(REUTER NEWS article from the CHANNEL NEWS ASIA on 01 February 2021.)
 |
| Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. |
The announcement was made on the military-run
Myawadday TV and included new appointments in the portfolios for finance, health,
information, foreign affairs, defence, borders and interior.
The military seized power on Monday in a coup, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi along with other leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in early morning raids. The army said it had carried out the detentions in response to "election fraud", handing power to military chief General Min Aung Hlaing and imposing a state of emergency for one year, according to a statement on the military-owned TV station.
Summarising a meeting of the new administration, the military said Min Aung Hlaing has pledged to practise a "genuine discipline-flourishing multi-party democratic system". He promised a free and fair election and a handover of power to the winning party, it said, without giving a timeframe.
Aung San Suu
Kyi's party said she has called on people to protest against the military
takeover, quoting comments it said had been written in anticipation of a coup. Aung
San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other NLD leaders were "taken"
in the early hours of the morning, NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt told Reuters by
phone. Reuters was subsequently unable to contact him.
A video posted
to Facebook by one MP appeared to show the arrest of regional lawmaker Pa Pa
Han. In the video, her husband pleads with men in military garb standing
outside the gate. A young child can be seen clinging to his chest and wailing.
The generals
made their move hours before parliament had been due to sit for the first time
since the NLD's landslide win in a Nov 8 election viewed as a referendum on
Aung Suu Kyi's fledgling democratic rule.
Phone and Internet connections in the capital
Naypyitaw and the main commercial centre Yangon were disrupted and state
television went off air after the NLD leaders were detained. Troops and riot
police stood by in Yangon where residents rushed to markets to stock up on
supplies and others lined up at ATMs to withdraw cash. Banks then suspended
services due to poor Internet connections but said they would reopen from
Tuesday.
Foreign
companies, from Japanese retail giant Aeon to South Korean trading firm POSCO
International and Norway's Telenor, scrambled to reach staff members in Myanmar
and assess the turmoil.
Multinationals
moved into the country after Aung San Suu Kyi's party established in 2015 the
first civilian government in half a century, although the persecution of the
Rohingya Muslim minority, which tarnished Aung San Suu Kyi's reputation, made
some investors wary.
Aung San Suu
Kyi, 75, came to power after an election win that followed decades of house
arrest and struggle against the military, which had seized power in a 1962 coup
and stamped out all dissent for decades.
(Myanmar Acting President Myint Swe (center), military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (third left) and other military members of National Defence and Security Council attend a meeting at Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Feb 1, 2021. (Photo: AP/The Military True News Information Team))
(Blogger's Notes: In the last Coup in 1988 Burmese Army killed at least 10,000 people on the streets in one day alone in Rangoon. Burmese people will fight back the hated army and S.G. Min Aung Hlaing will be going down as the maddest man of our history , much worse than that mad dog Ne Win, by staging this extremely stupid coup. I couldn't even believe that he dare to act that stupid.)