Goodbye Myanmar. I will miss you dearly.

Last week I made the very difficult decision to close down our Draper Startup House location in Yangon, Myanmar. It is no longer safe for our employees to be operating there. The streets of Myanmar have become killing fields. 

Since the military coup on Feb 1 2021 I've watched with tears in my eyes the barbaric massacres, murders and tortures of innocent civilians, many of whom are children, women and teenagers. As I write this letter, more than 50 people have been killed and shot to death. 1,700 innocent people and 27 journalists have been detained or forcefully dragged into trucks and taken to prisons. No one knows where they are or how they are doing. Doctors, medics, lawyers and students are all being tortured and imprisoned for refusing to acknowledge the military dictatorship. The military is using machine guns and snipers to shoot peaceful protestors in broad daylight. They are using war planes to drop tear gas bombs into crowds of peaceful protestors. They've been shutting down the internet and mobile services every night and then raiding homes in the middle of the night.

We entered Myanmar in early 2019 with great optimism and hope for the future of the country. But now Myanmar is fully taken over by the ruthless and barbaric military terrorists who kill innocent people with impunity and savagely murder women and children for pleasure. Their goal is very simple: stay in power and slaughter anyone who opposes their authority. They have absolutely no regard for life, freedom, liberty and basic human rights. Just a few years ago they committed mass scale genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people. Through this military coup they've erased 10 years of progress and economic development.  

The people of Myanmar are not silent. Despite the ruthless efforts of the military to subdue the population, the people of Myanmar are continuing to make their voices heard through mass protests and engaging in the civil disobedience movement (CDM). They simply do not want to be ruled by this savage military dictatorship. This will be a very long and painful fight that will last for years to come. 

Although we are ending our physical presence in Myanmar, we will continue to digitally support the entrepreneurs and startups of Myanmar. We stand with the people of Myanmar in their fight for democracy, freedom and basic human rights. We will truly miss our physical presence in this beautiful country and hopefully we will return one day.