Myanmar’s exiled resistance leader on his daring, a few-day journey to escape the junta

With armoured vehicles rolling into Myanmar’s money Naypyidaw, troops fanning out across the city and coordinated raids underway to arrest government leaders, Dr Sasa was informed to operate.

On the early morning of February 1, the medical physician-turned-politician was expecting to take a place in the new cabinet of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government as it started out its second phrase.

In its place, Ms Suu Kyi was arrested in a pre-dawn raid and Dr Sasa located himself in a taxi speeding out of city as a military coup unfolded at the rear of him.

“I was advised to depart as quickly as achievable so I could grow to be the facial area and the voice of my people,” Dr Sasa, who goes by a person title, told the ABC.

At one place, Dr Sasa experienced to ditch the taxi for a bike, riding devoid of a helmet. He finally finished the journey in a truck.

“I travelled working day and night time … and when I arrived at mountain parts, the temperature was down to pretty much [freezing temperatures],” he said.

“I thought about accidents and I considered I might die, but thank God I am even now alive.”

He will not reveal in which he ended up but stated he has had to transfer a few of instances for stability factors.

Waking up to military services gunmen ‘ready to shoot’

For the ABC’s interview in excess of Zoom, Dr Sasa sat in entrance of a white wall that could have been wherever. 

“I was hoping that me currently being in the government, I would be ready to deliver a great deal of superior matters to our people that they considerably necessary. So I was completely ready to consider that part,” he mentioned.

“But when we wake up in the early morning of February 1, what we noticed was armed forces gunmen completely ready to shoot and eliminate us — they were all over the place.

“Our cellphone was useless, our television was lifeless. All we noticed was are living ammunition, bullets, guns, heavy weapons, and [I thought], what have we finished mistaken?”

Myanmar’s military seized electric power practically 12 months in the past just after creating unsubstantiated statements that final November’s election was fraudulent.

Ms Suu Kyi’s Countrywide League for Democracy (NLD) occasion won in a landslide with 83 per cent of the vote.

Independent election observers have reported the poll was free and honest.

Dr Sasa had campaigned effectively for the NLD in his indigenous Chin state in the country’s west.

He grew up in the mountains bordering India and was the 1st child in his remote village to go to substantial college.

He is not certain how old he is since there is no official start record, but he thinks he is about 40.

He made the decision to turn out to be a medical doctor after realising there was determined have to have for health care care in his neighborhood. 

Persons have been dying from preventable diseases and in childbirth.

Local community users marketed their livestock in purchase to send him to school in India, then healthcare college in Armenia.

After he completed his degree, he returned to Chin condition to develop the region’s initially primary healthcare centre and educate hundreds of group health and fitness employees.

Prince Charles is a patron of Dr Sasa’s organisation, Well being and Hope, and the pair have achieved various times.

Protests versus the junta continue 

Soon after lastly reaching a safe and sound put just after the coup, Dr Sasa finally reconnected with other elected leaders who experienced also managed to flee.

Because then, from their various locations in hiding, they have joined just about with protest leaders and the heads of some of Myanmar’s ethnic groups to type the Countrywide Unity Authorities (NUG).

Dr Sasa has emerged as a vital figure of the resistance, as the NUG’s worldwide envoy and spokesperson.

“We are the only authorized govt of Myanmar, we are the only government that have the mandate of the folks of Myanmar,” he said.

“So we are executing our obligation, we are executing our obligation in reaction to the will of the people of Myanmar.”

The military’s takeover prompted hundreds of hundreds of people today to protest across the place to desire the generals stand down and their elected authorities be reinstated.

Security forces have been dispersing crowds with live bullets and even taking pictures people today on the streets indiscriminately who have not been getting component in demonstrations.

The Support Association for Political Prisoners experiences much more than 700 persons have been killed, which include far more than 40 children.

Scores of folks have been wounded, hundreds have been arrested and quite a few in custody have been tortured.

Dr Sasa said the NUG has a few primary objectives. 

“We have to cease the killing, we have to finish this illegitimate unlawful military dictatorship and we have to restore democracy and liberty in Myanmar,” he explained.

“These armed forces generals have a very long historical past of committing crimes from humanity, ethnic cleanses and war crimes, they have received a report.

“I am worried that this will promptly convert into unavoidable civil war that we have under no circumstances found in advance of and that will insert up into genocide.”

Dr Sasa describes junta chief Min Aung Hlaing as “assassin-in-main”.

“It is unachievable for us to specific the pain and the suffering that we are emotion proper now because the people today who should be safeguarding the folks of Myanmar are now attacking and destroying and killing the folks of Myanmar,” he said.

“Furthermore, they charge people today like myself who stood up for democracy and liberty and lay our lifestyle for the individuals of Myanmar, they demand us with higher treason.

“That carries a loss of life sentence, a death penalty and they place a price tag on our heads, a bounty on our heads.”

‘How lots of dead bodies does the global group need to have?’

From his mystery site, Dr Sasa has been difficult at work for the NUG.

He has been assembly nearly with foreign governing administration associates, executing interviews with intercontinental media organisations and participating with the tens of millions of followers he has amassed on social media. 

Loading

“We have been asking [the] international neighborhood to appear up with more robust, harder, coordinated, focused sanctions, equally economically and diplomatically,” he reported.

“The worldwide neighborhood has the electricity to cease this genocide if they want to, they have the electric power to quit this wonderful civil war that now started.

“So if they are waiting, what I am inquiring them is how quite a few lifeless bodies does the global local community have to have prior to they consider solid steps?”

The US, United kingdom and EU have imposed financial sanctions but Myanmar’s generals have not been deterred. 

Australia has suspended its armed service ties with the country and redirected support dollars, but has not declared any sanctions.

Members of the Affiliation of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) are meeting with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing in Jakarta right now to attempt to take care of the crisis.

Dr Sasa claimed he experienced previously spoken to officials from the US, United kingdom and European Union and hoped to talk to far more foreign governments, like Australia.

“I know they are waiting around on ASEAN summit results, I know they are waiting [to see] what ASEAN will do and they will observe and we respect that.

“But we do not have excellent hope mainly because in ASEAN we have bought some nations around the world however that are far more near to the military generals than the folks of Myanmar.”