Myanmar, a nation under military rule for the last five decades, has suffered a catastrophic blow towards its vision of a future democracy after military officials staged a coup against the country’s political leaders. One military convoy was apparently caught in the background of an online aerobics class while storming parliament.
Khing Hnin Wai, who lists herself as a physical education teacher on her social media profiles, uploaded a video of herself instructing aerobics as a convoy of dark vehicles passed through a security checkpoint behind her, very possibly amid the military coup.
While the Facebook version of the video is still available on Khing Hnin Wai’s Facebook page, it’s unable to be embedded on other websites. The same video was quickly shared by various social media users, including Àngel Marrades on Twitter. It shows a convoy of all-black vehicles, led by a large armored and weaponized Bearcat-style truck followed by what appears to include a Ford Expedition, at least maybe two Toyota Highlanders, and a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. That last one is a nice touch, for a coup.
The video of the coup convoy appears to match dozens of other videos uploaded by the same instructor from the same public outdoor location, which makes me think this isn’t the clever viral fake video I thought it could be originally. It seems like this is a real person, and they really missed the coup that was happening behind them during work.
Looking at Google Maps of the Parliament area in Myanmar, and it appears the video we see is filmed in the “Royal Lotus Roundabout” along the highway on the right side of the screenshot above, with the Parliament complex down the highway to the left. The aerobics teacher has posted photos of her at the Lotus flow statue on her social pages.
The coup itself was spurred by the recent Myanmar elections for a new government, according to the Associated Press, which was to result in a new democratically elected body and release the military from political control. Instead, the military seized power the first day the new parliament was set to meet, claiming election fraud skewed the results of the country’s election against the military-backed political party.
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