Battling a dictatorship, building a democracy

Feb. 26, 2025

By Jim Snyder and Gemunu Amarasinghe for RFA

The rainy season had just passed when we made the difficult trek to eastern Myanmar last year to see how rebel troops were managing in the fourth year of war. We interviewed dozens of people over the course of three weeks – doctors and nurses from Yangon trying to adjust to life in the jungle and a group of young men and women working to build a kinder, friendlier police force with few resources.

We met smiling fighters who despite being low on ammunition were managing to hold off major advances by military forces, and civilians trying to bring a sense of normalcy to the makeshift camps they had to flee to.

We witnessed pain and suffering, as well as resilience, determination and uncertainty over what’s yet to come. As one person told us: “We cannot claim what will be tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. We just live, day-by-day.”