Once again this year, Burmese exiles around the world commemorated the anniversary of the military coup of February 1, 2021, which put an end to an experiment in democracy that had lasted almost a decade, always on a knife edge, and led to the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi and many other politicians from her party, who have not been heard from since.

Hundreds of Burmese in the diaspora gathered in front of their country's embassies to protest in large numbers from London to Busan in South Korea to Tokyo to Taipei. The Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) reports that inside two prisons in Myanmar, groups of women protested by singing a revolutionary song and were then placed in solitary confinement.

Here in Thailand, on the border with Burma, it is an anniversary that, for all those who are part of or support the Resistance, marks a moment of sharing struggles, remembering the dead, and trying to take stock of defeats and imagine a way forward for another year of revolution.

On January 30, an important achievement was officially announced that should bring the revolution a big step forward. Representatives of some ethnic armed groups and some representatives of the resistance army for democracy, as well as the National Unity Government for Democracy (NUG), have officially announced that the negotiations of recent months to create a common front have finally reached a shared agreement. In concrete terms, this means that these armed groups will be coordinated by a single leadership. The fragmentation of the struggles of the various ethnic groups has always been the main obstacle to bringing the resistance to victory throughout Myanmar. This is a significant step forward, even though not all the armed groups in Myanmar are participating in this federated council, but only half of the eight states: the Kachin, Karenni, Karen, and Chin. The goal is to build a confederated Burma, which was the dream of Aung San Suu Kyi's father and his comrades in 1947, when they laid the foundations for a democratic government after gaining independence from British rule.

A confederate Burma means that the country's numerous ethnic minorities will be able to coexist with equal rights in a confederate state. Currently, Myanmar's military junta recognizes eight main ethnic minorities, which in turn group together other minorities present in their territory. In 1962, General Ne Win carried out the first of three coups, ending 14 years of democratic government and the dream of a confederate Burma. Since then, ethnic minorities have been engaged in a state of permanent guerrilla warfare with the military government's army: more than 60 years of war, the longest on the planet.

Ethnic minorities are distributed along the borders of Burma, in predominantly mountainous areas. The dominant group is the Bamarfrom which the name Burma derivesand occupies the entire central plain starting from the fertile Irrawaddy delta. Each ethnic minority has its own militia, and the military benefits from this fragmentation by pitting them against each other. Russia and China also take advantage of this by selling them weapons. China, in particular, sells weapons to both the guerrillas and the military.

Fiorella Carollo