Myanmar on the brink

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Myanmar on the brink

Hours before the Burmese parliament was set to certify the results of the general election held in November, the country’s powerful armed forces seized control of government and declared a year-long state of emergency.

The iconic leader of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, was placed under house arrest along with others from the higher echelons of the party that won the elections by a landslide. The military, whose proxy political party suffered a trashing at the polls, contested the results and filed as many as 200 complaints claiming fraud in the electoral process.

Tension in the country of 54 million has been building in the weeks before the re-opening of parliament and the army’s spokesperson persistently refused to rule out any takeover attempt. Then, in the night hours of February 1, tanks and armed SUVs descended on the capital Nay Pyi Taw in an operation that moved with absolute efficiency.

In the morning, the Burmese woke up stunned but not surprised. A country that has only started a gradual process of democratisation a decade ago, Myanmar knows military rule all too well.

The surprise came from the other side.

Supporters of the pro-democracy NLD party erupted into large demonstrations, defying a ban on gatherings and a night curfew. Tens of thousands of people across the country are publicly demanding the release of Suu Kyi, who is now facing criminal charges for allegedly owning walkie-talkies. Teachers have been at the forefront of the civil disobedience movement while civil servants have resigned en mass, crippling the government’s bureaucracy.

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The police, which is under the control of the military, met the demonstrations with water cannon and tear gas and rubber bullets, but a number of officers in an eastern state are reported to have revolted and joined the protestors.

In his first address since taking control, army General Min Aung Hlaign tried to reassure citizens – and presumably fleeing foreign businesses – that there will not be a slide back to the times of the Junta which held the Southeast Asian country in its grip for fifty years.

But people are having none of it and some activists are raising the stakes, calling for a complete removal of the military’s administrative powers. Besides contesting elections, the army, by constitution, also appoints an unelected 25 percent of parliament members, effectively blocking any constitutional amendments which require a 75 percent majority.

The military played a vital role in Burma’s independence movement in the mid-20th century. The NLD leader herself is the daughter of the revered Aung San, founder of the Myanmar Armed Forces. The first coup in 1962, however, imposed a brutal one-party system which enacted martial law for twelve years.

Popular uprisings in 1989 and 2007 were summarily crushed by the Junta and hundreds of people were killed at the hands of the army. The recent events evoke memories of the not-so-distant past for the Burmese, but the context this time is different. Those who lived through the final decades of military rule have now tasted the opportunities of democracy, as limited as the experience was. The younger ones are better educated and more connected, and less prepared to back down.

The military may have found itself in an unfamiliar scenario, but few believe that it will acquiesce to public anger. Western countries are fearing that the situation may spiral out of control, reversing the significant democratic wins made in the last years.

The night coup sought to arrest the brisk pace of change in the country, but the people’s uninhibited response shows that a deeper transformation had already dawned on Myanmar.