The distant drone of a motorcycle always sends a jolt of anxiety through me, a question mark hanging in the air as I scan the horizon. In this landscape, every approaching sound could signal danger, or something else entirely.
This time, it was Saw Emmet, a thirty-four-year-old civil engineer, skillfully navigating the dusty trail towards the resistance camp. He wasn’t a soldier by training, but a man driven to action after the 2021 coup shattered the fragile hope for a democratic Burma.
Saw Emmet’s initial response to the military takeover was participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement – a courageous wave of protests led by teachers, doctors, and government workers who refused to legitimize the new regime. He and others initially attempted a quiet resistance within the cities, a campaign of subtle defiance.
A warning from a friend forced his hand. The army was coming for him. He fled to the jungle, trading his drafting tools for a life on the front lines. After years in combat, he now volunteers his engineering skills wherever they are most needed, a vital asset to the resistance.
Over instant coffee, he spoke of a time before the darkness descended. “When we had the NLD government, there were opportunities,” he recalled, referencing the period following Aung San Suu Kyi’s landslide victory in 2015. While the military still held significant power, life for ordinary citizens had demonstrably improved.
People had choices – careers in medicine, engineering, even the burgeoning world of online business. But the coup extinguished those possibilities, plunging the nation back into uncertainty. Despite official claims, widespread unemployment grips the country, with many struggling to survive on less than $100 a month.
This isn’t a new cycle, he explained. Burma has been trapped in this pattern since the 1962 coup led by General Ne Win. “That is a very long time,” he lamented, tracing the lineage of dictatorships that have defined the nation’s fate. The current regime, led by General Min Aung Hlaing, is a direct continuation of Ne Win’s legacy.
Ne Win established a doctrine of “Three National Causes” – unity, solidarity, and sovereignty – phrases now echoed by Min Aung Hlaing to justify the 2021 power grab. Ne Win also pioneered the idea of military control over both the economy and politics, a structure mirrored in the current regime’s placement of officers in civilian ministries.
The yearning for democracy wasn’t new. The pro-democracy movement of 1988, brutally suppressed with the deaths of thousands, ignited a flame that refused to be extinguished. Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a symbol of hope, only to be arrested along with countless others.
Elections were held in 1990, and her party won overwhelmingly, but the military refused to cede power. Hope withered. Even the 2010 elections, touted as a step forward, were widely dismissed as a sham, designed to ensure victory for the military’s proxy party.
A period of “quasi-civilian” rule followed, with retired generals still pulling the strings. Yet, even this offered a glimpse of progress. “Before 2010, owning a cellphone was a luxury,” Saw Emmet explained. “A SIM card cost $2,000 or $3,000. Only the elite could afford it.”
The shift began in 2010, with SIM card prices dropping to $180. By 2015, after the NLD’s victory, they fell to just $12. Suddenly, access to information was within reach. “Almost all of the young people in Burma, our eyes were wide open when we used the Internet at that time,” he said.
The internet revealed a Burma he hadn’t known. “It was shocking,” he admitted. For the first time, he learned about the violence inflicted upon ethnic minorities in regions like Karen, Kachin, and Chin – stories previously silenced by the government.
Ethnic communities, often isolated and unaware of each other’s struggles, began to connect, realizing they were all victims of the same oppressive system. A sense of solidarity began to blossom. “From 2015 to 2020, we had full human rights, a democratic country. We had freedom. We could criticize the government.”
That freedom was brutally stolen with the 2021 coup. Human rights vanished, and protest became a death sentence. He recalled the story of Mya Thwe Thwe Khine, the first civilian shot and killed during the protests. “She got shot in the head. Why did the government shoot their own people?”
That moment was a turning point. Peaceful protest, he realized, would not be enough. “So, we cannot win in this way. So, we must prepare for the revolution.” He began researching Burma’s history, uncovering decades of hidden atrocities committed by the military, events deliberately omitted from school textbooks.
Witness accounts and video evidence confirmed what he had long suspected. The SAC had been perpetrating “very terrible things since 1962.” This realization solidified his resolve. In May 2021, he joined the revolution.
This is the story of a civil engineer turned resistance fighter, a story echoed by thousands across Burma – teachers, accountants, ordinary citizens transformed into warriors by the weight of oppression. The government inadvertently created its own opposition, igniting a fire that will not easily be extinguished.
