Demonstrators protest against the military coup and demand the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Yangon, Myanmar, on Feb. 6, 2021.STRINGER/Reuters
In the early hours of February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military seized control of the country, jailing civilian leaders, including de facto head of state Aung San Suu Kyi, and declaring a nationwide state of emergency.
While the coup took much of the world by surprise, inside the Canadian embassy in Yangon, diplomats had been bracing for some kind of dramatic action, as tensions built following a November, 2020, election in which military-backed parties were trounced by Ms. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.
The military takeover was a “devastating blow” for many in a nation that had appeared to be on the road to full democracy, according to a cable sent from Yangon to Ottawa in the days after the coup.
“Initial shock and devastation is giving way to simmering anger, with the explosion yesterday of several online protest and disobedience movements,” read a February 3, 2021, report. “Eligible voters voted overwhelmingly for the NLD … and for democracy as their chosen means to advance political change in the country.”
This assessment is contained in more than 200 pages of reports and memos produced by the embassy in the first three months after the coup, obtained via an access-to-information request and provided to The Globe by veteran public interest researcher Ken Rubin, who has filed and analyzed thousands of requests for public and personal information.
Mr. Rubin compared the documents haul to similar records he acquired detailing how Canada’s embassy in Beijing responded to pro-democracy protests in 1989 and the subsequent massacre around Tiananmen Square. As the Myanmar coup approaches its fourth anniversary – and the “temporary,” as the junta calls it, state of emergency shows no signs of being lifted – the documents provide a useful contemporary account of how the military failed to effectively consolidate its seizure of power in the face of mass protests and nationwide resistance, sparking a bloody civil war which continues to this day.
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Canada does not recognize Myanmar’s military junta, the State Administration Council, and has sanctioned top generals and others in connection to the coup and alleged atrocities committed during the ongoing civil war. A recent joint statement by Canada, the U.S. and the European Union, among others, noted a “worsening human rights and humanitarian crisis” across the country. Yadanar Maung, spokesperson for rights group Justice For Myanmar, said Canada had taken the lead internationally by banning the export of aviation fuel to Myanmar, undercutting the junta’s air superiority on the battlefield.
Civil society groups called for sanctions targeting the new regime almost immediately after the coup, the Canadian documents show, while Ottawa already had several measures in place sanctioning top military officials over previous human rights abuses.
“However, Canada needs to do more with its allies to cut the junta’s access to funds, arms, technology and aviation fuel,” Ms. Maung said. “To be effective, sanctions should be coordinated, cover whole networks of companies and individuals, and be rigorously enforced.”
In an interview, Canada’s current chargée d’affaires in Yangon, Allison Stewart, said her team in the country works to support the democracy movement and condemn the coup, as well as encouraging “the surprising and very productive collaboration between the Bamar majority and ethnic states, who have joined hands for the first time in the history of Myanmar to seek democracy and to seek a common vision for the future.”
Such collaboration was not guaranteed: Ethnic armed organizations have fought successive Myanmar governments, both civilian and military, for decades, and the previous NLD-led government was complicit in a brutal military crackdown against the Rohingya minority in western Myanmar.
But by the end of March, 2021 – as the Canadian cables attest – former NLD leaders and EAO representatives had put forward a draft charter for the future of the country, which they expanded on last year with a joint declaration calling for the “annihilation of the military dictatorship and establishment of a federal democratic union.”
By comparison, despite intense lobbying and incentives offered to rebel groups such as the Arakan Army, all the junta could ensure in the first months of the coup was an uneasy ceasefire with several EAOs in the north of the country. This was dramatically broken in October, 2023, and the AA has since taken control of most of Rakhine State.
While the conflict has once again entered something of a stalemate, resistance fighters told The Globe last month they took inspiration from the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, long after it had been deemed impossible by many observers.
Facing military setbacks, the junta has said it will try to hold elections in November, in an apparent effort to legitimize its rule and reduce international pressure. This push has received support from China – the junta’s most important ally – but most observers doubt the SAC’s commitment to a truly free and fair election, or whether this would even be possible given it only controls a fraction of the country.
Ms. Stewart said she was concerned attempts to hold an election could “lead to more violence and more conflict” in military-held areas, after a past attempt saw election workers targeted for assassination.
She said she had already witnessed one bombing and heard gunshots since taking office in 2022, adding the embassy “maintains a state of vigilance” and has updated its emergency preparedness in case fighting erupts in the country’s largest city.
Ms. Stewart noted however the deadline of the potential November election could “pressure people into getting things done more quickly than normal,” adding she remains a “committed optimist” about Myanmar.
“There are solutions to every problem,” she said. “And we’d like to see a made-in-Myanmar solution.”