Episode #64: From Academic to Activist on the Run
When Han Htoo Khant Paing was pursuing degrees at the University of Economics in Yangon and Oxford University in England, he never imagined that one day he would be fleeing for his life to the jungles of Karen State.
Besides being a student, Han also served as Vice President of the Student Union, and was an active member of the Universities Student Union (USU). These varied roles brought him in touch with the leaders of various civil society organizations, most notably the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society and the National League for Democracy. While many of his friends were enjoying the benefits of the liberalization and reforms of the 2010s, Han was growing increasingly worried that the transition was not going far enough.
Despite his pessimism, however, even Han did not see the coup coming. He had worked for the Carter Center to monitor the 2020 elections, and did not encounter any major irregularities. So it was a rude awakening in the early morning on February 1st, when his girlfriend informed him of the news of the coup, unleashed under the false pretext of election fraud. And even though Han had wished that a greater opening had taken place in the previous decade, he doesn’t see what could have been done to prevent the present calamity once the NLD decided to make some concessions to the military, thereby in his words, “letting their values get compromised.”
Like many of his generation, Han responded immediately. Mere days after the coup, he co-founded the Burma Spring Front for Federal Democracy, an activist group dedicated to reestablishing democracy in Myanmar made up of alumni from the USU, and served as the Foreign Relations Officer, as well as an executive member of its political committee. He played an important role in organizing some of the country’s largest protests in February and March, such as the 22222 gathering and the Milk Tea Alliance protest one week later.
As expected, Han and his fellow activists soon became targeted by the military. Han was one of the lucky ones who managed to escape, relocating to a safe house on the very day that soldiers searched his street. Nine of his colleagues were not so lucky, as they were abducted and imprisoned. He has since received reports that his female friends have been sexually assaulted and his male friends beaten so badly that they cannot lie down to sleep. All continue to be incarcerated.
Han eventually fled to Karen state, where he lived for two months under the protection of the Karen National Union (KNU) with other protesters who had escaped for their lives. Although conditions there were tough, he continued his activism remotely. Electricity was seldom available, and some days were even passed without food. Insect nuisances and dangers posed by wild animals were ever-present, and eventually the Tatmadaw began running air raids over the camp and nearby villages, prompting Han to flee once again and look for safety.
In addition to this harrowing story, our discussion covers a wide range of topics, many concerning the events that took place in the 2010s. Han was deeply disappointed not only by the Rohingya crisis, but also by the indifferent and even defensive response to what was unfolding from his Bamar friends. “We just forgot what we struggled for, and certain values were forgotten,” he notes. He feels that so many were enjoying their new-found opportunities for greater material rewards, that they ceased to cherish the value of hard-won, basic freedoms, leading to a misuse of freedom of speech and religious intolerance.
Sadly, this leads to one of Han’s most surprising statements, in which he admits, “I feel shitty to say this, I feel in a sense, I am happy that the coup happened, because it proves that these compromising ways didn't work.”
Finally, Han expresses concern about the difficulty of finding accurate information these days. The military actively generates fake news, and rumors are spread on social media. In addition, there’s a serious problem with well-intentioned activists unfortunately causing problems by giving rise to false hope on one hand, or writing sensationalist stories that put people at risk on the other. Actually, in Han’s opinion, access to accurate information is actually not as important as limiting sensitive content to a need-to-know basis. “You need to control yourself. You don't need to know all the information, and it is even dangerous,” he says simply.