From far off, a motorcycle can sound like a drone. The sound always causes my anxiety to rise as I wait to see what materializes over the horizon.
Fortunately, this time it was a motorcycle coming down the dusty trail to theresistance campwhere I was staying.
The driver was Saw Emmet, a thirty-four-year-old civil engineer whojoined the revolutionshortly after the Burma army overturned the election andseized controlof the government in 2021.
His first move was to participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement, a widespread protest by teachers, doctors, nurses, and other government employees who refused to serve the generals.
Originally, he and many others tried to remain in the city, launching a campaign of guerrilla warfare. But a friend warned him that the army was coming for him, so he fled to the jungle.
After spending several years on the front lines with combat units, he decided to dedicate himself to volunteering as an engineer wherever his skills were needed in resistance-controlled areas.
Over a cup of instant coffee from my rucksack, Saw Emmet told me about the time before the military coup.
“When we had the NLD government, there were a lot of work opportunities for people in Burma,” he said, recalling the period after the 2015 election, which was won in a landslide by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.
Although the military retained most of the decision-making power, conditions improved for ordinary citizens under quasi-civilian rule. People had choices.
“People could choose what kind of work they want to do. We had medical work, engineering work, and also business. Some of the young people, they did online business,” he said.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
