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Speaker 1: It's not easy to leave your home, even when people

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Speaker 1: there are trying to kill you. Doctor Wonder, like everyone else,

3
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Speaker 1: struggled with the choice. His hospital had next to no supplies.

4
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Speaker 1: COVID's third wave was ravaging the population, and he couldn't

5
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Speaker 1: even get oxygen to treat sick patients. All around him

6
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Speaker 1: was death and fear, but he still wanted to stay.

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Speaker 2: Actually, I don't want to live my country because if

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Speaker 2: we just live like that, our country will be We'll

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Speaker 2: go back to yes before centuries. You know, you know,

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Speaker 2: they control everything. We have to just queue. We have

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Speaker 2: to just make it queue to get a patrolium, petroleum.

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Speaker 2: We have faith in our young age. I don't. I

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Speaker 2: don't want to fit that feeling again, not for me,

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Speaker 2: not just for me, not of for our people, for

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Speaker 2: our new generation are too young accents. Yes, one is

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Speaker 2: a five year one is the ideas. So I just

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Speaker 2: want to fight. Yeah, and then my last friend back,

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Speaker 2: I can't tolerate because they are trying, you know, around movement.

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Speaker 2: I'm trying my best.

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Speaker 3: From the decision to go was made for him. By

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Speaker 3: the top of door.

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Speaker 4: We are making the meeting with him. He is in

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Speaker 4: a control at those times he is a control yes

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Speaker 4: at those times. So we're making a meeting then asking

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Speaker 4: him did did he's safe or not? You know, I

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Speaker 4: start at the end of the meeting, he he, he

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Speaker 4: told me the hint. They were going to the insight

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Speaker 4: oh oh ship, the holy ship.

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Speaker 5: He was arrested.

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Speaker 4: So so time I was living the younger and you

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Speaker 4: know the government of that, the Millers. We also announced

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Speaker 4: that the remain do arrest Yeah, REMAINU arrests too. I'm

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Speaker 4: thinking all of my things that you have to goal

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Speaker 4: because you have all of the data, so you have

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Speaker 4: the goal. So I decided to go.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Andy and the boys made the decision to abandon

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Speaker 1: their apartment and head for Karin Territory and eventually Thailand.

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Speaker 1: Once one of their protest friends was arrested by the government,

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Speaker 1: his phone was on him when he got caught, potentially

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Speaker 1: exposing all of them. After a harrowing drive into the

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Speaker 1: jungle and several days among the Koran, they succeeded in

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Speaker 1: finding a people smuggler to get them across the border

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Speaker 1: without getting stuck in one of the refugee camps operated

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Speaker 1: by the Thai government.

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Speaker 5: Three days later, we were trying to cross at night time,

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Speaker 5: and these guys said, okay, you know, you go in,

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Speaker 5: you cross, you get to Thailand at the same night.

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Speaker 5: And we thought, okay, you know, and we swim across

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Speaker 5: the river. It was very scary, but for me, I've

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Speaker 5: done it like three times, so it was a little bit.

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Speaker 5: I thought it was going to be better, but it

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Speaker 5: was more stressful because I had them right. So I

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Speaker 5: was like, if it was me alone, maybe I could,

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Speaker 5: you know, whatever happened, I would find a way out.

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Speaker 5: I'm not sure if I could do that with three

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Speaker 5: other people, you know, so I was quite nervous. We

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Speaker 5: paid what five thousand bodies. Yeah, it is not cheap,

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Speaker 5: it is, no, no, but because that's the thing, it's

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Speaker 5: not just one person. Yeah, it's not just one person.

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Speaker 5: He the person that crossed us from the river from

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Speaker 5: the Avidy to this side is one and then from

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Speaker 5: there to the nomansland is another one. Right, So yeah, we.

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Speaker 3: Saw the soldier were like Alex stayed in four or

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Speaker 3: attempted to fight with the current, but most of the

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Speaker 3: time only did with stamp sentry. Where about getting enough

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Speaker 3: to eat? I wonder when he gets his hands on

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Speaker 3: something better than.

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Speaker 6: A squirrel rifle kind because we don't have like enough girls.

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Speaker 6: Uh you know, Like so by the time like there

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Speaker 6: was like STROI happening in uh Lekic, I thought like, oh,

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Speaker 6: we're gonna have to like go and you know like

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Speaker 6: fight them now. But uh stay, like we have to

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Speaker 6: pack our staff and move to a deba jungle. So

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Speaker 6: we were like kind of like refugees with uniforms. But yeah,

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Speaker 6: you know, if I just keep staying there like we

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Speaker 6: if we are just going to keep running away like this,

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Speaker 6: Like I don't want to stay there. I want to

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Speaker 6: do something about the needs, like you know, like the

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Speaker 6: Maynes in our canvas, the weapons against So I want

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Speaker 6: to like come here and like you know, like walk

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Speaker 6: work for that.

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Speaker 1: He called his unit refugees with uniforms, and that's about

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Speaker 1: what they were. This is why rebels like me Off

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Speaker 1: and Daddy UMCD are so motivated to find a way

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Speaker 1: to reliably print functional semi automatic weapons. The Karin are

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Speaker 1: desperately under armed, and yet they've been able to hold

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Speaker 1: off the military for decades. If the Korn and other

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Speaker 1: ethnic organizations were able to build functional arms production infrastructure

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Speaker 1: alongside the new rebels with the PDF, they have a

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Speaker 1: real chance at victory. If they succeed in building this,

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Speaker 1: the repercussions around the world could be massive. That is, however,

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Speaker 1: a story for another day.

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Speaker 3: Seeing this kind of conflict isn't good for you. Nobody's

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Speaker 3: supposed to live through this kind of stuff, and certainly

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Speaker 3: not when they're just kids. Even in a rich country

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Speaker 3: replete with therapists and VA clinics. Thousands of US veterans

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Speaker 3: live every day with PTFT. The difference for them is

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Speaker 3: that they went to war in myanma what comes to you?

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Speaker 5: And then there's another one, which is this one. And

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Speaker 5: I did the first part and I'm too scared to

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Speaker 5: do the second part. So yeah, I mean this is

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Speaker 5: fucked up, Like every time I have to do it,

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Speaker 5: I get my head get fucked like.

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Speaker 3: That's one of the guys.

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Speaker 5: And so that's in Yang in the protest, that's one

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Speaker 5: of the nightway, that's one of the days. But the

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Speaker 5: AANA but on a hundred people would kill over one

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Speaker 5: hundred people. You can see in the video they come

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Speaker 5: in and you will see that the military, how the

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Speaker 5: military came in and how they were trying to I'm

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Speaker 5: not sure if I have in anymore.

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Speaker 3: Maybe here.

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Speaker 1: You developing.

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Speaker 5: Me. They surrounded and they killed everyone.

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Speaker 3: What they've seen is bonded the boys. They do anything

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Speaker 3: for each other, and I've already done things that most

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Speaker 3: of us can't imagine. When one of their mothers wanted

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Speaker 3: to take him home, he felt helpless without them. When

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Speaker 3: the rest of them crossed. One of their moms came

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Speaker 3: back to get him without them and stuck in the country,

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Speaker 3: falling apart, he didn't want to keep going. Every day

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Speaker 3: he watched soldiers outside himself popping yabber pills. Yaba's a

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Speaker 3: myth based drug and soldiers are often given by the military.

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Speaker 3: He worried they'd kill him. His brother in law was

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Speaker 3: arrested and tortured just for having a lighter. Can you

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Speaker 3: remember what it felt like when your mom came home.

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Speaker 5: He kept saying, he's going to fucking kill himself for

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Speaker 5: a long time, for a line time I will come to. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: he wasn't in a good space. I so he was

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Speaker 5: saying that if he has to go back. He was

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Speaker 5: telling us like, you know, now he's alone, like he

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Speaker 5: doesn't even have us anymore. And so he was saying,

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Speaker 5: like he's going to go out to the protest and

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Speaker 5: he's going to try to kill the cops, right, the soldiers,

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Speaker 5: the police. And it was very difficult like for us too,

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Speaker 5: like because we know his mom can't really like help

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Speaker 5: him with that stuff. You know we can, but she

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Speaker 5: really wanted to take him.

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Speaker 3: So over time they chatted on the phone and he

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Speaker 3: felt better. But now he's here with the boys. It's

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Speaker 3: him playing his guitar and the music you heard.

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Speaker 5: He got a lot better coping with this in a

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Speaker 5: good way, you know what I mean. I mean, if

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Speaker 5: you're young and you see people killing people like this terribly,

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Speaker 5: you have some job fucked up thoughts yourself too, right,

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Speaker 5: Like well I could do this to someone too, and

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Speaker 5: stuff like that. So he's struggled a lot with that

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Speaker 5: for a long time. And I think the worst thing

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Speaker 5: was being alone. He was alone. He couldn't talk to

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Speaker 5: his mom about all these things, right, He was paranoi,

151
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Speaker 5: he was scared, he was traumatized. So I mean, it's

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Speaker 5: just see like the first time we write, but then

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Speaker 5: actually can na ask you. It's been five months since

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Speaker 5: he was he's here, but the first few months it

155
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Speaker 5: was very difficult. Yeah, I'm kind of like I talked

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Speaker 5: to them all the time about this, because I know

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Speaker 5: talking helps with these stubs, like and especially when you

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Speaker 5: all feeling the same thing. It's like, you know, and

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Speaker 5: I think our ways of coping with this is like

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Speaker 5: we talk about it, but like kind of like a

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Speaker 5: joking way, like you put humor in it. That's the

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Speaker 5: best way.

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Speaker 3: To deal with it, Like to get through those hard

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Speaker 3: days on his own, looking down at men who wanted

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Speaker 3: him dead, he picked up a cheap acoustic guitar. When

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Speaker 3: he got back, he began teaching the others if you

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Speaker 3: hadn't picked it up, they're pretty good. When we went

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Speaker 3: out to the pool bar at night, in between kicking

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Speaker 3: your asses, the boys would look up at the stage.

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Speaker 3: It was occupied by a pretty second rate cover band

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Speaker 3: for whatever reason, probably not helped by the incredibly rough

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Speaker 3: ti gin we've been smashing back. I looked at them

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Speaker 3: looking at the stage on our last night, and I

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Speaker 3: wanted to cry. Teenage kids shouldn't be caught picking up

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Speaker 3: guns to fight or picking up cameras to film their

176
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Speaker 3: friends die. They should be doing what I was doing

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Speaker 3: when I was a teenager, which is making a complete

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Speaker 3: prick of myself on a stage with a guitar one day.

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Speaker 3: Hopefully soon they'll be able to sing happy songs again

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Speaker 3: and the war will just be a memory. I start,

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Speaker 3: then when you write it.

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Speaker 6: Before, Yeah, I don't have from for tall like, so

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Speaker 6: I start.

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Speaker 3: Their bond is so close now, they're barely ever apart.

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Speaker 3: It's a lot of responsibility for Andy, who's just twenty

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Speaker 3: two himself, but he wouldn't want it any other way,

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Speaker 3: and neither would they one right, and you and Sarah

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Speaker 3: have appointments, and so Robert and I take the boys

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Speaker 3: for dinner. It's a lot of fun and actually a

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Speaker 3: lot of food. But when we talked to him about

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Speaker 3: their options, it's refugees. He might be able to come

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Speaker 3: to the US. One thing is clear. They don't want

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Speaker 3: to be a part.

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Speaker 5: For me, it's like I'd rather fucking take bullet than

195
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Speaker 5: any of them, because if they die or if something

196
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Speaker 5: happened to them, I am in so much trouble, you

197
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Speaker 5: know what I mean. But I know that that's what

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Speaker 5: they want to do. Like if the mom trap him

199
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Speaker 5: in Yangon and he doesn't do anything and the revolution

200
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Speaker 5: is over, he's going to feel so much regret, you know,

201
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Speaker 5: like for not being involved in this and that's for me.

202
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Speaker 5: It's like people, if people want to fight, like, you know,

203
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Speaker 5: like we shouldn't keep them. We shouldn't just say yeah yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's been a few months since we got back from

205
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Speaker 1: May Saught. It's the rainy season there now and that

206
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Speaker 1: makes fighting reporting harder. Amrah is still stuck in mayst

207
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Speaker 1: It's not safe for her to go back to a

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Speaker 1: country where her family wants her dead, but it's not

209
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Speaker 1: possible for her to leave May Sought either without travel documents,

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Speaker 1: something the UNHCR would have to issue. She's stuck in

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Speaker 1: a little room in a hotel. It's not a great

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Speaker 1: place for a young woman, and it's even worse when

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Speaker 1: she has to watch her friends continue to struggle without her.

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Speaker 1: We both wrote to the UN and the various embassies

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Speaker 1: on her behalf, but months later we've heard nothing. This

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Speaker 1: is typical of a lot of refugees. They're often presented

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Speaker 1: as a faceless mass of humanity, bereft of hope, but

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Speaker 1: each of them has a story, and those refugee camps

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Speaker 1: along the border between Thailand and Myanmar are full of stories.

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Speaker 1: Some of those are stories of fear, some of heroism,

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Speaker 1: and some of tragedy, but until things change at the

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Speaker 1: UN all of those stories aren't being told.

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Speaker 3: The three D printed firearms Maalk and his colleagues are

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Speaker 3: working on I've made massive progress over the last few months,

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Speaker 3: but even though three D printed guns cost a small

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Speaker 3: fraction of the price of an M sixteen or an

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Speaker 3: AK forty seven, the pro democracy forces are still desperately underfunded.

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Speaker 3: They're at war with the state, but they don't have

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Speaker 3: any of the apparatus of a state with which to

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Speaker 3: fight back. Instead, the gen Z rebels have turned once

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Speaker 3: again to the Internet. Alongside crowdfunding campaigns like Liberate Memma,

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Speaker 3: they've developed a more innovative fundraising method that allows for

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Speaker 3: donations even from people who don't have any money. Instead

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Speaker 3: of soliciting cash donations risking exposing their donors, they began

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Speaker 3: using a method that they call click to Donate, where

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Speaker 3: supporters could help the rebels by clicking on adverts on

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Speaker 3: certain videos and websites in order to generate advertising revenue.

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Speaker 3: It's used to find everything from weapons purchases to shelter

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Speaker 3: for the ten thousand eternally displaced people in the Anmar.

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Speaker 3: I spoke to several people in Themma who asked not

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Speaker 3: to be named for their own safety, but are very

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Speaker 3: familiar with the funding of the PDF. One of them

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Speaker 3: told me to donate started to support government staff who

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Speaker 3: had decided to join a civil disobedience movement. Government staff

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Speaker 3: are always low paid and so they were not very

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Speaker 3: financially stable in the beginning. The fund from click to

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Speaker 3: donate allowed these workers to strike without pay. After a

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Speaker 3: few weeks of being on strike, financial concerns were weakening

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Speaker 3: the movement and people were being forced to work or stave.

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Speaker 3: Younger pro democracy activists responded by setting up YouTube channels

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Speaker 3: and then using the anti coup telegram channels to direct

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Speaker 3: millions of views and add clicks to them from across

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Speaker 3: the country and from supporters abroad. The resulting advertising revenue

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Speaker 3: allowed them to fund the civil disobedience movement and later

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Speaker 3: to equip the PDF. By December of twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 3: these clicks were yielding an income of about five hundred

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Speaker 3: million kiats about twenty eight thousand dollars every day.

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Speaker 1: The Military Hunter responded to this an international indignation at

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Speaker 1: videos of protesters being massacred in the street by tripling

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Speaker 1: data prizes and throat modeling Internet connection speeds. Pro democracy

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Speaker 1: keyboard warriors responded with viral content that required less bandwidth,

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Speaker 1: including writing personal finance blogs to attract a US audience

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Speaker 1: that was unknowingly supporting a revolution with its clicks. People

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Speaker 1: in Myanmar also began to use VPNs to access the Internet.

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Speaker 1: This helped them get around some of the junta's restrictions

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Speaker 1: and also yielded a higher advertising payment per click on

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Speaker 1: a given advert. Websites like Digital Revolution allow users to

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Speaker 1: find content that supports pro democracy rebels and click on it,

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Speaker 1: lending their support with nothing more than a broadband connection

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Speaker 1: and a few seconds of their time. Alongside their videos

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Speaker 1: and websites, the Ginz rebels also launched games. At first,

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Speaker 1: they were just simple little online phone app games that

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Speaker 1: would let you throw darts at the coup leader or something.

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Speaker 1: One source told us that these games didn't just support

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Speaker 1: the rebels through funding, but also provided a little bit

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Speaker 1: of mental health care. You know, at least people could

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Speaker 1: virtually kill the folks in their city and their home

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Speaker 1: who were ruining their lives, and at the same time

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Speaker 1: time the games earned the money, and that money went

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Speaker 1: to fund the PDF.

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Speaker 3: The most impressive of these games is a recently launched

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Speaker 3: War of Heroes, which you can buy for just a

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Speaker 3: dollar on the Apple and Google App stores if you

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Speaker 3: want to check it out. In the game, which is

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Speaker 3: available in Burmese or English, a player can fight as

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Speaker 3: a man or a woman and take on government troops

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Speaker 3: and even zombies. The money donated via these games and

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Speaker 3: adverts doesn't just go into a black hole, According to

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Speaker 3: the sources I spoke to, we have a click to

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Speaker 3: donate Facebook page, they said, and regularly we release financial

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Speaker 3: statements on a Facebook page, saying like this month we

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Speaker 3: gave ten million kyats to that group. I spoke to

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Speaker 3: Billy Ford, a program officer for the Burmer team at

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Speaker 3: the US Institute of Peace. He says this kind of

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Speaker 3: innovation is what's allowed the pro democracy movement to survive

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Speaker 3: in me and Mah since it was last violently suppressed

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Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty eight. Activists and resistance movements in Miamma

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Speaker 3: have historically been an example to the world of creative, strategic,

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Speaker 3: and resilient models of activism, he said. This post twenty

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Speaker 3: two one movement has taken that to a new level,

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Speaker 3: enabling it to defy all historical precedent and sustain an

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Speaker 3: anti coup movement for more than eighteen months, now actually

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Speaker 3: gaining ground against a regime with an enormous structural advantage,

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Speaker 3: rather than seeing their lack of weapons and funds as

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Speaker 3: the fatal flaw. Ford says that the highly onlined rebels

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Speaker 3: have looked for areas where they could outflank the aging

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Speaker 3: generals who stole their futures from them. The movement has

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Speaker 3: leveraged comparative advantages large numbers of people with time and

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Speaker 3: tech savvy to raise money. He says. This tactic, although unusual,

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Speaker 3: has been a great success. According to Ford, the approach

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Speaker 3: has grown enormously, with one of the video games, for example,

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Speaker 3: rising to become the number two paid app on the

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Speaker 3: App Store at one point.

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Speaker 1: However, all the clicks in the world might not be

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Speaker 1: enough to sweep the rebels into Mandolay and return the

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Speaker 1: country on its path towards democracy. Sources inside me en

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Speaker 1: Mars say that less and less revenue is generated by

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Speaker 1: a me and marip address, and that they have had

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Speaker 1: to encourage men members of the People's Click Force to

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Speaker 1: install VPNs to make their clicks appear to come from

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Speaker 1: the US or Europe. Sometimes the traffic is so massive

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Speaker 1: that Utube's algorithm mistakes it for an artificial intelligence botnet.

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Speaker 1: They're looking, they tell me, at pivoting towards affiliate links

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Speaker 1: and the sort of content driven commerce that has swept

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Speaker 1: the US media thanks to the success of sites like

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Speaker 1: The Wirecutter. Meanwhile, on the ground, PDF forces are regularly

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Speaker 1: getting the better of the totmadaw in small arms conflict,

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Speaker 1: but coming off worse when they can't defend themselves against

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Speaker 1: the Russian jets which the HUNTA uses to bomb civilian

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Speaker 1: and military targets. Without man portable anti aircraft systems, the

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Speaker 1: rebels are sitting ducks. The world has sent thousands of

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Speaker 1: these to Ukraine and none to people in Myanmar fighting

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Speaker 1: the same battle for democracy against the same Russian jets.

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Speaker 1: Despite this, they're not discouraged. PDF rebels tell me they

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Speaker 1: have been scouring the Internet and they're working on a

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Speaker 1: solution that doesn't need the apparatus of support of a

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Speaker 1: state and instead relies on stable broadband and the increasing

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Speaker 1: ingenuity they've shown and in eighteen months of revolution, demo

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Speaker 1: crazy word.

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Speaker 4: My joh.

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Speaker 6: Oh do o ye.

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Speaker 3: Has on you.

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Speaker 5: On you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah he d.

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Speaker 3: Oh my.

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Speaker 6: Really young irby boy.

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Speaker 5: Okay lang and on this long heavy.

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Speaker 6: Ollo.

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Speaker 3: Hi everyone, it's me again, James.

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Speaker 1: Don't worry.

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Speaker 3: I'm not coming to you at the end of the

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Speaker 3: series to report something tragic like I did, and I'll

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Speaker 3: ask me. I'm my series. I'm just recording this little

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Speaker 3: message at the end to say that we're very grateful

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Speaker 3: to Daniel an Ian for all their hard work on this,

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Speaker 3: and we've gone through countless edits for this particular project,

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Speaker 3: and they've done a lot of hard work to get

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Speaker 3: it to you in the form that you listen to

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Speaker 3: it today and for the last week. We also want

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Speaker 3: to say that although this appears to be a podcast

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Speaker 3: written and recorded by Robert and I, that Andy is

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Speaker 3: very much a co author and that none of this

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Speaker 3: would have been possible without him. As we said, Andy's

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Speaker 3: not his real name, and we can't put his real

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Speaker 3: name in the credits because we're worried for his safety.

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Speaker 3: But his work has been invaluable and without him, none

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Speaker 3: of what you've heard would be possible.

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Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 6: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

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Speaker 6: cool Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the

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Speaker 6: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,

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Speaker 6: you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated

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Speaker 6: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.

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Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.