RUBY:

From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones this is 7am.

Last Monday, people in Myanmar woke to find their internet and phone lines cut.

Army soldiers soon started occupying the streets, and roadblocks appeared in major cities.

Then, the country’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested.

A statement was read out on military television announcing that a one year state of emergency had been imposed.

Myanmar, which had been slowly transitioning to democracy after decades of army rule, was now back under complete military control.

Today - world editor at The Saturday Paper Jonathan Pearlman, on the coup, and what happens next in Myanmar.

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RUBY:

Jonathan. I think to fully understand what is happening here, we need to understand Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's now detained leader, and more specifically, her relationship to the military. So could you tell me a bit about her and her rise to power?

JONATHAN:

Yeah, she's had an incredible life and an incredible rise to power. She left Myanmar at age 15 and spent much of almost the next 30 years overseas.

She studied at Oxford. And while she was there, she met her husband. And she actually told him before they married that she had some sense that if her people ever needed her, she was going to go back to Myanmar.

And he agreed to that. And eventually she did go back when her mother was sick in 1988. And this was just at the time of early pro-democracy protests.

And she quickly became a leader of those protests. She helped to found the NLD, which is still the party that was until last week, ruling the country - at least had a majority in parliament.

But she was repeatedly arrested and put under house arrest by the military. She spent a total of 15 years under house arrest. And that's you know, that's when she started to become well known as this pro-democracy leader who was constantly being arrested by the military in Myanmar.

RUBY:

Mm I remember hearing a lot about her back then while she was under house arrest. She was really this role model for human rights activists. And there were a lot of stories, I think, that lauded her stoicism and her fortitude under pressure. And I think that there was a lot of hope at the time that, you know, she would be able to instigate democracy in Myanmar.

JONATHAN:

Yeah, that's right.

Archival Tape -- Presenter

“The Nobel Peace Prize laureate 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi.”

JONATHAN:

She won the Nobel prize in 1991, but wasn't able to collect it because she was under arrest.

Archival Tape -- Alexander Aris

“I stand before you here today to accept on behalf of my mother Aung San Suu Kyi this greatest of prizes the nobel prize for peace… “

JONATHAN:

There was a movie made about her much later in 2011.

Archival Tape -- Film tape

“Madame we believe you are the only person who can lead Burma into a democracy now…”

JONATHAN:

Not not a great movie. But she was she was awarded all sorts of prizes by human rights organisations

Archival Tape -- Amnesty

“Amnesty International have chosen Aung San Suu Kyi as the recipient of their ambassador of conscience award …”

JONATHAN:

really was well well known. And the international community was following her plight closely.

And then finally, she was released from house arrest for what we thought was going to be the last time in 2010 and in 2015, she was allowed to compete in elections for the first time. The NLD won this huge victory

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Myanmar have waited 25 years since the last free election in their country to get to this point today.”

JONATHAN:

and they were great hopes for Myanmar. Barack Obama visited twice

Archival Tape -- Barack Obama

“I’m proud to be the first American president to visit this spectacular country and I am very pleased that one of my first stops is the visit with an icon of democracy…”

JONATHAN:

And Myanmar seemed to be moving as it appeared to be moving towards democracy.

But it really didn't take long for things to go wrong.

RUBY:

Right. So how did things go wrong? Can you tell me about what happened?

JONATHAN:

Yes, I think the big change in her international reputation was caused by the terrible atrocities towards the Rohingya Muslim community in Myanmar.
So this is one of the many, many ethnic communities in Myanmar, but they've never been recognised by the military or really by the end of the day, they're seen by many of Myanmar's rulers and also the public, who is mostly Buddhist, almost 90 percent of the population is Buddhist, as Bengalis who don't belong in the country.

So in late 2016, there were some attacks by some Rohingya militants on some army and police posts. The details are a little hazy, but in response, in 2017, the military just led this ferocious and horrific crackdown

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“Doctors without borders estimate that 9000 Rohinga died in the month that followed the start of the military crackdown in Myanmar in late August…”

JONATHAN:

including the use of gang rapes. There were mass killings, arson

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Rohingya

“One of my sons was lost while crossing the border. We could not tolerate the torture of the Myanmar government. They killed our people. Bodies were lying there. We were helpless. Government people burned our houses. They also killed our small children. How can we live there?”

JONATHAN:

In the end, more than seven hundred thousand Rohingya fled to Bangladesh. And many of them are in refugee camps there now.

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“Thousands more Rohingya remain trapped in Myanmar, where the army has begun what it calls ‘clearance operations’ to root out Rohingya fighters…”

JONATHAN:

And Aung San Suu Kyi defended this.

Archival Tape -- Aung San Suu Kyi

“More than 50% of the villages of Muslims are intact, they are as they were before the attacks took place.”

JONATHAN:

She blocked international enquiries. She said that this was a man there were allegations and counter allegations on both sides which was ridiculous. As the UN has suggested, this is sort of tantamount to ethnic cleansing.

And Aung San Suu Kyi even appeared at the International Court of Justice to defend the military.

Archival Tape -- Aung San Suu Kyi

“Please bare in mind this complex situation and the challenge to sovereignty and security in our country when you’re assessing the intent of those who attempted to deal with the rebellion. Surely under the circumstances genocidal intent cannot be the only hypothesis.”

JONATHAN:

And really, I think the reputation was already completely tarnished.
But really, that was the point at which it was clear that status that she held as a sort of international beacon of human rights and democracy was wrong. And suddenly she was no longer seen by the West as a hero.

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“The vote is unanimous Oxford City Council takes away the freedom of the city from Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“Five Nobel Laureates have written an open letter to Aung San Suu Kyi urging her to stop the persecution of Rohingya Muslims…”

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“We appeal to Aung San Suu Kyi our sister laureate think of little children”

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“I mean the question really now is how has Aung San Suu Kyi fallen so far from grace…”

JONATHAN:

But despite Aung San Suu Chayes fall from grace in the international community, she still has enormous support in Myanmar. And there had been a sort of uneasy truce between her and the NLD and the military. But clearly that has now ended.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Jonathan, Aung San Suu Kyi’s uneasy truce with the military seems to have well and truly ended. As part of the coup she was arrested and charged with possessing illegally imported communications equipment, specifically walkie-talkies… which human rights groups have described as completely trumped up. So what motivated the military to take this kind of extraordinary action at this moment in time?

JONATHAN:

It had been brewing to some extent in the days before this coup occurred, just as parliament was about to sit for the first time since an election last November. And at that November election, the NLD won a huge victory, a much greater victory than expected. It won 83 percent of the available seats.

And this military takeover came just as the election results were effectively going to be enshrined. And the NLD was going to take its place in parliament.

The military was claiming that there were as many as 8.6 million or 10 million instances of voter fraud in the country and that the NLD tey had to address this, the NLD dismissed this allegation as completely baseless. And all election observers agreed with that. And the election commission also rejected the claim. So the military's excuse for the coup was that the government was refusing to accept these voter fraud claims.

But there were other reasons, perhaps, why the military did this. I think with this overwhelming election victory, there were concerns that Aung San Suu Kyi would push to become president. She's currently barred from being president because her late husband and her children were foreign citizens. There's a special constitutional clause which was put in place really to stop her becoming president. And so there were concerns that she might somehow push to change that, as well as try to change a rule that 25 percent of parliament's members are reserved for the military.

But really she was never able to develop a good relationship with the military chief Min Aung Hlaing, who was appointed in 2011. Min Aung Hlaing clearly has ambitions of his own and he is 64 years old and faces retirement from the military this year when he turns 65.

And many analysts believe that he would like to be president and is planning on entering politics. And perhaps this election loss last year really convinced him that he had little prospect of taking on Aung San Suu Kyi and that he was going to need to do something else if he was going to fulfil his political ambitions.

RUBY:

Mm hmm. I'm wondering, Jonathan, what do you think is going to happen next? Because the military said that they were taking control for one year. I think, though, you'd have to be pretty naive to think that that will be the case. So how is this likely to play out?

JONATHAN:

Yeah, it's it's difficult to predict. Aung San Suu Kyi has called for public protests, according to a statement that was released by her, and if there were huge public protests, they could potentially be suppressed by the military.

Some analysts think that what men online will now do is change the electoral rules, and Aung San Suu Kyi will be possibly barred from running in the election and that there will be some sort of election which he will eventually be able to win and become president. At least that is what many people think is his plan with this coup.

Otherwise, the international community has begun to act.

Archival Tape -- Joe Biden

Over the past few days we’ve been in close cooperation with our allies and partners to bring together the international community to address the military coup in Burma.

JONATHAN:

This is really the first test or first foreign policy test for Joe Biden since becoming president. And he's made it very clear where he stands.

Archival Tape -- Joe Biden

There can be no doubt in a democracy, force should never seek to overrule the will of the people or attempt to erase the outcome of a credible election.

JONATHAN:

He campaigned on restoring democracy inside the US, and so he has made it very clear that he wants to see democracy reinstated in Myanmar.

Archival Tape -- Joe Biden

The Burmese military should relinquish power they have seized, release the advocates and activists and officials they have detained…

JONATHAN:

So he is now considering reimposing sanctions that have been lifted after Myanmar began to transition to democracy.
That position has been backed by much of the international community. Australia's position has been a bit more equivocal. Australia has not been as firm against Myanmar as countries like the US and the UK.

I think it's a difficult position for Australia that Australia is in a slightly different position because it is really weighing up its relations with ASEAN countries, with South East Asian countries and many of Myanmar's neighbours who tend to take a very, very quietest approach.

RUBY:

Mm so, Jonathan, do you think that this marks the end of Myanmar's transition to democracy?

JONATHAN:

It looks like it will be, at the very least, a temporary end.

Some things have changed in Myanmar since it began to move towards democracy 10 or so years ago. The internet is popular in Myanmar, so there's some more freedom of communication.

But the military has imposed a one year state of emergency. It's got full control over Myanmar. And it's really unclear whether we'll see another grand emergence from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi and another kind of tilt back towards democracy. I mean, that's still at this stage, very hard to know.

RUBY:

Jonathan, thanks so much for your time today, really appreciate it.

JONATHAN:

Thanks, Ruby. Thanks a lot.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The federal government has announced a digital vaccine certificate system allowing Australians to provide ‘proof of vaccination’ against Covid-19.

The Express Plus Medicare app and online MyGov accounts will both hold digital proof of vaccination.

And over 70 per cent of the close contacts of a Victorian hotel quarantine worker who contracted Covid-19 have now tested negative to the virus.

However health authorities said it will be another week before all the results are in and the state can be sure it dodged another outbreak.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See ya tomorrow.