It was exactly a year ago in Burma: the army overthrew the government and arrested Aung San Suu Kyi. The people rose up against this coup d’etat and the demonstrations were bloodily repressed. According to estimates, 1,500 civilians were killed and 12,000 opponents arrested.
>> What is the situation in Burma, one year after the coup?
Thousands of Burmese have left their country. Some have taken refuge in France, like Yadanar, whom franceinfo finds in a park in Marseille, where she hopes to settle with her French husband. This artist fled Burma in April and she remembers the coup precisely. “I was surprised, trembling, even, and I felt hopeless, she remembers. So, with my friends, we joined the demonstrations. Slogans were written on placards: Reject the coup, Liberty, Democracy. And as the days went by, there were more and more people…”
Yadanar opens his computer to show images of his militant performances after the coup. In a video, viewed more than two million times on Facebook, she sits in a chair in a bustling Rangoon district, wearing a white dress spattered with blood, her feet shackled, surrounded by a crowd of protesters denouncing the putsch.
After that, it was difficult for Yadanar to stay in Burma: the army killed and imprisoned opponents. So she takes the path of exile and takes refuge in France. A year later, she says, the resistance against the junta has not given up in Burma… “These protests continue today, a year later, and I feel shivers every time, she indicates. The camp opposite is powerful. They have more money, more weapons. But the majority of people don’t want the military, so there is still hope.”
Koh Latt, also an artist, also fled Burma in November. Thanks to the help of the French Institute in Rangoon, he was able to join his friend Yadanar in France. But before that, in his country, he made a more radical choice and joined the armed groups that resist the military in the spring.
Koh Latt joins the People’s Defense Forces, formed last May by the Burmese government in exile to fight the ruling junta. “We went deep into the jungle and it’s like a military training camp, he explains. We have to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning. At the beginning, we are given bamboos as rifles, because there are not enough weapons. And after a month and a half, we are given a real gun for a week. It’s very hard. There is little to eat and we are often woken up at night with fake bomb threats to practice escaping. So we can’t really sleep.” Koh Latt will eventually return to Rangoon before fleeing his country. Like Yadanar, he says he is convinced that the army will eventually fall.