Myanmar: A Not So Quiet American

Insight Myanmar

“It was a really dynamic but also very challenging time to work in Myanmar,” recalls Scott Aronson, a career humanitarian and conflict expert, speaking to the Insight Myanmar Podcast and reflecting on his years in the country from 2015 through the 2021 coup.

In this conversation, he explores how his field experience, crisis leadership, and ethical convictions converged amid Myanmar’s unfolding tragedy.

Aronson’s humanitarian career began in the early 2000s, working across southern and eastern Africa with the United Nations and various NGOs supporting refugees and conflict-affected communities. He spent several years in Darfur during the height of the crisis, focusing on civilian protection and gender-based violence, before contributing to reconstruction efforts in northern Uganda following the Lord’s Resistance Army conflict. These early experiences shaped his understanding of how local communities, aid networks, and international systems intersect within fragile and volatile environments.

Aronson later joined the U.S. Agency for International Development, within what became the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, where he oversaw both conflict response and disaster operations. He recalls deployments where U.S. military assets were mobilized during major emergencies, including the 2015 Nepal earthquake. In these missions, he emphasizes the importance of civilian oversight to ensure that military logistics aligned with humanitarian principles and the host nation’s sovereignty. This work reinforced his belief that effective emergency response depends on coordination, adaptability, and a deep respect for those most affected.

It was in 2016 that he arrived in Myanmar, at a time when the country was transitioning from military rule to quasi-democracy; his position as USAID’s senior conflict and governance advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Yangon centered on the formal peace process and on helping civil society assume responsibilities long suppressed under dictatorship. Aronson’s task was to strengthen networks among civic groups separated by geography, ethnicity, and religion, and to create “platforms of coordination, communication, and understanding.” These years were dynamic and difficult, and he recalls them as being filled with both promise and tension as Myanmar navigated a fragile democratic opening.

While the U.S. government’s goal was to support the nascent democracy, Aronson’s particular work concentrated on conflict-affected Rakhine, Shan, and Karen States, where long-standing wars had continued even as political reforms advanced. His focus shifted more sharply to Rakhine in 2017 during the military’s campaign against the Rohingya, and he worked closely with civil society organizations from all communities there, while also coordinating with refugee operations across the border in Bangladesh.