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Image posted, Reuters
A spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party said the military had “arrested leader Aung San Sochi.”
“Sochi, President Win Myint and other leaders were arrested in the early hours of the morning,” added party spokesman Myo Nyunt, in a call with Reuters, and he too is expected to be arrested. He asked people “not to respond recklessly and act in accordance with the law.”
The BBC’s Southeast Asia correspondent reported that soldiers were deployed on the streets of the capital, Naypyidaw, and in the main city of Yangon. And it cut telephone and internet connections in the capital, according to the BBC.
This comes after tension between the civilian government and the army over the results of the recent elections, amid fears of a military coup.
The National League for Democracy party had won the elections in November, but the military said the vote was rigged.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, was ruled by the army until 2011. The Sochi leader spent years under house arrest.
The newly elected council was supposed to meet Monday for the first time. But the army asked that the session be postponed.
The soldiers raided the ministers’ homes in various areas and took them away, according to relatives.
On Saturday, Myanmar’s armed forces declared their commitment to the constitution after growing fears of a possible coup.
What happened during the elections?
The National League won 83 percent of the seats in Parliament in the November 8 elections, which were seen by many as a referendum on the Un San Sochi civil government.
They are the second elections that have been held since the end of the military regime in 2011.
However, the military contested the results and filed complaints with the Supreme Court against the president and the head of the electoral commission.
Fears of a military coup had increased after the army threatened to “take action” against the alleged fraud. The electoral commission rejected the accusations of fraud.
Who is Eun San Sochi?
Daughter of the hero of Myanmar’s independence, General Aung San, who was assassinated when she was two years old, just before Myanmar gained its independence from the British colonialist in 1948.
Sochi was seen as a beacon for human rights, an activist whose principles led her to give up her freedom to challenge the army generals who ruled Myanmar for decades.
On San Sochi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and was still under house arrest, and was described as “an outstanding example of the power of the powerless.”
He led the National League for Democracy Party to a landslide victory in Myanmar’s first open competitive election in 25 years.
But Myanmar’s constitution prohibits her from becoming president because her two children have foreign citizenship. But Sochi, 75, is the country’s de facto leader.
Since he took office as a state adviser in Myanmar, there has been talk of the country’s treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority.
In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh due to the army’s crackdown on them following bloody attacks on police stations in Rakhine state.
And Sochi faced accusations from its former supporters around the world of taking no action to stop possible rape, murder and genocide, due to its refusal to condemn the army and acknowledge a series of war atrocities.
Some have argued that he is a pragmatic politician, trying to rule a country with a mix of ethnicities and a complex history. However, his personal defense at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2019, from the actions of the army, accelerated the collapse of what was left of his international reputation.
But “The Lady,” as she is called, remains very popular in her country with the Buddhist majority, who have little sympathy for the Rohingya.
