Myanmar lawmakers say army guarding their housing after coup
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Hundreds of members of Myanmar's Parliament remained confined inside their government housing in the country's capital on Tuesday, a day after the military staged a coup and detained senior politicians including Nobel laureate and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
One of the lawmakers said he and 400-some parliament members were able to speak with one another inside the compound and communicate with their constituencies by phone, but were not allowed to leave the housing complex in Naypyitaw. He said police were inside the complex and soldiers were outside it.
The lawmaker said the politicians, comprised of members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party and various smaller parties, spent a sleepless night worried that they might be taken away but were otherwise OK.
“We had to stay awake and be alert,” said the lawmaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.
The takeover came the morning lawmakers from all of the country had gathered in the capital for the opening of the new parliamentary session and follows days of worry that a coup was coming. The military said the seizure was necessary because the government had not acted on the military’s claims of fraud in November’s elections — in which Suu Kyi’s ruling party won a majority of the parliamentary seats up for grabs — and because it allowed the election to go ahead despite the coronavirus pandemic.
An announcement read on military-owned Myawaddy TV on Monday said Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing would be in charge of the country for one year. Late Monday, the office of the commander-in-chief announced the names of new Cabinet ministers. The 11-member Cabinet is composed of military generals, former military generals and former advisers to a previous government headed by...
