Myanmar: The Umbrella Policy

Insight Myanmar “We can’t go back to the normal life, because our country is not even normal,” says Tone Tone, a former psychology student from Yangon, speaking to the Insight Myanmar Podcast (see link below). In this conversation she is joined by Libera, a civil engineering graduate who became a strike organizer, and they talk about their story, how the 2021 military coup in Myanmar ended any possibility of a private, apolitical life for them, and how the violence that followed transformed two ordinary young people into underground organizers willing to risk imprisonment and death. Both describe themselves as unremarkable students. Tone Tone was in her final year at university, the only child in a family that ran a silk-screen printing business. Libera had already graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in civil engineering and later pursued vocational training in Building Features and Equipment. Neither had a political background. The military seizure of power on February 1, when the armed forces detained the elected civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other officials, changed that. At first, they joined mass street demonstrations in Yangon, believing peaceful protest would be enough to convince the generals to respect the democratic process. But by March 2021, the military had begun shooting into crowds. In December of that year, soldiers rammed a vehicle into a crowd of protesters in Yangon. Tone Tone witnessed the attack directly. She saw comrades thrown into the air and crushed under wheels. The memory did not fade. Friends were killed in front of her eyes; others were arrested and have not been heard of since. The scale of violence convinced them that neutrality was no longer possible. Returning to classes or business felt morally impossible.Libera’s involvement deepened through humanitarian work during the COVID-19 surge in mid-2021, when he helped provide oxygen equipment. Then in November, he helped establish the Yangon People’s Strike, a loose coalition of urban protest groups. Open marches had become too dangerous, so they shifted tactics. Flash mobs—brief,coordinated appearances in public spaces—allowed 20 or 30 youths to display banners for minutes before dispersing. They organized in separate cells: one group drafted slogans, another scouted locations, and a third carried out actions. Members did not know each other’s identities, reducing the damage if someone was captured. The philosophy behind these actions drew on a line widely associated with Aung San Suu Kyi: “The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.” For them, that sentence described both a psychological condition and a political strategy. They had no weapons. They held paper signs. Refusing fear was itself resistance. As August 8, 2022, approached—the anniversary of the nationwide 8-8-88 uprising against military rule in 1988—they began to brainstorm what sign of protest they could carry out which could also survive the heavy security in downtown Yangon; particularly near Sule Pagoda, a symbolic and heavily policed site. Large banners would be detected immediately; an umbrella, however, was an ordinary object, especially if used during the monsoon season. The idea was simple: four black umbrellas printed with the Burmese numeral for eight, visible only from above. From a pedestrian bridge, a photographer could capture the image—four eights, for 8-8-88—before anyone noticed. Tone Tone’s family printing business created the umbrella design. On the morning of August 8, they moved quietly from Bogyoke Market toward Sule, checking the area. There were police stations nearby but no police officers on the street. Six people participated: four held the umbrellas, one filmed, and one took photographs. The images later circulated globally. Five days later, on August 13, 2022, military intelligence arrested Libera. He had been staying in safe houses, but returned briefly to his home because he missed his family and was ill. He was taken to an interrogation compound in Yangon and held in an eight-foot room without light. For59 days and in two facilities, interrogators beat him and tried to identify other members. Because he had used multiple aliases andhad recently purchased a new phone containing almost no contacts, investigators uncovered little information. Eventually he was sentenced to three years with hard labor in Insein Prison, Yangon’s notorious detention facility. On his first day there, guards him why he studied engineering. He answered that education helped him distinguish right from wrong. A guard replied, “[So] we are wrong? ”, and another beating followed. Hard labor meant cleaning drainage systems and sewage lines daily. The physical degradation was constant, yet looking back, he frames the experience not as defeat but as confirmation of conviction. When asked about fear of death, he answers that fear exists, but duty overrides it. Tone Tone faced a different form of punishment. After Libera’s arrest, soldiers raided her home, believing the umbrellas had been produced there. She was not present, so they detained her parents instead. Throughout that night, officers called her phone repeatedly, and when she finally answered, she heard her parents screaming as they were beaten. An officer asked, “Did you hear that your mom and dad are screaming?