Myanmar's military has underestimated the strength, will and bravery of its own people

Myanmar's military junta wants you to believe that the situation is improving in the country, that security forces are exercising restraint and that the ongoing violence is due to a violent mob of anarchists that must be suppressed. It wants you to think that a political roadmap is in place and that free and fair elections will take place within two years. But the veneer of these lies is paper thin, as a CNN team saw on a recent trip with the permission of the military, known as the Tatmadaw. We found a country exploding with anguish at the brutality of its illegitimate military leaders.

On February 1, army chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized control of the country in a coup, overturning a democratic election and detaining government officials including civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party had won by a landslide in recent elections, giving it a second term in power.

In the past two months, junta security forces -- made up of police, soldiers and elite counter-insurgency troops -- have embarked on a systematic and coordinated crackdown against unarmed and peaceful protesters. More than 600 people have been killed, according to the advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Read more