Before the military seized power from Myanmar’s civilian government in February, Wai Hnin Lae Phyu, a medical student in Yangon, didn’t give much thought to her country’s persecuted ethnic minorities. She had even dismissed their plight, including when the military launched a campaign of killing, rape, and arson against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state in 2017. But during the protests against the coup, Wai Hnin Lae Phyu has apologized for her apathy. “Many youth were sleeping before the military coup. Since Feb. 1, we woke up,” she said.
Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, has killed at least 510 people and detained more than 2,500 others since it took power on Feb. 1. Now terrorized by the military themselves, many people from the Bamar ethnic majority are developing a sense of solidarity with the country’s numerous minority groups. Public apologies for years of indifference and denial of minority people’s experiences have proliferated. “We have learned day by day, and our point of view has changed. We feel really sorry,” said Yin Yin, a Bamar youth who worked as a hotelier in Yangon before the coup.
