Enemy of the State
Coming Soon…
“It is an extraordinarily fascinating country in and of itself,” says veteran journalist and human rights advocate Chris Gunness, about his lifelong connection to Myanmar, first as a journalist and then as head of an organization dedicated to pursuing justice for victims of government atrocities. As Gunness goes on to tell, his background with the country is anything but a new endeavor.
As a young BBC reporter many decades ago, he followed events in the country from afar in London in the mid-1980s; he saw a nation shaped by unresolved legacies of British rule, deep ethnic fragmentation and decades of civil war, yet so closed that even major crises passed without international notice. He calls the Myanmar of that time an “information black hole.” The country’s political complexity— while being largely ignored by the rest of the world— intrigued him as a journalist. By 1986, Myanmar had become the focus of his reporting, and he began tracking the country’s growing economic and political instability.
By late 1987, Myanmar reached a breaking point. General Ne Win abruptly demonetized several major currency notes, wiping out people’s life savings overnight. Anger spread quickly. For the first time in decades, murmurs of spontaneous protest began circulating openly, as public discontent swelled to its highest levels since Ne Win’s 1962 coup cemented military rule.
Small clashes soon escalated into violence near Rangoon University, and the regime crushed the unrest with familiar brutality. Diplomatic circles in Yangon began whispering that Ne Win might finally resign, and many sensed that something irreversible had begun. Among them was Chris Gunness. His BBC editor, Nick Nugent, urged him to get into the country fast—even if it meant entering under tourist cover. It was the only way any reporter could hope to witness what was unfolding behind Myanmar’s sealed borders.
Gunness arrived with a seven-day visa, intending only to observe quietly. But within twenty-four hours, Ne Win suddenly announced his resignation on state television, promising multiparty politics and economic reform. The Cold War’s rigid alignments appeared to be shifting in Southeast Asia—this was years before similar changes occurred in Europe. Nugent instructed Gunness to break cover and begin filing reports openly, despite his inexperience. Gunness remembers the mixture of fear and duty as he delivered his first on-the-record dispatch from a dilapidated hotel. As far as he knows, no other foreign journalists were present at that time.
What happened next shifted the course of Myanmar’s history and permanently altered Gunness’ own life. Returning to his room one evening, he found a note hidden under his pillow: student leaders wanted him to meet them the next morning. Unbeknownst to him, a prominent human rights lawyer had orchestrated the contact because he believed the BBC offered the only megaphone capable of broadcasting a national call to action. The following day, Gunness was blindfolded, driven to a safe house, and introduced to a circle of young organizers who believed they were preparing a revolution. They asked him how to strategize it; he declined to answer, insisting that he was only there to report. Still, he recorded interviews in English and in Burmese, even though he did not speak the language. He recorded additional testimony from a banker describing economic collapse and from a soldier detailing atrocities committed against civilians, including the use of people as human mine detectors. All this material was secretly transferred into diplomatic pouches at the British Embassy and sent to London.
On 6 August, the BBC broadcast the Burmese-language interviews nationwide. Gunness had no idea that one of the student’s he’d interviewed said in Burmese that their action would begin “at eight minutes past eight on the eighth day of the eighth month of 1988.” He learned of this only later. But sure enough, at 8:08 a.m. on 8 August, dockworkers laid down their tools and marched into Rangoon. By midday, millions had poured into the streets across the country.
Gunness had already been expelled from Myanmar by the time the BBC aired the Burmese-language interviews on 6 August. After his first on-the-record report exposed his presence in Rangoon, the military quickly deported him, and he was flown to Dhaka. It was from his hotel room there that he listened as the broadcast went out—still unaware that one of the students had announced the precise moment the uprising would begin. In Dhaka, his room soon became the center of an improvised three-man news operation: a contact relayed updates from inside the country, and a Rakhine refugee who appeared at his door offered to translate. With nearly all domestic journalists on strike, their ad-hoc network became the only functioning source of national news, amplified by the BBC Burmese Service in its morning and evening broadcasts.
Gunness insists that he not be given credit for helping spark the revolution. He stresses instead the agency of the Burmese people, saying “the real heroes of this story are the people of Myanmar.” He believes his reporting merely revealed tensions that had been building for decades, and that the Burmese people, themselves, seized the moment. Yet the experience taught him an early lesson about the power of information during political transformation. He saw how impactful it was for people simply to learn what was happening beyond their own neighborhoods — how the sudden flow of information revealed a nationwide uprising already in motion. What sets people free, he emphasizes, is their own action.
The promise of 1988 did not last, however. The military panicked, first installing a civilian prime minister, then the notorious General Saw Maung; by September, they had created the State Law and Order Restoration Council. The crackdown was swift and devastating. Gunness recalls hearing gunfire and screams through the phone as he listened to the American Ambassador describing soldiers firing into crowds of thousands. Elections in 1990 briefly raised hopes before the military nullified them, plunging the country again into decades of repression. For years, Myanmar became a deep freeze for journalists.
Only in 2008, after Cyclone Nargis killed nearly 200,000 people, did the junta reluctantly open the country to international agencies, paving the way for the 2008 Constitution and eventual elections. The NLD’s victories in 2012 and 2015, and its landslide in 2020, were overshadowed by Aung San Suu Kyi’s defense of the military at The Hague after the Rohingya massacres of 2017. Gunness does not attempt to resolve the debates around Suu Kyi’s pro-military position, but he notes its profound impact on public trust. Then the 2021 coup completely extinguished the country’s fragile trajectory towards democracy.
Yet, Gunness says that the coup also awakened a new generation whose digital fluency gave them advantages the junta never anticipated. He compares the information environment of 1988 to today. In the past, knowledge had to be smuggled by phone or diplomatic bag. In 2007, during the Saffron Revolution, shaky mobile videos appeared. By 2021, citizen journalists livestreamed events in real time, sometimes outpacing traditional media. These positive developments also carried dangers, however. For example, he cites Facebook’s algorithm as intensifying racial hatred and “supercharging” the Rohingya genocide. Social media can connect democratic entities in areas outside junta control, but the military can use the same tools to amplify disinformation or empower surveillance. Still, he believes that it is an overall plus because of the capacity for bottom-up federal movements to share knowledge, strengthen institutions and envision an alternative future.
Gunness’ connection to Myanmar is personal as much as professional. The spirit of the people left an irreversible imprint on him, similar to what he later witnessed in Gaza and Bosnia. Their resilience in the face of extreme violence, their insistence on dignity and self-determination, convinced him that eventual freedom is a matter not of “if,” but “when.” He carries with him the memory of the people’s courage under repression, and regards it as emblematic of oppressed peoples everywhere.
This conviction eventually led him to create the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP), shifting from reporting to building legal cases. Traditional journalism and human rights reports often generate headlines but produce no lasting consequences. After the 2021 coup, he saw that no organization existed solely to pursue criminal litigation against junta leaders for crimes committed after the coup. Universal jurisdiction offered a mechanism through which foreign courts could prosecute grave crimes regardless of where they occurred. Turkey became an early venue because its penal code allowed trials in absentia. Working with local lawyers, MAP brought a torture case that opened a formal investigation. Later, MAP submitted detailed evidence about a well-documented massacre, ensuring that victims could speak directly to international audiences. Gunness repeatedly highlights that victims’ voices are the center of MAP’s method; their testimony not only shapes legal strategy but also serves their own psychological restoration. Many victims, he explains, do not necessarily want Min Aung Hlaing in The Hague; they primarily want their stories heard.
MAP has since pursued cases in the Philippines, Indonesia and Timor-Leste, each requiring different legal pathways. In the Philippines, MAP works within a system shaped by shifting political dynamics and a recent withdrawal from the International Criminal Court. In Indonesia, MAP challenged constitutional limits on the human rights court’s jurisdiction and continues to pursue new avenues under a revised penal code. In Timor-Leste, MAP collaborates with Christian networks and Chin organizations to build future filings. These cases, though slow, amplify victims’ narratives and create international pressure.
Gunness also describes a case unfolding in the United Kingdom, where junta representatives have attempted to seize the ambassadorial residence from the democratically aligned envoy. MAP intervened with legal strategy and public advocacy, warning that allowing the junta to claim the property would constitute a dangerous form of recognition. The case remains unresolved, illustrating the global reach of Myanmar’s struggle and the importance of vigilance in seemingly distant jurisdictions.
Gunness acknowledges that skepticism toward international justice is justified. Yet he argues that flawed systems are still necessary. He recalls his time as a UN official during the Bosnian genocide, when accountability seemed impossible—years later, war criminals were arrested or extradited, demonstrating that justice can eventually assert itself. He contends that universal jurisdiction cases serve multiple purposes: they preserve evidence, empower victims, delegitimize perpetrators and create diplomatic ripple effects, including at the UN Credentials Committee, where questions of legitimacy intersect with human rights performance.
Regarding the UN, however, his experience has not been positive. The organization’s failures during the Rohingya genocide led to internal investigations, yet key recommendations were never implemented. Coordination remains weak, and recent decisions like transporting junta officials to refugee camps without UN markings undermine credibility. He argues that principled engagement must differ sharply from political theater. High-profile visits to Naypyidaw by UN officials risk signaling acceptance rather than neutrality. Discreet dialogue may be necessary in the future, he says, but “now is not the time.”
As he reflects on his four decades of engagement with the country, Gunness says Myanmar’s future will not be decided by international actors, but its people. He ends with the conviction that their resilience outlasts every cycle of repression. “It’s the indomitability of the Burmese spirit,” he says, “that ultimately will see this nation transformed.”