Myanmar’s coup must have looked like an easy win to the generals, given their long record of crushing dissent. Their grudging experiment with limited democracy reached its end when Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide second election victory – prompting the ousting and imprisonment of the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader and her colleagues in February 2021.
Four years on, resistance has flourished. A study by the BBC estimates that the junta controls only 21% of Myanmar’s territory as it battles People’s Defence Force units set up by the national unity government formed from the NLD’s remnants, as well as the ethnic armed groups that have long fought Naypyidaw. More than 4 million people are displaced and half the population has been forced into poverty. Less than half has access to electricity. The UN says Rakhine state is at imminent risk of acute famine and Rohingya Muslims there are particularly vulnerable, trapped between the military – which has forcibly conscripted men – and the Arakan Army, which accuses them of siding with the junta.
