Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans, and this is part four of me
Speaker 1: and mar printing the revolution.
Speaker 2: And then once we got there, we couldn't rest, you know,
Speaker 2: rain sun whatever. Women as well, we were all like
Speaker 2: try it when they came when we were leaving, they
Speaker 2: were all like very fair skinned, beautiful. And then we
Speaker 2: went in and then everyone got tanned. In the jungle.
Speaker 2: We're training all the time, you know, people in training camp.
Speaker 3: We were driven apart.
Speaker 2: And the reason that we were all doing this is
Speaker 2: because of minimal nice Coup as students and how much
Speaker 2: he has terrorized the public and the people. And that's
Speaker 2: why we were We have this morale and the ability
Speaker 2: to get through the training and be able to wield weapons.
Speaker 4: Zora and his friends went into the jungles students, programmers
Speaker 4: and kids. Now they're fighters. They would tech savvy young
Speaker 4: peop what he says. They grew up online and that
Speaker 4: generational divide which the Internet brought here came much later
Speaker 4: in Memah. It wasn't until twenty eleven that people really
Speaker 4: gained actisty internet and with it the new ideas and
Speaker 4: identities that they brought. Soul's generation are among the first
Speaker 4: to embrace global connectivity and now after having it taken away,
Speaker 4: they're refusing to give it up.
Speaker 2: The start of the coup in February, the military, well,
Speaker 2: gen Z was organizing online social media and all that,
Speaker 2: and they were kind of I think this is from
Speaker 2: my experience, but from kind of organizing around like gen
Speaker 2: Z is going to be different than the Eightya generation
Speaker 2: because we have the Internet, and also we know more
Speaker 2: about the world and can come communicate to the rest
Speaker 2: of the world. I think one thing that was big
Speaker 2: was that in two thousand and eight, it just took
Speaker 2: one video leaking out of the country for there to
Speaker 2: be big international repercussions.
Speaker 4: It's worth noting that when people in Burma talk about
Speaker 4: the Internet, they mean Facebook. Phones come with the Facebook
Speaker 4: app installed and it's sometimes exempt from data charges. For
Speaker 4: many people in Burma, using the internet means using Facebook.
Speaker 4: Zora and his friends are different from their parents in
Speaker 4: many ways, not at least in their perceptions of authority.
Speaker 4: This has led to a situation where the PDF people's
Speaker 4: defense force units are much less hierarchical than units of
Speaker 4: the Tamador.
Speaker 2: So when we make decisions in our group, there's no
Speaker 2: master and student, there's no teacher and student. But you
Speaker 2: know the way that it works, there are people who
Speaker 2: are good, they're older people who are more trained, and
Speaker 2: then there are new recruits, new people who just came in.
Speaker 2: So of course the people who are there for longer
Speaker 2: and know more about the situation have more voice. And
Speaker 2: when we discuss so especially people who were there when
Speaker 2: we founded the groups. There are only really eight people
Speaker 2: from when we group, so those eight people kind of
Speaker 2: discussed on the bigger strategy. You know, we don't really
Speaker 2: vote there. He says he wants to do it. He
Speaker 2: thinks it's good. We are there's the seven of us
Speaker 2: we think is good, or we support him, or someone
Speaker 2: says we don't really like that idea, then we don't
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 4: They try to achieve more gender quality as well. Those
Speaker 4: are explained that in his unit, the women are not
Speaker 4: always the frontline fighters.
Speaker 2: That's the place there's no discrimination. You know, women can
Speaker 2: women and men were training whoever could come. But like
Speaker 2: on the battlefield, people, we don't use women that much
Speaker 2: on the battlefield. That's one thing that we do know
Speaker 2: is that it's not it's not really discrimination. But if
Speaker 2: women are with us together, we have a confusion about
Speaker 2: whether we need to protect them or we're just fighting
Speaker 2: with them, or they're fighting in front of us, and
Speaker 2: that there's one thing that is very different is that
Speaker 2: in terms of mentality, we can't. We never take the
Speaker 2: women out really far into very dangerous fights. So often
Speaker 2: they're in the back as backup or to supplies or
Speaker 2: things like that. But as you know, the military government,
Speaker 2: the military terrorists are very very they're very unethical. They
Speaker 2: don't follow the rules, so you know they're going to
Speaker 2: shoot whoever they see. So even if they're hanging back
Speaker 2: and they're sending medical supplies, they can still get hit.
Speaker 4: For Zora in particular, there's a lot at stake. After
Speaker 4: almost an hour and a half of talking, I asked
Speaker 4: about his parents. I'd heard of retribution attacks against the
Speaker 4: families of fighters and wondered if he was worried about that.
Speaker 2: Mom and dad are both they support me fighting against
Speaker 2: the military. They're very happy. Dad really wants to do CDM,
Speaker 2: but he can't run away because the military has taken
Speaker 2: his mother and his sisters. He still has five sisters.
Speaker 2: They're all still in that military command their work, they're
Speaker 2: in the military school schools, so it's very hard for
Speaker 2: them to run away, right, So he really wants to
Speaker 2: leave the military, but he can't. So while so that
Speaker 2: the fact that I am there trying to fight against
Speaker 2: the military is very happy, but he tells me to
Speaker 2: be careful about my own life. They're supportive and they
Speaker 2: really want to come fight themselves, but they can't because
Speaker 2: of my sisters and my mother, so and seeing that
Speaker 2: I can do it, it's really wonderful for them. So
Speaker 2: his father, his other brother and other people three of
Speaker 2: them below him. They have all usually just lived together
Speaker 2: with his grandfather and stuff in the military tompounds or
Speaker 2: near the military. So he really wants to call all
Speaker 2: the people that are still there, but they can't leave.
Speaker 3: This is what civil ward does.
Speaker 4: It traps us in a situation where we can't make
Speaker 4: the right choice even when we know what it is,
Speaker 4: and in many situations it's pretty hard to discern right
Speaker 4: from wrong in the midst of so much violence. Zaul
Speaker 4: has been able to fight, but his dad is stuck
Speaker 4: fighting against people like his son in order to protect
Speaker 4: his daughters. Thousands of families across the country, divided in
Speaker 4: the same way by circumstance or ideology. The military is
Speaker 4: something of a separate society. It has its own schools
Speaker 4: and its own culture, but ethnic armed organizations have not
Speaker 4: been close to urban populations either, and so whole new
Speaker 4: identities being forged by Generation z while their families often
Speaker 4: struggle to abandon all certainties.
Speaker 1: As we record this, Zaw is still fighting, his girlfriend
Speaker 1: is still healing. Every few weeks a video of him
Speaker 1: and his friends pops up on Reddit or Facebook. They
Speaker 1: have optics on their rifles now and are taking long
Speaker 1: range shots at the Top Mada who rely on iron sights.
Speaker 1: They shoot and reload like soldiers, and they laugh like kids.
Speaker 1: The Top Madaw still controls the cities, but to move
Speaker 1: between them they have to travel in convoys at breakneck speeds,
Speaker 1: using ambushes, mines and knowledge of the terrain. EAOs and
Speaker 1: the PDF are able to deny the military access to
Speaker 1: large portions of the countryside. Without a serious change in
Speaker 1: the conflict, it might stay like this for years. A
Speaker 1: report published this month detailed the attacks in the Karini
Speaker 1: State by the Top Madaw on churches, residential homes camps
Speaker 1: for displaced people, which killed sixty one in the months
Speaker 1: since Zau left the city on Christmas Eve in Upruso's township.
Speaker 1: They killed at least forty civilians. Autopsy show some were
Speaker 1: gagged and burned alive. In recent months, the TOTMADA has
Speaker 1: increased its use of air strikes against targets that it
Speaker 1: deems legitimate. Ming An Hlang, the junta's leader, flew to
Speaker 1: Russia twice. In twenty twenty one, he was proclaimed an
Speaker 1: honorary professor of the Military University of the Russian Armed Forces.
Speaker 1: We are determined to continue our efforts to strengthen bilateral
Speaker 1: ties based on the mutual understanding, respect and trust that
Speaker 1: have been established between our two countries, Russian Defense Minister
Speaker 1: Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with the coup leader
Speaker 1: on June twenty second. We pay special attention to this
Speaker 1: meeting as we see Myanmar as a time tested strategic
Speaker 1: partner and a reliable ally in Southeast Asia and the
Speaker 1: Asia Pacific region. He went on. Min An Hlang was
Speaker 1: equally lavish with his praise, saying that he saw Russia
Speaker 1: as a friend forever. Myanmar relies heavily on Russi hind
Speaker 1: Mi I thirty five helicopter gunships transport helicopters MiG twenty
Speaker 1: nine and SU thirty fighter jets and Yak one thirty
Speaker 1: ground attack aircraft to carry out bombing raids and straight civilians.
Speaker 1: All of these weapons systems have been seen more recently
Speaker 1: in the fighting in Ukraine. One prominent Burmese Irish family,
Speaker 1: the kiah Toongs, has helped the junta avoid an international
Speaker 1: arms embargo using their global connections and a network of
Speaker 1: shady shadow companies. They have purchased helicopters under the pretense
Speaker 1: of using them for tourism and the oil and gas industry,
Speaker 1: and handed them over to the top MADA. They've also
Speaker 1: helped shuttle coastal radar to Myanmar, which the Top Medal
Speaker 1: used to track Rohinga refugees and provide cover for several
Speaker 1: aircraft purchases. To fund these armed purchases, the top Mada
Speaker 1: has found willing markets for luxury goods abroad. According to
Speaker 1: Justice for Me Andmar, since the coup in February twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, the United States has imported fifteen hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five metric tons of teak from Myanmar using intermediaries
Speaker 1: to avoid sayingtions. In the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen financial year,
Speaker 1: the last year for which data is available, the government
Speaker 1: received one hundred million US dollars in revenue from taxes
Speaker 1: and royalties applied to the timber trade. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: there were more shipments than twenty eighteen, offering the top
Speaker 1: Madal the chance to make enough money to continue purchasing
Speaker 1: weapons to use against their population. The conflict in Myanmar
Speaker 1: remains complicated. It's easy to reduce the alphabet soup of
Speaker 1: revel groups to EAOs and the PDF, but these groups
Speaker 1: and their motivations are diverse. Pierre explained to us that
Speaker 1: even within the Kouran there are deep divisions.
Speaker 5: Well, first, you have to know that historically the Kalian
Speaker 5: rebellion that started in nineteen forty eight nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 5: so quite a long time ago, was led by Christian
Speaker 5: by the Christian minority of the Italian people, because obviously
Speaker 5: that was the most western ed Ukt people at the time.
Speaker 5: And so this Elits kind of reproduced itself in the
Speaker 5: new without being the can new is the current National
Speaker 5: Union is democratic movement. But you know elits tend to
Speaker 5: reproduce themselves, and so most of the leadership, let's say,
Speaker 5: of the Karen National Union and the current National Liberation
Speaker 5: Army was christian like, and so the Burmese Junta, the
Speaker 5: Burmese military government decided to use this to create a
Speaker 5: wedge between between the Karen Christians and the Karran Buddhists
Speaker 5: and the center a monks to say agitate and tried
Speaker 5: to cause this split on religious grounds no uh. And
Speaker 5: they succeeded in parts and succeeded to separate a part
Speaker 5: of Karent Buddhists that created the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army
Speaker 5: d B, which then I like themselves of course to
Speaker 5: the to the junta and to to attack the to
Speaker 5: attack the Kinel and the Manorplow which of course they
Speaker 5: knew all the all the roads there and the defenses
Speaker 5: and where was the defense is situated, et cetera. And
Speaker 5: succeeded in destroying the capital of the Karen National Union
Speaker 5: in Manorplo in ninety five. So that was the situation
Speaker 5: pretty much when I arrived.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 5: Like there was not so much territory anymore held by
Speaker 5: the Karen. And more importantly is they lost a lot
Speaker 5: of income because a lot of their income come from
Speaker 5: tax at the border that they can control you know, So, yeah,
Speaker 5: that was the situation.
Speaker 1: Not every EAO has embraced the National Unity Government directly,
Speaker 1: after all, many of its members were enthusiastically running cover
Speaker 1: for the Rohinga genocide a few years ago. Many of
Speaker 1: the EAOs remain technically under a ceasefire with the Top
Speaker 1: Medal and the Top MADA knows that if it pushes
Speaker 1: too far into EEO territory, it risks provoking a full
Speaker 1: blown response. The eos, meanwhile, have been aiding and training
Speaker 1: the PDF, and still maintaining enough deniability that the Top
Speaker 1: Meda has not been forced into a confrontation. EAO PDF
Speaker 1: alliances look different in different regions and often realities on
Speaker 1: the ground, their little relationship to the back door diplomacy
Speaker 1: and official stances embraced by leadership and public The.
Speaker 4: War continues to have a huge toll on civilians. According
Speaker 4: to United Nations, in total, some four hundred and forty
Speaker 4: thousand people have been newly displaced since the coup happened
Speaker 4: in February twenty twenty one, adding to an existing three
Speaker 4: hundred and seventy thousand who had fled their homes from
Speaker 4: earlier waves of violence, and over a million people who
Speaker 4: had fled the Rahingia genocide. More than half the population
Speaker 4: of Kareni State has fled. Humanitarian access is hard. Much
Speaker 4: of the relief effort for displaced people occurs within local communities.
Speaker 4: Thousands of refugees a camp along the border with Thailand,
Speaker 4: which is defined by rivers. Initially, many people fled into Thailand,
Speaker 4: but terrible conditions in refugee camps led some of them
Speaker 4: to return to Mi and Mah. Now they weighed across
Speaker 4: the river for international aid donations of food and water,
Speaker 4: but they can't bring themselves to stay in the crowded
Speaker 4: camps overnight, so they waded back to sleep on the
Speaker 4: Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR, the High Commission
Speaker 4: on Refugees, has been unable to access camps in Thailand
Speaker 4: or Me and Mah to check on the conditions, but
Speaker 4: it has urged a Thai government, which has been credibly
Speaker 4: accused of forcing people back across the border, to move
Speaker 4: people to better conditions further into Thailand instead of keeping
Speaker 4: them in camps near the border. And here we find
Speaker 4: the unfortunate, unavoidable reality of the civil war in Me
Speaker 4: and Mah. For all the uniqueness of aspects of the conflict,
Speaker 4: the innovative ways gen Z militias have interfaced with older
Speaker 4: ethnic military forces, the three D printed arms, etc. At
Speaker 4: the end of the day, this is another brutal, horrific
Speaker 4: conflict between large numbers of people who want to be
Speaker 4: free and a small number of people who want to
Speaker 4: control them. From Miah Mah to Armenia, Ukraine, to Syria,
Speaker 4: Ethiopia to Iraq and beyond. The novelties of twenty first
Speaker 4: century conflict don't change the fact that, at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, each war brings with it what might
Speaker 4: be the truest symbol of our current age, parents saying
Speaker 4: goodbye to their kids. Camp's filled with desperate people fleeing violence,
Speaker 4: governments all over the world willing to send nothing more
Speaker 4: than kind words to stern warnings.
Speaker 3: This is a PostScript episode four.
Speaker 4: It's not one that we'd been intending to record, because
Speaker 4: it's not news that we'd ever hoped to have to share, But.
Speaker 3: Here we are.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, we found out that about ten days after we
Speaker 4: last spoke, and a couple of weeks before we released
Speaker 4: our podcast, Zor died, and he died in battle fighting
Speaker 4: with the Tutmador he's really was, I suppose, an amazingly
Speaker 4: brave and courageous young man, and I think that his
Speaker 4: loss is one that reflects the realities of what war is,
Speaker 4: which is not great and glorious and exciting. It's young
Speaker 4: men and sometimes young women, young non binary folks I
Speaker 4: imagine too, dying when they had no quarrel with anyone,
Speaker 4: when they just wanted to live their lives. Two years ago,
Speaker 4: a year and a half ago, even he was just
Speaker 4: loving the people he loved, having fun, being a kid,
Speaker 4: riding his motorcycle, speaking to his girlfriend on his phone,
Speaker 4: living a happy life. And then someone who had power
Speaker 4: decided that they wanted to have more power, and they
Speaker 4: decided that it didn't matter how many kids had to
Speaker 4: die so they could have what they want. And he
Speaker 4: decided to say no to that, And that's brave, and
Speaker 4: I think all of us would agree that what he
Speaker 4: did was right and morally courageous, and that we would
Speaker 4: hope to be brave enough to do the same of
Speaker 4: this same thing happened to us.
Speaker 3: This once hit me quite hard.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I know this is my job, and this happens,
Speaker 4: that it's happened before, and it will happen again. But
Speaker 4: he was such a happy, polite, kind young man. He
Speaker 4: never didn't pick up the phone, He never got tired
Speaker 4: of explaining stuff that we didn't understand, and he always
Speaker 4: answered our questions. It was nothing that was off the table.
Speaker 4: There was nothing that he wouldn't talk about with us.
Speaker 4: He was completely open, And yeah, we will miss him greatly.
Speaker 4: He died fighting the thing that we all have to
Speaker 4: fight right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, militarization, and yeah, we will
Speaker 4: grieve his loss. Both Robert and I. We've just spoken
Speaker 4: on the phone, and we found out because the contact
Speaker 4: of mine on the ground sent a Reddit message with
Speaker 4: a link to a Facebook post and it's very clearly
Speaker 4: zorin no doubt about that. It names him, and unfortunately
Speaker 4: it also shows him dead. So we're not in any
Speaker 4: doubt that it was him who died, and we're not
Speaker 4: in any doubt that we will gravely miss him either.
Speaker 4: We both hoped to go over and record with him,
Speaker 4: to speak with him, to meet him. I've spoken to
Speaker 4: him several times on video, sometimes just to chat, not
Speaker 4: even to record anything, just just a chat just to
Speaker 4: catch up and look at what each of us was
Speaker 4: doing that day. So it's a hard loss for me
Speaker 4: and for Robert till as I said, we've just spoken.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's the news that we hadn't hoped to
Speaker 4: end on. Obviously, though, this is the reality of war.
Speaker 4: As the world is looking at the conflict in Ukraine now,
Speaker 4: i'd urge you to look at the conflict in Myanmar
Speaker 4: to another Russian bomb killed another nice kid who never
Speaker 4: had any quarrel with anyone, who just wanted to live
Speaker 4: his life and didn't want to live the rest of
Speaker 4: his life with a boot on his neck, so he
Speaker 4: decided to stand up against it. As you can probably
Speaker 4: hear in my voice, I'm quite upset by his loss
Speaker 4: and will be probably for a few days. So I'm
Speaker 4: sorry to have to end this podcast on such a
Speaker 4: sad note.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry for.
Speaker 4: His family who are now caught between the loss of
Speaker 4: their son and trying to protect their daughters. I'm sorry
Speaker 4: for his girlfriend who's dealing with shrapnel in her own
Speaker 4: leg and now the loss of the person she loved.
Speaker 4: And I'm sorry for his comrades. And they've said they'll
Speaker 4: go on fighting, and I hope they do. And I
Speaker 4: don't think there's any point really pretending to be objective
Speaker 4: at this stage in the games. And I hope they win,
Speaker 4: but I mostly just hope that like one day, young
Speaker 4: men and women and everyone else just gets to live
Speaker 4: their lives without having to kill and die, because ultimately,
Speaker 4: no one should have to and no parents should have
Speaker 4: to bury their kids. So yeah, as much as we're
Speaker 4: all focusing on Ukraine and what's happening there is terrible.
Speaker 4: Please don't forget Zor's comrades, Please don't forget his legacy,
Speaker 4: and please don't forget him. We won't and we obviously
Speaker 4: want to dedicate this podcast to him and what he
Speaker 4: stood for.
Speaker 3: So yeah, thanks. It could Happen here as a production
Speaker 3: of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 5: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 5: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 5: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 4: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening