"Few countries have suffered so much hardship as Myanmar. Throughout its recent history, Myanmar has suffered endless civil wars, poverty and the tyrannical rule of a military more dedicated to defending its own interests and imposing by force, on an extraordinarily diverse society, an ethnocentric idea of national unity than to protecting its own people. The latest episode in a long string of tragedies started on 1 February 2021, when, after a decade of democratic reforms that offered some glimmers of hope for the future development of the country, the military asserted itself again with a senseless coup d’état that would throw the country into chaos over the coming months. The great mass of the Myanmar population has valiantly opposed the coup from the very beginning with strikes and peaceful demonstrations organized by a civil disobedience movement (CDM) which emerged spontaneously out of the burning desire of the Myanmar people to prevent at all costs a return to military rule. At first, most of the global community seemed to take the side of the people against the junta established by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander in Chief of the Myanmar armed forces. As the military launched a brutal campaign of repression, many government and international institutions issued statements of concern condemning the coup and the violence, but little else. The international attention on Myanmar soon faded away, as crises elsewhere displaced it from the headlines. Policy-makers throughout the world seemed to forget about the Myanmar people’s plight. That neglect was taking place as the situation in Myanmar only kept worsening. Since the coup, the military has steadily ramped up its repression, committing all kinds of atrocities against the Myanmar people in order to consolidate its power. Failing, however, to do so, the junta has merely accomplished to drive the country into a civil war that is devastating the economy, displacing hundreds of thousands, throwing millions into poverty, and generating a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions. We, eight Parliamentarians from seven countries all over the world who had been observing with concern the worsening situation in Myanmar, decided that more needed to be done. At the initiative of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), we formed an international coalition to launch the International Parliamentary Inquiry (IPI) into the global response to the crisis in Myanmar. Our aim has been to find out how and why the global community has failed to address the crisis, with the view to offering recommendations on what it should do. The result of such work is this report, drafted to persuade the international community to substantially increase their support for the Myanmar people. We are convinced that such support is not only necessary as a consequence of the crucial geopolitical importance of Myanmar, but also because, as authoritarianism seems to be on the ascendance throughout the world, the struggle of the Myanmar people for democracy is also the struggle of all people who love democracy and justice everywhere. A common theme often repeated by our witnesses has been that, in the face of such a horrible tragedy, the countries and international institutions that claim to support democracy in Myanmar have reacted with a timidity that puts in serious doubt their alleged commitment to the country. The inquiry has also given us a better understanding of the political complexities of Myanmar, particularly its multiple ethnic conflicts, which are crucial to understand the prominent role of the military, and the true extent of the crimes against humanity committed by the military. But the inquiry has also shown us the determination and courage of those fighting for democracy in Myanmar; the heroism of civil society organizations, most often led by admirably resilient women, working to tackle the humanitarian crisis; and the commitment and selflessness of those activists, particularly the youth, who refuse to give up in working to realize their dream of a better and more just Myanmar. We are deeply grateful for their testimonies and invaluable help in conducting this inquiry. We are also firmly convinced that the future of Myanmar belongs to all of them, and to millions of Myanmar people of all ethnicities who fight everyday for their rights in many different ways, many of them unacknowledged. They are the ones who can break the tragic cycle of violence that has brought so much misery and misfortune to the country, not a military that is acting as a brutal force of occupation in its own territory. But they need our help. Let’s not fail them again..."