizure was necessary because the government had not acted on the military’s claims of fraud in November’s elections – in which Ms Suu Kyi’s ruling party won a strong majority – and because it did not delay the opening of Parliament.
An announcement said commander-in-chief, senior general Min Aung Hlaing, would be in charge of the country for one year.
The office of the commander-inchief announced the names of new Cabinet ministers. The 11-member Cabinet is composed of military generals, former military generals and former advisers to a previous government headed by former general Thein Sein.
The coup is a dramatic reversion for Myanmar, which was emerging from decades of strict military rule and international isolation that began in 1962.
It now presents a test for the international community, which had ostracised Myanmar while it was under military rule, then enthusiastically embraced Ms Suu Kyi’s government as a sign the country was finally on the path to democracy.
The military has maintained its actions are legally justified – citing a section of the constitution it drafted that allows it to take control in times of national emergency – though Ms Suu Kyi’s party spokesman as well as many international observers have said it amounts to a coup.