Profile of a Patriot: Thet Han Htun’s Story

23 May 2024

Karen State, Burma

Thet Han Htun is a patriot – he is a young man from Yangon, a 33-year-old Buddhist, of half-Karen and half-Burman ethnicity. He joined the fight to free Burma earlier than most ethnic Burmans and paid a high price for it. Many people in Burma have been jailed and abused by the Burma Army-controlled government but Thet stands out from others in his early conviction to fight.

Thet joined the initial protests against the Burma Army coup on February 1, 2021. He took a leave of absence from his job as a car mechanic to protest full-time. From February through March of that year, Thet joined groups protesting, distributed food, and coordinated online fundraising to support the protests. But Thet saw the regime’s increasingly violent reactions to the protests and knew they would not give up power voluntarily. He decided that protests were not enough; he would fight for his country.

Thet reached out through his contacts and made plans to join the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) alongside three friends. They planned to leave for Kachin State on April 19, 2021. The KIA is one of the oldest ethnic armed organizations and has resisted the Burma Army since well before the coup. Thet would have joined with others from the cities who formed ad hoc units that eventually were organized into the People’s Defense Force (PDF), but he never got the chance.

On his way home on April 17, 2021, Thet was surprised by a police checkpoint; the police often set up arbitrary check points to catch unsuspecting commuters. The police stopped him, searching his person, vehicle, and phone. All Thet could do was hope and pray, but when they started asking him about his online activity he knew he was caught. They found the dates of his supply runs to the protesters, saw his fundraising activity, and worst of all found his plans to join the KIA. They tied him up right there in the parking lot of a supermarket and beat him; his face was so injured, he could not eat solid food for a week.

After a night in a cell at the police station, he was transferred to interrogation. There, the beatings continued. They wanted to know exactly when he planned to travel to Kachin State, who he would be traveling with, and how he and the others would get there. If Thet told them any of this, his friends would be joining him in an interrogation cell. Thet bravely held out for a week of torture to allow the rest of the group to get away.

The interrogators then sent Thet to prison, but the prison would not accept the transfer because his wounds were too severe. To get him off their hands, the interrogators covered up his wounds just enough for the transfer to go through.

Prison was only marginally better than the interrogation facility. He joined about 800 other political prisoners in large, overcrowded cells. The guards forced them to do hard labor and beat them if they refused. They were fed poor, sandy food, had no visitation rights, and were exploited for money. The warden and the guards would track down the family members and loved ones of prisoners, then contact them and convince them to send money. If the guards were feeling generous, they would give the prisoners the money only to then ask for bribes for better treatment or extra food. If they weren’t feeling generous, the money never made it to them in the first place.

Even though Thet was in prison, he didn’t stop resisting tyranny. He joined with other prisoners to protest their treatment. They held hunger strikes and silent strikes. They demanded medication for sick prisoners, the right to see their families, no more hard labor, and even their release. It took tremendous courage as they were completely at the mercy of the guards. The guards tried to beat the protest out of them, but in the end, Thet and the other prisoners won some concessions.

Thet was released after two years and two months in prison. He returned to his home in Yangon still angry at the military, but tired. His father had died while he was in prison and he soon learned that the three friends he had planned to join the KIA with had all died in battle. It was a hard time in his life so he got his old job back and lay low. Even so, he still fought in a small way, sending money and food to his former cellmates.

As he spent more time out of prison, his laying low started to change to a degree of comfort with life under Burma Army rule. He met a woman who had also endured imprisonment by the Burma Army, in a different prison. They started dating and started a business together. Maybe his part of the fight was over. Hadn’t he sacrificed enough already?

Then a new conscription law came out in Burma. He learned that the Burma Army was re-arresting political prisoners under the guise of “conscripting” them. He heard they were mostly being used for hard labor at the frontlines. When a friend of his from prison was re-arrested he didn’t hesitate any longer. The Burma Army had reawakened his resistance. If they would not leave him in peace then they would get no peace from him. He could have just fled the country as so many others have but instead he and his girlfriend got married and then traveled to resistance-held Karen State where he joined the People’s Resistance Force (PRF), a group dedicated to non-lethal aid to civilians. While he was with the PRF, he attended a medical training FBR hosted in Karen State. He later attended a full FBR training and is now a full-time Ranger.

Now he resists the Burma Army by helping the oppressed people of Burma. We are proud to count him amongst our fellow Rangers and we pray for an end to the tyranny he has sacrificed so much to resist.

Thank you for your interest in Burma and the injustice happening here. Please pray for the prisoners to be freed, the Burma Army to return power to elected officials, and for the courage and well-being of the people in the cities still under Burma Army control. Pray for Thet, our Rangers, and other resistance groups. Pray that they will have courage and endurance in their resistance to the brutal tyranny of the dictators and that they would get the help they need to stand strong and continue bringing help, hope and love to those in Burma who so desperately need it.

Thank you and God bless you,

The Free Burma Rangers