12 TIME February 15/February 22, 2021
T
HE NEWS THAT AUNG SAN SUU KYI HAD BEEN
overthrown in a coup spread through Myanmar
like a shock wave. “Most of the citizens 100%
depend on her,” says Kyaw Kyaw, a 28-year-old
LGBTQ activist who lives in Yangon, the Southeast Asian
nation’s largest city. “Everyone was frustrated and scared.”
Myanmar’s de facto leader was idolized even before she
came to offi ce. During the 15 years that the junta kept her
under house arrest, many secretly kept pictures of Suu Kyi
in their homes. After her release, her party, the National
League for Democracy (NLD), won elections in 2015, end-
ing decades of military rule. The country’s struggle for
democracy has always centered on Suu Kyi. Now that the
military has her in detention again—reportedly facing
trumped-up charges of violating import-export laws—there
are few capable of uniting resistance to the generals’ emer-
gency rule. “When she disappeared, nobody knew what to
do,” says Kyaw Kyaw.
The truth is that the military never really lost control.
Despite the reforms of recent years, the Tatmadaw—as the
army is offi cially known— retained control of key ministries.
A 2008 constitution guaranteed it 25% of the seats in parlia-
ment and a veto over any constitutional amendment.
But the NLD’s resounding victory in a Nov. 8 election,
claiming over 80% of the vote, was too much democracy for
the generals to bear. The military claimed widespread fraud
and has now declared emergency rule until the election can
be run again. It is not clear what form that vote will take.
How far the military goes will hinge on how compliant civil-
ian leaders are and the scale of popular resistance, says Dan
Slater, director of the Weiser Center for Emerging Democra-
cies at the University of Michigan. But the political future of
the country’s most prominent leader looks uncertain at best,
he says. “Banning Aung San Suu Kyi could very well be one
of the military’s main wishes or demands.”
THE WOMAN ONCE CALLED a “beacon of hope” by Presi-
dent Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for
her nonviolent resistance against the junta. After her release
in 2010, she became an even greater icon of human rights,
mentioned in the same breath as Gandhi or Mandela. With
the help of the U.S. and other nations loosening economic
sanctions, she helped usher her country through a series of
reforms, including the historic 2015 vote.
All too swiftly came the fall. Suu Kyi’s defense of the mili-
tary over 2017 atrocities committed against the Rohingya—a
mostly Muslim minority in western Myanmar—made her an
object of global scorn. U.N. investigators determined that the
Tatmadaw’s campaign of arson, rape and murder had “geno-
cidal intent.” Suu Kyi rejected the accusations, defending
Myanmar against charges of genocide at the Hague in 2019.
To those in the outside world who
once deifi ed her, it was a breathtaking
betrayal. Amnesty International had be-
stowed its highest honor on her, but re-
voked it in 2018 in light of her “shame-
ful betrayal of the values she once stood
for.” The portrait of her that once hung
at her alma mater Oxford University
was mothballed.
Wai Wai Nu, a Rohingya activist liv-
ing in the U.S., says that in the eyes of
the country’s more than 100 ethnic mi-
norities, Suu Kyi’s defense of the mili-
tary separated her from the quest for
democracy. “We felt betrayed,” she says.
If they oppose the coup, it’s not because
they have changed their position on
Suu Kyi. “We are standing up for what
is right for the country.”
But Suu Kyi remains enormously
popular in Myanmar. On Feb. 2, many
Yangon residents stood at their win-
dows banging on pots and pans, some
chanting, “Long live mother Aung San
Suu Kyi!” There are signs of popular
resistance internally, with reports that
doctors and nurses are refusing to work
in protest. Some longtime Myanmar
watchers say no one should be writing
off Suu Kyi just yet. Even behind barsTheBrief Opener
WORLD
Taking down a
tarnished icon
By Amy Gunia
Aung San Suu Kyi,
pictured at the U.N.’s
International Court
of Justice in the
Hague on Dec. 10,
2019, at the start of a
three-day hearing on
Myanmar’s treatment
of the Rohingya
people
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