Fighting from afar to run Myanmar

(From left) Moe Zaw Oo, Zaw Wai Soe and an unidentified man at the group’s headquarters in Washington. — ©2023 The New York Times Company

THREE blocks from the White House, at the end of a fluorescent-lit hallway on the sixth floor of a coworking space for “business nomads, freelancers and energetic entrepreneurs”, sits the American headquarters of the National Unity Government (NUG) of Myanmar.

This pro-democracy government was formed after a military coup in Myanmar deposed civilian authorities in 2021. Although Western nations condemned the putsch – and the massacres and mass arrests that followed – no national government has formally recognised NUG as the legitimate leadership of Myanmar.