UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting to discuss Myanmar military coup

The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on February 2 to discuss a response to the military coup in Myanmar. UN envoy for Britain, Barbara Woodward, who holds the rotating presidency of the Council in February, told reporters that she will convene talks about the army’s seize of power in the Southeast Asian country after the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other government leaders were unlawfully held under detention, transferring the political power to the commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s armed forces.

Criticising the Myanmar military’s arrests of leader and other state ministers in the capital Naypyidaw, Woodward said in a presser that "the most important thing is that the Security Council responds to the coup”. Adding that the UN security council will initiate efforts to try to secure the release of civilian leaders detained, the UN envoy for Britain asserted that it was integral to bring Myanmar back on the path of democracy. 

According to sources of DW, the Diplomats at the Security Council insisted that the council takes measures to want to consider measures that will move towards restoring the democratic will of the citizens in the nation. Britain's UN Ambassador, further stressed, that the officials are set to hold constructive a discussion and adopt a range of measures that respect Myanmar people's will expressed in the voting and get the civil society leaders released. This comes as the banking sector in the commercial hub of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, resumed business, just 24 after the financial services came to a halt. In a statement, the country’s bankers' association alleged that it will reopen the doors despite political turmoil. Meanwhile, Myanmar's National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) held a meeting at the President's House Monday to discuss the ongoing political crisis. 

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UN: International community must respond

UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar told the German broadcaster that the international community now needed to respond in a language that the Myanmar junta “will understand”. Tom Andrews condemned the military’s crackdown on leaders, pushing for the economic sanctions against the country. He further berated Myanmar’s powerful military, Tatmadaw, for overthrowing a ‘fledgling democracy’. Myanmar, in 2015, contested polls putting an end to the decades-long military rule, which was overturned Monday in a coup d’état after armed forces detained the international democracy icon and former political prisoner Suu Kyi, whose newly established tenure was marred by ethnic cleansing human rights violations and military infused civil wars in Myanmar. Military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) Monday demanded ‘free and fair’ elections alleging voter fraud, declaring a 1-year long state of emergency, a move denounced by world leaders. 

[Soldiers sit inside trucks parked on a road in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Credit: AP]

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