National League for Democracy

But in regards to the youth of Burma, how much more do they have to stay engaged? What do they need to do? And what does the NUG have to do in terms of keeping them on board?

Well, the youth of Burma tasted freedom during the time of the NLD's leadership.

And the country opened up so much at that point and communication systems got a lot better.

So they're not willing to give all of that up.

There was an election earlier this year that just about every international observer considered a sham.

The military-backed party, of course, won in the landslide.

There's not really any doubt that the people of Myanmar would very much like in their majority to be rid of the junta if they could.

But at the end of the day, people with the guns and the people who control this enormous apparatus of repression can stay in power for quite a long time.

So she's not someone the junta can just get rid of.

So they have to treat her kind of carefully.

In the 2010s, there was this political opening where her party, the National League for Democracy, were allowed to compete in elections.

They eventually formed a government.

The military has been in power essentially since the 1960s, but There was a brief period where they did allow elections going back to 2015, but they very much limited the power of the government.

During that time, the National League for Democracy, which has been the main campaign for democracy, did win the vast majority of the seats in the election and theoretically at least held government seats.

Until 2021.

Since then, the country's been in a civil war as different groups in rural areas kind of control different parts of the country and the big cities are controlled by the military.

In this very short period, I joined not just the protest, but also as editor and the contributors for a couple of the daily newsletters and journals.

So with this, after the coup, I couldn't run these things anymore.

Then I decided to join National League for Democracy, to assist as a part of the member of the information sections because of the well-known editors and the political activists at that time.

So I was with the group among the campaign trips led by Aung San Suu Kyi after October 1988, and then we started having this kind of campaign trips all over the country, as much as it's called, aiming to join any election, upcoming election.

Yeah, in the enigma of Aung San Suu Kyi as a person and her decision-making, those are things that come up a lot with our guests.

And we, as you can imagine, having hundreds of guests on this platform, many of whom have engaged with Aung San Suu Kyi in different ways over the years, we've received any number of comments on that from, on one side, the argument you make of how little control she had, of how much that she and everyone at the NLD was, um, were imminently aware of another coup happening and trying to, um, satiate the beast, you know, satisfy the tiger, uh, to, to try to, as a way of self protection and hope that 2020 would, would bring a different reality.

And then there are some, you know, um, there, and to whatever degree that's true, there's also some, uh, disturbing bits of evidence that kind of mount up the other way that are hard to explain away, you know, a meeting with diplomats where, um, someone had used the word Rohingya and she had description is that she literally spat, um, with disgust saying that there's no such people in our country or a BBC reporter doing an during the course of the interview, realizing that this reporter's background was Muslim and, and at a hot mic session where she didn't realize the mic was on saying, I would, I, no one told me that this would be a Muslim that would be interviewing me or, you know, references of, again, the democratic culture, putting, you know, thinking back on the conversation we had with Toby Mindell, who was engaged in various ways in supporting the democratic transition through his organization and his disappointment that there was not, and this is just one voice coming out, I haven't heard any number of them, that again, there was not as much done to create institutions, to not have all the faith in the body of one person, one leader, one supreme leader, but in having institutions and especially a younger generation and a free press that can kind of carry that on.

So you know, there's, there's a mixed bag there of truths on both sides and, uh, you know, where it adds up is the question.

And some of them connect and some of them are, some become part of a similar plan, but others also might be happening at the same time.

But one of the areas is of course the Norway's involvement when it came to the development of the Myanmar constitution.

And also, as far as I understand, also putting some pressure on on NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi to accept some of these terms that later, you know, showed to put her in a position where she was.

So I think that's sort of one of the things.

Pre-publication censorship of the press was lifted.

And in 2015, the National League for Democracy, the NLD, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory in the general elections.

The world basically celebrated it as a democratic triumph.

But underneath that civilian surface, the CITAT was still operating with absolute impunity.

Sometime we do it for free, not asking anything like that.

And you did concerts supporting the NLD-

Yeah

... supporting Aung San Suu Kyi.

And this is another thing I wanna ask you about, because, um, you know, I think it goes without saying that the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi are, are miles apart from the military, from the regime, the oppression, the corruption that we saw there.

Uh, however, as we came to see when the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi take, took hold, um, i- at least for, for, for many individuals, um, their, uh, the direction they charted, and of course, uh, the military was never out, fully out of control, but there were some concerning things, um, to say the least.

There were some concerning things that, uh, and some anti-democratic, democratic and some illiberal actions and attitudes that we saw Aung San Suu Kyi and N- and NLD leadership also, um, uh, as they, as they had some degree of power.

And so, uh, you know, when you look back at the support that you were giving for NLD, well, well, certainly any support for the NLD is wanting to take support away from the military, so that, I think, stands to this day that, uh, you're, you're, you're engaged in, uh, you know, anti-military activism and get out the vote and encouragement of the population.