‘A comedy show’: Myanmar youth in exile slam military-run ‘sham’ election

Mae Sot, Thailand – On the outskirts of this small Thai town on the border with Myanmar, a tattoo artist’s gun buzzes alongside a blaring punk music soundtrack.

“Punk means freedom,” says Ng La, his face and body covered heavily in tattoos.

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“It’s more than just music or fashion – it’s a way of life,” he tells Al Jazeera while tattooing a fellow Myanmar national-in-exile at the back of his “punk bar” in Mae Sot, in Thailand.

To live free was one of the reasons Ng La fled his home in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.

But the 28-year-old now lives precariously as an undocumented Myanmar national in Thailand, though that is, he says, better than being captured by the military regime that he first resisted, fled from and then fought against.

“The biggest fear was that if I got arrested, I would be deported back into the hands of the Myanmar military,” Ng La said.

“We are no longer afraid of dying,” he said, but getting caught by the military would be worse than death.

Ng La’s journey into exile in Mae Sot is not uncommon for many young people from Myanmar who have fled the civil war back home.

His journey began when he joined demonstrations in February 2021 after Myanmar’s military toppled the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The coup overturned the results of Myanmar’s 2015 and 2020 elections, which were considered the first fair elections in Myanmar’s history and were easily won by Aung San Suu Kyi – a longtime democracy activist and hero to many in Myanmar.

The military takeover also triggered a civil conflict that has killed thousands and seen horror engulf much of the countryside, including air strikes on rural populations, the use of landmines, oppressive conscription laws enacted by the military regime and widespread political oppression – including executions.

“When the coup first began, the fascist military ordered the people not to go outside or protest for 72 hours,” Ng La recounted.

“During that 72-hour period, me and two of my friends protested on the street with handmade banners,” he said.

Fearing arrest, Ng La fled to the jungle along Myanmar’s border with Thailand to join the People’s Defence Force (PDF), one of the many armed groups that emerged to fight military rule.

But, after heavy clashes in February 2022 between the PDF and the Myanmar military, Ng La was forced to flee once again and secretly crossed into Thailand, where he eventually set up his punk-themed bar and tattoo parlour, helped by his partner.

“Because I came in illegally, I had no documents. I couldn’t go anywhere, and it was very difficult to find work to survive,” he said of his new life in Thailand.

Struggling with the day-to-day challenges of living undocumented in a foreign country, and being a new father, Ng La told how payments must be made to the relevant Thai authorities and how there was the ever-present fear of deportation.

“So we pay a ‘licence’ fee and try to live and earn a living,” he said.

Ng La tattooing a fellow Myanmar national in exile, in the back of his ‘punk bar’ [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]

‘Destroyed all our hopes and dreams’

The Myanmar military’s official justification for the 2021 coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s government was that her National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s win in an election just months before was the result of electoral fraud and therefore illegitimate.

Now, the military will hold its own election on Sunday, which is widely seen as lacking any credibility and primarily an attempt by the regime to legitimise its power grab through the pretence of holding and winning a vote.

The independent news outlet Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reports that dozens of parties have registered for the polls – yet notably, Aung San Suu Kyi’s hugely popular NLD is barred from registering.

The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, has labelled the election a “sham”, stating the “elections cannot be free, fair or credible when held amid military violence and repression, with political leaders detained and fundamental freedoms crushed”.

Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng reported recently that notable artists, musicians and filmmakers in Myanmar were being arrested for criticising the election, causing many to flee into exile – like Ng La.

The Irrawaddy magazine has also reported that rebel groups who are in control of significant populations not under military control say they will not recognise the election’s results.

Ng La said the military-run election matters little.

“The election is just like a comedy show,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mae Sot in Thailand has long had an influx of Myanmar nationals, fleeing from decades of conflict at home. This Buddhist temple on the Thai side of the border is specifically of Myanmar design and origin [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]

As Myanmar’s post-coup conflict looks set to enter a fifth year, any hope for a quick return home is rapidly fading for those in exile.

The United Nations estimates that approximately 3.5 million people have been displaced internally by the fighting in Myanmar, and hundreds of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries, including Thailand, India and Bangladesh.

Thailand has played host to refugees from Myanmar even before the coup, with about 85,000 long-term refugees living in permanent camps along the border, according to estimates.

Recently, the Thai government granted working rights to registered refugees; however, this does not immediately apply to undocumented migrants. Human Rights Watch states that undocumented migrants face a “constant threat of harassment, arrest, and deportation” and “many Myanmar nationals, including children, have no legal access to basic healthcare, education or work”.

Some of the undocumented Myanmar exiles Al Jazeera spoke with in Mae Sot told of being too afraid to leave their accommodation for fear they would be discovered and deported back to Myanmar, where they face forced conscription, imprisonment or worse.

Military-run election: ‘A licence to kill our people’

Snow, a 33-year-old former English teacher, was part of the generation of young Myanmar people who came of age with the first election win of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD in 2015 and the promise that period offered of an internationally engaged and democratic Myanmar.

After the coup, Snow – who did not want their real name divulged for security reasons – also fled from Yangon city to join a resistance group on the border with Thailand.

The coup and ensuing civil war “destroyed all our hopes and dreams”, she told Al Jazeera.

“So I decided to flee to the jungle and to join the resistance,” she said, telling how she wanted to learn about weapons and fight.

Despite completing the same training as her male counterparts, female fighters were not assigned duties on the front lines, said Snow, who blamed discrimination for the difference in treatment between the men and women who joined the resistance.

“[Female fighters were] rarely assigned to front line battles, no matter how well trained you were as a medic or a reporter or a drone squad member,” she told Al Jazeera.

Snow served with the PDF rebel group for two years, but eventually fled across the border to Mae Sot, where she has continued to teach English and assists wounded fighters from Myanmar.

Her decision to leave the resistance was due to a sense of betrayal, she said, by ethnic armed groups in the border areas that were supposed to be allied with the PDF.

“In one fight, a lot of our PDF comrades were trapped and killed because alliance forces betrayed us and became united with [the Myanmar military],” she told Al Jazeera.

Many former resistance fighters fled to Mae Sot for the same reasons – a sense of betrayal, she said.

“Fifty percent of us fled to Mae Sot because of this reason,” she added.

Snow told Al Jazeera she had no interest in the “fake” elections that would only give the military “a licence to kill our people”.

“Once we have accepted this election, our hands are already bloodied,” she said.

Snow said she struggles to get by in Mae Sot, and many of the Myanmar exiles in the Thai town are considering applying for refugee status in the hope of building a new life elsewhere.

Yet the desire to return home to Myanmar is never far away, no matter how distant that possibility remains.

“Some hope to leave to a third country by applying for asylum,” Snow said, “or, to return home when this long, disgusting nightmare is over.”

“What we are fighting for is to return home and to unite with our families,” she said. “So we will fight until we can go home and rebuild it better and brighter.”

The Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge that connects Myanmar and Thailand [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]