Myanmar’s democracy has been extensively celebrated however by no means sure. It was a hope, of its individuals and of the Western world, a need which will have been only a fragile fantasy.
Sure, 5 years in the past the outgoing army authorities appeared content material handy over a lot of its energy. That was when Aung San Suu Kyi’s social gathering, the Nationwide League for Democracy (NLD), gained a landslide victory within the nation’s first widespread elections.
Certainly, on the time, the outdated authorities’s newspaper referred to as for “real nationwide reconciliation” and even identified the hazards of rule by generals. “Navy would possibly alone can not unite individuals, and will even result in struggle and bloodshed,” it proclaimed.
No one in a Myanmar army uniform is saying that now — not as troopers spherical up de facto chief Suu Kyi and members of her civilian authorities, rejecting the outcomes of an excellent greater election victory for the NLD over the generals’ proxy events and staging a army coup. Their justification is an allegation of “election fraud” that is been dismissed by Myanmar’s election fee.
After declaring a state of emergency, Commander-in-Chief Senior Common Min Aung Hlaing and a platoon of senior officers will run the nation undemocratically for the following yr, simply as earlier army leaders ran Myanmar for 50 years earlier than its first democratic authorities was elected in 2015.
However the reality is, whilst civilian politicians handed legal guidelines and Suu Kyi represented the nation at glittering state visits to Beijing, London and Washington, whilst Myanmar was held up as an imperfect however inspiring instance of peaceable transition to democracy, the generals by no means gave up energy.

The coup was their reply, says Yun Solar, a senior fellow on the Stimson Middle, a non-partisan think-tank primarily based in Washington, D.C.
“It is an unsettled contest,” Solar, who focuses on East Asia, mentioned by way of Skype. “Though we might have seen the democratic course of progressing slowly, the core challenge of civilian-military relations in Myanmar has by no means been definitively answered.”
Again in 2008, the generals drafted a structure that “carved out the protections they wished for his or her political privileges,” she mentioned.
WATCH | Myanmar coup sparks worldwide condemnation:
The army has seized energy in Myanmar and detained Aung San Suu Kyi in addition to different elected officers, sparking worldwide concern for the Rohingya minority, a lot of whom fled previous army crackdowns. 1:58
It ensures them 1 / 4 of the seats in parliament, the best to call key ministers of defence and of the inside, and to the flexibility to declare a state of emergency that successfully unravels the democratic positive factors — as they’ve now accomplished.
Their roadmap was to what they referred to as a “discipline-flourishing democracy,” one which dangled the carrot of a multi-party civilian system, with generals holding the stick of “self-discipline” in the event that they did not just like the outcomes.
In the event that they felt the “chill” of the individuals’s rejection, as Solar put it, and the menace {that a} widespread authorities would take away their constitutional powers.
‘If there’s any group of individuals on the planet that wants this much less, it is the individuals of Myanmar’
That was the minefield Suu Kyi tried to navigate for the previous 5 years, striving to fulfill her supporters’ need for freedom — and the assumption they’d lastly gained it — whereas holding off the army menace. Residing as much as her picture as a global icon of the democratic wrestle, the honours of a Nobel Peace Prize and different accolades was an additional, super-human problem.
In the long run, she failed in any respect of this, seemingly tainting her function as flag-bearer for Myanmar’s democracy motion.
“The individuals of Myanmar have been by way of a lot,” mentioned Tom Andrews, the UN’s particular rapporteur on Myanmar, instructed CBC Information in a cellphone interview. “They’ve lived underneath brutal army regimes for a while. They’re gripped with this pandemic. They’re battling an economic system that has them on their heels. If there’s any group of individuals on the planet that wants this much less, it is the individuals of Myanmar.”
WATCH | Bob Rae requires internationally co-ordinated response to Myanmar coup:
Bob Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the UN, weighs in on the coup in Myanmar and requires an internationally coordinated response: “If in case you have particular person nations going off and doing various things, it does not have any affect.” 3:47
Suu Kyi tried to reassure the generals of their affect, involving them in authorities selections and justifying their actions in a scorched-earth army marketing campaign to kill or drive the Rohingya minority out of Myanmar.
“She clearly was not proud of being put within the public place of getting to defend the military world wide,” mentioned Bob Rae, Canada’s UN ambassador and Ottawa’s former particular envoy on Myanmar. “And on the similar time, not have the flexibility to mainly management them.”
“This actually is the nub of the problem between her and the army,” Rae mentioned on the CBC’s The Present.
Worldwide neighborhood might have performed a task
She reportedly hasn’t had direct contact with Hliang in additional than a yr.
Suu Kyi’s Myanmar additionally upset North American and European leaders, who may need hoped for a Western-oriented transformation.
Betrayed by her unwillingness to defend the Rohingya and uphold human rights, they ostracised Myanmar and imposed sanctions on its army leaders.
However in so doing, the Western world appears to have pushed Myanmar again into the arms of China, which was able to finance enormous infrastructure tasks for dams and deep sea ports, pipelines and vitality ventures.

Suu Kyi might have been suspicious of Beijing’s motives, says Solar. “She was not prepared to do the whole lot the Chinese language wished her to do,” she mentioned.
Myanmar’s chief was attempting to steadiness “the way to profit [Myanmar’s] economic system with out sacrificing the nation’s safety,” she mentioned.
China might supply a lifeline
In the long run, although, Myanmar had no alternative in signing large offers with China and will have even fewer choices now.
Regardless of this, China hasn’t signalled its help for the coup — merely “noting” the occasions and hoping that “all sides … can appropriately deal with their variations.”
Beijing’s relations with Myanmar’s generals have not been completely clean and a years-old dispute over Chinese language meddling in ethnic insurgencies close to the border between the nations has left suspicion on either side.
Nonetheless, with the USA and the West threatening elevated sanctions in opposition to the brand new army authorities, China might properly acquire affect and monetary leverage over Myanmar by default — an irresistible monetary lifeline.
The generals might have taken energy in Myanmar, their efforts to ensure management might have been profitable for now. However it’s not clear if that victory will final.
WATCH | Protest in opposition to the coup in Yangon:
The sound of banging pots and automotive horns reverberated by way of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest metropolis, within the first widespread protest in opposition to the army coup. 0:33
With the Western world’s hopes and efforts at democracy-building dashed, it’s lining up in opposition to them.
And Myanmar itself is not the identical nation it was earlier than this tentative transition to individuals energy. Now not lower off from the remainder of the world because it was a decade in the past, residents have watched, witnessed and absorbed democratic tendencies by way of their leaders and sensible telephones.
Greater than ever, they see themselves as voters, political individuals and even activists who aren’t prepared to just accept the generals’ “disciplined democracy.”
At the least, not with out making noise, as they have been within the metropolis of Yangon final night time — with movies exhibiting them clanging pots and blaring horns expressing their anger.