‘A comedy show’: Myanmar youth in exile slam military-run ‘sham’ election

A tattoo artist’s gun buzzes alongside a blaring punk music soundtrack in Mae Sot, Thailand, a small Thai town bordering Myanmar.

“Punk means freedom”, says Ng La, his face and body covered heavily in tattoos.

“It’s more than just music or fashion – it’s a way of life”, he tells Al Jazeera while tattooing a fellow Myanmar national-in-exile at the back of his “punk bar” in Mae Sot, in Thailand.

Ng La fled his home in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, for the freedom to live.

The 28-year-old currently lives precariously in Thailand as an undocumented national from Myanmar, despite the fact that he claims that being captured by the military regime, which he initially resisted, fled, and then fought against.

“The biggest fear was that if I got arrested, I would be deported back into the hands of the Myanmar military”, Ng La said.

He claimed that while “we are no longer afraid of dying,” it would be even worse to be captured by the military.

Many young people from Myanmar who have fled the civil war back home are familiar with Ng La’s journey into exile in Mae Sot.

His journey began when he joined demonstrations in February 2021 after Myanmar’s military toppled the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a long-time democracy activist and hero to many in Myanmar, was able to win the elections held by the coup, which overturned the results of Myanmar’s 2015 and 2020 elections, which were regarded as the first fair elections in the country’s history.

A civil conflict that resulted from the military’s capture also led to the death of thousands and horrified the countryside, including air strikes on rural residents, landmine use, oppressive conscription laws passed by the military regime, and widespread political oppression, including executions.

“When the coup first began, the fascist military ordered the people not to go outside or protest for 72 hours”, Ng La recounted.

He claimed that he and two of his friends staged protests on the street using handmade banners during that time frame.

Ng La eluded arrest and flew to the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand to fight military rule. He became a member of the People’s Defence Force (PDF), one of the numerous armed organizations.

But, after heavy clashes in February 2022 between the PDF and the Myanmar military, Ng La was forced to flee once again and secretly crossed into Thailand, where he eventually set up his punk-themed bar and tattoo parlour, helped by his partner.

“I arrived without any documents because I had no paperwork.” He described his new life in Thailand as “a very difficult situation because I couldn’t go anywhere.”

Struggling with the day-to-day challenges of living undocumented in a foreign country, and being a new father, Ng La told how payments must be made to the relevant Thai authorities and how there was the ever-present fear of deportation.

We also “pay a license fee” and “try to live and make a living,” he said.

‘ Destroyed all our hopes and dreams ‘

The National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s victory in an election just months prior was the result of electoral fraud, and thus was illegitimate, the Myanmar military’s official justification for the coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in 2021.

The military will now hold its own election on Sunday, which is widely believed to be unconstitutional and primarily an attempt by the regime to legitimize its power grab under the pretext of holding and winning a vote.

The independent news outlet Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reports that dozens of parties have registered for the polls – yet notably, Aung San Suu Kyi’s hugely popular NLD is barred from registering.

The election was a “sham,” according to Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, adding that “elections cannot be free, fair, or credible when held amid military violence and repression, with political leaders detained and fundamental freedoms stricken.

According to Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, famous musicians, filmmakers, and artists from Myanmar were being detained for their election-critique, leading many people to flee into exile, just like Ng La.

The Irrawaddy magazine has also reported that rebel groups who are in control of significant populations not under military control say they will not recognise the election’s results.

Ng La claimed that the election in the military is unimportant.

He claimed that the election is “like a comedy show.”

Any hope for a quick return home for those in exile is quickly losing as Myanmar’s post-coup conflict looks to be moving on fifth year.

The United Nations estimates that approximately 3.5 million people have been displaced internally by the fighting in Myanmar, and hundreds of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries, including Thailand, India and Bangladesh.

Prior to the coup, Thailand’s population had about 85, 000 long-term refugees living in permanent camps along the border, according to estimates.

Registered refugees recently received work rights from the Thai government, but this does not immediately apply to undocumented immigrants. Human Rights Watch states that undocumented migrants face a “constant threat of harassment, arrest, and deportation” and “many Myanmar nationals, including children, have no legal access to basic healthcare, education or work”.

Some of the undocumented Myanmar exiles Al Jazeera spoke with in Mae Sot described being too afraid to leave their homes because they were afraid of being deported to Myanmar, where they face forced enlistment, imprisonment, or worse.

Elections conducted by the military: “As a license to murder our people.”

Snow, a 33-year-old former English teacher, was part of the generation of young Myanmar people who came of age with the first election win of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD in 2015 and the promise that period offered of an internationally engaged and democratic Myanmar.

Snow also eluded the coup and left Yangon city to join a resistance group on the Thai-Border. Snow did not want their real name to be revealed for security reasons.

She told Al Jazeera, “everyone’s hopes and dreams were destroyed by the coup and the subsequent civil war.”

“So I decided to flee to the jungle and to join the resistance”, she said, telling how she wanted to learn about weapons and fight.

Female fighters were not given duties on the front lines, according to Snow, who attributed the difference in treatment between the men and women who joined the resistance for the lack of the same training as her male counterparts.

No matter how well trained you were as a medic, reporter, or drone squad member, female fighters were [frequently] assigned to front line battles, she claimed.

Snow served with the PDF rebel group for two years, but eventually fled across the border to Mae Sot, where she has continued to teach English and assists wounded fighters from Myanmar.

She claimed that ethnic armed groups in the border regions that were supposed to be allied with the PDF made her decision to leave the resistance.

Many of our PDF comrades were trapped and killed in one conflict, she claimed, citing alliance forces’ “unification with [the Myanmar military] as the cause of [our] betrayal].”

Many former resistance fighters fled to Mae Sot for the same reasons – a sense of betrayal, she said.

Because of this, she continued, “Fifty percent of us emigrated to Mae Sot.”

Snow claimed to not be interested in the “fake” elections, which would only allow the military to “kill our people.”

“Once we have accepted this election, our hands are already bloodied”, she said.

Many of the Myanmar exiles in the Thai town are considering applying for refugee status in the hope of finding a new life elsewhere, according to Snow, who cites her struggle to survive in Mae Sot.

However, no matter how remote that possibility is, the desire to return to Myanmar is never.

“Some hope to leave to a third country by applying for asylum”, Snow said, “or, to return home when this long, disgusting nightmare is over”.

She said, “We are fighting for our families’ return and to unite.” So we will fight until we can return home and make things better and better.

Source: Aljazeera