Speaker 1: All media. Hey everybody, Robert here, I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know that two of our hosts at Zeitron of
Speaker 1: Better Offline and Molly Conger of Weird Little Guys, are
Speaker 1: in the running to win the Webbys right now, or
Speaker 1: to win Webbys in their respective categories. If you just
Speaker 1: google their names at Zeitron, Webby Webby or Molly Conger Webby,
Speaker 1: you can find them and vote for them. There will
Speaker 1: be links in the show notes as well, Sophia, you'll
Speaker 1: put them in, so please do vote for them.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the show. It's me James today
Speaker 2: and I am joined by Garrison Davis. Hi, Garrison, Hello. Hello.
Speaker 2: Garrison has just said some words about something that's happening
Speaker 2: on social media that I don't understand, and it's made
Speaker 2: me feel very old. That's what's happening today in my world.
Speaker 2: It's very sad. We're gathered here today to talk about
Speaker 2: the earthquake in Mianma. Right. I think most of you
Speaker 2: will probably have been made aware of the earthquake. Click.
Speaker 2: It's somewhat odd that corporate media has really not reported
Speaker 2: on the revolution in any substantial way since twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: but the earthquake apparently justified a lot of network sending
Speaker 2: people to Meamma for the first time. Very amusingly, people
Speaker 2: dming me on Blue Sky and Twitter asking how to
Speaker 2: get a visa from the Burmese hunter, which is not
Speaker 2: a thing I've ever done. The last communication I had
Speaker 2: with them came in the form of a car bomb
Speaker 2: that they said of near to a place where we were.
Speaker 2: But if you're not aware, the earthquake happened on the
Speaker 2: twenty eighth of March of this year, just before one
Speaker 2: in the afternoon. It was the biggest earthquake in Meanma.
Speaker 2: So it's nineteen twelve and it registered seven point seven
Speaker 2: on the Richter scale, which is huge because it's it's
Speaker 2: very hard for foreign journalists to get a visa to
Speaker 2: enter Memba. The initial reporting focused on Bangkok and the
Speaker 2: damage done in Thailand, but the epithet was in Sagang,
Speaker 2: which is near Mandalay, Madelade's second biggest city in Memba,
Speaker 2: and that was where like the worst of the destruction happened.
Speaker 2: Almost every street in Mandalay has collapsed buildings. It's a
Speaker 2: little difficult for us to get a sense of the
Speaker 2: exact scale of the damage because the Hunter refuses to
Speaker 2: allow some media has been allowed in the BBC. I
Speaker 2: saw like sneaked somebody in It's very difficult for media
Speaker 2: to move and report freely. And in addition to this,
Speaker 2: the Hunter has continued to practice of cutting off Internet
Speaker 2: for people in Mema right.
Speaker 3: Even during like emergency situations.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, especially during emergency. They've cut it off like
Speaker 2: as a response to this because I guess they perceive
Speaker 2: it to be something that makes them look weak. This
Speaker 2: is a tendency that the Hunter has displayed before. So
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight, cyclone Nagas affected Mema and
Speaker 2: killed over one hundred and thirty thousand people, and they
Speaker 2: blocked international aid. They said that people didn't need the
Speaker 2: quote chocolate bars that the US and other countries were
Speaker 2: trying to deliver, and that they could exist by like
Speaker 2: hunting frogs in ditches, was their suggestion. I don't think
Speaker 2: people realize like how far down the North Korea scale
Speaker 2: the Burmese Hunter is, but like they're very worried that
Speaker 2: any interaction with the outside world, specifically with like I
Speaker 2: guess western neoliberal powers will be damaging for their like
Speaker 2: ability to control the population. So for that reason, we
Speaker 2: don't know how many people have died. Right from what
Speaker 2: I've heard on the ground, the death toll is substantially
Speaker 2: higher than the three thy six hundred number being reported.
Speaker 2: The US Geological Survey estimated that an earthquake of that
Speaker 2: magnitude in that region would kill between ten and one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand people. Obviously, that's quite a big kind of
Speaker 2: delta there. What I can tell you is that I've
Speaker 2: heard firsthand that there are some parts of mandolines A
Speaker 2: going where the stench of rotting bodies is so powerful
Speaker 2: that people have stopped returning to their homes. There have
Speaker 2: been so many after shocks that people are still sleeping
Speaker 2: in the street because they're worried about the damage structures
Speaker 2: falling down. The UN has an estimate of seventeen million
Speaker 2: people across fifty seven townships. Townships are like the administrative
Speaker 2: districts that are used in miannber a bit affected, with
Speaker 2: over nine million people facing severe hardship. And of course
Speaker 2: this is all compounded by the fact that there were
Speaker 2: already twenty million people in Mianba who needed humanitarian assistance,
Speaker 2: and they're about three and a half million internally displaced
Speaker 2: people as a result of the fighting that's happened after
Speaker 2: the revolution, So like it really came at a pretty
Speaker 2: difficult time in a place where the government is not
Speaker 2: willing to They said after the earth quake, they wanted
Speaker 2: international aid, but they've, as we'll see later in this script,
Speaker 2: they've only accepted it from certain countries. I spoke to
Speaker 2: a friend who has family in Mandalay yesterday. He told
Speaker 2: me that they the way they're assessing the damage is
Speaker 2: using like open source intelligence. They're trying to look in
Speaker 2: the backgrounds of people's videos on Facebook to like work
Speaker 2: out if their childhood homes fell down. Right, They were
Speaker 2: using satellite imaging software when I spoke to them yesterday
Speaker 2: to try and ascertain if their families were okay. They
Speaker 2: told me or Sagang has very famous pagodas, and the
Speaker 2: pagodas are all on a hill. Apparently a lot of
Speaker 2: those pagodas have fallen down, and even the hill itself
Speaker 2: is like listing. So there's been like massive cultural damage
Speaker 2: as well. Another way in which the damage was compounded
Speaker 2: by Miamma's politics was the quake struck Like I said,
Speaker 2: at one pm on a Friday, right which is Friday prayers.
Speaker 2: This happened during Ramadans, particularly the day before it'll fitter,
Speaker 2: which is a very busy day for mosques if you're
Speaker 2: not aware. Right, successive governments of Memma since the nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties have refused to allow even basic maintenance for moses.
Speaker 2: That means that these buildings were in great states of disrepair, right, Memma,
Speaker 2: there is an alternationalist Buddhist movement which has been embraced
Speaker 2: to a great degree by the Hunter, but also limited
Speaker 2: even like the National League for Democracy, which was the
Speaker 2: relatively neo liberal aligned party that had previously been in
Speaker 2: power in Myanma or somewhat in power. I suppose alternationalist
Speaker 2: Buddhist monks like Ashin Wurathu and his nine six nine
Speaker 2: movement have kind of condemned anythink that they did as
Speaker 2: making them pro Muslim And they have this essentially they
Speaker 2: have a great replacement theory, right, that Muslims are trying
Speaker 2: to come in through Bangladesh to replace Buddhists in Mianma.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lots of people here have this like very orientalist
Speaker 3: perspective of like Buddhism TM as this like you know,
Speaker 3: like like like peaceful blah blah blah blah blah, and
Speaker 3: like no, like Buddhism, like every religion has a variety
Speaker 3: of sex. Yes, and the Buddhist nationalist set can be
Speaker 3: particularly nasty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean as vicious as any other people I'm
Speaker 2: sure will be familiar with their Hindi genocide and like
Speaker 2: there are a lot of monks that supported that, including
Speaker 2: We're Atheurism most notable one, but there are plenty more, right,
Speaker 2: and they're part of the I mean he's he's literally
Speaker 2: explicitly expressed, like how much he looks up to the
Speaker 2: English Defense League Jesus. Yeah, yeah, Like these are people
Speaker 2: who like they are part of this global nativist movement.
Speaker 2: People's orientalism, I think sometimes stops him seeing that or
Speaker 2: appreciating that this extends outside of like white global North countries. Yeah.
Speaker 2: One thing that I did think that that really touched
Speaker 2: me in the days after the earthquake was young Buddhist Bamar,
Speaker 2: people of the majority ethnicity, reaching out to me and
Speaker 2: being like, hey man, this happened in Friday prayers to Ramadan,
Speaker 2: and it has devastated the Muslim population, Like thousands of people,
Speaker 2: hundreds of mosques have gone and thousands of people are
Speaker 2: trapped in a rubble and like no one's talking about it?
Speaker 2: Why is no we're talking about it? This is terrible
Speaker 2: and like it would have been inconceivable to hear young
Speaker 2: Bama Buddhist people so concerned with the well being of
Speaker 2: like their Muslim countrymen before the coup in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: This was a country that had been manufacturing consent for
Speaker 2: genocide against its Muslim minorities for four or five years
Speaker 2: by that point, right specifically on Facebook. That's a behind
Speaker 2: the bath this episode on this you can also listen
Speaker 2: if you're new to the show. Robert and I have
Speaker 2: made two scripted series about the revolution in me Amma,
Speaker 2: which will include in the show notes. But like that
Speaker 2: change to a real genuine solidarity and care between these
Speaker 2: two groups was really touching in the like moments after
Speaker 2: the earthquake, in the dates after the earthquake. When we
Speaker 2: come back, I want to talk a little bit more
Speaker 2: about the revolution and I want to talk about how
Speaker 2: the revolution has been responding to this and the impact
Speaker 2: has had on the revolution. We are back, and of
Speaker 2: course the revolution hasn't stopped because of the earthquake. Right,
Speaker 2: the conflict is still ongoing, and the PDFs and their
Speaker 2: allied ethnic bsiness organizations are still fighting against the Hunter.
Speaker 2: In fact, within an hour of the earthquake, the Hunter
Speaker 2: began using paramotors to drop bombs on Hangule village and Sagang.
Speaker 2: This has been a thing that they've started to do recently.
Speaker 2: In a sense, I guess it's a good sign because
Speaker 2: it shows that maybe their jets and other aircraft are
Speaker 2: in a poor state of repair, or that they're struggling
Speaker 2: to keep enough of them airborne. Initially, I wondered if
Speaker 2: they were using the paramotors because their runways have been damaged,
Speaker 2: but there doesn't seem to be the case. They've been
Speaker 2: striking just as much as they ever did, which is unfortunate.
Speaker 2: Satellite images or reports of my source on the ground
Speaker 2: suggests that they're able to continue carrying out bombing rates
Speaker 2: at a pretty similar rate from when they did before.
Speaker 2: Despite this, the National Unity Government, which is kind of
Speaker 2: the shadow government composed mostly of people who are elected
Speaker 2: and then deposed by the coup in twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: and the PDF who in theory are commanded by the
Speaker 2: National Unity Government, called a two week ceasefire right after
Speaker 2: the earthquake to allow for like a humanitarian pause. The
Speaker 2: Three Brotherhood Alliance, which is an alliance of the three
Speaker 2: month powerful ethnic resistance organizations in Myanmar, also called what
Speaker 2: they called a humanitarian pause for a month. In both
Speaker 2: cases they said they wouldn't undertake offensive operations, but they
Speaker 2: would defend themselves right because I think they had a
Speaker 2: CeNSE that the Hunter wasn't going to stop attacking them.
Speaker 2: The Hunter did declare its own ceasfire on April third,
Speaker 2: and the Kachin In Dependence Army, which is another ethnic
Speaker 2: residence organization, followed shortly thereafter. Notably, that ceasefire from the
Speaker 2: Hunter came the day after its troops fire on a
Speaker 2: Chinese Red Cross convoy, which is not a great look
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 3: No, never love to see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't love to see people firing on the
Speaker 2: Red Cross. This is especially bad for the Hunter because
Speaker 2: China has been growing closer and closer to the Hunter
Speaker 2: and supporting it. China's had this weird back and forth
Speaker 2: relationship with the Revolution. At times it supported the revolution,
Speaker 2: it seems like just supporting the me and my National
Speaker 2: Democratic Alliance Army, which is a group that broke off
Speaker 2: the Communist Party of Burma in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: That yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also the United War State Army, which isn't
Speaker 2: part of the revolution, which is that which has the
Speaker 2: strongest relationship with the PSC, and they're just chilling. They
Speaker 2: haven't really entered the conflict.
Speaker 3: It's called straight chillin. By the way, Jane, straight chillin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. That's how you say it. I
Speaker 2: marked myself out yet again, straight chillin the United War
Speaker 2: State Army, Thank you, Charrison. Actually it spoke to some
Speaker 2: Cardridge from the Burmese Communist Party. The Communist Party of
Speaker 2: Burma re entered after twenty twenty one, and like they're
Speaker 2: not focusing on like proselytizing the Maoist gospel to people.
Speaker 2: They're focusing on like fighting the hunter and like developing alliances.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of it's interesting to see where that
Speaker 2: will go. Given Marcus Leninism MAUS and is definitely not
Speaker 2: the majority ideology the revolution. Most people are committed to
Speaker 2: some form of federal democracy, which when you speak to
Speaker 2: different fighters, varies from like we want what you guys
Speaker 2: have in the US to something more akin to the
Speaker 2: democratic con federalism that people might be familiar with in
Speaker 2: ra Java. China is competing with Russia in me and
Speaker 2: mar So both of them are interested in supporting the
Speaker 2: Hunter right like, and obviously both their ideologies are far
Speaker 2: from the liberatory. They're interested in propping up a totalitarian state.
Speaker 2: So we have seen both Russia and China send support
Speaker 2: to the Hunter, send like rescue teams after the earthquake. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the US offered two million dollars, which I was kind
Speaker 2: of surprisingly offered.
Speaker 3: Any think that is low key surprising considering Yeah, Mark Rubio.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, well I think Rubio is more of a
Speaker 2: like slightly Rubio is a neocon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess like it makes sense Mark Rubio like
Speaker 3: five years ago. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Like post
Speaker 3: like you said, being gutted, They're like, oh, you're still
Speaker 3: doing that kind of stuff. Huh. Yeah, there's like a
Speaker 3: weird like mix of things because because yes, like a
Speaker 3: traditional neo con style Rubio. This this tracks but all
Speaker 3: of the movements that the Trump administration has been doing
Speaker 3: more recently. This seems like it seems like some kind
Speaker 3: of dei shenanigans if you ask.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually they added another seven million later nine million
Speaker 2: which is, yeah, it's not a lot of money compared
Speaker 2: to what we would normally expect.
Speaker 3: And at the same.
Speaker 2: Time they did it, three USAID workers, at least three,
Speaker 2: I should say three that I'm aware of, were laid off,
Speaker 2: like literally they received emails telling them that they no
Speaker 2: longer had a job while they were on the ground
Speaker 2: assisting earthquake survivors.
Speaker 3: Department of Government Efficiency strikes again.
Speaker 2: Highly efficient, will send you the money and then also
Speaker 2: put out our own people who I guess are supervising
Speaker 2: how the money has spent or would be. It definitely
Speaker 2: shows though, like a strategic shift in the region China
Speaker 2: and Russia. China obviously is interested in Memma because of
Speaker 2: its rare earth metals, because of jade China has originally
Speaker 2: had a lot of jade trade with mean Ma, and
Speaker 2: then because it controls a large amount of seafront right,
Speaker 2: which which China wouldn't want to fall into like way
Speaker 2: it would see as like someone with adversarial interests. Russia
Speaker 2: is still interested in just kind of projecting itself as
Speaker 2: a global power, even as it continues to shrink of
Speaker 2: every day in terms of its global ability to project power.
Speaker 2: But there definitely are both Chinese and Russian assistance helping
Speaker 2: the Miamma Hunter. Now, meanwhile, the US doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: give a shit what happens here now like this is
Speaker 2: kind of not that it by the administration was doing
Speaker 2: very much either, but at least we had USAID and
Speaker 2: USIP was very invested in MEMR and actually did a
Speaker 2: really good job of kind of almost like being the
Speaker 2: Foreign Affairs not branch, but they explained the revolution to
Speaker 2: the world, like whenever a journalist wanted to understand the
Speaker 2: revolution in Memr, it was USIP they went to. Obviously,
Speaker 2: all the contents that have a USIP have now been doged,
Speaker 2: which is a shame. So despite the ceasefire, right I said,
Speaker 2: they fired on these Chinese troops, the Hunter has in
Speaker 2: fact not stop bombing earthquake struck areas since the earthquake
Speaker 2: madele APDF who I'm in contact with the other revolutionary
Speaker 2: forces in the area that was most affected by the
Speaker 2: earthquake on April seventh, told me that they were aware
Speaker 2: of ten strikes in their area of operations since the earthquake.
Speaker 2: Three months old baby and a ten year old child
Speaker 2: were killed in an air raid on Niicar village and
Speaker 2: Papun township that was in Corrent State. On April tenth,
Speaker 2: they bombed a school and something that the and likes
Speaker 2: to do a lot that They dropped two five hundred
Speaker 2: pound bombs on a food court. They then circled back
Speaker 2: and dropped another bomb on the people responding to and
Speaker 2: giving aid to the people they'd initially bombed in the
Speaker 2: food court by food court here, Just to clarify, I'm
Speaker 2: not talking about like at the shopping mall. I'm talking
Speaker 2: about like a market where people can buy like prepared food. Right.
Speaker 2: They've killed the best I can collate from various sources,
Speaker 2: at least seventy two people and injured about one hundred
Speaker 2: people in addition to thousands who died after the earthquake.
Speaker 2: There are also reports that hunter quote unquote recruiters here
Speaker 2: are engaging in forced conscription in the disaster zone. I
Speaker 2: read of at least one person who was on a
Speaker 2: search and rescue team, like they were a trained search
Speaker 2: and rescue volunteer, right, so they were moving rebel to
Speaker 2: rescue people, and they were forcibly conscripted while they were
Speaker 2: doing that. Obviously, that's had a chilling effect on people
Speaker 2: going out to help others. Right, what the Hunter is
Speaker 2: not doing is rescuing its citizens. The military is detested
Speaker 2: in most of me and mar even in the areas
Speaker 2: that it controls, and its failure to even try and
Speaker 2: track people rescued on the rubber won't help this. There
Speaker 2: was a video that went viral recently of Hunter troops
Speaker 2: literally a line of soldiers rescuing bricks. They've gone to
Speaker 2: a collapsed building and they're inspecting the bricks to see
Speaker 2: if the bricks a whole, and then passing them down
Speaker 2: the lines and stacking them up.
Speaker 3: Don't worry. The bricks are safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the bricks are safe. The people are not, which
Speaker 2: just like it was genuinely like infuriating to see it,
Speaker 2: and I can't imagine for people who have lost family
Speaker 2: members how that must feel. Even rescue workers, like I said,
Speaker 2: have been forcibly conscripted. Equality MEANMA has noted more than
Speaker 2: one hundred cases of force conscriptions since the earthquake. So
Speaker 2: Meama has a conscription rule right, a law, so anyone
Speaker 2: men and now women between certain ages can be forcibly
Speaker 2: conscripted into the Hunter's army.
Speaker 3: So they're just finding people displaced from the earthquake and
Speaker 3: forcing now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's people who have been hiding in their homes
Speaker 2: right who now don't have homes to hide it, yeah,
Speaker 2: or people who came out in order to save their
Speaker 2: neighbors and now now they're forcing them to be to
Speaker 2: fight for them, just as as they did with cyclone Nagis.
Speaker 2: They've also delayed and in cases blocked AID. A team
Speaker 2: came from France to assist in a search and rescue.
Speaker 2: They spent twenty four hours sitting in an airport waiting
Speaker 2: for their visa to be approved, and then they spent
Speaker 2: one day working in search and rescue efforts before being
Speaker 2: told that search and rescue efforts had now finished and
Speaker 2: they were to go home. So they traveled around the
Speaker 2: entire world and didn't save a single life abundance it's great,
Speaker 2: presumably because the hunter wanted to plicate China. A Taiwanese
Speaker 2: team was straight up refused entry into Meenmar. Taiwan had
Speaker 2: a search and rescue team that they were willing to
Speaker 2: say zend who could have saved yourble lives, and that
Speaker 2: they weren't allowed to enter. All tourist visas have been suspended,
Speaker 2: so it's not like the Hunter is like overwhelmed with
Speaker 2: visa applications, but they're not allowing certain rescue teams to
Speaker 2: enter from countries. I guess they're not politically aligned with
Speaker 2: This kind of horrific indifference to human suffering has characterized
Speaker 2: a toutmudor for decades, and it's really unlikely to change.
Speaker 2: As it grows even more desperate and it loses even
Speaker 2: more territory, it's just going to clamp down harder and
Speaker 2: harder on its people. The one in the liberated areas.
Speaker 2: Aid is being mobilized using the mutual aid structures which
Speaker 2: you've existed for decades. In the absence of the state,
Speaker 2: in significant and growing parts of ME and MA, people
Speaker 2: are relying on each other instead of the government for aid,
Speaker 2: and that has its benefits, right, Like people have been
Speaker 2: out rescuing people from the rebel, but they're also desperately
Speaker 2: short of resources. I spoke to mandal APDF rescue team
Speaker 2: at the first week of April and they literally sent
Speaker 2: me a They have a notebook of a list of
Speaker 2: like we've run out of gorz, we've run out of
Speaker 2: towny ks, we've run out of adhesive dressings, we've run
Speaker 2: out of elastic bandages, right, they're like the little nuts
Speaker 2: and bolts of saving people's lives they run out of.
Speaker 2: We did a fund raising campaign for them through behind
Speaker 2: the Bus. We raised nearly two thousand dollars, which is great.
Speaker 2: So they're restocking their supplies, which is fantastic, But that's
Speaker 2: just one township. All across the country, people are struggling
Speaker 2: for the basic supplies that they need to save lives.
Speaker 2: The military has also blocked aid and medicine from entering
Speaker 2: their areas. Right, so the military controls a lot of
Speaker 2: roadblocks and it uses its control of those roadblocks to
Speaker 2: stop AIDA medicine. Often it's kind of hoarding it in
Speaker 2: the capital city, which is Napidor. People not familiar and
Speaker 2: Napidor is a city that they've couldn't have built for
Speaker 2: itself to govern from, I mean seat of kings. Also
Speaker 2: in Napidor right now is the US AID agency Samaritans Purse.
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with Samaritans perse keratin?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. It sounds vaguely familiar, but all
Speaker 3: these humanitarian organizations all have like the same like four
Speaker 3: words that they shuffle around in different ways.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yeah, Samaritans perse perhaps the most famous
Speaker 2: for being run by Franklin Graham.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, the idea what this is and who this is?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, having all their volunteers sign like a statement
Speaker 2: of faith, and being extremely homophobic. For some reason, Samaritans
Speaker 2: Persons establishing a field hospital in Napi door right now.
Speaker 3: They're going to force people to convert to Evangelical Christianity
Speaker 3: before they give services like they do in some.
Speaker 2: Cases, yeah, or just leave them like they did in
Speaker 2: Afghanistan if they're not Christian. I cannot work out for
Speaker 2: the life of me what the fuck they're doing, because
Speaker 2: like the Hunter has made a consistent policy of bombing
Speaker 2: Christians in me Emma. Right in Karen and Karini State,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of Christian people. On Christmas Day,
Speaker 2: the Hunter bombed people going to services because it knew
Speaker 2: that Christians would be going to services at churches. Right
Speaker 2: the Kareni Christians this year I saw celebrated Christmas in
Speaker 2: caves because they were so afraid of being bombed. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: I have no idea what logical leap you have to make?
Speaker 2: Are yeah, it's and they're like they're not even at
Speaker 2: the Insagang. The only people. The only international aida aware
Speaker 2: of that was able to make it to Sagang was
Speaker 2: a Malaysian team who were able to save some lives. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: there were really strong rains this week and that made
Speaker 2: all the collapse structures even more unstable. And the Malaysian
Speaker 2: team I saw have now returned home. We're going to
Speaker 2: take another ad break here and when we come back,
Speaker 2: we will talk about what you can do t help.
Speaker 2: All right, and we're back first, I want to, I
Speaker 2: guess have some good news. Despite everything. The military has
Speaker 2: still been taking massive losses. The all Burma students Democratic
Speaker 2: Front captured remaining hunter positions in Indoor. They're almost Democratic
Speaker 2: Front are a group that's been around since nineteen eighty eight, right,
Speaker 2: and they have armed up and re entered the revolution
Speaker 2: since twenty twenty one. One of the things that they
Speaker 2: captured on Monday was a underground Japanese field hospital from
Speaker 2: World War II, which I guess had been like entrench position.
Speaker 2: I guess they're not covered technically by the ceasefire, but
Speaker 2: there was a unit under the National Uniti government's command
Speaker 2: that operated with them, and from what I understand, this
Speaker 2: began as a defensive action. They'd surrounded the Hunter. I
Speaker 2: think it's called Japan Cave Hill. They'd surrounded them on
Speaker 2: Japan Cave Hill for a long time and then the Hunter,
Speaker 2: obviously seeing the earthquake and everything thereafter, decided that now
Speaker 2: was the time for them to break out of this circlement.
Speaker 2: They did not break out, They took a fat l
Speaker 2: and as a result, they've all been captured now. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: in chin Land, if people haven't listened to the episode,
Speaker 2: I did a couple of weeks ago with a Zad
Speaker 2: from the Anti Fashis Internationalists Front. I was just going
Speaker 2: back and listening to that to understand chin Land. But
Speaker 2: the AIF and a lot of their allied forces from
Speaker 2: a Chinland Defense Force and a chin Brotherhood had a
Speaker 2: significant victory in capturing the rest of the Hunter's positions
Speaker 2: in Flam last week. And I think it's very much
Speaker 2: like on the table that we will see the whole
Speaker 2: of chin Land liberated in the next few months or
Speaker 2: by the end of the year, which would be great
Speaker 2: to see. So people are wondering, like what they can
Speaker 2: do to help, right, And I think it's a very
Speaker 2: valid question because I saw today that the UN was
Speaker 2: meeting with the Hunter in NAPI door and I just
Speaker 2: have no faith that any money that goes to the
Speaker 2: Hunter is going to get to people who need it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: You cannot, like they want them to die that I
Speaker 2: don't know, they're like evil why yeah, yeah, they are
Speaker 2: literally genocide or they have done a genocide like that
Speaker 2: has been prosecuted international Criminal court. Like, I have no
Speaker 2: understanding why people continue to like international organizations continue to
Speaker 2: funnel money to them other than because like they have
Speaker 2: a status quo bias. I guess, so don't be doing that.
Speaker 2: But there are groups who are making a really big difference.
Speaker 2: And one of them that I wanted to highlight, and
Speaker 2: Robert and I were very familiar with their work from
Speaker 2: the last time that we were over reporting is Community
Speaker 2: Partists International. CPI are really cool because they work by
Speaker 2: empowering members of the local community to be health volunteers,
Speaker 2: as opposed to like dropping in some like doctors from America,
Speaker 2: right or doctors from the United Kingdom or whatever, and
Speaker 2: then when those people leave, they take their skills with them.
Speaker 2: CPI the thing is to educate folks within the community
Speaker 2: so that they can take care of one another. And
Speaker 2: I sor that CPI has a matching donations thing right now,
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool. So like if you donate, someone
Speaker 2: else will match your donation and that will double the
Speaker 2: amount that you receive otherwise. I will provide a list
Speaker 2: of mutual aid funds that have been shared with me.
Speaker 2: Most of them are like GoFundMe or things like that.
Speaker 2: I'll put it all in the show description. They've all
Speaker 2: been vetted, and like I know, people are sometimes relucted
Speaker 2: to give to go fundmes and they'd rather give to
Speaker 2: like a five oh one C three or an organization
Speaker 2: which has a little bit more I guess, like online presence.
Speaker 2: In this case, you have to understand that like a
Speaker 2: lot of orgs just aren't operating in the liberated areas.
Speaker 2: The two that I'm aware of CPI and Free Burma
Speaker 2: Ranges right I spoke to Dave from Free Burma Ranges.
Speaker 2: They're trying to get to as many people as it
Speaker 2: can as well. That would be another great place to donate.
Speaker 2: And I would include a list of vetted gofundmes if
Speaker 2: you want to have a look through those and see
Speaker 2: if any of them kind of speaks to you more,
Speaker 2: you can do that too. What this will mean for
Speaker 2: the future of Memma. We don't know yet, right, We
Speaker 2: have really no sense of how many people have died,
Speaker 2: of what it's done to the Hunter's ability to control
Speaker 2: those areas. But until the Revolution has a way to
Speaker 2: stop planes bombing people, we will continue to see the
Speaker 2: same dynamic, right of the Hunter losing terrain on the ground,
Speaker 2: pulling back its soldiers and then bombing civilians in the
Speaker 2: areas that it's lost. That is its game plan. It's
Speaker 2: continuing to get more drones from China. It's getting aircraft,
Speaker 2: munitions and jet fuel from China. Until there is an
Speaker 2: embargo on jet fuel and munitions to the Hunter, then
Speaker 2: we will see this same pattern continue, Right, they lose terrain,
Speaker 2: they bomb a school, they lose terrain, they bomb a hospital.
Speaker 2: It's the same stuff that Israel's doing, and they've of
Speaker 2: course previously been armed by Israel as well. But we
Speaker 2: don't see as much solidarity for the people at Burma.
Speaker 2: If you want to stay in touch with what's happening
Speaker 2: on the ground, I think the Irawiti I Double r
Speaker 2: a Wa DDY does a really good job of doing
Speaker 2: daily summaries right now, so I would suggest checking out
Speaker 2: what's happening there, and of course we'll keep you updated
Speaker 2: on developments in the Spring Revolution as they come.
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