00:00In Myanmar, hopes for peace and fears of violence collide
00:04as some residents cast their votes in the first general election since the 2021 coup.
00:10The night before, in the military-run capital,
00:13vendors said they wanted a peaceful country,
00:15despite polling limited to junta-held areas.
00:20We're just trying to make a living.
00:23I hope everything goes well,
00:24and I want everyone to feel more what it is and have peace of mind.
00:30Hundreds of kilometers away in Sangang,
00:35displaced families shelter in the jungle, calling the vote a farce.
00:41We are homeless now and we cannot support it
00:44while our lives are hanging between life and death in the jungles.
00:47How can we support a junta-run election
00:49when this military junta has destroyed our lives?
00:53Nearly four years ago, the military overthrew Myanmar's elected government,
00:57arresting former leader Aung San Suu Kyi
00:59and crushing mass pro-democracy protests nationwide.
01:05The coup reignited long-running ethnic conflicts,
01:08turning the country's borderlands into major battlefields.
01:14Rights groups say the civil war has killed thousands,
01:17displaced more than 3.6 million people
01:20and driven half the population into poverty.
01:24It says civilians are being coerced from all sides,
01:28forced by the military to vote
01:30and threatened by armed opposition groups to stay away.
01:33This election is nothing to do with reforms or democracy.
01:37This is all about a transition to a new form of military war
01:40and the military this time are not taking any risks at all.
01:44International election observers have arrived in Naypyidaw
01:49in a delegation local media says includes representatives
01:52from China to Russia, Cambodia, Nicaragua and more,
01:57despite the UN and other governments calling the election
01:59neither free nor fair.
