JAKARTA - Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint have been detained by the Myanmar military for allegedly carrying out a coup. This is a new chapter for a champion of democratic values, who has been detained by the Myanmar military many times since the late 90s.
Aung San Suu Kyi or Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was born on June 19, 1945 in Rangoon, Myanmar. Suu Kyi is the daughter of independence hero Aung San.
Suu Kyi may have been familiar with adversity since childhood. At the age of two, he learned his father had been assassinated when he became Burma's de facto prime minister during independence.
He was educated in Burma until 1960, when his mother was appointed Burma's ambassador to India. After completing secondary education in India, he was accepted to study at the University of Oxford. On campus, she met her future husband, British scholar, Michael Aris.
They are blessed with two children and lead rather quiet lives. In 1988 Suu Kyi returned to Burma to care for her mother who was seriously ill, leaving her husband and children in England.
At that time there was a mass massacre of protesters against the brutal and unresponsive government of the military, U Ne Win. This triggered Suu Kyi to fight back and start a non-violent struggle to uphold democracy and human rights in the country.
In that year, as summarized by Britannica, one of the massive protests took place on August 8, 1988, or what is often called the 8888 movement. In that incident about 3,000 people died in six weeks.
As a result, Ne Win stepped down from leadership and the military took over again under the name of the State Law Council and Restoration Order, or SLORC, which was headed by the Chief of the Army, General Saw Maung. The institute then drafted a new law and promised to hold parliamentary elections in May 1989. They also changed the country's official name from Burma to The Union of Myanmar on 19 June 1989.
At that time, Aung San Suu Kyi, as an opposition figure, formed the new National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Feeling threatened by Suu Kyi's popularity, SLORC criminalized Suu Kyi on charges of "endangering the country" so that she was placed under house arrest.
So house arrestSuu Kyi's "house arrest" status was apparently unable to stem the popularity of the NLD which managed to secure 392 seats out of the 485 available seats, defeating the Burma Socialist Program Party which changed its name to the National Unity Party (NUP). Unwilling to relinquish power, on June 19, 1990, the leader of the SLORC, Saw Maung, annulled the election results, saying that a new constitution was needed to develop Myanmar.
The Myanmar military government then held a referendum in 2008 and repeated elections in 2010. One of the referendum results stated that a person who has a foreign spouse and descent is prohibited from running for president. This regulation was deliberately made to tackle Suu Kyi in the next election.
As reported by Channel News Asia, Aung San Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her struggle to campaign for democracy. The news that Suu Kyi won the Nobel Prize sparked intense slander against her by the government. While he was still in detention, his son, Alexander Aris, succeeded Suu Kyi to accept the award.
Until July 1995, Suu Kyi was finally released from house arrest. However, Suu Kyi is still a city prisoner. He was not allowed to go outside Yangon.
The military junta government again placed Suu Kyi under house arrest from September 2000 to May 2002. This is because Suu Kyi was accused of crossing borders for trying to travel outside Yangon.
Calls for Suu Kyi's release then spread to the international community. So that in 2009 the United Nations (UN) declared that Suu Kyi's detention was illegal.
Towards the completion of her sentence, in May 2009, Suu Kyi was again arrested and charged with violating the terms of her house arrest after a US citizen visited her home. In August he was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, although the sentence was immediately reduced to 18 months, and he was allowed to serve the sentence while remaining under house arrest.
Suu Kyi's successive sentences turned out to backfire on the military junta government. The belief that the punishment was designed to silence the democratic figure is widespread.
This assumption was strengthened when in March 2010 a new election law was issued. The bill prohibits individuals from participating in elections if they have been convicted of a crime, and disqualifies any candidate who has been or has married a foreign national.
But the NLD party supported Suu Kyi by refusing to register for elections under the new law. And on November 7, 2010, government parties won legislative seats by a landslide amid widespread allegations of voter fraud.
Suu Kyi was released from house arrest six days after the election and vowed to continue her campaign against the military junta rule. One of the things he did at that time was garnering international support.
Raising international supportSuu Kyi's activity restrictions relaxed during 2011. She was allowed to meet freely with colleagues and other people in Yangon and was able to travel outside the city in the middle of the year.
In August Suu Kyi met Thein Sein, who had become Myanmar's civilian president in March in the capital Nay Pyi Taw. He also visited important figures outside Myanmar, such as Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand's new prime minister at the time, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December that year.
Then the rules on political participation in Myanmar were relaxed. And the NLD party was formally reinstated before parliamentary by-election in April 2012.
In January 2012 Suu Kyi announced that she was gathering constituents for the regional elections in Yangon. His submission to run for office was approved by the government in February. Suu Kyi easily won her seat in the April 1 elections and was sworn in on May 2.
Suu Kyi continues to garner support from abroad. In June 2012, he visited Thailand, his first trip outside Myanmar since 1988.
He continued his visits to Europe and visited several countries. One of his most highlighted visits was when he gave a speech about receiving the Novel prize in Oslo, Norway, and addressed the British Parliament in London, England.
Although some progress has been made, there are no changes to the regulations prohibiting a presidential candidate who has a foreign spouse or child from participating in the election. By 2015 the NLD won the majority of seats in parliament which allowed the party to form the next national government.
Because Suu Kyi could not run for president, the NLD nominated her confidant, Htin Kyaw. On March 15, 2016, members of the legislature elected Kyaw as Myanmar's new president.
That's when Suu Kyi's power came into view. He was appointed state adviser, a new position created by the council and signed into law by Htin Kyaw. Suu Kyi's post is similar to that of prime minister and potentially stronger than the president.
The creation of the position that Suu Kyi has so far has made the military junta inflamed. Lawmakers from the military junta's side considered the new position unconstitutional and refused to take part in the vote on the bill drafted to cement the position.
The newborn government was hit by a bit of upheaval in March 2018 when Htin Kyaw stepped down unexpectedly. His successor, NLD supporter Win Myint, who is a longtime colleague of Suu Kyi, is expected not to change the established division of power between the presidency and the position of state counselor Suu Kyi.
Election disputeThe NLD party led by Suu Kyi continued to triumph and managed to secure votes in the November 2020 elections. However, after that, an election dispute occurred.
As quoted by the BBC, previously the NLD claimed to have won the vote after the vote was held on November 8, 2020, even though election officials have not issued an official result because votes were still counted. But Myanmar's military-backed opposition accuses the government of misconduct, although it provides little evidence.
The Union Solidarity and Development Party said it does not recognize the election results and called on the authorities to hold free, fair, impartial elections and free from unfair campaigns. But so far the military has provided no evidence. Meanwhile, Myanmar's general election commission emphasized that the elections were fair and free.
However, the tension between the civilian government and the military did not subside. To this day, the military has arrested Suu Kyi and Myanmar President Win Wyint for alleged coup.
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