2021 Myanmar coup d'état
Based on Wikipedia: 2021 Myanmar coup d'état
The Morning Everything Changed
On the morning of February 1, 2021, the people of Myanmar woke up to discover their government had vanished. Phone lines to the capital were dead. The state television channel displayed only a notice about "technical issues." Internet connections flickered and died. And across the country, soldiers were arresting anyone who had been democratically elected to lead the nation.
It was a coup d'état—a sudden, violent seizure of power by the military. But to understand why it happened, and why it matters beyond Myanmar's borders, you need to understand a country that has been trapped in a cycle of hope and repression for over seventy years.
What Actually Happened
The timing was precise and deliberate. Myanmar's newly elected parliament was scheduled to be sworn in that very day—February 1st. The military struck hours before the ceremony could take place.
Soldiers detained President Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi (the country's de facto leader), and dozens of government ministers and members of parliament. The military's television station announced that power had been transferred to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. A year-long "state of emergency" was declared.
The justification? The military claimed the November 2020 election had been fraudulent.
This was a lie. Myanmar's Union Election Commission had investigated the military's claims of 8.6 million voting irregularities and found no evidence to support them. The real reason for the coup was both simpler and more cynical.
The General Who Couldn't Afford to Retire
Min Aung Hlaing was about to turn 65.
That matters because Myanmar's Defence Services Act requires the military's commander-in-chief to retire at age 65. His birthday was in July 2021—just five months after the scheduled swearing-in of the new parliament. Under Myanmar's constitution, only the civilian president could appoint his successor, and there was a real possibility they might choose someone more reform-minded.
But the retirement problem was minor compared to what might come next. Min Aung Hlaing had overseen the military's campaign against the Rohingya people in Rakhine State—a campaign that the United Nations and human rights organizations have characterized as ethnic cleansing and possible genocide. International courts were already investigating. Without the protection of military leadership, the general faced potential prosecution for war crimes.
He also had money to protect. The general oversaw two massive military conglomerates: the Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited. His children and their spouses had built substantial business empires in the country. Losing power meant potentially losing all of it.
So instead of retiring, he decided to rule.
A Country That Has Known Little Else
Myanmar—also called Burma—has been independent from British colonial rule only since January 1948. In those seventy-plus years, it has experienced barely a decade of genuine civilian government.
The pattern established itself early. In 1962, General Ne Win seized power in a coup and proceeded to rule for 26 years. His mismanagement of the economy was so catastrophic that in 1988, it sparked nationwide protests. These demonstrations, known as the 8888 Uprising (named for the date August 8, 1988), were met with brutal military suppression. Estimates suggest thousands were killed.
A young woman emerged as the face of the democracy movement during those protests. Her name was Aung San Suu Kyi, and her lineage gave her enormous symbolic power: her father, General Aung San, had negotiated Myanmar's independence from Britain and is considered the father of the nation. He was assassinated in 1947, six months before independence, when she was two years old.
In 1990, the military allowed free elections, apparently believing they would win. They lost catastrophically. Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won in a landslide. The military's response was to ignore the results entirely and place Suu Kyi under house arrest, where she would remain, on and off, for 15 of the next 21 years.
The Promise of Democracy
Things began to change in 2011. The military, following its own "roadmap to democracy," allowed a gradual transition toward civilian rule. Elections in 2015 delivered another landslide victory for the NLD, and Aung San Suu Kyi became State Counsellor—essentially the country's leader, though the constitution barred her from the presidency because her children held foreign citizenship.
But the democracy was always conditional. The military had written the 2008 constitution to guarantee itself permanent power. Twenty-five percent of all parliamentary seats were reserved for military appointees—meaning the military could block any constitutional changes, which required more than 75 percent approval. The military also retained control of key ministries: defense, home affairs, and border affairs.
It was a managed democracy, a system designed to give the appearance of civilian rule while the military retained ultimate authority.
The November 2020 election shattered even this illusion of balance. The NLD won 396 out of 476 available seats. The military's proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, won just 33. The people of Myanmar had made their preferences unmistakably clear.
Three months later, those preferences were annulled at gunpoint.
The Mechanics of Seizure
Coups depend on speed, surprise, and control of communications. The Myanmar military executed all three.
They arrested key leaders before dawn. They cut phone lines and internet access using "kill switch" techniques they had previously tested in combat zones. They deployed soldiers to Yangon, the country's largest city, and to Naypyidaw, the capital. Banks suspended services. State media went dark.
Around 400 elected members of parliament found themselves confined to a government housing complex in Naypyidaw—essentially prisoners, though technically under "house arrest." Some of them refused to surrender. On February 4th, seventy NLD parliamentarians took their oaths of office anyway, in open defiance of the military.
The military also targeted anyone who might organize resistance. Buddhist monks who had led the 2007 Saffron Revolution—an earlier uprising against military rule—were detained. Veterans of the 1988 protests were arrested. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners documented over 130 officials and activists in detention within the first few days.
The Charges and the Farce
Coups require at least a veneer of legality, and Myanmar's military set about manufacturing one. On February 3rd, police filed criminal charges against Aung San Suu Kyi for... possessing unlicensed walkie-talkies.
This was not a joke. The military claimed that communications devices used by her security detail violated import and export laws. The charge carried a potential three-year prison sentence. Over the following months, additional charges accumulated: violating pandemic restrictions, accepting illegal payments, corruption.
President Win Myint was charged with violating the Natural Disaster Management Law. His crime? He had waved at a passing NLD convoy during the pandemic. This, the military argued, constituted illegal election campaigning.
In January 2022, Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for the walkie-talkies and COVID protocol violations. More convictions followed. By the time the military was done, the woman who had won the Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent struggle for democracy was serving a sentence of decades.
The People Refuse
What the military apparently did not anticipate was the scale of resistance.
Within days of the coup, protests erupted across Myanmar. Civil servants refused to work. Doctors and nurses joined strikes. The Civil Disobedience Movement, as it came to be known, spread to every sector of society.
The military responded with escalating violence. On February 15th, armored vehicles rolled through city streets. Curfews were imposed. Gatherings of more than five people were banned. The regime began issuing arrest warrants for activists, influencers, and celebrities who had spoken against the coup.
In March 2021, three prominent NLD members died in police custody—a grim signal of what detention could mean. Journalists were targeted: local media outlets had their licenses revoked, and foreign reporters were arrested. The military attempted to impose a sweeping Cyber Security Law that would have enabled comprehensive digital surveillance.
But the protests continued. And when peaceful resistance proved insufficient, armed resistance began.
The People's Defence Force
The National Unity Government—a parallel government formed by elected officials and democracy activists—established the People's Defence Force (PDF) to resist the junta through armed struggle. What began as scattered local militias evolved into a coordinated insurgency operating throughout the country.
This was not the first armed resistance in Myanmar's history. The country has long struggled with ethnic armed organizations in border regions—groups representing Karen, Kachin, Shan, and other minority populations who have fought for autonomy or independence for decades. Some of these groups allied with the PDF. Others remained neutral or continued their own separate conflicts with the central government.
The result has been a country at war with itself. As of March 2024, at least 50,000 people have been killed—including more than 8,000 civilians, among them at least 570 children. Over 26,000 individuals have been arrested. In July 2022, the junta executed four pro-democracy activists, the first judicial executions in Myanmar in decades.
A Military Running Out of Soldiers
In February 2024, the junta took a step that revealed the depth of its desperation: it announced compulsory military service.
All men aged 18 to 35 and all women aged 18 to 27 would be required to serve up to two years in the military. Specialists—doctors, engineers, and other professionals—could be conscripted up to age 45 and required to serve for three years.
Conscription is an acknowledgment of failure. A military that needs to force people to fight is a military that cannot find willing volunteers. It suggests that the junta's forces have been depleted by three years of civil war, desertion, and casualties—though exact figures are difficult to verify.
The International Response
The world condemned the coup. Western nations—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia—had issued warnings even before February 1st, as rumors of military action circulated. After the coup, they imposed targeted sanctions on military leaders and their business interests.
Myanmar's diplomats faced an impossible choice. On February 26th, 2021, Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar's ambassador to the United Nations, gave a speech denouncing the coup and calling for international intervention to restore democracy. He was fired the next day. The junta's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Kyaw Zwar Minn, was recalled after similarly calling for Aung San Suu Kyi's release.
But condemnation and sanctions have not restored democracy. The military has remained in power, periodically extending its "state of emergency" every six months. Regional powers, particularly China, have maintained working relationships with the junta—raising persistent questions about external support for the regime.
The Complexity of Aung San Suu Kyi
Before the coup, Aung San Suu Kyi had become an increasingly controversial figure on the international stage. The woman who had won the Nobel Peace Prize, who had been celebrated as a symbol of peaceful resistance to tyranny, had defended the military's campaign against the Rohingya people.
In 2019, she personally appeared before the International Court of Justice to defend Myanmar against charges of genocide. She argued that the military's actions were a legitimate response to terrorist attacks and that the international community didn't understand the complexity of the situation.
This remains one of the most troubling moral puzzles of recent history. How could someone who spent 15 years under house arrest fighting for human rights defend what appeared to be ethnic cleansing? Some argue she was constrained by political reality—that challenging the military on the Rohingya issue would have ended her government's existence even sooner. Others suggest she shared the anti-Rohingya prejudices common in Burmese society. The truth may be some combination of both.
Regardless, she is now the junta's prisoner, her life's work seemingly in ruins. The military she defended has imprisoned her, and the democracy she spent decades fighting for has been, once again, extinguished.
What Myanmar Means
Myanmar's coup matters beyond its borders for several reasons.
First, it demonstrates the fragility of democratic transitions. Myanmar had seemed to be moving, slowly and imperfectly, toward civilian rule. International observers spoke of "democratic opening" and "reform." Western businesses rushed to invest. Then, in a single morning, it was over. The lesson: democratic progress is not linear, and militaries that retain institutional power can reverse decades of advancement whenever they choose.
Second, it reveals the limitations of international pressure. Sanctions, condemnations, and diplomatic isolation have not restored democracy. The junta has been willing to endure international pariah status rather than surrender power. Without more forceful intervention—intervention that no nation seems willing to provide—there is no external mechanism to reverse the coup.
Third, it shows what happens when a population refuses to accept military rule. Myanmar has not returned to the quiescence that followed the 1988 and 2007 crackdowns. The resistance continues—both peaceful and armed—even at tremendous human cost. Whether this resistance can succeed where previous movements failed remains an open question.
Fourth, it raises uncomfortable questions about the relationship between democracy and justice. Aung San Suu Kyi's government was democratic, but it was also complicit in atrocities against the Rohingya. Does that complicity justify international ambivalence about the coup? Or does the principle of democratic governance require defending even flawed democracies against military takeover?
Where Things Stand
As of early 2024, Myanmar remains under military rule. Min Aung Hlaing, the general who could not afford to retire, continues to hold power. The state of emergency has been extended repeatedly. Elections the junta promised to hold have been postponed indefinitely.
The civil war continues, with the People's Defence Force and ethnic armed organizations controlling substantial territory, particularly in border regions. The junta's conscription announcement suggests it is struggling to maintain military effectiveness. But it retains control of major cities and the apparatus of state power.
Aung San Suu Kyi remains imprisoned, now in her late seventies, serving a sentence that will likely keep her confined for the rest of her life.
In January 2024, on the occasion of Myanmar's 76th year of independence from Britain, the junta announced amnesty for more than 9,000 prisoners. This gesture—releasing some of the people you imprisoned for opposing your illegal seizure of power—captures something essential about the regime: its combination of brutality and the need to perform legitimacy.
Myanmar's future remains unwritten. But its present is a reminder that freedom, once lost, is extraordinarily difficult to reclaim.