Speaker 1: All Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here.
Speaker 3: I'm James and today I am joined by Billy Ford
Speaker 3: from the United States Institute Piece.
Speaker 2: A third time podcast guest.
Speaker 1: Billy.
Speaker 2: How many?
Speaker 4: I think it's just my second, but thanks for second?
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, well I'll give you a bonus one.
Speaker 4: Thanks for the invite.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we're here to discuss the revolution in Memma
Speaker 3: and bring you up to date on conflict stuff and
Speaker 3: natural disaster stuff and answer some questions people have asked
Speaker 3: me by emailing me. So yeah, thanks for joining us, Biddy.
Speaker 3: We're at another crossroads in the conflicts we talked about
Speaker 3: before we started recording. Can you pres explain to folks
Speaker 3: like what has happened since ten twenty seven?
Speaker 2: Part two?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think last time we talked, we
Speaker 5: were just kind of in the throes of the initial
Speaker 5: ten twenty seven things. I mean, I think zooming out
Speaker 5: for a second, the you know, February twenty twenty one, coup,
Speaker 5: September seventh, twenty twenty one, defensive wars announced and armed
Speaker 5: resistance really kicks off. And then twenty twenty three October
Speaker 5: things really escalate. After a few years of steady gains
Speaker 5: by the resistance. Then there was a major level change
Speaker 5: in the trajectory of the war favoring the resistance forces. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think, as you mentioned, there was a second phase
Speaker 5: of ten twenty seven in July in early August that
Speaker 5: took things kind of to another level, although it is
Speaker 5: kind of just a continuation of a sustained.
Speaker 4: Push by the resistance. I think some have perceived these.
Speaker 5: Moments of October twenty twenty three in August twenty four
Speaker 5: adds real watershed moments. But I think we can see
Speaker 5: how these are illustrative or broader trends, trends in which
Speaker 5: the mem or military is losing its capability to defend
Speaker 5: strategic positions, it's inability to counter attack on the resistance side,
Speaker 5: much greater coordination among resistance armed stakeholders, growing fighting capability,
Speaker 5: better weapons access, all these sorts of factors that have
Speaker 5: swung the balance of military power further in the favor
Speaker 5: of resistance forces. But essentially what happened in July and
Speaker 5: August was, building off of the October advances, the resistance
Speaker 5: in northern Shan State, not far from the Chinese border,
Speaker 5: pushed further into central miandmar In collaboration. This was essentially
Speaker 5: ethnic based armed organizations collaborating with Bamar People's Defense Forces
Speaker 5: under the command structure of the National Unity Government, and
Speaker 5: they started making advances into central Burma. So whereas the
Speaker 5: initial phase of the war and the NUG strategy was
Speaker 5: to focus on building relationships between the People's Defense forces
Speaker 5: under their command with ethnic based armed organizations and focusing
Speaker 5: strategically on the peripheries to build those relationships, to build
Speaker 5: ethnic buy into the broader revolution, to get access to weapons,
Speaker 5: and to make steady advances. Now we're at a phase
Speaker 5: where the resistance is pushing into central Meanmar. Now the
Speaker 5: focus is on the city of Mandalay and central Burma,
Speaker 5: which is the biggest commercial center of the country. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean this has sparked another phase of I think
Speaker 5: pressure and anxiety within Napida and the capital among the
Speaker 5: state Administrative Council, hunta leadership, and yeah, more energy on
Speaker 5: the resistance side. And it's kind of it's occurred alongside
Speaker 5: advances on multiple other fronts. I mean, in the very
Speaker 5: north of the country, Chen State, starting in March, the
Speaker 5: Kachin force has pushed the Memori military out of it, it
Speaker 5: was two hundred posts within four months. Similarly in Rakine State,
Speaker 5: which I think, well, maybe we'll touch on more. The
Speaker 5: aur Accon Army has made steady advances, so it's not
Speaker 5: just in these subregions. It's happening virtually all over the
Speaker 5: country at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does seem and like clearly the essays the
Speaker 3: Hunter is kind of on the back foot, like it
Speaker 3: started to forcibly conscript people, which in turn kind of
Speaker 3: get people a choice between the resistance or the military,
Speaker 3: and seems like more of them a choosing their resistance.
Speaker 3: Some of the conscriptions, you know, people can buy out
Speaker 3: of them, which obviously causes not great for the morale
Speaker 3: of the population. And that's combined with shortages and inflation.
Speaker 3: Pretty shit situation for folks living under Hunter.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean I think the memor of military,
Speaker 5: I mean, there's a big question here about like the
Speaker 5: resilience of this meam or military. I mean, frankly in
Speaker 5: militaries in other countries have collapsed and are much less pressure.
Speaker 5: So there's a question here about like what is holding
Speaker 5: this all together, particularly given that its primary resilience factors
Speaker 5: are heavily degraded. I mean things like its ideological value.
Speaker 5: I mean it's historically been about what we hold the
Speaker 5: country together. We manage the diversity of this complex country.
Speaker 5: We defend the Bamar and the Buddhist populations. These factors
Speaker 5: are no longer credible. I think it's more than one
Speaker 5: hundred thousand homes in central Burma have been burnt to
Speaker 5: the grounds. Most of those are Bamar Buddhists. And you know,
Speaker 5: someone in the Sanga have risen up. The Buddhist Songa
Speaker 5: have risen up in protests, including a recent killing of
Speaker 5: a senior monk. So I think that ideological foundation is
Speaker 5: totally degraded. The other factors, which are economic, the economic
Speaker 5: benefits of being in this institution are also withering, as
Speaker 5: like the entire economy is collapsing as your reference. And
Speaker 5: then the third component is like the social status that
Speaker 5: want to cheese through. Being a member of this institution
Speaker 5: used to be a place where you could get economic
Speaker 5: benefits and social benefits, and now it's really neither.
Speaker 4: I mean you're reviled or a target.
Speaker 5: For resistance assassination if you're affiliated with the institution.
Speaker 4: So I think the question remains as.
Speaker 5: To like what are the key factors keeping it in
Speaker 5: place given all of these pressures that it's facing, And
Speaker 5: you know, happy to go into that, but I think
Speaker 5: there's there. It's an interesting case study in institutional resilience
Speaker 5: and the challenges faced by a resistance movement that has
Speaker 5: major resource constraints and you're fighting up against a military
Speaker 5: institution that has learned how to orchestrate and sustain authoritarian
Speaker 5: governance structures for decades.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we can maybe circle
Speaker 3: back to that. One thing I did want to talk
Speaker 3: about before we move on to talking about what's happening
Speaker 3: in recind State is I wanted to talk about the
Speaker 3: recent flooding that people will have probably seen if they
Speaker 3: have these friends on social media or keep keep an
Speaker 3: eye on publications in a region. Can you explain a
Speaker 3: little bit about like the scale of the flooding and
Speaker 3: the absolutely bungled if any response from NAPYDAL.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the latest figures that I've seen were
Speaker 5: one hundred and sixty thousand displaced, six hundred and thirty
Speaker 5: affected by the floods, two one hundred and thirty dead,
Speaker 5: and seventy missing.
Speaker 4: I think that's what I saw this morning.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean I think that gives you a
Speaker 5: sense that this is another humanitarian catastrophe on top of
Speaker 5: a I think what is now rated the second most
Speaker 5: intense violent conflict in the world by Accolade.
Speaker 4: So this is just one crisis on top of another.
Speaker 5: And yeah, as you kind of alluded to, the Memora
Speaker 5: military is incapable and in unwilling to kind of address
Speaker 5: the needs here of the population.
Speaker 4: I mean, the one factor is that they.
Speaker 5: Don't have territorial control to move resources if they had
Speaker 5: the political will to provide assistance. But of course they're
Speaker 5: doing the exact opposite. In some of the most flood
Speaker 5: affected parts of the country, they are continuing to conduct
Speaker 5: air strikes on civilian populations. I mean, it's it's just
Speaker 5: kind of a level of brutality that's kind of hard
Speaker 5: to have them.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean there's all these other kind of
Speaker 4: ancillary effects of this.
Speaker 5: I think there's signs of a cholera outbreak and yen Gon.
Speaker 5: The economic conditions, as you mentioned a little bit earlier,
Speaker 5: are horrendous. I mean, like the economy's lost thirty percent
Speaker 5: of its value, and it's not a rich country to
Speaker 5: begin with. Inflation is I think thirty two percent year
Speaker 5: on year, with the memoar Chat having lost two hundred
Speaker 5: percent of its value, I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's two hundred percent less value than it was. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So this is like, you know, it's just.
Speaker 5: One catastrophe on top of another, and it's really testing
Speaker 5: the Memur public's capacity to kind of support one another,
Speaker 5: which is that's really been the incredible story here, and
Speaker 5: it's not the first time that the MEMMR military, the
Speaker 5: governing stakeholder, has failed to meet the needs and that
Speaker 5: moment of crisis. Of course, psychloanargus one of the worst
Speaker 5: natural disasters in the region's history was another instance in
Speaker 5: which the Memmur military refused international assistance and kind of
Speaker 5: instrumentalized humanitarian catastrophe for political aims.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people it's worth reading up on that
Speaker 3: if you're interested in like the sort of longer term
Speaker 3: history of the conflict and of sort of the military
Speaker 3: in Miamma. Maybe now it's a good time to take
Speaker 3: a break and we'll come back and discuss a little
Speaker 3: bit about Racine state.
Speaker 2: And we're back. Okay.
Speaker 3: So I think if people follow the conflict, they will
Speaker 3: have probably seen like a series of conflicting and confusing
Speaker 3: articles and messages about what's going on in Rakine State,
Speaker 3: and some of that is because there's not a great
Speaker 3: deal of reporting in the English language, a great deal
Speaker 3: of sources in the English language. And even if there
Speaker 3: is that, none of us can really make it to
Speaker 3: Racine State right now. Going through Bangladesh would be quite
Speaker 3: quite a challenging thing to do with that at this time.
Speaker 3: And so I guess we should start breaking down if
Speaker 3: people aren't aware the people who live and have lived
Speaker 3: for a long time in Rakine State and the conflicts
Speaker 3: have fixed it between them and the Burmese state.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Mean Rakine State borders Bangladesh on the western side of
Speaker 5: the Arts along coastal border as well, and the site
Speaker 5: of some of the largest extractive oil and gas projects,
Speaker 5: including the terminal for a major gas pipeline that feeds
Speaker 5: fourteen percent of u Non Province's GP, So it has
Speaker 5: huge strategic value. It's also China's aiming to kind of
Speaker 5: access the Indian Ocean and circumvent the Strait of Malacca
Speaker 5: by going directly to this kind of region of the country,
Speaker 5: So it's highly strategically important. But it's also I think
Speaker 5: it's the second poorest state in the entire country and
Speaker 5: arguably the most conflict affected.
Speaker 4: At least since twenty twelve ish.
Speaker 5: So the population of Rakind state is highly diverse, kind
Speaker 5: of the last to have the broader country's demographics. Woods
Speaker 5: of Bamar population, which is the dominant ethnic group at
Speaker 5: the national level, the ethnic majority is kind. There's I mean,
Speaker 5: historically a very large Muslim population of Rahinja Muslims primarily,
Speaker 5: but also other Muslim minority groups including Kahman Muslims, and
Speaker 5: then a number of other smaller ethnic minority groups Murmaji,
Speaker 5: Kami and others, as well as a small Hindu population.
Speaker 5: So you can kind of get the sense that this
Speaker 5: is a highly diverse space. I mean, many of the
Speaker 5: listeners will have heard twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, Go was
Speaker 5: the site of a massive clearance operation and the genocide
Speaker 5: of Rhinja Muslims, about seven hundred and fifty thousand of
Speaker 5: whom were pushed into Bangladesh and almost all of them
Speaker 5: are still there inhabiting the largest refugee camp in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, overall conditions for the Rhinja it's hard to
Speaker 5: imagine a more difficult set of conditions. The Bangladesh government
Speaker 5: is quite impatient have hosted many hundreds of thousands of Rahinja,
Speaker 5: some for seven years but others for actually for much
Speaker 5: longer than that, as twenty sixteen twenty seventeen was a
Speaker 5: moment in a genocide, but there have been instances of
Speaker 5: memoir military atrocities against the Hindu population dating back to
Speaker 5: the nineteen seventies as well.
Speaker 4: So this is a long term kind of situation in
Speaker 4: which the Bungadesh have been coasting Rehinja.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I mean I think conditions in those camps
Speaker 5: are really really challenging. The major issue now is the
Speaker 5: arising and security in the camps, as some Rhinja militia
Speaker 5: groups have gained ascendency in the camps, most of which
Speaker 5: have very little public support, and when the Renja population
Speaker 5: should be noted, the major dynamic that that's happened recently,
Speaker 5: I mean the Arakan Army, which is almost entirely of
Speaker 5: Kine ethnic groups and has broad public support among the
Speaker 5: Rakine population of Rakind State, has made massive advances across
Speaker 5: Hine State and now controls virtually all of northern Rakine
Speaker 5: State and is pushing south. It took the city of
Speaker 5: Tondue and the airport, which is the first time a
Speaker 5: resistance group had taken an airport. It recently took a
Speaker 5: naval base, the first time that has ever happened in
Speaker 5: the history of the Memory military, and now it's pushing
Speaker 5: its forest south as guas potentially threatening to control the
Speaker 5: entire state. So as this has occurred, the MR military
Speaker 5: is in a state of complete panic, and as it
Speaker 5: is losing forces on this front, but also on numerous
Speaker 5: other fronts, it has attempted to kind of buttress its
Speaker 5: forces through force conscription and in the most potentially the
Speaker 5: most horrifying move imaginable, it is forcibly conscripted the Rowhinja
Speaker 5: into the MR military. They conducted genocide against the Rhinda
Speaker 5: population and now they are forcing them to wear the
Speaker 5: uniform of their genocider. It's kind of a level of horror.
Speaker 5: It's hard to understand.
Speaker 4: And one way.
Speaker 5: In which they've undertaken this effort is by collaborating with
Speaker 5: Rehindra militia forces including ARSA, the Salvation Army and the
Speaker 5: Rhindra Saldarity Organization ARSO, which have presence in the camps
Speaker 5: and have been facilitating recruitment from the camps. So the
Speaker 5: primary aim here as a military one, but a secondary aim,
Speaker 5: which is really critical, is undermining interching cohesion in rekind
Speaker 5: state because ultimately, like the BMW or military operates through coercion,
Speaker 5: force and violence, but also through fragmentation so that it
Speaker 5: doesn't face a unified resistance. And in this case they
Speaker 5: want to incite instability by creating hatred between the Rhindra
Speaker 5: and Rekine population and building off of the vitriol that
Speaker 5: had built over decades. So this is kind of a
Speaker 5: new paradigm that everyone is trying to better understand. But yeah,
Speaker 5: it's it's kind of a new level.
Speaker 3: Of r Yeah, and it's particularly horrific. As you say,
Speaker 3: I think sometimes the tendency, especially with people who perhaps
Speaker 3: are not as familiar with the situation and history there
Speaker 3: to lump ethnic groups in as sort of monolithic actors,
Speaker 3: right or homogeneous to be like, okay, so they re
Speaker 3: Hinja as represented by ARSA and the RSO have joined
Speaker 3: the Hunter, which is not the case. Like every Hinger
Speaker 3: person I speak to, everyone I speak to in Cox's
Speaker 3: Bizarre shares a loathing for those organizations. They're forced conscription
Speaker 3: of young people, and yeah, their solidarity with the hunter
Speaker 3: that committed the genocide against and it continued to commit
Speaker 3: the genocide against these people. And I think the first
Speaker 3: thing we need to do is move away from that
Speaker 3: kind of homogeneous perspective. But maybe we could explain there
Speaker 3: have been a few accusations of the our Econ army
Speaker 3: making attacks against a hiner people, right NGA specifically hinder
Speaker 3: people who are not armed, who are not part of
Speaker 3: ROSO or A. Yeah, can you explain like what we
Speaker 3: know and what we don't know there?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think there's just just are There is a
Speaker 5: massive fog of war in Rekind state, may be worse
Speaker 5: than any other part of the country, so it is
Speaker 5: really difficult to disentangle fact from fiction here. But I
Speaker 5: think there's pretty credible evidence that the Arkhan Army have
Speaker 5: committed atrocities against hind Of civilian populations. In early August,
Speaker 5: there was a specific incident in which hundreds of Rahinja
Speaker 5: were killed in a drone strike, and Fortified Rights, which
Speaker 5: is a human rights organization, conducted investigation to the incident
Speaker 5: and asserts that the ark On Army was responsible for
Speaker 5: that of course, the AA disputes these claims, and I
Speaker 5: think there's a few recent interviews with the commander in
Speaker 5: chief of the Army to nine where you know, he
Speaker 5: articulates his side of the story, which you could find
Speaker 5: on Irwadi dot com and.
Speaker 4: I think in a few other news outlets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the diplomat did one as well. He's been on
Speaker 3: a publicity tour I guess recently. Yeah, absolutely, you've seen this.
Speaker 3: But like his tendency to cool or hint of people
Speaker 3: bangladeshis it is unfortunate given that that's a language that
Speaker 3: was used to justify the genocide.
Speaker 5: Right, absolutely, Yeah, it reflects kind of the language that
Speaker 5: the Memora military used.
Speaker 2: Well, Bengali's he'll call them exactly. Yeah, it's very reflective
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So this is really challenging, and part because I
Speaker 5: think that there is kind of an important distinction between
Speaker 5: the Metamora military and the ark On Army in this case,
Speaker 5: in part because the ark On Army has a raw
Speaker 5: public support among the rekind public and so it has
Speaker 5: a more of a legitimate stake to governance than the
Speaker 5: Menmora military, which has none. And so this is it's
Speaker 5: kind of an issue that requires attention and an honest
Speaker 5: accounting of the facts and a long process of reconciliation.
Speaker 5: Part because of the ark On Army is likely there
Speaker 5: to stay as a governing stakeholder. Yeah, so that that
Speaker 5: is a really tricky kind of set of conditions.
Speaker 4: And the other side of this is that the re
Speaker 4: kind of public.
Speaker 5: I think there is a deep sense of a grievance
Speaker 5: among the rekind public. And this is a population that
Speaker 5: has also faced years of intense political alienation and persecution.
Speaker 4: Not to mention war and violence.
Speaker 5: You know, last year when Cyclo and Moca hit the
Speaker 5: Kind State, the Memora military did virtually nothing to help them.
Speaker 4: So it's a population with.
Speaker 5: Legitimate a grievances and they and their perception is that
Speaker 5: the international community only focuses on the rehint of public's
Speaker 5: well being. And I think the international community can do
Speaker 5: a better job of showing sympathy for the rekind public's interests.
Speaker 5: I think sympathy is not like zero sum in that sense,
Speaker 5: and that needs to be done better. Yeah, But honestly,
Speaker 5: like the equating a grievances is also really kind of
Speaker 5: unfair and dishonest.
Speaker 4: And you know this.
Speaker 5: Rehindered population is marginalized to just such an extreme degree.
Speaker 4: And so those are a really interesting report by Doctors
Speaker 4: Without Borders not.
Speaker 5: Too long ago it that showed that only like six
Speaker 5: hundred thousand of the two point eight million were Hinja
Speaker 5: in the world, that in MR fifty seven percent of
Speaker 5: living in camps and Bangladesh or in IDP camps and MEMR.
Speaker 5: So it's like there's just like a highly vulnerable population
Speaker 5: that has experienced genocide, you know.
Speaker 4: It's like there are there's a power in balance, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's like, I think it's not the same.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: The whole process of kind Rhinda reorconciliation is one that
Speaker 5: deserves immediate and urgent attention, but there's also a long
Speaker 5: term process of constructing, you know, a governance structure that
Speaker 5: is acceptable and that's not a highly exclusionary of Rhinda and.
Speaker 4: These sorts of things. So it's a it's a highly
Speaker 4: and beyond the.
Speaker 5: Fact that we need more a deliberate investigation in some
Speaker 5: of these incidents, I think a broader conversational reconciliation and
Speaker 5: justice needs to needs to take place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's definitely one at least you know, I
Speaker 3: speak to people who are probably on the more progressive
Speaker 3: side of the resistance, and it's one that they've acknowledged,
Speaker 3: like it's something that they need to address, and kind
Speaker 3: of the litmus test for like a post hunter mean mars,
Speaker 3: like are there places for these people who they weren't
Speaker 3: places for in this state before? But yeah, how we
Speaker 3: get there is it's difficult, and I don't think that's
Speaker 3: not that's not a clear pathway that anyone's kind of
Speaker 3: pointed to this yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The one thing I would add is like this is
Speaker 5: sort of emblematic of broader perceptions of MEMR and approaches
Speaker 5: to peace building a MEMR is that there's there's often
Speaker 5: a horizontal approach that like we need to work on
Speaker 5: the intercommunal level, individual level trust building, that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: And I think there is a place for that for sure.
Speaker 5: But we've done a couple pieces of research with an
Speaker 5: academic at UG Austin who has found some really interesting
Speaker 5: stuff about like the nature of conflict in the country
Speaker 5: and nature of cohesion in the country. And she's found
Speaker 5: including through some experimental research, studies and designs which are
Speaker 5: quite revealing. I think that national identity is often more
Speaker 5: important to respondence in her surveys than ethnic identity, which
Speaker 5: is which kind of cuts against like the traditional perceptions
Speaker 5: of how Memra is, like, Oh, it's this irreconcilably fractious
Speaker 5: place and it's so hard to build trust between communities.
Speaker 4: And that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: But for her research kind of points to the vertical dimension,
Speaker 5: where it's the nature of Memor politics and the nature
Speaker 5: of governance structures that highly exclusionary, discriminatory governance structures have
Speaker 5: sustained conflict for so long in the country.
Speaker 4: And this is kind of like the main argument for
Speaker 4: the resistance.
Speaker 5: You know, it's like a lot of the stakeholders, at
Speaker 5: least a critical mass within this resistance movement, they're trying
Speaker 5: to assert a new political paradigm in the country, you know,
Speaker 5: a more stable political paradigm in which the Memour military
Speaker 5: is not a dominant stakeholder, in which violence is not
Speaker 5: your source of power, in which that's not built on
Speaker 5: exclusionary norms of belonging. So it's like it is genuinely
Speaker 5: a revolution in this sense, and that is why they're
Speaker 5: they're kind of pushing against the international pressures to enter
Speaker 5: into a power sharing your dream with the VMR military
Speaker 5: because there's a perception that if them our military it
Speaker 5: remains in a position of political power, they will interrupt
Speaker 5: this reform process and then violence world persist.
Speaker 4: In the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and I think that's probably a reasonable assumption
Speaker 3: to make. Like, again, this is like one of those
Speaker 3: things that I see a lot in different places in
Speaker 3: the world where I go, right, there's this tendency to
Speaker 3: see things, I think from sort of colonial perspective and
Speaker 3: just be like, oh, these ethnicities will squabble and fight,
Speaker 3: and like that's not necessarily the case at all, And
Speaker 3: like if you look even to the PDFs, Like I
Speaker 3: was speaking to someone the other day who was saying, like,
Speaker 3: there are jib Muslim women fighting with the koren right now,
Speaker 3: which is something that doesn't align up with this idea
Speaker 3: of like ethnicities which are clashing and can't combine. And
Speaker 3: we saw like a statement of solidarity from the Karenni
Speaker 3: to the Kurdish people, which doesn't line up with this
Speaker 3: idea of an inherently Islamophobic like you know, sort of
Speaker 3: massive of Buddhist people in the Amma, which I think, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a little oversimplified to say that stuff and I
Speaker 3: think sometimes reductive, and it's the analysis of me and
Speaker 3: Mark as a place where colonialism is still occurring, and
Speaker 3: the methods of colonialism, like lots of the things you
Speaker 3: describe right, like promoting fractures, promoting these different ethnic identities
Speaker 3: which are seen as kind of zero sum and mutually exclusive.
Speaker 3: These are things that the United Kingdom did or Britain
Speaker 3: did all around the world for centuries. And it's not
Speaker 3: rocket science to see how that jumps to another group
Speaker 3: which especially in some cases was trained by the British
Speaker 3: or had relations with the British, and you know, to
Speaker 3: see how we got there. But I think we'll take
Speaker 3: another little break here, we'll come back, and I want
Speaker 3: to discuss the resilience of the Hunter and how it's
Speaker 3: hanging on.
Speaker 2: All right, we're back.
Speaker 3: So for the last little segment of this podcast, I
Speaker 3: would like to discuss how the Burmese military is holding
Speaker 3: onto powers. When I speak to soldiers who have defected,
Speaker 3: I speak to I've spoken to about half a dozen,
Speaker 3: I guess soldiers who have defected over time. It's almost
Speaker 3: comic how disorganized and chaotic things are, and at the
Speaker 3: same time it's terrible the way like every single one
Speaker 3: of them has described to me that their families are
Speaker 3: essentially held as collateral to stop them deserting, right, and
Speaker 3: so they had to work with the civil disobedience movement
Speaker 3: to first extract their families before they themselves took their
Speaker 3: weapons in most cases because they get a bounty for
Speaker 3: their weapons and went to join the resistance or in
Speaker 3: some cases went into exile. So like, maybe that gives
Speaker 3: us a good view on how the Hunter is it's
Speaker 3: continuing to force people to fight in this war that
Speaker 3: it's losing. Can you explain a little bit of how
Speaker 3: they've held onto power?
Speaker 5: Sure, Yeah, I guess the first thing to note is
Speaker 5: that rates of defection are totally historic. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 5: by our account, about fifteen thousand deserters, which is actually
Speaker 5: not radically different than historical norms. The mem Our military
Speaker 5: has comparatively high rates of desertion even before the coup,
Speaker 5: so that's not, you know, far outside of the norm.
Speaker 5: But the defection, I think there's about fifty eight hundred
Speaker 5: defectors by our account since the coup, which is unprecedented.
Speaker 5: There's never never really been defection to resistance in memr's history.
Speaker 5: The other factor is the number of individuals who are
Speaker 5: surrendering without a fight with you know, without with putting
Speaker 5: up little resistance. That number is hard to count, but
Speaker 5: it's our by our raid, it seems to be quite high.
Speaker 5: There's forms of acts of disloyalty occurring that are not,
Speaker 5: you know, spurring institutional collapse, but are that are degrading
Speaker 5: the memoir of military's fighting capabilities, which is a really
Speaker 5: important dynamic. So say that at the outset outset. The
Speaker 5: other thing I'd say is that, like, I think we
Speaker 5: need to sort of think about this at three levels. So,
Speaker 5: like the rank and file soldiers, they are significantly demoralized.
Speaker 5: Most did not join the military to fight. They joined
Speaker 5: the military for economic stability and for social status, and
Speaker 5: neither of those are available to them under this military's leadership.
Speaker 5: They certainly did not join to commit atrocities against the
Speaker 5: Bamar Buddhist population, which.
Speaker 4: Is now what they're enforced to.
Speaker 5: So I think that population, the large number of rank
Speaker 5: and file soldiers, is highly demoralized, and that's where you
Speaker 5: have seen lots of desertion, defection, often from the front lines.
Speaker 5: Though that population's defection desertion is not going to trigger
Speaker 5: institutional collapse.
Speaker 4: At the second level, you have like.
Speaker 5: A command or core major, major and above, and these
Speaker 5: I think since Operation ten twenty seven you've seen their
Speaker 5: morale to drop. And I mean there's been the fall
Speaker 5: of Latio and the loss of the Northeast Regional Command,
Speaker 5: the first time in the Memors history that a regional
Speaker 5: commands been taken that had sent shockways through the commander level.
Speaker 5: The other thing is that min Onligne, the Commander in Chief,
Speaker 5: in his attempt to consolidate power and protect himself from
Speaker 5: from internal fragmentation, he's rotating commanders based on loyalty, not
Speaker 5: based on effectiveness, which is also degrading the Memora Military's
Speaker 5: fighting capability.
Speaker 4: But it's also that's maybe.
Speaker 5: One reason why you haven't seen less acts of disloyalty
Speaker 5: within that layer.
Speaker 4: At the senior levels.
Speaker 5: I mean mostly most of those senior Memorial military officials
Speaker 5: who are based in Apida, I think they until the
Speaker 5: fall of Lastio and the resistance moving into Mandalay, there
Speaker 5: was relatively high levels of sense of security and morale
Speaker 5: was was okay, I suppose, but the full of Lastio
Speaker 5: and the ensuing events has really inflamed internal frustration from
Speaker 5: what we understand so, and this has also triggered some
Speaker 5: some shifts in the way in which the MEMR military
Speaker 5: operates its patronage structures.
Speaker 4: So traditionally the patriot in structure is essentially like a
Speaker 4: feudal state.
Speaker 5: I mean you have like a commander in chief that
Speaker 5: is extremely powerful, has authority to rotate or fire or
Speaker 5: arrest virtually anyone.
Speaker 4: I mean, just huge amounts of powers centralized there.
Speaker 5: The deputy commander in chief has little capability to challenge
Speaker 5: the commander in chief's authority. But then you have these
Speaker 5: regional commanders that operate as feudal lords at the regional level.
Speaker 5: They're able to extract huge amounts of value or wealth
Speaker 5: through you know, attractive.
Speaker 4: Industries, illegal industries, all with total impunity.
Speaker 5: But often you know, with the approval of nipidal and
Speaker 5: that approval was often just given. Now it's less it's
Speaker 5: less easily given. I mean you've seen nineties senior officers shuffled,
Speaker 5: changed positions since the coup, and fifty have been removed
Speaker 5: or arrested by our tracking. And you've also seen individuals
Speaker 5: detained and arrested. Because I think there's fifteen kernels or
Speaker 5: above mostly brigadier generals and major generals who have been
Speaker 5: arrested for business related activities, which I think is emblematic
Speaker 5: of the restructuring of the patronage network and centralizing the
Speaker 5: patronage network with men Online himself. If you do not
Speaker 5: have his personal approval, you cannot conduct business activities, including
Speaker 5: these highly lucrative scam operations that are generating billions in
Speaker 5: value but also really frustrating the Chinese.
Speaker 4: So this whole patronage structure.
Speaker 5: Which is critical to sustaining the Memora military, is being reoriented,
Speaker 5: and we'll see whether or not that.
Speaker 4: Helps sustain the institution or introduces more instability.
Speaker 5: But ultimately, the forms of resilience I guess you would
Speaker 5: call it are the one maybe you pointed to. I
Speaker 5: mean their structure. I mean it's like rotating officer, commanders
Speaker 5: and senior officers regularly holding families hostage. Essentially, you know,
Speaker 5: a soldier sent to the front lines, its family remains
Speaker 5: in the barracks. Payment is often made to the families,
Speaker 5: not to the front line's soldier, and there's retribution if
Speaker 5: the frontline soldier defects or deserts. This is also where
Speaker 5: the fifty eight hundred number I mentioned earlier is likely
Speaker 5: irradical undercounting because and also the fifteen thousand desertions because
Speaker 5: a lot of people are recorded as KIA when they're.
Speaker 4: Actually they've deserted or defected.
Speaker 5: So anyways, I'm not sure if that answers your question,
Speaker 5: which some thoughts relatives tosiliencia.
Speaker 2: No, I think it does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the guys I met, we've described basically
Speaker 3: his entire I guess squad went out on a patrol
Speaker 3: and defected. I guess the PDF have been I had
Speaker 3: to describe it really, but it's basically shit talking them
Speaker 3: in their barracks or like in the position for months
Speaker 3: right there.
Speaker 2: Like you see this a lot. It's a kind of.
Speaker 3: Unique feature of the of the conflict in the MR
Speaker 3: guys with megaphones, just being like, you can surrender if
Speaker 3: you want.
Speaker 2: You know, your life is miserable.
Speaker 3: And I guess in this case it worked, And yeah,
Speaker 3: they will be read to as KIA. They went out
Speaker 3: in a patrol and never came back.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, I guess the other dynamic is that,
Speaker 5: like you need to align motivation and opportunity for defection
Speaker 5: desertion and the motivation is there in a lot of cases,
Speaker 5: but opportunity is not. You know. The resistance is committing
Speaker 5: some resources to these efforts, but it's really limited given
Speaker 5: the scale of the challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 5: Of factors that need to kind of come together, like
Speaker 5: the ability to safely communicate with resistance, the ability to
Speaker 5: move into resistance, all the areas of the perception that we.
Speaker 4: Were accepted and not phase retribution.
Speaker 5: The perception there was that living conditions are acceptable to them.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: So there's all these conditions and given the call of
Speaker 5: defection desertion which could be like major attribution against your family,
Speaker 5: and deep uncertainty about leaving this institution that is kind
Speaker 5: of a.
Speaker 4: State within a state.
Speaker 5: That's why we're not seeing the kind of large scale,
Speaker 5: commander level defection desertion I think.
Speaker 3: Right, So, one last thing I wanted to talk about
Speaker 3: before we finish up. If people, I guess keep tabs
Speaker 3: on the conflict, they would have seen recently a video
Speaker 3: I'm sure you've seen the Kachin Independence Army shooting down
Speaker 3: in aircraft with an FN six Chinese man portaal air
Speaker 3: defense system. It's what they sort of called manpads. I'm
Speaker 3: sure women can carry them to just fine or anyone
Speaker 3: else for that matter. But I think it happened in
Speaker 3: January and the video has just come out. Can you
Speaker 3: explain the significance of that within the conflict landscape?
Speaker 2: And we am a yeah.
Speaker 5: I guess there's a couple of points. One is about
Speaker 5: China's posture and the other is about the military balance.
Speaker 5: I think the Menomour military's air power is its primary
Speaker 5: comparative advantage. I think this point it has fewer by
Speaker 5: infantry forces than the resistance, but that it's heavy artillery
Speaker 5: and especially it's air power. You know, that's how it
Speaker 5: terrorizes the population. But it's also been a source of
Speaker 5: It's been a very powerful mobilizing force. I mean, I
Speaker 5: think after Phase one of ten twenty seven, the mmdaa
Speaker 5: Ko Kong armed group, essentially it took back territory that
Speaker 5: it proceeds to be their own and took the town
Speaker 5: of Lau Kai, which was really surprising but a major advance.
Speaker 5: And then everyone kind of perceived, Okay, they'll just stay
Speaker 5: in the quote unquote Ko Kong areas, They'll stay where
Speaker 5: they are.
Speaker 4: But I think there's a deep perception.
Speaker 5: Among the MDAA but also broader ethnic minority groups that
Speaker 5: as long as the MR Military is in power and
Speaker 5: has air capability.
Speaker 4: It will terrorize the public.
Speaker 5: Even if it cannot reach or ever take back lau Kai,
Speaker 5: it will vomit. And that's exactly what we saw after
Speaker 5: ten twenty seven. You saw air strikes and Laukai. You
Speaker 5: saw air strikes and lights of the headquarters of the
Speaker 5: Kachin Independence Army. You see airstrikes in parts of her
Speaker 5: kind state that the mem R Military has no chance
Speaker 5: of recapturing.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a terrorizing the pumbplic thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a punitive thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's punitive thing. So and it also is powerfully motivating.
Speaker 5: It's like, okay, now you see the MNDA pushing all
Speaker 5: the way to Lascio, and a lot of people didn't
Speaker 5: think they would do that.
Speaker 4: But it's like, if you have a perception.
Speaker 5: That this m R military can hurt me from a distance,
Speaker 5: they may need to eliminate them altogether in order to
Speaker 5: achieve the level of stability and safety that they pursue.
Speaker 4: So like it's the double edged sword in that regard.
Speaker 5: But going back to your question, I mean, think like
Speaker 5: if the resistance is capable of constraining the MR military's
Speaker 5: air capability, it radically changes the balance of power.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think there are.
Speaker 5: Some elements of this that are been a primary focus
Speaker 5: of some of the international human rights community, for example,
Speaker 5: constraining access to jet fuel and these sorts of things
Speaker 5: trying to push right arms margo, none of which I've succeeded,
Speaker 5: but there's been kind of progress on the margins.
Speaker 4: Although I think we just saw Russia.
Speaker 5: Delivered jet fuel and the maritime routes in Southern Mars.
Speaker 3: So yeah, in exchange for the artillery shows that the
Speaker 3: Mamma has sent to Russia, right, Oh.
Speaker 5: Okay, and realize okay, yeah, so I mean they're continued,
Speaker 5: they're able to sustain that, and you know, and the
Speaker 5: Chinese has sold i think six aircrafts last year, so yeah,
Speaker 5: they still have this fighting capability, and they're still able
Speaker 5: to extract foreign exchange essentially by stealing from exporters. But
Speaker 5: that's a whole different conversation. But anyway, like I think, yeah,
Speaker 5: this is a key dynamic if they're able to affect
Speaker 5: their their air power. The other thing is that like
Speaker 5: China is attempted to play both sides. I mean historically,
Speaker 5: that's sort of their approach. I mean, they have deep
Speaker 5: connections with armed organizations along its border, maybe closer even
Speaker 5: than with the VMW or military. But they also provide
Speaker 5: politically tuitimacy and material assistance to the Menmoral military. They
Speaker 5: just actually signed an MU on law enforcement and security
Speaker 5: or some sort with the military. That's a deep and
Speaker 5: abiding relationship, in part because the Chinese don't see an alternative.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think they have much trust for
Speaker 4: dan U G or other.
Speaker 5: Resistance groups, and despite the fact that they don't, they
Speaker 5: don't also don't really trust the Memora military or perceed
Speaker 5: them to be competent. They see them kind of as
Speaker 5: their only potential partner in ipudot. But it's kind of
Speaker 5: a question as to whether this strategy is still working
Speaker 5: for them. I think we've seen lots of acts of
Speaker 5: defiance from both sides, the meum Or military and resistance
Speaker 5: groups visa China, I mean.
Speaker 4: The Man military. They've been pressuring.
Speaker 5: Them to hold elections for since the coup essentially, and
Speaker 5: they're really no closer yeah to that happening. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think they dissolve the NLD something the Chinese said
Speaker 5: not to do, and more recently, they've designated a number
Speaker 5: of resistance groups as terrorist organizations, which essentially obviates political negotiations,
Speaker 5: which I think would certainly frustrate the Chinese, given that
Speaker 5: they hope to achieve stability through political ingratiations between a
Speaker 5: subset of resistance groups and the Manama military. So there
Speaker 5: are these kind of acts of defiance also on the
Speaker 5: resistance side. I mean, the Chinese are pushing for ceasefires,
Speaker 5: and yet the resistance continues to push into the country,
Speaker 5: and they're sort of a perception that, like, as the
Speaker 5: resistance groups aligned with China, quote unquote aligned with China,
Speaker 5: maybe they aren't a gain ascendency on the battlefield, in
Speaker 5: particular that China's influenced gains.
Speaker 4: But I'm not sure whether that's the case.
Speaker 5: It might actually be in verse, like, as these groups
Speaker 5: push into memmore and have more charitorial control, maybe they
Speaker 5: have more options and they're less dependent on the Chinese.
Speaker 5: So that relationship in the north along the Chinese border
Speaker 5: is also very much in flux.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's clear exactly how that will play out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's not, And I think that's sort of
Speaker 3: a big question that's overhanging. Obviously, you have actors that
Speaker 3: are more close your line with China, like the United
Speaker 3: Worst Date Army, who have sort of largely remained aloof
Speaker 3: from the conflict or a loof maybe it's your own word,
Speaker 3: but are not like directly committing most of their forces
Speaker 3: to the Conflict's really a better way of saying it, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 5: And now that there's a ton of pressure on them
Speaker 5: to stop selling arms to other groups, So we'll see
Speaker 5: where there that happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is probably where the Kaschin Independence Army was
Speaker 3: able to get the surface where missiles from, which brings
Speaker 3: us back to that. Yeah, it's it's never not complicated,
Speaker 3: but it's always very sad that, like the folks quit
Speaker 3: in the middle of this are suffering horrendously and sometimes
Speaker 3: suffering kind of out of sight and out of mind
Speaker 3: for so many people. As you know, a news cycle
Speaker 3: continues to kind of either trivialize or completely ignore what's
Speaker 3: happening in me, amma, which is really sad. People often
Speaker 3: ask me like where they can find reliable news sources
Speaker 3: and where they can send them money if they want
Speaker 3: to help people in Mema. Do you have any good
Speaker 3: suggestions for that?
Speaker 5: Sure? Yeah, I mean I think for news, I guess
Speaker 5: for like day to day news like Fronter Memr is
Speaker 5: a fantastic source, as is Meanmar Now and the Irawadi.
Speaker 4: These are they have English.
Speaker 5: Language content that would be really interesting and accessible. My organization,
Speaker 5: the US in suit Piece. You can check out our website.
Speaker 5: We publish a lot of analytical work on there related
Speaker 5: to the conflict. You're welcome to check there. I think
Speaker 5: there's a really good another podcast, it's really good, Insight MEMR,
Speaker 5: that is worth checking out. Started as like a Buddhism
Speaker 5: oriented podcast talking about in Pasuma. Now its branched into
Speaker 5: a much broader range of issues.
Speaker 4: Some of the best stuff I've heard and actually affiliated with.
Speaker 5: INSIGHTEMMR is an organization called Beta Burma that provides humanitarian.
Speaker 4: Assistance in one you could contribute to.
Speaker 5: There's an organization called Skills for Humanity that provides a
Speaker 5: lot of humanitarian systems on the ground.
Speaker 2: Ye and you.
Speaker 5: Mentioned Liberate the NMAR before we start recording. That can
Speaker 5: also be a good support.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think schools to humanity also accept maybe they
Speaker 3: accept direct I was speaking to them about like medical
Speaker 3: equipment that they needed. Yeah, they they accept direct donations
Speaker 3: or not. But people who want to volunteer medically, let's
Speaker 3: want to look out for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was fantastic. Billy is there anyway?
Speaker 3: And I think you else you'd like to plug like
Speaker 3: why people can follow you or us i P online.
Speaker 4: Us i P dot org. Most of my writing is
Speaker 4: on there.
Speaker 5: I'm on Twitter, Twitter at b I L L e E,
Speaker 5: the number four, the letter D. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 5: I checked those sources I mentioned. It's rather there's not
Speaker 5: more kind of content in the mainstream media, but there's
Speaker 5: there's a lot of really incredible reporting coming from the
Speaker 5: ground from people taking incredible risks to share information. So
Speaker 5: encourage you to support some of those local outlets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, including financially if you can. It's like they're
Speaker 3: doing the work that really needs to be done.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you, James, and we appreciate you being our host.
Speaker 2: Jeers It could.
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