WEBVTT - Myanmar: Printing the Revolution, Part Two 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:07.320 Hey, everybody, I'm Robert Evans and this is me and 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:12.879 mar printing The Revolution Part two. Since the dawn of firearms, 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.160 regular people all over the world have had the same 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.079 basic idea, maybe if I made myself a gun, the 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.400 government wouldn't be able to be such a dick to me. Historically, 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.160 this has had little impact on the willingness of governments 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.920 to be dicks to people. In the beginning, all gun 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.080 manufacturing was done by individual artisans, and thus making a 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.280 gun in your home was really no different from making 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:33.920 it in a shop, as long as you had the 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.640 proper tools. Guns in this period weren't super useful on 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:39.720 their own and were best fired in a volley by 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.559 a shitload of dudes at once. Since individual firearms were 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.479 extremely inaccurate and cumbersome to use, the fact that some 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.159 poor blacksmith could make himself one wasn't much of a 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.560 threat to anybody in power. It did mean that battlefield 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.000 prowess came from large blocks of trained soldiers, not fuel 0:00:56.040 --> 0:01:00.280 lords on horseback rallying untrained peasants. This change in technology 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:03.160 led to a change in warfare and helped to change society. 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.600 As firearms evolved and became these central weapons of battle. 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.679 They required more intense tooling and more expensive manufacturing capacity. 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.880 Nations and peoples without the know how our infrastructure were 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.600 at a tremendous disadvantage. As soon as this situation came 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.120 into being, these unfortunate communities set to work finding ways 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:25.080 to gain the advantages of firearms without the manufacturing capacity 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:30.199 their foes enjoyed. Indigenous cannons and regions resisting imperialism often 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.120 consisted of composite materials less sturdy than bronze or iron. 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.760 In the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, Indigenous Americans in 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.920 South America used wooden cannons to fight against Spanish and 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.959 Portuguese conquerors. The Vietnamese used wooden cannons to resist the 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.160 French during the Cochin China Campaign of eighteen sixty two. 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.360 American Indians used wooden artillery to blast settler fortifications in 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.400 the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds. In the months that 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:57.680 led up to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.600 men who fought to create the United States busy themselves 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.400 building rifles and cannons in their homes and communities to 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:07.280 resist the English. This trend has never really stopped in warfare. 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.320 The day before we recorded this, James, my partner in 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.960 this series, sent me a screen grab from a live 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.040 stream of someone in Ukraine printing pieces for AK forty 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.640 sevens on a three D printer. Firearms manufactured outside the 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.240 arms industry have played a role in every conflict of 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.440 the modern era, but as you probably guessed, they have 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.680 had the greatest influence in the little wars of colonialism. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.160 European nations rarely allowed any sort of firearms ownership in 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.720 their colonies except the individuals and ethnic groups that adopted 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:41.000 its local enforces. Since most of these places had never 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.240 developed their own industrial base from arms industry, colonial rebellions 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.680 often relied on homemade weapons in their early stages, along 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:53.120 with modern firearms pilfered by deserting local soldiers. Where domestic 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:57.280 productive capacity existed, European colonizing nations went out of their 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.000 way to relocate it, along with the profit it generation, 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.640 to the metropol All were reflected on this in his 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:08.560 novel Burmese Days, saying in the eighteenth century, the Indians 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:10.840 cast guns that are at any rate up to the 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.760 European standard. Now, after we've been in India one hundred 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.120 and fifty years. You can't make so much as a 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:22.480 brass cartridge case in the whole continent. Meanwhile, among the colonizers, 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.200 being armed became almost a synonym for being a man. 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.560 This was particularly true for the colonial police forces and militaries, 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.360 but it was also true domestically. Most people are broadly 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.680 familiar with the u S. Second Amendment the robust gun 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.800 culture that it's spawned, but during the heighther colonialism, English 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.600 citizens are also free to arm themselves. In nineteen hundred, 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:49.400 Prime Minister Robert Gascoigne, Cecil Marquis of Salisbury, gave a 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.840 speech in which he claimed he would laud the day 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.680 when there was a rifle in every cottage. In England, 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.320 firearms were utterly and restricted at this point. The first 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.760 chaine to this came in nineteen oh three with the 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.160 first law that required a permit to carry a handgun 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:10.880 and restricted children from buying guns. Still, firearms were widely 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.840 available until a red panic gripped the nation in nineteen 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:19.240 nineteen following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Across the ocean 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:23.320 in Spain, where firearms ownership was less strictly restricted, where 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:25.600 orwell himself would learn what it was to fire a 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.200 rifle at someone who shot back. Armed unions and working 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.960 people served as the only bullwark to a military coup. 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.080 In nineteen thirty six, in Madrid, one officer opened his 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.320 armory to the union militias, but another refused to hand 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.840 over for the bolts for the guns they had been issued. 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.720 In Barcelona, where the anarchist left had a long tradition 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.360 of armed political violence, the coup was repelled by workers 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:53.560 with guns, and a general leading troops there was imprisoned 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.080 and executed. The same pattern played out all across the 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:01.000 country in July nineteen thirty six, when the military rose 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.520 up to topple the elected government. In the cities where 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.359 the government opened the armories to the people, the coup 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.080 was repelled. In the cities where the government did not, 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.920 the coup succeeded. Reflecting on this in nineteen forty one, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.280 or w Wait, the totalitarian state can do great things, 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.640 but there is one thing they cannot do. They cannot 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.440 give the factory work or a rifle and tell him 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.760 to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.320 That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.760 working class flat is a symbol of democracy. It's a 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:35.640 job to see that it stays there. 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.240 Despite Orwell's please. The years that followed the Second World 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.640 War led to greater restrictions of the ability of the 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.039 public to arm itself. By the nineteen fifties, carrying any 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.599 weapon for self defense was illegal. Semi automatic center fire 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.440 arms were banned in nineteen eighty eight, and pistols were 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.600 banned in nineteen ninety six after a mass shooting killed 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.839 sixteen children in Dunblane. This was all utterly infuriating to 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:00.400 a man named Philip A. 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:01.040 Looty. 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.159 Loody, born in nineteen sixty five grew up on a 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:08.360 farm in West Yorkshire, England. We don't have a tremendous 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.640 amount of detail about his upbringing, but by the time 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:13.799 he was in his early thirties he'd become a committed 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.520 crusader for an unrestricted right to bear arms. A skilled 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.560 machinist with a well equipped shop, Loody began the long 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.479 process of learning how to craft homemade firearms. Soon he 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.680 was building semi and fully automatic weapons. Now these were 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:32.839 not military grade firearms. The barrels were unrifled, which made 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.400 them terribly inaccurate, but every piece could be crafted from 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:40.640 widely available things like sheet metal, washers and screws. The 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:42.880 person assembling a looty gun would need to be a 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.839 skilled craftsman, but they would not need access to welding rigs, forges, 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:51.600 or rather expensive industrial equipment. Loody published a book Expedient 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.839 Homemade Firearms, The nine millimeters Submachine Gun in nineteen ninety 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.640 eight through Paladin Press. In the late nineteen nineties, Paladin 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:01.440 was one one of the places you could go to 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.919 mail order fringe political literature and guides for stuff like 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.839 trapping human beings or disabling the drive system of an 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.520 Abrams tank in the United States. Nothing about Loudy's book 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.040 was or is illegal, but Phil didn't live in the 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.440 United States. He was arrested several times, starting in the 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.360 late nineteen nineties when a pair of illegal home built 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.240 guns were found on his property. Ludy spent the rest 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.200 of his life, which ended in twenty eleven, operating a 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.720 website where he raged against gun control. His main argument 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:34.680 was that England was headed for totalitarianism, and like Orwell, 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.960 he believed only public ownership of arms could prevent this. 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.000 Unlike Orwell, Ludy was firmly on the right wing. He 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.720 traced society's problems to quote a combination of political correctness 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:50.160 and anti freedom of speech laws legislation governing how we 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.080 speak about such subjects as religion or a person's race 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.480 being just two examples. Words and phrases that have been 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.000 used for centuries without malice are now insipid in people's mouths, 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.600 said to cause a fence by those very same speech police, who, 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.880 on the other hand, turned a blind eye to the violence, 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.239 foul language, and sexual references blasted daily through our TV 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.920 sets of phenomenon that really does cause a fence to 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:16.080 many people. Luti never succeeded in sparking a renaissance and 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.640 civilian arms ownership in the UK, but his ideas were 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.640 adopted by organized criminal groups all around the world. In Brazil, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.080 looty guns can go for as much as twenty five 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.840 hundred dollars. From twenty eleven to twenty twelve, nearly half 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.839 of the submachine guns seized by police in Sao Paulo 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.240 were homemade. Most of these arms were certainly used as 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.480 tools by drug dealers or other gangsters, but some of 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.800 them were surely also the tools of citizens who simply 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.120 sought a way to defend themselves in a place with 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.840 no real rule of law. Looty guns have long been 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.400 popular among motorcycle gangs in Australia, and in October of 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.840 twenty nineteen, a fascist terrorist carried out the last of 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:59.920 that year's eight Chan shootings in Hulla, Germany with a lootygun. 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.440 His weapons, thankfully did not work well. As a general rule, 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.920 looty guns were never going to be of much use 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.400 to anyone besides organized criminals. They aren't great in a gunfight, 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.640 but you can use them to spray bullets into a 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.520 room or a vehicle at close range pretty well. The 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.000 year after Phil Loudy died twenty twelve, a fellow named 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.679 Cody Wilson decided to carry on his work. Cody felt 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.400 three D printing carried the possibility of eventually manufacturing arms 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:32.320 of a quality that might rival traditionally produced guns. He 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.920 started simple with a single shot three eighty handgun based 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.880 around the old Liberator pistol from World War II. The 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.200 Liberator had been a single shot forty five caliber handgun 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.680 meant to be dropped into Nazi occupied territories and used 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:50.240 by insurgents to stealthily kill single German soldiers and take 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.760 their guns. Cody Wilson described himself as a crypto anarchist, 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.199 and when his ideas began to draw attention, he dropped 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.040 out of law school to create Defense Distributed. This organization 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.000 was dedicated to the development and distribution of plans to 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.240 craft three D printed weapons. It used a platform called 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.480 deaf Cad to allow users to develop and share blueprints. 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.160 In twenty thirteen, the first CAD gun file became available 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.480 online to everyone. It was downloaded more than one hundred 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.360 thousand times in two days. I'd like to quote now 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.959 from an article on the website three D Natives. This 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.840 prompted the US government to demand that Defense Distributed remove 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.040 the file from their site. What followed is a legal 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.760 battle between Cody Wilson and the US government, consisting of 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.840 back and forth lawsuits. It lasted five years until in 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:39.000 twenty eighteen, the Trump administration legalized three D printed guns. 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.520 The same year, Wilson was charged with sexual assault of 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.520 an underage girl and had to step down from Defense Distributed. Nonetheless, 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.960 the organization did not cease to exist without Cody. Today 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.280 for a yearly fee of fifty dollars. Users of the 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.400 DEFCAD website can access the files containing different designs of 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:56.959 three D printed guns. And I should note here that 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.960 it's probably more accurate to say the Trump administration legalized 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.160 sharing the plans and printing the files and whatnot of 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.240 three D printed guns, not legalized three D printed guns. 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.240 Home made firearms have been federally legal in the United 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.800 States since forever. The fighting in the courts over all 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.439 this has continued ever since, and in twenty nineteen, a 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.480 federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked DEAFCAD. This sparked the 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.360 creation of a new group, de Terence Dispensed, which was 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.520 even less centralized. The basic idea was that this would 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.600 make them harder to take down via lawsuits or police action. 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.079 Not stated was that this might also protect their reputation 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.920 from a Cody Wilson's situation. The debate over the legality 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.560 of three D printed firearm plans continues on to the 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.440 present day, but the development of these arms has continued 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.560 at an ever faster pace. The best modern three D 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.520 printed arms can even rival conventional guns. It's worth emphasizing 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.040 that these are not purely plastic tools. The Liberator pistol 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.560 used a metal nail, and the better three D arms 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.680 have metal barrels rifled using other craft methods that require 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.440 some knowhow, but arguably less than it took to manufacture 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.680 a looty gun. Three D printed arms have been confiscated 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.320 by police around the world, but in recent months they've 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.960 begun to crop up somewhere new in the arms of 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.720 revolutionaries fighting against a military coup. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.199 Me and mah Berman before that said relatively strict gun 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.439 control laws for decades. When George Orwell was a policeman 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.199 there in the nineteen twenties, he may have carried a gun, 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.679 but the people he was policing did not. In the 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:41.280 nineteen thirties, the British leaders allowed tat organizations similar to 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.480 militias to form and drill, but they weren't allowed to 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:50.000 carry guns. Gun licenses under the dictatorship were issued primarily 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.520 to party members, but most were revoked after nineteen eighty 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.640 eight failed Pro democracy uprising. The only civilians who were 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.840 permitted to own arms through the Chin, the nation's poorest 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.960 ethnic group, who allo on guns to hunt for food. 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.440 In many cases, these guns were flintlocks that would not 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:09.000 have looked that out of place on the battle Fill 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:14.320 two centuries before. In practice, though, things are very different. 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.520 The current conflict is best seen as a flare up 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.800 in violence, so it has been ongoing since Britain left 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.920 the country in nineteen forty seven. The Tatmador has consistently 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.440 used violence against marginalized ethnic groups in the country and 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.760 they have consistently taken up arms in response. But unlike 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.840 civil wars in the Middle East, wealthy nations in the 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.240 West have not been flooding me and Mihle with weapons 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.160 for decades, and the various EAOs or ethnic armed organizations 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.760 have had to turn to much more unorthodox roots to 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.920 arm and equip themselves against the government. To get a 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:48.720 better idea of what things are like on the ground, 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.880 we spoke to Pierre. He's French, but he's a serial 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.240 volunteer with national liberation struggles around the world and fought 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.559 with the Korrenn people in the early two thousands. 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:04.320 Yes, so the ammunition is a constant problem. 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:12.280 The shortage is absolutely permanent, and yes, there is two 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:17.720 sources for the for the for the weapons, there is 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:22.640 the black market, and the prices, especially of ammunition, are prohibitive. 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:27.400 This is why I would like to have my notebook 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.200 here with me, because I think I wrote down the 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:35.080 conversation I had with some leaders of the kind at 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.040 the time, asking them why we didn't do more persons. 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:44.160 But we just can't afford it, you know, we just 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.040 can't afford it. Like strictly, we we don't well, we 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:51.280 don't have enough ammunition to do any kind of of 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.760 operation we need to. So all the operations we did 0:14:55.800 --> 0:15:00.480 were always focused on if we could capture some ammunition, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.560 if we could get you like weapons, but especially ammunition. 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.120 Yeah, so there is you know that that's the second 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:14.520 source of of course, of of weapons. 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:19.920 Uh, let's say source is the it is the captures 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:26.240 of course, then the black markets. The black markets used 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.360 to be huge in Cambodia. I don't know, it's the 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.120 situation now. That was in the nineties. It was it 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.440 was a bit of the Albania of some Systizia at 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:37.640 this time, right. 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:44.520 And so there is also the other ethnic groups that 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:52.040 receive sometimes say a lot of. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:57.640 Of of arms and ammunition from sponsors, like some of them, 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.160 like the Western term is our sponsors by chin that 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.480 sort of like the supply of nation. It's pretty good 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:11.560 of webons. I think it's even cartolony and stuff. Then 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:17.720 there is also groups that also produced locally quite good. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:23.520 They are on arms, light arms. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:28.760 Usually, so yeah, these are the different sources of what 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:32.520 comes the OK in the time I was there. 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:34.680 In the early weeks of the protests. Once it I 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.560 claimed clear that non violent demonstrators were going to be 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:42.600 met with state violence, protests began to fashion weapons. First, 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.040 they thought soldiers with assault rifles, using catapults and bows 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:50.240 and arrows. It was incredibly brave, but it wasn't very effective. 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.480 By the twenty eighth of March, protesters have taken a 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.400 step fo A group calling itself the Klay Civil Army 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:03.120 set up barricades. I defended them using pressurized air rifles 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.160 that fired marbles and bicycle wheel bearings. The rifles all 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:11.040 used the same design and the same components. They were 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.800 based on a video someone found on YouTube, but they 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:18.639 weren't lethal. They helped protesters defend their space, albeit at 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.360 great cost. In that first clash, four protesters and four 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.879 soldiers were killed. The protesters in Calais were able to 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.879 hold out a few days using old hunting rifles and 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.080 air guns. The ambush military patrols and they took four 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:36.600 police hostage. Then they exchanged them for nine incarcerated protesters. 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.080 But in early April, the Tapmador returned to the protest 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.280 camp in Calay with rocket propelled grenades and machine guns 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.919 and killed eleven people. We must fight back against them. 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.400 If not, our generation will face a worse situation than us. 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.440 They have no laws, a neighborhood villager who battled the 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.880 regime's forces told The Irrawaddy, a local paper. The air 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.600 guns spread around the cuntry trey quickly to avoid surveillance. 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.600 Protesters talked about cooking up berryani on telegram channels, and 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.080 what they meant was desperately scouring the Internet for a 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.520 way to fight back and finding a way to make 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.399 an air rifle out of a buttane canister, a pipe 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:19.439 and a cigarette lighter, combined with fireworks and smoke bombs 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.560 made of potassium nitrate. The air rifle gave protests just 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:28.240 enough cupboard to escape police charges, but they also gave 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.480 the hunter an excuse to further escalate the violence. 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.080 Attitudes are hardening among the protesters too. In Mandalay, they 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.600 took air rifles to the barricades on Saturday, hardly a 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:42.680 match for the weapons of war they face, but now 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.040 they know this is a fight to the death and 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:51.119 more destruction. After a fire raged in pg Dagon township overnight, 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.040 people living there but kept away by security forces returned 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.560 to find sixty homes burned to the ground. Now all 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.080 they can do is picked through the ashes, trying to 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.800 save anything from the military's policy have scorched a. 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.879 Even the top Madaw makes its own weapons, a highly 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.719 unusual move for a relatively small nation. Top Mada troops 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.119 and police can be seen with a bewildering array of 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.520 indigenously produced copies of M sixteen's ouzies and even five 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.879 to five six Galil pattern AK style rifles, as well 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.920 as M three light machine guns, which are slightly updated 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.520 copies of the MG forty two used by the Nazis 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.840 in World War Two. After the failed eight eight eight 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.760 eight uprisings in nineteen eighty eight, the military offered concessions 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.200 to China in return for more advanced weapons. They got them, 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.240 but it didn't stop China from also supplying ethnic armed organizations. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.760 EAOs don't have access to the same munitions factories that 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.199 the government does, but there is a long tradition of 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.919 homemade weapons in Myanmar. In more remote parts of the country, 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.280 home made air rifles and shotguns seem to have been 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.600 relatively commonplace before the start of the conflict, and they 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.840 were mostly used for hunting. The country is also covered 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.600 with land mines, which the EAOs used a great effect 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.800 against the topmat Aw. We spoke to Pierre, a former 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.119 combatant with the KRIN who no longer lives in me 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.280 and Maar. His experience is not that recent, but it 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.000 helps us to understand the way this conflict has been 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:26.119 fought for decades. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.479 What we used to to produce a lot of land mines, 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.399 that's that's produced at the base. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:40.080 Yes, with like you know, very systems. Is a little 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:40.359 bit of. 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:46.200 One type of plastic explosive, a couple of BOMBOO for 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:47.000 contactors and. 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:49.800 Battery. That's it. 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.480 Pellet guns are not good for combat, and EAOs mostly 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:57.640 relied on weapons imported from Thailand, India or China. Overwhelmingly 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.880 these were ak or In sixteen pattern rifles. 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:06.480 Yeah, mostly in my in the units have been there 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:11.280 is probably a majority of platforms. 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:11.200 In this time. 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:16.760 Yes, yeah, definitely, I mean it's more reliable and you know, 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:23.760 simple to part. It's very adapted to the to the to. 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.960 The type of guerrilla it was. It was quite correct, 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:27.480 I mean. 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.199 From the moment that I switched to a case at 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:37.200 least because at first I tried to use this Sucreparency 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:46.040 M sixteen and it was a nightmare of malfunctions. So 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.080 I switched back to a case. What I best know 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:59.040 used doesn't have this. I never really had any any 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:02.080 malfunction music case. Maybe one time it's a qulty lot 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:06.000 of communition, but that's it. Not really the rightful inlude. 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.879 The fight, Pierre says, has never been restricted to the 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:11.880 battlefield for the top of the door. Violence against civilians 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:16.160 is part of their four cuts doctrine that cuts off funding, food, intelligence, 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:19.439 and recruits for the EAOs. Now they are moving that 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:21.520 same outlook to the cities. 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:23.520 Like literally. 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:31.159 Literally a bye by absolutely no rows of wall of hers. 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:34.080 I mean, like one of. 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:36.280 The first things that I saw when we went going 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:43.280 patrolling in the in the Karen villages, huh around the 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:49.840 houzone of operation, is that there was absolutely no girl 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:55.240 between the edge of eleven to the age of seventeen. 0:22:55.320 --> 0:23:01.360 I was, like, I asked you know, my my commander 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.679 about it, and he says, yeah, like obviously if they 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:06.760 if they stay us, they will be rapped by the 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:09.879 tapmado and the first patrol like the first time they 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:11.080 will will come. 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:11.320 You know. 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:13.320 So this this gives you a little bit of the 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:19.720 tone of what they are about. They constantly ransom civilians 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:26.520 when they don't model them, like you know, shell villages 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.520 for norrision or because there had been an operation of 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.920 the kind of a and they take revenge and who 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:34.960 they can take revenge. 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:38.560 And with the civilians. You know, this is this is 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:40.920 how they be. This is who they are basically. 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:44.000 The Topmadaw is a large army in many of the 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:47.960 conscripts are hardly high speed operator types, but that hasn't 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.880 stopped them from killing thousands of innocent civilians. 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:56.119 I mean they have as many army, different units with 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:04.640 different military value. Let's say, uh, you know, many times 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:11.960 the units that they stuck on hilltop in the middle 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:18.600 of rebel zone are not like the most combative let's say, 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:25.280 but sometimes you will get surprised resistance. But yeah, except 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:26.480 for that, when. 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:27.800 They do. 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:33.439