Myanmar's military suspends all flights till April

Yangon

SUPPORTERS of Myanmar's military rallied in the nation's largest city as it moved to suspend all flights till April, raising fresh concerns about the army's crackdown a day after it seized power in a coup and detained senior government officials and activists.

The rally in the commercial capital Yangon is the first since de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues were taken in early morning raids on Monday.

"It is not a coup, but just an act of retaining the power to prevent others from misusing it," a monk, Tipitaka Thitsar Pwintlin, told the pro-military crowd, urging them to thank the army for protecting the nation and its majority Buddhist religion.

The military on Tuesday instructed airlines to suspend all flights until April 30 - an extension of travel restrictions put in place by the previous government to contain the spread of Covid-19 - and reopened the country's stock exchange for trading from Wednesday.

President Joe Biden said the US could reinstate sanctions on Myanmar if the military does not "immediately relinquish the power they have seized" and release activists and officials.

"The United States removed sanctions on Burma over the past decade based on progress toward democracy," he said on Monday in a statement that called on the generals to release activists and officials, lift restrictions on telecommunications and refrain from violence. "The reversal of that progress will necessitate an immediate review of our sanction laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action."

The coup could prove to be an early test case of Mr Biden's vow to defend democracy "wherever it is under attack" - a line he repeated on Monday. If carried out, the policy would represent an abrupt shift from the Trump administration, which often muted traditional criticism of authoritarian governments.

The military pledged to hold elections after a 12-month state of emergency and formally replaced Ms Suu Kyi as foreign minister when it installed 11 new ministers to Cabinet posts late on Monday. A state-run television broadcast announced the new foreign minister as Ms Suu Kyi's predecessor, Wunna Maung Lwin; while Win Shein, who previously held the post of finance and planning minister, was reappointed to the position.

It's not clear how much impact the threat of additional US sanctions would have on Myanmar's military leaders, many of whom were already hit by the Trump administration for a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims and remain on good terms with China - the country's largest trading partner. Broader sanctions like those imposed before the country's shift to democracy more than a decade ago are likely to hit Myanmar's 55 million citizens, many of whom overwhelmingly voted for Ms Suu Kyi's party.

"Sanctions are but one of the tools available to the international community," Andrew Heyn, a former British ambassador to Myanmar, told Bloomberg Television. "It is so important that the international community, as it has done so far, really makes clear that this is unacceptable."

The World Bank on Tuesday said it was "gravely concerned" about events in Myanmar, calling the military's actions a "major setback to the country's transition and its development prospects". The institution has funded projects ranging from electrification to education to Covid-19 relief.

Ms Suu Kyi on Monday urged her supporters to oppose the army's move, calling it "an attempt to bring the nation back under the military dictatorship without any care for the Covid-19 pandemic people are facing".

The election commission last week labelled the vote transparent and fair, and in 2015 the military had accepted her party's landslide election win.

She is being confined to her home and is in good health, according to Kyi Toe, a member of the National League for Democracy. BLOOMBERG