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  • Let's start with the military coup in Myanmar.

  • Police have filed several charges against the elected leader and sans Souci.

  • She hasn't been seen since her arrest on Monday, and she remains in custody.

  • The charges she faces are unexpected.

  • First of all, she's charged with breaching the country's strict import and export laws.

  • She's also accused of possessing unlawful communications devices, and we know that's related toe seven walkie talkies used by her security guards, which the authorities say they found in her house.

  • Here's our Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head there, obviously absurd.

  • I mean, just imagine she was the de facto head of state in the country.

  • Any walkie talkies in her home would have been used by her security guards.

  • The idea that those air somehow illegal is laughable.

  • Everyone and Mama will know this is a device.

  • It's a way of trying to neutralize her.

  • Just think about this.

  • The military launched their coup because Anson Sushi's party won yet another election.

  • She's won every election she's ever contested by really significant margins.

  • They won by the biggest margin of all last November.

  • If the military is to fulfill its promise of holding another election and it has pledged it will do that.

  • It has to find a way of getting her out of that election.

  • And this charge, I would imagine, is there perhaps the first way they're going todo to use to try to do that.

  • It's not the first time and Santucci is being detained.

  • She spent nearly 15 years in detention in Myanmar while she campaigned for democracy, and when the country introduced Democrat Democratic reforms, she was hailed.

  • She won the Nobel Peace Prize.

  • She Julie won elections to on the tactic she is now facing will be familiar to her.

  • Because of that, there's Jonathan Head.

  • They did it before the 2010 election, one run by the military when she they didn't want her toe t even try to run for office on, charged her.

  • Then, after American man had swam across a lake to her home, where she was then being held under house arrest, they managed to get her then on breaking house arrest.

  • Rot laws.

  • They jailed her vert well, kept her in a home for for 18 months on her sentence, finished just after the election took place.

  • While the military is also targeting Myanmar's now ousted president Win Myint.

  • He's being charged with violating laws that banned gatherings during the pandemic on Justus with an sans souci.

  • A guilty verdict could mean he's barred from running for office, something that becomes relevant if the military chooses toehold swift elections now neither and sans Souci or president Women have been heard from since the military seized power on Monday morning.

  • Hundreds of MPs were also detained, but they were told on Tuesday they could leave the guest houses where they've been put in the capital, among them Zin Mar.

  • She previously spent 11 years in jail on political charges under an earlier military dictatorship and she's been speaking to the BBC.

  • Current situation is a very, very tough and challenge situation.

  • Every body who voted for us, are they very upset and then our feelings and our heads with you.

  • Then we were standing for their rights on their votes now in San Suu cheese.

  • National League for Democracy won a huge majority in November's election on although they haven't been street protests this week.

  • We have seen other acts of defiance against the coup.

  • These pictures came in earlier.

  • He's the doctors and nurses chanting outside their hospital and health workers across the country have launched a red ribbon campaign of civil disobedience against the coup.

  • Also, for the second night in a row, people in Yangon have done this.

  • We also know because of the crackdown on the streets, activists are moving their activities online.

  • We are protesting since day one, since the since the first hour.

  • Actually we have protested in our own way and you know, 2021 we are in 2021.

  • Things have changed a lot.

  • We have digital devices.

  • We have digital power.

  • We have digital space is quite different than in 2007 or 1988.

  • I think our generation is making the most out of it.

  • We're never silence since day one.

  • Now, as you might expect, international condemnation is growing.

  • A spokesperson for the U.

  • N says the charges against an sans souci undermine democracy and the rule of law.

  • We've also heard from the G seven, which includes Britain, the U.

  • S and Germany.

  • It's demanding that the civilian government is reinstated on.

  • We've also heard directly from the US here's White House press secretary, Gen.

  • Sochi Obviously Um the detention.

  • Continued detention of an Santucci, other civilian officials and the Declaration of National State of Emergency are a direct assault on Burma's transition to democracy and the rule of law.

  • We're continuing to review sanctions are sanctions authorities and other options.

  • It is certainly a priority to this administration.

  • I don't have an exact timeline for you, but it is a It is a priority and certain, certainly reviewing our sanctions authorities and seeing where there's action to take.

  • There is something that team is focused on in an unsurprising development.

  • There's a different narrative coming from China, which is Myanmar's largest trading partner.

  • This editorial in the Global Times calls on the West not to add fuel to the fire by forcefully intervening in Myanmar's affairs.

  • It goes on, intervention should be conducive to promoting dialogue and peacefully resolving the crisis.

  • It should not aggravate tensions and turn the situation into a new deadlock.

  • Well, thinly Win is a Burmese journalist based in Rome and thank you very much indeed for joining us.

  • How do you assess efforts by the international community to apply pressure to the Burmese military?

  • Thanks for having me, Ross.

  • Well, you know Unfortunately, I think it is going to be limited in terms of what the international community can do.

  • They already have, you know, arms embargoes on targeted sanctions against some off the hunter leaders, including the commander in chief men outline the problem.

  • Or at least perhaps I should say the more impact for pressure would actually come from regional partners like China, Korea, Russia, India, the ones that still provide military support in Japan.

  • That still provides a lot of funding, and unfortunately, we're not seeing, you know, a lot of effort on that score.

  • Like you said.

  • Editorial in the Chinese newspaper says it all.

  • Now the Burmese military would have been able to predict reasonably, accurately how China would react, how the US would react, how the U.

  • N would react.

  • None of these reactions have Bean a surprise.

  • So what's its calculation here?

  • Because it leaves itself very alienated.

  • Well, I don't think the Myanmar Army has ever to be perfectly honest with you, really worried about the international, um, perception off it on.

  • If it has, it would have, you know, changed the way it operated a long time ago.

  • It wouldn't have staged this coup.

  • Um, to be honest, like what Jonathan has said earlier.

  • I think that my speculation is that what they want is to try and disband the NLD and to try and get the answers to two out of the picture.

  • Because there is no other way.

  • They can either win elections or have some sort of legitimacy as long as the party on the leader is still there.

  • But help me understand how realistic that is.

  • People watching around the world will know and sans Souci very well.

  • They wont know so much about her party.

  • Does it have sufficient infrastructure and strength to withstand that kind of pressure?

  • Well, the NLD is more than on since to achieve, but you are absolutely right.

  • You know, I remember five years ago when the when when, you know the NLD came to power on election day, you ask people who they're voting for and you know, a lot of people will say NLD.

  • But so many people would say we're voting for Josue even though she wasn't running in their constituencies.

  • So she is definitely the face of it.

  • And the main reason people vote for NLD is because of her.

  • Um, there are a lot of younger, more, you know, dynamic lawmakers in the energy, but they really haven't had much of a chance to make an impact.

  • You know, they've only done one, um, round five years ago, you know, in the legislature.

  • So it is.

  • It is a really, I think threat that if she is no longer, that the NLD, you know, may go back to its bare bones operations like it waas in the 19 nineties and two thousands.

  • And just quickly before we finish, I wonder, how easy is it being, or how hard is it being for you to communicate with friends and family in Myanmar?

  • Well, the first few hours of when, you know, speculation was rife that there was it was pretty difficult to contact people young on the former capital, Rangoon.

  • It was okay, but maybe you'd always pretty much under lock down.

  • And it was very difficult to reach people.

  • It's getting better.

  • But also, you know, people are rising up to it like the activists said is very different now.

  • Now there is a lot more reliable Internet people know how to use mobile phones and, you know, information technology.

  • I was just speaking to an activist today who said they were using VPN, um, to talk.

  • So it's it's it's the first day was quite worrying.

  • It's got, but we don't know how long that will last.

  • The army could go in and tell all the operators to just shut down, and they might not us.

  • We have a choice or say in it.

Let's start with the military coup in Myanmar.

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