In the hot days of February and March 2021, the call to “Leave work, break free” echoed throughout Myanmar.
After Myanmar’s military staged a coup in February 2021, protesters demanded that civil servants leave their offices, joining an effort to disable the machinery of the regime attempting to seize power.
Departmental staff in government offices throughout Myanmar began to strike on a massive scale, creating a new Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) to resist.
After decades of enjoying stable livelihoods and steady incomes, these civil servants experienced the myriad disruptions that came of walking off their jobs, and their individual stories illustrate the depth of the transformation that followed: a policeman became a resistance leader; a school principal became a Buddhist nun; a man who worked as a train driver for 20 years now has to take on odd jobs; and a student who once spent their days in classrooms now finds herself in war zones.
Even four years later, many departmental staff are still living under highly unstable conditions, finding ways to manage the hardship of maintaining their livelihoods while continuing to stand resolutely with the revolution against military rule.
From policing to resistance
Police Second Lieutenant Min Thu*, a native of the Singu area around 50 miles north of Mandalay, used to patrol a beat as a policeman based at the local Police Station No. 3 in Chanayethazan Township, Mandalay.
After the Myanmar military’s takeover in February 2021, Min Thu witnessed the junta’s violent crackdown on peaceful protesters. Deciding he did not want to be part of a “murderous organisation,” he joined the CDM in March by leaving the police force.
He participated in anti-junta protests in Mandalay and fled to a remote, rural area to take up arms a few months later. In only a few years, Min Thu would reinvent himself as resistance leader Lieutenant MT.
“Police are supposed to uphold truth according to policies and laws. I joined the CDM to stand with the people for truth,” he said. “The military council uses weapons to intimidate and kill people. Since they use weapons to oppress people who just want to live peacefully, as a police officer, my only option was to take up arms and resist.”
Lieutenant MT later became the second-in-command of the Daung Nyi Naung (Peacock Brothers) People’s Defense Force operating in Mandalay Region and member of the TGR drone unit based in Myaing, as well as taking on combat duty in the resistance forces in Sagaing District and Singu Township.
He said that while he had not faced major dangers in the past when serving as a town police officer, he often faces danger while fighting junta troops.
“I’ve narrowly escaped death many times. These four years have been extremely difficult. I’ve faced life-threatening conditions while fighting battles and planting mines. Our camps have been raided… there are all kinds of dangers,” he said.
Lieutenant MT has also faced financial hardship since joining the CDM, although in 2022 he briefly received a salary from the publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG)—the anti-junta cabinet formed and endorsed by ousted civilian members of parliament—while it was still able to remunerate some CDM participants.
Now, he said, he often has to survive on occasional support from relatives and friends.
As a resistance police official, Min Thu has been able to return to his hometown of Singu since its capture by resistance forces and stay there with his family. In the now-liberated town, he serves as the deputy in charge of the NUG’s police force, the People’s Security Organisation.
After four years of struggle on the difficult CDM journey, he says he believes happier days are ahead.
“Now that my town is free from the military council and has become a liberated area, as a native of Singu, I feel very satisfied knowing that my joining the CDM was the right decision,” he says with a smile.
A locomotive operator on a new course
Khin Maung, an ex-locomotive operator at Myanmar Railways who used to ensure trains ran on an orderly schedule, was among the thousands who found their lives upended by the military’s power grab. He quit his job driving a train just days after the military seized power.
He also left his government-provided housing and is now in hiding, working any jobs he can find to feed his family. Wary of pursuit by the regime, he prefers not to provide certain details that might give away his whereabouts.
He proudly recalls that nearly every worker at the Mandalay Railway Department, including him, quit their jobs after the coup, with only 15 percent having returned to work in the four years since.
“We find various ways to solve our livelihood problems,” Khin Maung said. “Some women wash other people’s laundry. Some sell groceries. Men work as night guards, three-wheel car drivers, masons. We work all kinds of jobs and live all kinds of lives as we struggle.”
There have been many difficulties for those who left their work and four years later, most are coping with odd jobs. Maintaining the kind of livelihood necessary to support a family is challenging, according to Khin Maung, but the problem of safety is an even more urgent one.
“The main problem is having to live with insecurity. We’ve had to give each other encouragement to maintain our mental health,” he said thoughtfully.
Despite the major disruption to his life from abruptly leaving an established career of more than 20 years, the stress of having to work multiple, poorly defined jobs, the anxiety from living without any guarantee of safety, and a general state of mental as well as physical insecurity, there is courage and resolve in the 45-year-old’s face as he considers his future.
Parallel lives diverge
Before the military coup, Myint and Hla Tun Myint had similar roles working as school teachers. After joining the CDM to resist the coup, one became a political prisoner, while the other set off on a new path as a nun.
A middle school teacher from a government institution in Bago, Myint left her hometown after protesting the newly installed regime in fear that they would arrest or even kill her. Entering a meditation retreat in a small town, she soon found herself fully committed to religious life.
“At first, it was temporary. I would wear yogini clothes and practice meditation. I thought that when the situation improved later, I would return home. Now I’ve become a nun and I’m happy in this life,” says Daw Kaytu, formerly Myint, with a hearty laugh.
Daw Kaytu is now fully adapted to the practice of meditation. As soon as the 4am bell stops ringing, she washes her face, cleanses herself, and goes to the breakfast hall to eat.
Afterward, she rests for half an hour and, following the monastery’s discipline, meditates 11 times a day for one hour each, with one-minute breaks in between, from 5am until 10pm. At noon, she is allowed to lie down for one hour after eating.
Although ordinary people can experience pain or other adverse physical effects from prolonged meditation, Daw Kaytu says she feels free of mental impurities and in good health.
Two days each week, the nuns have to collect food offerings donated to the abbot for the meditation centre’s rice supply, Daw Kaytu says.
“There are challenges. Since I’m a CDM participant, some view me as seeking refuge at the monastery because I have nowhere to stay or eat. I can’t make donations myself, and I don’t have sponsors. Although I practice meditation a lot, I’ve had to face these perceptions from people,” Daw Kaytu says.
Hla Tun Myint, who has been arrested by the junta and is serving a prison sentence at Obo Prison in Mandalay Region, was the principal at a primary school in Myitlaung village near the town of Myitnge in Mandalay Region.
At over 50 years old and suffering from diabetes, the school principal was not the junta’s initial target. In fact, they had come to arrest her son, a young man in his 20s running the Voice of Mandalay (or “Vomdy”) webpage that tracked the junta’s arrests in Myanmar’s second-largest city.
Investigating further, military authorities discovered Hla Tun Myint was a participant in the CDM, having walked off her job.
“When they came to arrest me and couldn’t find me, they also learned that my mother was a CDM school principal and arrested her,” Hla Tun Myint’s son says. “They also accused her of supporting the revolution and subjected her to questioning.”
The junta brought charges against Hla Tun Myint under various laws, ultimately convicting her under section 50(j) of the Counterterrorism Law—which concerns funding terrorism—and handing her a 15-year sentence, according to reports.
“My mother has diabetes and needs regular injections. I worry that she won’t get adequate medical treatment for her condition,” Hla Tun Myint’s son says, before adding, “We have absolutely no contact.”
From the safety of a classroom to living with trauma
Sandar often wakes up in a state of agitation from the terrifying noise of military aircraft flying close over the roof of her home.
“That ‘whoosh’ is like a monster—whenever I hear it, I become scared, shaking and even crying,” said Sandar.
Sandar was in her third year studying as a chemistry major at Mandalay’s Yadanabon University when she joined the CDM in 2021, discontinuing her studies. Due to the general weakness of security in Mandalay, she is hiding in a small village near an air base elsewhere in Mandalay Region.
The junta often conducts airstrikes on towns controlled by resistance forces in Mandalay Region and neighbouring northern Shan State, mostly during the night. Day and night, however, the attack aircraft regularly fly over homes in Sandar’s village.
Although the noise from the aircraft is less noticeable during the day, it becomes terrifying during the usually quiet nighttime hours, Sandar says.
“After hearing that sound, the following morning when I hear that certain people died in some towns, or about children and mothers who lost their lives in IDP camps, I can’t stay calm. I can’t do anything, it’s extremely traumatic,” she says through clenched teeth.
“I’m haunted by that sound and frequently dream about it. In my dreams, I’m nearly going crazy, knowing I’m among helpless people, people running in chaos,” she adds.
Sandar also suffers from her circumstances, having no job and virtually no income and depending on her family for food. She says she is only able to maintain her sanity by learning handicrafts as a hobby, but mostly just feels depressed when she considers how uncertain her future has become.
Determination in the face of the junta’s grudge
CDM participants who left their jobs in protest against military rule in Myanmar may rank among those who have done the most to hobble the regime’s mechanisms for exercising power since the coup.
People serving the public in all manner of skilled professions throughout the country—from healthcare workers to legal professionals, educators to public transit employees—have been steadfast in opposing the military despite the retribution their defiance has incurred.
In Mandalay alone, many of the medical workers who overwhelmingly joined the movement were detained and imprisoned, and some were even tortured to death. Hospitals and clinics were closed by military authorities in apparent retaliation, causing hundreds of doctors and medical workers to lose their jobs, while many others fled abroad to escape persecution.
Adding to their difficulties, the junta leaned on private hospitals, clinics, and companies to commit to not hiring CDM participants and restricted foreign travel.
Many employees of the Mandalay Railways Department were also evicted from their government housing, and the entire staff of a Railways Department office in Myitnge had their government housing razed by bulldozers.
Nonetheless, the CDM participants’ resolve and pride in their cause has remained strong in the face of the regime’s ongoing hostility, Khin Maung says.
“We worry more about security than our livelihoods. Sometimes when we go out in public, we can’t move freely. Mentally, we instinctively become paranoid about our surroundings. But we’re proud to live this way,” he said.
“I understand that armed young people need to be prioritised for support before CDM participants, so I don’t feel bad if we don’t receive support,” he added.
Although she also has limited options, Sandar says she also embroiders textiles to sell, using the money to help displaced people who are in even more difficult situations than she is.
Compared to the people in Myanmar who are still not free from the military dictatorship, suffering through the hell of indiscriminate airstrikes and attacks in resistance territories, and coping with the loss of homes and family members, she has decided her own suffering is insignificant.
*Sources’ names in this article have been changed to protect their security
