On February 1, a military coup plunged Myanmar into a new spiral of violence, with the junta responding with a brutal, and often deadly, crackdown on the pro-democracy demonstrators who took to the streets to protest the takeover. More than 3,000 people have been arrested so far, including the country’s deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Reporters dug into its archives to take a closer look at the mechanisms behind Myanmar’s fragile political system, and the compromises that were made with the junta to enable a democratic transition that led to the election of Aung San Suu Kyi after decades of military dictatorship. In 2013, FRANCE 24's Cyril Payen was the South-East Asia correspondent when he filed this exclusive report on Myanmar, which was then in the infancy of its new democracy. But even back then there were signs that the generals would once again seek to seize power.
