Five Years of a Stolen Future

On Feb. 1, 2021, a young democracy was destroyed—its stability shattered, its growing economy devastated, the hopes of its people dashed, the country driven into full-blown civil war and its future thrown into darkness.

That lost young democracy is our country, Myanmar. Sunday marks the fifth anniversary of the military coup—launched less than three months after an overwhelming majority of Myanmar’s people cast their ballots for the National League for Democracy and delivered its leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a clear mandate to form another elected civilian government.

The past five years have been hell for all Myanmar people, defined by the junta’s cruel oppression and the systematic deprivation of the population’s fundamental civil and political rights. A fragile but hopeful democratic transition has been replaced by airstrikes, mass displacement, political imprisonment, economic collapse and normalized violence. Society has been completely upended. Cities and villages have become battlegrounds. Fear has become routine. Death has become ordinary.