Exit Myanmar

Journalist/writer Hans Hulst moved in early 2014 in good spirits to Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country he had been writing about since 2000. There was optimism all around. The military that had been in power since 1962 had pulled the strings. Press censorship had been abolished, political parties were allowed and the economy was liberalized. Investors were flocking to the new Asian economic frontier from far and wide.

Hulst joined the media house Mizzima as managing editor. A year later, he co-founded the opinion magazine Frontier with Mizzima CEO and former political prisoner Sonny Swe. As editor-in-chief, he and his young and enthusiastic editorial staff not only covered stories about the revival of a country that was one of the least developed in the world, he also had a front row seat when Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, won the election in November 2015. At last, the Nobel laureate could fulfill her promise. 

Not long after, dark clouds gathered. In August 2017, the military brutally chased nearly a million Rohingya Muslims out of the country. Aung San Suu Kyi kept fearfully quiet. Was she afraid of the military, which was still a state within the state? Or was she infected with the same racist nationalist poison? Because the genocide had already announced itself in the hate sermons of nationalist monks and the army's propaganda in the years before, although the international community in Myanmar did not want to see it. 

In 2020, the NLD won the elections again. Two months later, the military seized power. The clock was turned back. A toxic and bloody dynamic ensued in which the military first crushed mass demonstrations against the coup and the resistance, which was (and is) mostly driven by youth, then began to organize into armed People's Defense Forces. In exile, the National Unity Government was formed. At the time of writing, fighting continues in large parts of the country and the regime of senior General Min Aung Hlaing is more in dire straits than ever.  

Hans Hulst wrote a personal account of the transition that was not to be. From his unique inside perspective, he not only describes the dramatic events but also sheds light on the army's motivations and the toxic mix of cultural and historical ingredients that have led to the country now potentially teetering on the brink of disintegration.He also succinctly questions the role of the international community during the transition years.

Exit Myanmar. Leven in een land in crisis. will be in bookstores from September 10, 2024. 

More info: Murrow.nl