by PREETI JHA
Four people on the frontlines of the anti-coup movement in Myanmar tell Preeti Jha why they are not giving up.
THE DOCTOR
Than Oo* stopped working on 3 February 2021. Instead of driving to Mandalay General Hospital, as he has done nearly every day for 15 years, he took to the streets. Thousands of medical workers across Myanmar did the same. Their mass walkout in protest against the coup marked the start of a nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) that has brought public services to a virtual standstill.
‘It was a really difficult decision,’ said the 40-year-old. ‘I had to leave my patients.’ As it is, he was contending with the lingering fallout of previous junta rule. There was a time, he remembers, when patients arrived for operations carrying their own surgical equipment. By starving the healthcare system of funds, the generals had decimated it. Even after budgets grew, out-of-pocket payments for medical treatment in Myanmar soared and remain one of the world’s highest. ’I won’t let [dictatorship] happen again. We have to stop it – especially for our next generation.’
Speaking to me on the Signal app in a video call from an undisclosed location, Than Oo looked fatigued. His grey-streaked hair, which he normally cuts short, fell to his shoulders. He was growing a beard for the first time. He and his wife, also a doctor, have been forced into hiding as striking doctors are wanted criminals in junta-ruled Myanmar. ‘Many of my colleagues have been charged,’ he said. Hundreds of other doctors, nationwide, are on the run too.
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