Speaker 1: A media. Hi everyone, it's President's Day today. Cool anyway,
Speaker 1: that means that we are giving you a rerunt and
Speaker 1: the rerun that I wanted to air today was the
Speaker 1: first series that I ever made for iHeart, or indeed
Speaker 1: the first series I ever made for anyone. It's called
Speaker 1: Myanma Printing the Revolution, and if you've heard it before,
Speaker 1: you know what it's about. If you haven't, this takes
Speaker 1: us through the early days of the Mianma Revolution, from
Speaker 1: the coup to people taking to the mountains and fighting.
Speaker 1: I wanted to share this because it's been a couple
Speaker 1: of years since we first made it, and I think
Speaker 1: at a time when the whole world is worried about
Speaker 1: the way politics are going and the way that states
Speaker 1: are behaving, we can learn a lot from the people
Speaker 1: of Meanma. I don't think it matters where you are.
Speaker 1: There's something that you can take from this, from the
Speaker 1: way that these people stayed in the street and the
Speaker 1: way that they were willing to work together to learn
Speaker 1: from one another and to become better people as they
Speaker 1: struggled to make their world better. It's a long series,
Speaker 1: spoken to many of the people who are in it
Speaker 1: this week, most of them are fine, they're doing well,
Speaker 1: but you will hear about somewhat dying at the end
Speaker 1: of this. This is war like, this is a thing
Speaker 1: that happens in war, but I wanted to give a
Speaker 1: content warning for that such if anybody was upset by it,
Speaker 1: they could turn off. It just comes at the end
Speaker 1: of the final episode. If you've not heard this before,
Speaker 1: I hope you'll take the time to listen. We worked
Speaker 1: very very hard on it and it's very important to me.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, I'm Robert Evans and this is Me and
Speaker 2: Mar printing the Revolutions. It could happen here special mini series,
Speaker 2: an in depth documentary investigation with me and journalist James Stout.
Speaker 2: Over the next four days, you're going to learn about
Speaker 2: the gin Z militias of the Me and Mar Civil War,
Speaker 2: three D printed weapons, and a bunch of other really
Speaker 2: fascinating stuff. Besides, so, without any further ado, here's James.
Speaker 1: Ever since the first person built the first fence, took
Speaker 1: land from everybody and to themselves, property rights and violence
Speaker 1: have gone hand in hand. With property grew the state,
Speaker 1: and with the state came the police. Today, most of
Speaker 1: us grew up under the control of states and they're
Speaker 1: so ubiquitous that their violence is often overlooked until a
Speaker 1: particularly egregious incident occurs. But all states, even the most benign,
Speaker 1: rest on a monopoly on violence. State to the entities
Speaker 1: that imposed laws on a given area, and if you
Speaker 1: break those laws, state can beat you up, lock you up,
Speaker 1: or shoot you up. When the state loses the monopoly
Speaker 1: on violence, it ceases to be able to enforce its laws,
Speaker 1: charges taxes, and enforce its will on the people at rules.
Speaker 1: We've seen this all over the world, from the Democratic
Speaker 1: Republic of Congo to briefly downtown Seattle. Our state in
Speaker 1: the USA speaks a language of rights and liberties. When
Speaker 1: we want to appeal to the state, we tend to
Speaker 1: use that language, even though our state, as we saw
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, is backed by plenty of violence, as
Speaker 1: much as any other, goes a long way to camouflage
Speaker 1: that violence. Some states are a bit more mask off.
Speaker 1: They speak to their citizens more or less exclusively through violence,
Speaker 1: and when citizens need to respond to that state, they
Speaker 1: respond to the language it uses to speak to them.
Speaker 1: That's how a teenager from yangon Meh and Mar ended
Speaker 1: up on Reddit in summer of twenty twenty one asking
Speaker 1: strangers have to use a three D printer and computer
Speaker 1: to make a rifle. Me and Ma isn't a country
Speaker 1: that is on the radar for most of the US.
Speaker 1: If it is at all, it's probably because of State
Speaker 1: Councilor and Foreign Minister ensign Suchi. She managed perhaps the
Speaker 1: history's fastest pivot from Nobel Peace Prize winner to head
Speaker 1: of a government accused of genocide. But Tsuki is in
Speaker 1: jail now, and the Rahingia, the Muslim ethnic group that
Speaker 1: the military attempted to eliminate from the east of the
Speaker 1: country under her rule, are just one of many ethnic
Speaker 1: and political groups. They're in open armed conflict with the
Speaker 1: military who now hold control of the government of me
Speaker 1: and Ma, known locally as a tatmodor the military's whose power.
Speaker 1: In early twenty twenty one, you might have seen a
Speaker 1: video of a woman doing an aerobics workout as the
Speaker 1: vehicles rolled in behind her to seize power. Ever since
Speaker 1: that day, they've been committing crimes against humanity all over
Speaker 1: the country. Mia Mah has a longer history of dictatorship
Speaker 1: than democracy. The British East India Company occupied the area
Speaker 1: that now represents the country in the nineteenth century. As always,
Speaker 1: they talked about civilizing missions and freedoms, but in practice
Speaker 1: the occupation was extractive and only benefited the Anglo Burmese
Speaker 1: and a few Indian civil servants. They bought with them often,
Speaker 1: but this month led to resistance that manifested itself in
Speaker 1: hunger strikes and everyday acts of disobedience, small ways of
Speaker 1: saying no. In a few instances, it became open an
Speaker 1: unbrest build into the streets. The country became a major
Speaker 1: battleground during the Second World War, with Japan evading and
Speaker 1: seizing the country before Allied forces took it back in
Speaker 1: a fierce campaign in nineteen forty four. As many as
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand Japanese troops died. Burmese people
Speaker 1: fought on both sides. Ag San Agsan Suchi's father demanded
Speaker 1: that Britain grant him and his fellow Burmese people independence
Speaker 1: if they fought for the Allies. The British refused. Ansan
Speaker 1: then went first to China and eventually Japan for support,
Speaker 1: and eventually he fought against the British with his Burmer
Speaker 1: Independence Army, but after two years of occupation, Agsian and
Speaker 1: his comrade changed sides under a broad alliance called the
Speaker 1: Anti Fascist Organization. They turned on the Japanese and they
Speaker 1: once again took up arms to liberate their country. On
Speaker 1: the fourth of January nineteen forty seven, Burma became an
Speaker 1: independent republic. The new republic's territory combined three British territories
Speaker 1: and over one hundred distinct ethnic groups. For the next
Speaker 1: fourteen years, these groups struggled to find a democratic Burma
Speaker 1: and an identity for themselves within it. Mostly they failed.
Speaker 1: The period was characterized by the Chinese Civil War, spilling
Speaker 1: it to Burma ethnic armed insurgencies and repeated to Ma
Speaker 1: for a federal republic with a weak central government. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, the military a rate at new demands
Speaker 1: for a federal republic stage to coup. Burmer spent the
Speaker 1: next twenty two years under the military rule of a council,
Speaker 1: pursuing what they called the Burmese Way to socialism. Burmer's
Speaker 1: planned economy left it largely isolated from the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. At home, the press was censored, and a
Speaker 1: type of nationalism that combined nominal socialism and Burmer ethnic
Speaker 1: identity became the official state ideology. During this period, Burmer
Speaker 1: became one of the world's poorest countries. Sporadic protests were
Speaker 1: met with overwhelming force, and the eighth of August nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, an uprising began. It started among his students
Speaker 1: in Yangon, it took real quickly around the country. The
Speaker 1: so called eight eight eight eight Uprising because of the date,
Speaker 1: began with the general strike and huge non violent protests.
Speaker 1: These were met with gunfire. Protesters fought back with molotov
Speaker 1: cocktails and rocks. The military fired into hospitals, and by
Speaker 1: September eighteenth they'd launched a coup to take the country
Speaker 1: from a one party state back to a military dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Through in these protests, Angsan Suki, the daughter of independence
Speaker 1: here at Anksan, emerged as a national figurehead, especially in
Speaker 1: the west. Amitov Ghusch, the Indian writer, wrote the following
Speaker 1: about a eight eight eight across Burma. People poured out
Speaker 1: in thousands to join the protests, not just students, but
Speaker 1: also teachers, monks, children, professionals, and trade unionists of every shape.
Speaker 1: It was on this day, too, that the Hunter made
Speaker 1: its first determined attempt at repression. Soldiers opened fire on
Speaker 1: the demonstrators and hundreds of unarmed marchers were killed. The
Speaker 1: killings continued for a week, but still the demonstrators continued
Speaker 1: to flood the streets. After the uprising had been suppressed,
Speaker 1: multi party elections were later held, while the new National
Speaker 1: League for Democracy party of Angsang shu Ki won the
Speaker 1: most votes. The Hunter refused to see power. Protests continued
Speaker 1: off and on for decades, with the two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven Saffron Revolution, which the government violently cracked down on monks,
Speaker 1: resulting in the most international condemnation. Following the Saffron Revolution,
Speaker 1: the government's isolationism hindering aid After extensive cyclone damage in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, the military government finally implemented the
Speaker 1: Roadmap to discipline flourishing democracy that had developed in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. If you're wondering about the name of the country,
Speaker 1: this officially changed in nineteen eighty nine as well, but
Speaker 1: like much of the nation's history, a grand proclamation from
Speaker 1: the government didn't mean much on the ground. Both words
Speaker 1: derived from Buranma, a name that the majority ethnic group
Speaker 1: who we're calling Berman here used for themselves. Many opposition
Speaker 1: groups still use Burma instead of Mienma. It's another small
Speaker 1: way of saying no to the military's attempt to control
Speaker 1: every aspect of their lives.
Speaker 3: Finally, on the eighteenth of September, the army took to
Speaker 3: the streets and the coup, led by Chief of Stamp
Speaker 3: General Sumoon. The next day the killings began again. The
Speaker 3: army later described these people as lutus.
Speaker 2: It was not until twenty eleven that the military junta
Speaker 2: finally stepped down and passed on power to the Union,
Speaker 2: Solidarity and Development Party in an election that was widely
Speaker 2: seen as fraudulent. A year later, long San sou Chi
Speaker 2: was released, and by twenty fifteen her National League for
Speaker 2: Democracy won an absolute majority. While she was barred from
Speaker 2: holding the presidential office, she took on the role of
Speaker 2: State councilor, and Mienmar entered a period of liberalization, which,
Speaker 2: although never the federal democracy promised when the country gained
Speaker 2: its independence in nineteen forty seven, allowed for significant freedoms
Speaker 2: of communication and speech, especially for the Burman majority ethnic group.
Speaker 2: Not everyone was reconciled to the change. Many of Myanmars
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty five ethnic groups feel marginalized by
Speaker 2: the state, which tends to be dominated by the Burman ethnicity.
Speaker 2: Some of these groups have armed insurgeon wings, often more
Speaker 2: than one per ethnic group, as they disagree on politics
Speaker 2: or religion. These groups have fought various Burmese governments since
Speaker 2: the nineteen forties, but many of them reached a ceasefire
Speaker 2: with the government as the country passed from military to
Speaker 2: civilian rule. One group, however, saw a huge uptick in violence.
Speaker 2: The Rohingya ethnic group have been persecuted by Buddhist nationals
Speaker 2: since the nineteen seventies, but the campaign against them increased
Speaker 2: in violence and scale in twenty sixteen, when the Tatmadab
Speaker 2: began a huge crackdown against Rohinga people in Rakin's State.
Speaker 2: The persecution began in response to attacks by the Arkan
Speaker 2: Rohinga Salvation Army on Burmese border outposts, but the campaign
Speaker 2: that followed had nothing to do with a small insurgent
Speaker 2: group and a lot to do with the desire of
Speaker 2: the Totmadaw to destroy or drive out all Rohinka people,
Speaker 2: who they claim are undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and not
Speaker 2: citizens of Myanmar. While the world praised Suki her government
Speaker 2: looked the other way as the military carried out a
Speaker 2: genocide that displaced over a million people and killed tens
Speaker 2: of thousands. It was in the context of growing international
Speaker 2: condemnation of the genocide that Mianmar went to the polls
Speaker 2: in November of twenty twenty. The November twenty twenty election
Speaker 2: was only the nation's second since the official end of
Speaker 2: military rule. On Sansuchi's National League for Democracy won a
Speaker 2: resounding victory. The military backed Union Solidarity and Development Party
Speaker 2: holds twenty five percent of seats under a constitution that
Speaker 2: SUCHI wanted to change. It didn't take defeat well. The
Speaker 2: election was neither perfectly free nor fair. The Rohinga have
Speaker 2: been almost wholly disenfranchised. The government claims they are illegal
Speaker 2: immigrants from Bangladesh and thus unable to vote. Areas with
Speaker 2: ethnic armed organ as if which opposed the government often
Speaker 2: had poles canceled and internet cut off. According to Human
Speaker 2: Rights Watch, The Carter Center estimates that one point four
Speaker 2: million citizens couldn't vote. The one opposition party that was
Speaker 2: certainly not short changed was the military's. However, it was
Speaker 2: the Union Solidarity and Development Party USDP, which had been
Speaker 2: calling for election delays due to COVID before poles opened.
Speaker 2: Once the elections concluded, they immediately began questioning the results.
Speaker 2: They continued to attempt to undermine the vote for months
Speaker 2: before they resorted to force on the first to February
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, the day before the newly elected legislators
Speaker 2: were due to be sworn in. The world largely ignored
Speaker 2: the situation, apart from the one viral video where a
Speaker 2: masked fitness instructor dances in the foreground as APC's roll
Speaker 2: through a roadblock and into the parliament complex behind her.
Speaker 2: Ensang su Chi was arrested, charged with breaching COVID nineteen
Speaker 2: restrictions and illegally importing a walkie talkie, and General min
Speaker 2: Angkhlang was installed at the head of a military hojna
Speaker 2: to If this sounds a little like a stop to
Speaker 2: Steel fantasy, that's because it is eerily similar to one.
Speaker 2: Meanmar's democracy is not what academics call a consolidated one,
Speaker 2: which is to say that democracy has never been the
Speaker 2: only game in town there, but the United States seems
Speaker 2: to be rapidly deconsolidating its own democracy. The allegations of
Speaker 2: election fraud in Meanmar were no more credible than those
Speaker 2: in Arizona. However, the military's tradition of political engagement there
Speaker 2: removed many of the barriers in between electoral defeat and
Speaker 2: the death of a short lived democracy. Within twenty four
Speaker 2: hours of the coup, the people of Myanmar had fought back.
Speaker 2: Healthcare workers and civil servants were on strike by February third,
Speaker 2: and a boycott of junta owned businesses had begun. Protests
Speaker 2: began with a handful of people. The memories of massacres
Speaker 2: of pro democracy protesters in the nineteen eighties kept many away,
Speaker 2: but a younger generation who had grown up with relative liberty,
Speaker 2: internet access and basic freedoms had not seen blood in
Speaker 2: the streets like their parents. They had seen activists in
Speaker 2: Hong Kong, the USA, and Ukraine on violent state APPARATUSUS,
Speaker 2: and they'd often seen them win.
Speaker 1: By the sixth of February, twenty thousand people in the
Speaker 1: streets of Yangon, the largest city, and the internet was
Speaker 1: shut down nationwide. Protests began peacefully, with mimeable signs like
Speaker 1: my eggs is bad, but the military is worse and
Speaker 1: we are protesting peacefully. But with the WAP capitalized so
Speaker 1: it said whap. These signs were designed by a generation
Speaker 1: of kids who grew up with access to the Internet
Speaker 1: to attract international attention. Despite the ban, they used VPNs
Speaker 1: to show imagury to their struggle. One sign read I've
Speaker 1: messed with the wrong generation. Now we'll never be allowed
Speaker 1: to ruin our own lives. The Tatmador showed its cards
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Police began the suppression with sling shots and clubs,
Speaker 1: then tear gas and flashbrang and quickly they moved to
Speaker 1: rifles and rocket the pel grenades. By the ninth of February,
Speaker 1: maya thway thway, heine, a twenty year old woman have
Speaker 1: been shot in the street.
Speaker 4: What did you.
Speaker 5: Soon?
Speaker 1: There's young protesters to switch signs for shields. By mid
Speaker 1: March and I'm forties day, one hundred and forteen civilians
Speaker 1: were killed in a single day, including sixty five in
Speaker 1: Yangon who were kettled by police, surrounded net shot. Quickly,
Speaker 1: shield walls were set up. Medics identified themselves in the
Speaker 1: protest movement, and hard hats and goggles were distributed, but
Speaker 1: this didn't tip the balance of power in their favor.
Speaker 1: So Orlin, a former student union leader, was there from
Speaker 1: the start. In a text message, he told me I
Speaker 1: did not miss a single day as a member of
Speaker 1: the Caya State National Strike Committee. I later became more
Speaker 1: involved in anti authoritarian protests. In the early protests, you
Speaker 1: see him in photos walking at the front of the
Speaker 1: group carrying flags and banners with his student ID card
Speaker 1: on a lanyard around his neck. But by March he's
Speaker 1: wearing a black shirt, goggles and a hard construction hat. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the National League for Democracy politicians who had escaped attention
Speaker 1: joined other parties and set up a National Unity Government
Speaker 1: in April. The National Unity Government contained members of the
Speaker 1: National League for Democracy, but significantly, a Rahindio activist was
Speaker 1: appointed an advisor in the Ministry of Human Rights, and
Speaker 1: the National Unity Government has announced it would for the
Speaker 1: first time accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court
Speaker 1: with respect to all international crimes committed in me and
Speaker 1: Mah since two thousand and two. This would include the
Speaker 1: Rhinga genocide. By May, both the National Unity Government and
Speaker 1: Zwelin had realized that no amount of non violent protests
Speaker 1: was going to this lodge regime that was happy to
Speaker 1: gun down kids in the street. So on the fifth
Speaker 1: of May, he left for the jungle. That same day,
Speaker 1: the National Unity government announced the formation of the People's
Speaker 1: Defense Force or PDF. Within a month, eight hundred soldiers
Speaker 1: has it affected to these pro democracy guerrilla units. Many
Speaker 1: bought their guns with them, but Twa didn't join the PDF. Instead,
Speaker 1: he joined one of ME and R's many ethnic armed
Speaker 1: organizations groups opposed to a central state and its domination
Speaker 1: by the Burman ethnicity. To understand these groups, you need
Speaker 1: to understand that ME andm R is composed of dozens,
Speaker 1: not hundreds, of ethnic groups, but that the Burman, who
Speaker 1: make up about two thirds of the population, have always
Speaker 1: controlled the state and used it as a tool in
Speaker 1: furthering their interest. Some of these groups, like the Kurrent
Speaker 1: National Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army, have been
Speaker 1: fighting for decades since the country emerged from British colonial
Speaker 1: rule at the end of World War Two. All of
Speaker 1: these groups drew on a combination of ethnic and political grievances.
Speaker 1: Many of them administer semi autonomous territories like the Kurrent State.
Speaker 2: In twenty thirteen, thirteen ethnic armed organizations or EAOs came
Speaker 2: together to form the nationwide Ceasefire Coordinating Team in CCT
Speaker 2: and signed an eleven point Common Position of Ethnic Resistance
Speaker 2: Organizations on national Ceasefire or the LEISA Agreement. Most of
Speaker 2: them seemed to agree that they would accept a federal
Speaker 2: system rather than complete autonomy. In twenty fifteen, a ceasefire
Speaker 2: was signed, but conflict between ethnic armed organizations and between
Speaker 2: EAOs and the government continued. Since the coup began, EO
Speaker 2: membership has skyrocketed, and in October, the National Unity government
Speaker 2: announced alliances with several groups under a central chain of command.
Speaker 2: Some political organizations who played a part in the nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight uprising, like the Al Burma Students Democratic Front,
Speaker 2: have been revived as armed groups. The ABSDF recently attacked
Speaker 2: top Madaw ships using an RPG. Attacks on military bases
Speaker 2: have also stepped up. PDF units have ambushed and killed
Speaker 2: policemen and raided police and military outposts. Each time they do,
Speaker 2: they steal valuable weapons and ammunition. The top Madaw has
Speaker 2: responded with shellings and airstrikes against residential areas, executions, mass
Speaker 2: physical retribution, and the murdering of civilians and aid workers
Speaker 2: and burning of their bodies. As a result of all this,
Speaker 2: ethnic armed organizations have joined forces with anti authoritarian Burman
Speaker 2: people under the auspices of the People's Defense Forces, which
Speaker 2: are under the command of the exiled National Unity Government.
Speaker 6: We have never experienced such kind of brutalities from the
Speaker 6: military as well as as strong resistance from the people.
Speaker 6: They try to make sure the whole country submit to them,
Speaker 6: but we still refuse to allow them to be our rulers.
Speaker 7: This defiance has led to the formation of the People's
Speaker 7: Defense Forces or PDF, a coalition of thousands of resistance
Speaker 7: fighters who carrying out surprise attacks on hunter checkpoints, bombing
Speaker 7: army convoys, and supporting ethnic armies in their fight against
Speaker 7: the regime. Twelve months ago, these men and women were
Speaker 7: students and office workers protesting the coup. Today they're training
Speaker 7: to overthrow the military.
Speaker 6: The Annesota is the tough choints, but the young people
Speaker 6: they are ready to defend the communities. They have to,
Speaker 6: of course, sacrifice their own daily life, ordinary life.
Speaker 2: Since March of twenty twenty, the influx of new recruits
Speaker 2: has changed these groups. Generation Z militias like the Carini
Speaker 2: gin Z Liberation Army have sprung up, founded by kids
Speaker 2: who were holding ammable signs at protests a few months earlier.
Speaker 2: They care less about ethnic independence and more about beating
Speaker 2: the junta. Many Berman kids join these groups. These organizations
Speaker 2: of young fighters received training from the experienced guerrillas hiding
Speaker 2: in the jungle, but they tended to adopt a less
Speaker 2: top down military structure and armed themselves by scavenging whatever
Speaker 2: weapons they could find, often twenty two caliber rifles better
Speaker 2: suited to shooting squirrels than soldiers. It was these kids
Speaker 2: who grew up online and knew that there was nothing
Speaker 2: you couldn't learn about on Reddit who tipped the balance
Speaker 2: of force away from the state. Unlike the ethnic armed
Speaker 2: organizations and other more experienced guerrillas than menmar these kids
Speaker 2: have little military experience. Their organizations have few rules and regulations.
Speaker 2: They're made up entirely of young people. As a result,
Speaker 2: there are certain things that they're less proficient at, but
Speaker 2: they're much better at things like grasping the use of
Speaker 2: new technologies, which has led to me and Maar being
Speaker 2: the first country in the world where three D printed
Speaker 2: weapons have taken part in a revolution against the government.
Speaker 2: To hear more about that and many other things as
Speaker 2: this series continues. Hey, everybody, I'm Robert Evans, and this
Speaker 2: is me and mar printing the Revolution Part two. Since
Speaker 2: the dawn of firearms, regular people all over the world
Speaker 2: have had the same basic idea, maybe if I made
Speaker 2: myself a gun, the government wouldn't be able to be
Speaker 2: such a dick to me. Historically, this has had little
Speaker 2: impact on the willingness of governments to be dicks to people.
Speaker 2: In the beginning, all gun manufacturing was done by individual artisans,
Speaker 2: and thus making a gun in your home was really
Speaker 2: no different from making it in a shop, as long
Speaker 2: as you had the proper tools. Guns in this period
Speaker 2: weren't super useful on their own and were best fired
Speaker 2: in a volley by a shitload of dudes at once.
Speaker 2: Since individual firearms were extremely inaccurate and cumbersome to use,
Speaker 2: the fact that some poor or blacksmith could make himself
Speaker 2: one wasn't much of a threat to anybody in power.
Speaker 2: It did mean that battlefield prowess came from large blocks
Speaker 2: of trained soldiers, not fuel lords on horseback rallying untrained peasants.
Speaker 2: This change in technology led to a change in warfare
Speaker 2: and helped to change society. As firearms evolved and became
Speaker 2: these central weapons of battle. They required more intense tooling
Speaker 2: and more expensive manufacturing capacity. Nations and peoples without the
Speaker 2: know how our infrastructure were at a tremendous disadvantage. As
Speaker 2: soon as this situation came into being, these unfortunate communities
Speaker 2: set to work finding ways to gain the advantages of
Speaker 2: firearms without the manufacturing capacity their foes enjoyed. Indigenous cannons
Speaker 2: and regions resisting imperialism often consisted of composite materials less
Speaker 2: sturdy than brods or iron. In the sixteen hundreds and
Speaker 2: seventeen hundreds, Indigenous Americans in South America used wooden cannons
Speaker 2: to fight against Spanish and Portuguese conquerors. The Vietnamese used
Speaker 2: wooden cannons to resist the French during the coachin China
Speaker 2: Campaigane of eighteen sixty two. American Indians used wooden artillery
Speaker 2: to blast settler fortifications in the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: In the months that led up to the outbreak of
Speaker 2: the Revolutionary War, the men who fought to create the
Speaker 2: United States busied themselves building rifles and cannons in their
Speaker 2: homes and communities to resist the English. This trend has
Speaker 2: never really stopped in warfare. The day before we recorded this, James,
Speaker 2: my partner in this series, sent me a screen grab
Speaker 2: from a live stream of someone in Ukraine printing pieces
Speaker 2: for AK forty sevens on a three D printer. Firearms
Speaker 2: manufactured outside the arms industry have played a role in
Speaker 2: every conflict of the modern era, but as you've probably guessed,
Speaker 2: they have had the greatest influence in the little wars
Speaker 2: of colonialism.
Speaker 1: European nations rarely allowed any sort of firearms ownership in
Speaker 1: their colonies except the individuals and ethnic groups that adopted
Speaker 1: its local enforces. Since most of these places had never
Speaker 1: developed their own industrial base for arms industry, colonial rebellions
Speaker 1: often relied on home made weapons in their early stages,
Speaker 1: along with modern firearms pilfered by deserting local soldiers. Where
Speaker 1: domestic productive capacity existed, European colonizing nations went out of
Speaker 1: their way to relocate it, along with the profit it generated,
Speaker 1: to the metropol All were reflected on this in his
Speaker 1: novel Burmese Dates, saying in the eighteenth century, the Indians
Speaker 1: cast guns that are at any rate up to the
Speaker 1: European standard. Now after we've been in India one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years. You can't make so much as a
Speaker 1: brass cartridge case in the whole continent. Meanwhile, among the colonizers,
Speaker 1: being armed became almost a synonym for being a man.
Speaker 1: This was particularly true for the colonial police forces and militaries,
Speaker 1: but it was also true domestically. Most people are broadly
Speaker 1: familiar with the u s. Second Amendment the robust gun
Speaker 1: culture that it's spawned, but during the higher colonialism, English
Speaker 1: citizens are also free to arm themselves. In nineteen hundred,
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Robert gascoyne Cecil Marquis of Salisbury, gave a
Speaker 1: speech in which he claimed he would lud the day
Speaker 1: when there was a rifle in every cottage in England.
Speaker 1: Firearms were utterly and restricted at this point. The first
Speaker 1: chains to this came in nineteen oh three with the
Speaker 1: first Law that required a permit to carry a handgun
Speaker 1: and restricted children from buying guns. Still, firearms were widely
Speaker 1: available until a red panic gripped the nation in nineteen
Speaker 1: nineteen following the Bolshek Revolution in Russia. Across the ocean
Speaker 1: in Spain, where firearms ownership was less strictly restricted, where
Speaker 1: Orwell himself would learn what it was to fire a
Speaker 1: rifle at someone who shot back. Armed unions and working
Speaker 1: people served as the only bullwalk to a military coup.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty six, in Madrid, one officer opened his
Speaker 1: armory to the union militias, but another refused to hand
Speaker 1: over for the bolts for the guns they had been issued.
Speaker 1: In Barcelona, where the anarchist left had a long tradition
Speaker 1: of armed political violence, the coup was repelled by workers
Speaker 1: with guns, and a general leading troops there was imprisoned
Speaker 1: and executed. The same pattern played out all across the
Speaker 1: country in July nineteen thirty six, when the military rose
Speaker 1: up to topple the elected government. In the cities where
Speaker 1: the government opened the armories to the people, the coup
Speaker 1: was repelled. In the cities where the government did not,
Speaker 1: the coup succeeded. Reflecting on this in nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: or Wit, the totalitarian states can do great things, but
Speaker 1: there is one thing they cannot do. They cannot give
Speaker 1: factory worker a rifle and tell him to take it
Speaker 1: home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle on
Speaker 1: the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat
Speaker 1: is a symbol of democracy. It's a job to see
Speaker 1: that it's stays there.
Speaker 2: Despite Orwell's please. The years that followed the Second World
Speaker 2: War led to greater restrictions of the ability of the
Speaker 2: public to arm itself. By the nineteen fifties, carrying any
Speaker 2: weapon for self defense was illegal. Semi automatic center fire
Speaker 2: arms were banned in nineteen eighty eight, and pistols were
Speaker 2: banned in nineteen ninety six after a mass shooting killed
Speaker 2: sixteen children in Dunblane. This was all utterly infuriating to
Speaker 2: a man named Philip A.
Speaker 8: Loody.
Speaker 2: Loudy, born in nineteen sixty five grew up on a
Speaker 2: farm in West Yorkshire, England. We don't have a tremendous
Speaker 2: amount of detail about his upbringing, but by the time
Speaker 2: he was in his early thirties he'd become a committed
Speaker 2: crusader for an unrestricted right to bear arms. A skilled
Speaker 2: machinist with a well equipped shop, Loody began the long
Speaker 2: process of learning how to craft home made firearms. Soon
Speaker 2: he was building semi and fully automatic weapons. Now these
Speaker 2: were not military grade firearms. The barrels were unrifled, which
Speaker 2: made them terribly inaccurate, but every piece could be crafted
Speaker 2: from widely available things like sheet metal, washers and screws.
Speaker 2: The person assembling a looty gun would need to be
Speaker 2: a skilled craftsman, but they would not need access to
Speaker 2: welding rigs forges, rather expensive industrial equipment. Loody published a
Speaker 2: book Expedient Homemade Firearms, The nine millimeters Submachine Gun in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight through Paladin Press. In the late nineteen nineties,
Speaker 2: Paladin was one of the places you could go to
Speaker 2: mail order fringe political literature and guides for stuff like
Speaker 2: trapping human beings or disabling the drive system of an
Speaker 2: Abrams tank in the United States. Nothing about Loudy's book
Speaker 2: was or is illegal, but Phil didn't live in the
Speaker 2: United States. He was arrested several times, starting in the
Speaker 2: late nineteen nineties when a pair of illegal home built
Speaker 2: guns were found on his property. Ludy spent the rest
Speaker 2: of his life, which ended in twenty eleven, operating a
Speaker 2: website where he raged against gun control. His main argument
Speaker 2: was that England was headed for totalitarianism, and like Orwell,
Speaker 2: he believed only public ownership of arms could prevent this.
Speaker 2: Unlike Orwell, Ludy was firmly on the right wing. He
Speaker 2: traced society's problems to quote a combination of political correctness
Speaker 2: and anti freedom of speech laws legislation governing how we
Speaker 2: speak about such subjects as religion or a person's race
Speaker 2: being just two examples. Words and phrases that have been
Speaker 2: used for centuries without malice are now insipid in people's
Speaker 2: mouths and said to cause offence by those very same
Speaker 2: speech police, who, on the other hand, turned a blind
Speaker 2: eye to the violence, foul language, and sexual references blasted
Speaker 2: daily through our TV sets, a phenomenon that really does
Speaker 2: cause a fence to many people. Luty never succeeded in
Speaker 2: sparking a renaissance and civilian arms ownership in the UK,
Speaker 2: but his ideas were adopted by organized criminal groups all
Speaker 2: around the world. In Brazil, looty guns can go for
Speaker 2: as much as twenty five hundred dollars. From twenty eleven
Speaker 2: to twenty twelve, nearly half of the submachine guns seized
Speaker 2: by police in sal Polo were homemade. Most of these
Speaker 2: arms were certainly used as tools by drug dealers or
Speaker 2: other gangsters, but some of them were surely also the
Speaker 2: tools of citizens who simply sought a way to defend
Speaker 2: themselves in a place with no real rule of law.
Speaker 2: Looty guns have long been popular among motorcycle gangs in Australia,
Speaker 2: and in October of twenty nineteen, a fascist terrorist carried
Speaker 2: out the last of that year's eight Chan shootings in Hulla,
Speaker 2: Germany with a looty gun. His weapons, thankfully did not
Speaker 2: work well. As a general rule, looty guns were never
Speaker 2: going to be of much use to anyone besides organized criminals.
Speaker 2: They aren't great in a gunfight, but you can use
Speaker 2: them to spray bullets into a room or a vehicle
Speaker 2: at close range pretty well. The year after Phil Loudy
Speaker 2: died twenty twelve, a fellow named Cody Wilson decided to
Speaker 2: carry on his work. Cody felt three D printing carried
Speaker 2: the possibility of eventually manufacturing arms of a quality that
Speaker 2: might rival traditionally produced guns. He started simple with a
Speaker 2: single shot three eighty handgun based around the old Liberator
Speaker 2: pistol from World War II. The Liberator had been a
Speaker 2: single shot forty five caliber handgun meant to be dropped
Speaker 2: into Nazi occupied territories and used by insurgents to stealthily
Speaker 2: kill single German soldiers and take their guns. Cody Wilson
Speaker 2: described himself as a crypto anarchist, and when his ideas
Speaker 2: began to draw attention, he dropped out of law school
Speaker 2: to create Defense Distributed. This organization was dedicated to the
Speaker 2: development and distribution of plans to craft three D printed weapons.
Speaker 2: It used a platform called death Cad to allow users
Speaker 2: to develop and share blueprints. In twenty thirteen, the first
Speaker 2: CAD gun file became available online to everyone. It was
Speaker 2: downloaded more than one hundred thousand times in two days.
Speaker 2: I'd like to quote now from an article on the
Speaker 2: website three D Natives. This prompted the US government to
Speaker 2: demand that Defense Distributed remove the file from their site.
Speaker 2: What followed is a legal battle between Cody Wilson and
Speaker 2: the US government, consisting of back and forth lawsuits. It
Speaker 2: lasted five years until in twenty eighteen, the Trump administration
Speaker 2: legalized three D printed guns. The same year, Wilson was
Speaker 2: charged with sexual assault of an underage girl and had
Speaker 2: to step down from Defense Distributed. Nonetheless, the organization did
Speaker 2: not cease to exist without Cody. Today for a yearly
Speaker 2: fee of fifty dollars. Users of the DEAFCAD website can
Speaker 2: access the files containing different designs of three D printed guns.
Speaker 2: And I should note here that it's probably more accurate
Speaker 2: to say the Trump administration legalized sharing the plans and
Speaker 2: printing the files and whatnot of three D printed guns,
Speaker 2: not legalized three D printed guns. Homemade firearms have been
Speaker 2: federally legal in the United States since forever. The fighting
Speaker 2: in the courts over all this has continued ever since,
Speaker 2: and in twenty nineteen, a federal judge in Seattle temporarily
Speaker 2: blocked DEAFCAD. This sparked the creation of a new group,
Speaker 2: de Terence Dispensed, which was even less centralized. The basic
Speaker 2: idea was that this would make them harder to take
Speaker 2: down via lawsuits or police action. Not stated was that
Speaker 2: this might also protect their reputation from a Cody Wilson's situation.
Speaker 2: The debate over the legality of three D printed firearm
Speaker 2: plans continues on to the present day, but the development
Speaker 2: of these arms has continued at an ever faster pace.
Speaker 2: The best modern three D printed arms can even rival
Speaker 2: conventional guns. It's worth emphasizing that these are not purely
Speaker 2: plastic tools. The Liberator pistol used a metal nail, and
Speaker 2: the better three D arms have metal barrels rifled using
Speaker 2: other craft methods that require some nohow but arguably less
Speaker 2: than it took to manufacture a looty gun. Three D
Speaker 2: printed arms have been confiscated by police around the world,
Speaker 2: but in recent months they've begun to crop up somewhere
Speaker 2: new in the arms of revolutionaries fighting against a military coup.
Speaker 1: Me and ma Berman before that, sad relatively strict gun
Speaker 1: control laws for decades. When George Orwell was a policeman
Speaker 1: there in the nineteen twenties, he may have carried a gun,
Speaker 1: but the people he was policing did not. In the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, the British leaders allowed tat organizations similar to
Speaker 1: militias to form and drill, but they weren't allowed to
Speaker 1: carry guns. Gun licenses under the dictatorship were issued primarily
Speaker 1: to party members, but most were revoked after nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: eight failed Pro democracy uprising. The only civilians who were
Speaker 1: permitted to own arms through the Chin, the nation's poorous
Speaker 1: ethnic group who rely on guns to hunt for food.
Speaker 1: In many cases, these guns were flintlocks that would not
Speaker 1: have looked that out of place on a battle till
Speaker 1: two centuries before. In practice, though, things are very different.
Speaker 1: The current conflict is best seen as a flare up
Speaker 1: in violence, so it has been ongoing since Britain left
Speaker 1: the country in nineteen forty seven. The Tatmador has consistently
Speaker 1: used violence against marginalized ethnic groups in the country, and
Speaker 1: they have consistently taken up arms in response. But unlike
Speaker 1: civil wars in the Middle East, wealthy nations in the
Speaker 1: West have not been flooding me and Mihle with weapons
Speaker 1: for decades, and the various eos or ethnic armed organizations
Speaker 1: have had to turn to much more unorthodox roots to
Speaker 1: arm and equip selves against the government. To get a
Speaker 1: better idea of what things are like on the ground,
Speaker 1: we spoke to Pierre. He's French, but he's a serial
Speaker 1: volunteer with national liberation struggles around the world. A fought
Speaker 1: with the Korrenn people in the early two thousands.
Speaker 4: Yes, so the ammunition is a constant problem. The shortage
Speaker 4: is absolutely permanent, and yes, there is two sources for
Speaker 4: the for the for the weapons, there is the black market,
Speaker 4: and the prices, especially of ammunition, are prohibitive. This is
Speaker 4: why I would like to have my notebook here with me,
Speaker 4: because I think I wrote down the conversation I had
Speaker 4: with some leaders of the kind at the time, asking
Speaker 4: them why we didn't do more persons. But we just
Speaker 4: can't afford it, you know, we just can't afford it.
Speaker 8: Like strictly, we we don't.
Speaker 4: We don't have enough ammunition to do any kind of
Speaker 4: of operation.
Speaker 8: We need to.
Speaker 4: So all the operations we did well always focused on
Speaker 4: if we could get cure some ammunition, if we could
Speaker 4: cuture like weapons, but especially ammunition. Yeah, so there is
Speaker 4: you know, that's that's the second source of of course,
Speaker 4: of of weapons. Uh, let's say sources. The it's the
Speaker 4: captures of course. Then the black markets. The black markets
Speaker 4: used to be huge in Cambodia. I don't know what's
Speaker 4: the situation now. That was in the nineties. That was
Speaker 4: it was a bit of the Albania of sosieties at
Speaker 4: this time, right.
Speaker 9: And so there is also the other a ethnic groups
Speaker 9: that receive sometimes say a lot of of.
Speaker 4: Of arms and ammunition from sponsors. Okay, some of them,
Speaker 4: like the Western dam is our sponsored by China. So
Speaker 4: like their supply of ammunition. It's pretty good of weapons.
Speaker 4: I think it's even cartolony and stuff. Then there is
Speaker 4: also groups that also produced locally quite good. They're on arms,
Speaker 4: light arms usually, so yeah, these are the different sources
Speaker 4: of what comes to in the time I was there.
Speaker 1: In the early weeks of the protests. Once I claim
Speaker 1: clear that non violent demonstrators are going to be met
Speaker 1: with state violence, protests began to fashion weapons. First, I
Speaker 1: fought soldiers with assault rifles, using catapults and bows and arrows.
Speaker 1: It was incredibly brave, but it wasn't very effective. By
Speaker 1: the twenty eighth of March, protesters are taking a step
Speaker 1: from the group calling itself the Calais Civil Army, set
Speaker 1: up barricades and defended them using pressurized air rifles that
Speaker 1: fired marbles and bicycle wheel bearings. The rifles all used
Speaker 1: the same design and the same components. They were based
Speaker 1: on a video someone found on YouTube, but they weren't lethal.
Speaker 1: They helped protesters defend their space, albeit at a great cost,
Speaker 1: and at first clash, four protesters and four soldiers were killed.
Speaker 1: The protesters in Calais were able to hold out a
Speaker 1: few days using old hunting rifles and air guns the
Speaker 1: ambush military patrols and they took four police hostage. Then
Speaker 1: they exchanged them for nine incarcerated protesters. But in early April,
Speaker 1: the Tapmador returned to the protest camp in Calay with
Speaker 1: rocket propelled grenades and machine guns and killed eleven people.
Speaker 1: We must fight back against them. If not, our generation
Speaker 1: will face a worse situation than us. They have no laws,
Speaker 1: a neighborhood villager who battled the regime's forces told the Irrawoody,
Speaker 1: a local paper. The air guns spread around the country quickly.
Speaker 1: To avoid surveillance, protesters talked about cooking up berryani on
Speaker 1: telegram channels, and what they meant was desperately scouring the
Speaker 1: internet for a way to fight back and finding a
Speaker 1: way to make an air rifle out of a buttane canister,
Speaker 1: a pipe and a cigarette lighter, combined with fireworks and
Speaker 1: smoke bombs made of potassium nitrate. The air rifle gave
Speaker 1: protests just enough cupboard to escape police charges, but they
Speaker 1: also gave the junta an excuse to further escalate the violence.
Speaker 10: Attitudes are hardening among the protesters too. In Mandalay, they
Speaker 10: took air rifles to the barricades on Saturday, hardly a
Speaker 10: match for the weapons of war they face, but now
Speaker 10: they know this is a fight to the death and
Speaker 10: more destruction. After a fire raged in pg Dagon township overnight,
Speaker 10: people living there but kept away by security forces returned
Speaker 10: to find sixty homes burned to the ground. Now all
Speaker 10: they can do is pick through the ashes, trying to
Speaker 10: save anything from the military's policy of scorched earth.
Speaker 2: Even the top Madaw makes its own weapons, a highly
Speaker 2: unusual move for a relatively small nation. Topmada troops and
Speaker 2: police can be seen with a bewildering array of indigenously
Speaker 2: produced copies of M sixteen's oozies and even five five
Speaker 2: six Galil pattern AK style rifles, as well as M
Speaker 2: three light machine guns, which are slightly updated copies of
Speaker 2: the MG forty two used by the Nazis in World
Speaker 2: War Two. After the failed eight eight eight eight uprisings
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty eight, the military offered concessions to China
Speaker 2: in return for more advanced weapons. They got them, but
Speaker 2: it didn't stop China from also supplying ethnic armed organizations.
Speaker 2: EAOs don't have access to the same munitions factories that
Speaker 2: the government does. But there is a long tradition of
Speaker 2: homemade weapons in Myanmar. In more remote parts of the country,
Speaker 2: homemade air rifles and shotguns seem to have been relatively
Speaker 2: common place before the start of the conflict, and they
Speaker 2: were mostly used for hunting. The country is also covered
Speaker 2: with land mines, which the EAOs used a great effect
Speaker 2: against the top at all. We spoke to Pierre, a
Speaker 2: former combatant with the KRIN who no longer lives in
Speaker 2: me and Maar. His experience is not that recent, but
Speaker 2: it helps us to understand the way this conflict has
Speaker 2: been fought for decades.
Speaker 4: What we used to to produce A lot of land mines,
Speaker 4: that's that's produced at the base.
Speaker 8: Yes, with like you know, very lot of systems. Is
Speaker 8: a little bit of.
Speaker 4: One type of plastic explosive, a couple of BOMBOO for
Speaker 4: contactors and.
Speaker 8: Batterie. That's it.
Speaker 2: Pellet guns are not good for combat, and EAOs mostly
Speaker 2: relied on weapons imported from Thailand, India or China. Overwhelmingly
Speaker 2: these were ak or In sixteen pattern rifles.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mostly in my.
Speaker 4: In the units have been there is probably a majority
Speaker 4: of A platforms.
Speaker 8: In this time. Yes, yeah, definitely. I mean, it's more
Speaker 8: reliable and you know, simple to perate.
Speaker 4: It's very adapted to the to the to.
Speaker 8: The type of guerrilla it was. It was quite correct,
Speaker 8: I mean.
Speaker 4: From the moment that I switched to a case at least,
Speaker 4: because at first I tried to use this creparency M
Speaker 4: sixteen and it was a nightmare of malfunctions. So I
Speaker 4: switched back to a case what I best know and
Speaker 4: used doesn't have this. I never really.
Speaker 8: Had any any malfunction with the case.
Speaker 4: Maybe one time with a faulty lot of communition, but
Speaker 4: that's it.
Speaker 8: Not really the.
Speaker 2: Rightful the fight, Pierre says, has never been restricted to
Speaker 2: the battlefield for the top of the door. Violence against
Speaker 2: civilians is part of their four cuts doctrine that cuts
Speaker 2: off funding, food, intelligence, and recruits for the EAOs. Now
Speaker 2: they are moving that same outlook to the cities.
Speaker 8: Like literally.
Speaker 4: Literally by by absolutely no euros of hels. I mean,
Speaker 4: like one of the first things that I saw when
Speaker 4: we went going patrolling in the in the Karen villages,
Speaker 4: huh around a thousand of operation, is that there was
Speaker 4: absolutely no girl between the edge of eleven to the
Speaker 4: edge of seventeen. I was like, I asked you know,
Speaker 4: my my commando about it, and he says, yeah, like
Speaker 4: obviously if a stays, they will be rapped by the
Speaker 4: tapmado and the first patrol like the first time they
Speaker 4: will will come.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 4: So this this gives you a little bit of the
Speaker 4: tone of what they are about. They constantly ransom civilians
Speaker 4: when they don't model them, like you know, shell villages
Speaker 4: for norrision or because there had been an operation of
Speaker 4: the kind of a and they take revenge and who
Speaker 4: they can take revenge and with the civilians.
Speaker 8: You know, this is this is how they be, This
Speaker 8: is who they are. Basically.
Speaker 2: The Topmadaw is a large army in many of the
Speaker 2: conscripts are hardly high speed operator types, but that hasn't
Speaker 2: stopped them from killing thousands of innocent civilians.
Speaker 4: I mean they have as many army, different units with
Speaker 4: different military value. Let's say, uh, you know, many times
Speaker 4: the the units that they stuck on hilltop in the
Speaker 4: middle of rebel zone are not like the most combative
Speaker 4: let's say, but sometimes you will get surprised resistance. But yeah,
Speaker 4: except for that, when they do an operation in in
Speaker 4: a place, they bring in like more elite troops.
Speaker 2: Let's say By contrast, the kN l A, the Karnean
Speaker 2: National Liberation Army and other e aos relied on civilian
Speaker 2: support to survive.
Speaker 4: The Canada operates in in Karen.
Speaker 8: Territory and the civilians are Karen.
Speaker 4: I mean, uh pretty much when we when we arrive
Speaker 4: in in the village.
Speaker 8: As as medics, you know.
Speaker 4: That with us take care of the population, distribute medicine. No,
Speaker 4: like I don't know what to tell you, is like
Speaker 4: quite it's quite a funny accusation coming from the technology.
Speaker 2: This attitude has helped them, Per says, and they have
Speaker 2: always been open to non current recruits.
Speaker 8: First of all, it's not absolutely not.
Speaker 4: That's some kind of ethnicist organization or ethno nationally, it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, with some heat for I think group, including
Speaker 4: the Obama I think group that like traditionally you know
Speaker 4: are the leaders of the Tamadeo that have been oppressing
Speaker 4: them for seventeen years.
Speaker 8: But they have absolutely no resentment.
Speaker 4: They are extremely open to work with Democrats, democratic forces
Speaker 4: from every impacts.
Speaker 2: Yes, since nineteen eighty eight, Per said, the k in
Speaker 2: LA had been willing to link up with democratic rebels,
Speaker 2: providing them with training and shelter in order to further
Speaker 2: their shared goal of a federal and democratic country that
Speaker 2: treated all ethnicities with respect.
Speaker 8: So PDFs.
Speaker 4: So these rebels, let's say, uh also trend by the
Speaker 4: Karrents and uh so by people I know very well
Speaker 4: since it was my commander then Nea. So I've seen
Speaker 4: I've seen the Karrents. I've always been extremely accommodating to
Speaker 4: the Bama opposition, meaning the Bamar, the main ethnic group
Speaker 4: are I say this for people that might not know
Speaker 4: the difference. And so the Karrents always add representation and
Speaker 4: they took like you know, political refugees, let's say, from
Speaker 4: from inside the.
Speaker 8: Boma in the territory.
Speaker 4: The control manor prose or was like the student association,
Speaker 4: which exact na my cantricle right now.
Speaker 8: But all these.
Speaker 4: Organization of the position and so now they keep this
Speaker 4: tradition by helping the UH, these new rebels of the
Speaker 4: PDF to get military training.
Speaker 2: And yes, by the summer of twenty twenty, young people
Speaker 2: had fled into the Jungles, and many of them, even
Speaker 2: the ones of Burman ethnicity, were fighting alongside the Karin
Speaker 2: and Karni rebels they'd previously seen as troublemakers and terrorists
Speaker 2: just a year or two before. We spoke with one
Speaker 2: of these people, Zallin, who left his home in May
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: There were students, friends, but also young people from just
Speaker 5: the neighborhood. Most people were just above twenty. A lot
Speaker 5: of some were single. You know, there's women as well,
Speaker 5: new technology, young people from the from the technology computer
Speaker 5: apologists Whycott University. A lot of these people who knew
Speaker 5: modern technology went into the jungle to go in the
Speaker 5: jungle to train and be able to overthrow the men
Speaker 5: online government. So there it was very tiring. We had
Speaker 5: to go up and down a lot of hills. It
Speaker 5: was two days of walking get there, going up and
Speaker 5: down the hills and back down, up and down until
Speaker 5: we got to the training plan.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, I'm Robert Evans, and welcome to episode three
Speaker 2: of Printing the Revolution. Here's my partner, James Stout.
Speaker 1: In the spring and summer of twenty twenty, millions of
Speaker 1: Americans had versions of the same experience. State forces killed
Speaker 1: the helpless man. Protesters took to the streets in anger,
Speaker 1: and armed agents of the state responded with mass violence.
Speaker 1: A lot of people's lives changed forever. In fairly short order.
Speaker 1: What happened in Me and Mara after the military coup
Speaker 1: was that story turned up to eleven within days. The
Speaker 1: military had used live fire and demonstrators. Zor a Saurce
Speaker 1: for today's episode. We're twenty two years old. At the time.
Speaker 1: He spend his days working as a delivery driver, hang
Speaker 1: out with his girlfriend playing video games. On the day
Speaker 1: the coup started, he was playing pubg after a long shift.
Speaker 1: Soon he and his girlfriend took to the streets with
Speaker 1: thousands of other gen z Burmese kids. The state responded
Speaker 1: with massacres, often firing automatic weapons into the crowds. Saw
Speaker 1: Helen been particularly politically active before this moment. In fact,
Speaker 1: he felt pretty poorly towards revolutionary supposing the government in
Speaker 1: the jungle, seeing them as rebellious trouble makers.
Speaker 5: In the past, we thought that the military is a
Speaker 5: group that loves all the people, all the different groups
Speaker 5: in the in the country, and then there's just a
Speaker 5: few people who really hate the military, but especially after
Speaker 5: the one who we face it with our own foreheads,
Speaker 5: you know, with the guns we can face the evil
Speaker 5: the military and all the human rights and things that
Speaker 5: people who hated the military before we're talking about we
Speaker 5: understand it now because we had to face it ourselves.
Speaker 5: And then they're going to tell us terrorists, and however
Speaker 5: must they call us. We know that we're finding for
Speaker 5: human rights, and we know that each person deserves these
Speaker 5: basic things, you know, So so even when we capture
Speaker 5: a soldier, we don't kill them immediately that they're unarmed.
Speaker 5: You know, when they capture a PDF, they torture and
Speaker 5: kill them very very horrifically or horrendously, and they kill
Speaker 5: and do hurt all the citizens and ordinary bystanders. So
Speaker 5: for us, what they're calling as rebels before, we're not rebels.
Speaker 5: They're the ones that are rebels, so we have to
Speaker 5: call them rebels. They're the terrorists.
Speaker 1: But as violence against protests escalated, so All began to
Speaker 1: see through the lies he'd been told by the military.
Speaker 5: Of his life. What we're calling as rebels are what
Speaker 5: we kind of become. But we know why we are
Speaker 5: now rebels. That's because of their terrorism, their oppressive reviews,
Speaker 5: and their violation of human rights. That's why we have
Speaker 5: to revolt against them.
Speaker 1: For a time, protesters responded creatively with giant potato guns
Speaker 1: meant to fire leslie to protect ours long distances. These
Speaker 1: homemade guns will be fired in volleys. Well, other protested
Speaker 1: protected them with shields. Some of these tactics were effective
Speaker 1: a point, but it quickly became clear that the government
Speaker 1: was willing to massacre everyone's standing up to them. So
Speaker 1: his girlfriend and their friends quickly decided that non violent
Speaker 1: resistance wasn't going to work, but they didn't give up.
Speaker 5: As we get onto into June, there's two paths, right,
Speaker 5: we can be normal, we can go on the streets,
Speaker 5: we can ask for the people's power back, and since
Speaker 5: that's not working, we know that what we have to
Speaker 5: do is we need to hold these guns. Get these guns.
Speaker 5: And on the military side, all they know is that
Speaker 5: they will solve this by folding guns. So the only thing,
Speaker 5: the only path that's left for us is to take
Speaker 5: those guns for ourselves. So around the end of we
Speaker 5: started entering training school. So the downtoy is what the
Speaker 5: word we use, and it's something like this corner part
Speaker 5: so one corner part one to do so talking. What
Speaker 5: that means is that in the huntings huntings that we
Speaker 5: were doing, hunting rifles that we were using for that.
Speaker 5: So we kind of start started, and we fought first
Speaker 5: and demoso, if we can ask the military nicely, then
Speaker 5: there's no reason for us to be using guns. But
Speaker 5: since they don't listen to our demands or our requests
Speaker 5: at all, then and since that all we can do,
Speaker 5: all they are saying, all they're doing is using the
Speaker 5: guns and being terrorists trying to shoot us. So the
Speaker 5: only thing that we can do to get what we
Speaker 5: need and what we want is to take the guns
Speaker 5: for ourselves.
Speaker 1: And so, like hundreds of people, is age. So All
Speaker 1: headed into the jungle in May twenty twenty one. The
Speaker 1: decision wasn't an over night one or an easy one.
Speaker 1: But after protesting non violently, then meeting state violence with
Speaker 1: community defense, then seeing his peers gunned down in the street,
Speaker 1: he didn't have many other choices. He'd picked up a megaphone,
Speaker 1: then a shield, and now he was heading in the
Speaker 1: jungle to pick up a rifle. The only problem was
Speaker 1: that there weren't any rifles.
Speaker 2: He left with his girlfriend and quote with the blessing
Speaker 2: of his parents. Keep that in mind for later. When
Speaker 2: he first went to the jungle, Zall went to a
Speaker 2: two week training camp where the Karni People's Defense Force
Speaker 2: taught him the basics of guerrilla warfare, but they didn't
Speaker 2: have enough weapons to arm him and his friends. So
Speaker 2: these Ginz militants began their fighting careers with twenty two
Speaker 2: caliber rifles. If you aren't a gun person, the twenty
Speaker 2: two was one of the smallest widely available bullets. Like
Speaker 2: any bullet, it can kill, but as a caliber it's
Speaker 2: better suited for shooting rabbits than soldiers. Two rifles were
Speaker 2: handmade locally and only fired one shot at a time,
Speaker 2: but it was those rifles that Zaw, his girlfriend, and
Speaker 2: their friends carried into their first gunfight with the Tautmadaw.
Speaker 2: After battling like that for about three weeks, the shooting stopped,
Speaker 2: he said in an interview we conducted over signal. After
Speaker 2: the shooting stopped, we grouped together money to buy arms
Speaker 2: by asking for donations. They were massively outgunned, but determined
Speaker 2: to fight on with the weapons they could make and
Speaker 2: buy on the black market until they could find something better,
Speaker 2: even if that meant taking guns from dead soldiers. The
Speaker 2: military's guns are extremely good, of course, compared to point
Speaker 2: two two's, he said. We fight with the mindset that
Speaker 2: we must win our minds are always prepared to take
Speaker 2: their guns when a soldier falls. It's a mindset to
Speaker 2: want the enemy's arms to beat your own arms. You
Speaker 2: need to want to resist injustice. Because we are fighting
Speaker 2: for what is right. We do not get sad even
Speaker 2: if we die. We are happy, even when wounded. We
Speaker 2: no longer care if our arms are matched. Unevenly their enthusiasm,
Speaker 2: PDF units all over the country were finding themselves in
Speaker 2: the same desperate situation. When thousands of young people in
Speaker 2: Menmar decided to take up arms against the government, they're
Speaker 2: just warn enough guns to go around. Ak pattern rifles
Speaker 2: sell for three thousand dollars on the black market, and
Speaker 2: ar's sell for up to seven thousand dollars. The GDP
Speaker 2: per capita in twenty twenty was just twelve hundred and
Speaker 2: eighteen dollars and thirty five cents per person, and unlike
Speaker 2: militias in Syria and Iraq, the pro democracy EAOs and
Speaker 2: Myanmar don't have the benefit questionable benefit of the US
Speaker 2: flooding the region with its fire hose of guns and money. Undeterred,
Speaker 2: Zaw and his squad took to YouTube, where they found
Speaker 2: videos explaining how to make two two three caliber bolt
Speaker 2: action rifles. Again, if you're not a gun person, two
Speaker 2: two three may not sound very different than twenty two,
Speaker 2: But whereas twenty two is commonly used to shoot squirrels,
Speaker 2: two two three is the standard rifle round more or
Speaker 2: less for the US military. These new bolt action two
Speaker 2: two threes Zaw and his friends were making could not
Speaker 2: match the rate of fire of a modern rifle, but
Speaker 2: they could at least match those rifles in stopping power.
Speaker 2: Once these gen z insurgeons had the technique down, they
Speaker 2: created a detailed album on Facebook showing how everything from
Speaker 2: the stalk to the barrel could be made with pipes, lumber,
Speaker 2: and hours and hours of detailed hard work. Unlike their
Speaker 2: guerrilla warfare instructors, these kids had grown up on the
Speaker 2: Internet rather than the jungle, so they knew that if
Speaker 2: it exists, there's a subreddit for it. It was the
Speaker 2: Internet that came to their rescue. Three D printed guns
Speaker 2: have been around for a decade, but the early models
Speaker 2: didn't work well and suffered from a pretty bad reputation
Speaker 2: due in part to Cody Wilson, the pedophile libertarian activists
Speaker 2: we discussed last episode. Jake Hanrahan of Popular Front has
Speaker 2: covered the printed gun movement extensively.
Speaker 11: Cody Wilson mighte his whole thing like, I'm the guy
Speaker 11: with the three D printed guns, and he was on
Speaker 11: this moral CRUs side. The three D printed gun lads,
Speaker 11: particularly Determs Dispense, well, like, yeah, don't give a shit
Speaker 11: about that. We just putting our stuff out into the world. See,
Speaker 11: they got the ideas, but they weren't really wedded to
Speaker 11: this idea of it being one person.
Speaker 2: Deterrens Dispensed was a group of anonymous activists who were
Speaker 2: more concerned with making printed guns that worked than making
Speaker 2: a name for themselves. Hamrahan was connected to one activist
Speaker 2: who used the pseudonym j Stark through the group, and
Speaker 2: after three years of conversing online, Hamrahan met Stark in
Speaker 2: Germany to produce a documentary. Jay Stark died of a
Speaker 2: heart attack following a police raid last year, So we
Speaker 2: spoke to Hanrahan about Stark's worldview.
Speaker 11: His whole worldview comes from this idea that you know,
Speaker 11: it's everybody should have the right to be able to
Speaker 11: fight tyranny, and if you can't fight tyranny, like you're fucked.
Speaker 11: And the way to fight tyranny in the modern era
Speaker 11: is firearms.
Speaker 8: We know that. You know, there's there's.
Speaker 11: No you can't argue it's there's no peaceful march gets
Speaker 11: rid of a fascist dictatorship or whatever. But he he was,
Speaker 11: he he was you know, some people would say he
Speaker 11: was far right, some people say he was an anarchist.
Speaker 11: Some people say he was a US patriot type. I mean, first,
Speaker 11: he wasn't even from America, and he had a lot
Speaker 11: of he liked the laws in America, but he wasn't
Speaker 11: like some of the American kind of fan boy or
Speaker 11: anything on that sense. He liked the gun laws. He
Speaker 11: liked the freedom of speech lords, which I do as well.
Speaker 11: You know, like personally I in this country. You know,
Speaker 11: if you tweet the wrong thing, even in jest, like
Speaker 11: police will literally come to your house in Britain like
Speaker 11: it's happened, it's fucking mental. So yeah, he liked that
Speaker 11: kind of thing, and I think I think for him
Speaker 11: it was he was very tonal vision. You know, he
Speaker 11: was a very tonal vision. It was just freedom, freedom
Speaker 11: of freedom, and if you said, well what about this,
Speaker 11: what about that? He was like, I don't care about
Speaker 11: that until the freedom is there, there's no point looking
Speaker 11: at anything else, and so his brain was always on
Speaker 11: people that are living under tyranny, you know, and it
Speaker 11: genuinely was. I know, there's a lot of people, even leftists,
Speaker 11: particularly leftists, that tried to completely smear him as a
Speaker 11: white supremacist. They were saying, oh, everything he said in
Speaker 11: that doc that I made was really he was secret
Speaker 11: anti Jewish white supremacy. And then it came out that
Speaker 11: he wasn't even white.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 11: It says like very good, very good, you fucking idiots.
Speaker 11: So there was a lot of that going around. But
Speaker 11: I honestly believe that deep down he was just tunnel
Speaker 11: vision focused on this idea of every until everybody is
Speaker 11: not living under tyranny, I must go on this mission.
Speaker 11: And Okay, if someone shoots up at school with what
Speaker 11: I've invented, so be it. You know, which I'm not
Speaker 11: saying that's good, but that was just his idea.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 11: He was like, so be it, fuck it if I can.
Speaker 11: You know, he was very genuine when he was on
Speaker 11: about the wigas, or he was on about the mistreatment
Speaker 11: of Kurds from Turkey, and you know, he was like, look,
Speaker 11: if we can build something that can help them. Well,
Speaker 11: sorry that the West might get fucked up because of it,
Speaker 11: but I'm focused on this now. Obviously, in practice that
Speaker 11: would be chaos probably, But you know, he just saw
Speaker 11: it the way he saw it, and that was that.
Speaker 2: The cavalier attitude Stark seems to have had how his
Speaker 2: invention might be used is of course worthy of criticism.
Speaker 2: But the revolutionaries on the ground in me Anmar were
Speaker 2: not concerned with ideal life logical debates over the ethics
Speaker 2: of homemade firearms. They needed guns, and they needed them now.
Speaker 2: J Stark's FGC nine, which stands for Fuck Gun Control
Speaker 2: nine millimeter, was simple to make, easy to use, and
Speaker 2: relied entirely on parts you could print or buy in
Speaker 2: any hardware store. In September of twenty twenty one, a
Speaker 2: post popped up on the foss cads subreddit, which is
Speaker 2: dedicated to the manufacturing of three D printed guns. Stark
Speaker 2: is a hero there. The post said, wanted to say
Speaker 2: thanks to this community, the creators of FGC nine and
Speaker 2: the various mods when we could, you guys are literally
Speaker 2: empowering the armed revolution against dictators in one of the
Speaker 2: most underdeveloped countries. We are now equipped with FGC nine
Speaker 2: and starting the armed revolution to the coup leader dictator.
Speaker 2: As one poster comments, the account quote went from posting
Speaker 2: about mobile games to how to three D print SMGs
Speaker 2: to desperately asking people to pay attention what was happening
Speaker 2: in me and mar Then after the FGC nine post
Speaker 2: it was deleted entirely. Never lived to see this.
Speaker 11: He would have loved it. What everything that he was doing.
Speaker 11: That was the main focus in my opinion, that like,
Speaker 11: it couldn't be a more perfect, like practical actual realization
Speaker 11: of its project. You couldn't pick a more perfect version
Speaker 11: of it to happen like that, you know. And there's
Speaker 11: a lot of talk of oh where there's a lot
Speaker 11: of drug dealers in Amsterdam. I have FGC nine's. There
Speaker 11: was a NATS he recently arrested with one.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 11: These people are awful, of course, But the most prevalent
Speaker 11: use of the FGC nine, at least from what I've observed,
Speaker 11: has been from the rebels in my Ammam making them.
Speaker 11: I think I've seen like thirty of them so far,
Speaker 11: you know, that's a lot of them, And there was
Speaker 11: one was found stashed in a bush. My theory is
Speaker 11: they're left around for ambush attacks and areas that are
Speaker 11: not as fully controlled by the rebels.
Speaker 1: Fostcred, a community of mostly US based gun printers, lost
Speaker 1: its collective mind, and it didn't take long for people
Speaker 1: to make the connection between the post and a desperate
Speaker 1: plight of me and Mars Spring Revolution. Soon after the post,
Speaker 1: the Tatmador started posting pictures of FGC nines, often without sights,
Speaker 1: captured from fighters in Yangon. On the twenty first of September,
Speaker 1: Tatmador's Ministry of Information released a statement I Miat Thwei
Speaker 1: and Ye mint Ang were found with an FGC nine
Speaker 1: Mark two pistol five rounds of nine millimeters ammunition. They
Speaker 1: were arrested along with their drone. The military alleged they
Speaker 1: were in an urban unit from the same generation z
Speaker 1: E Freedom ARMI that Zor was a part of. That
Speaker 1: same month, the military posted pictures of three more captured
Speaker 1: FGC nines, suggesting that at least five have been captured
Speaker 1: by late September. Then two months later, a new post
Speaker 1: popped up and the foscad subreddit, Hey I'm back, and
Speaker 1: the guy who posted a thank you note back in
Speaker 1: September here Now that the FGC nines are ready known
Speaker 1: by the dictator, I can proudly announce that we're from
Speaker 1: me and marh. Yes, we are mass producing FGC nines
Speaker 1: to fight back against the Dictator. More info about our
Speaker 1: production will be published later this time, the user u
Speaker 1: slash daddy UMCD hung around to answer questions. Those basters
Speaker 1: didn't know we had the tech back then. Now that
Speaker 1: everything is in public, we can proudly say we're from
Speaker 1: me and Mar. We are mostly responsible for production and
Speaker 1: R and D, even though we also involved in other
Speaker 1: ground missions. We distribute the FDC nine to a lot
Speaker 1: of different urban guerrillas in urban and rural areas. Some
Speaker 1: of the units got arrested a few weeks ago, which
Speaker 1: you might have already seen on the subreddit. Apart from
Speaker 1: the FGC nine, there are other equipments and weapons that
Speaker 1: are being produced with three D printers, he wrote. He
Speaker 1: said his team we're residing in ethnic armed organization areas,
Speaker 1: mainly the Koren National Union and the Kachin Independence Army
Speaker 1: controlled zones. He posted that they'd tried other three D
Speaker 1: printer designs, such as the PLASTICOV, which is a printed
Speaker 1: AK forty seven receiver, but getting the other parts made
Speaker 1: it impractical. By contrast, the FGC nine could be made
Speaker 1: entirely using a three D printer and some hardware store parts.
Speaker 1: According to another source, ME and Mars small motorcycle repair
Speaker 1: shops made quick work at the metal barrels and bolts.
Speaker 1: Electrochemical machining was used to make more barrels. They also
Speaker 1: had the chance to buy a few clock barrels from Thailand,
Speaker 1: Daddy UMCD said, but those cost a lot more than
Speaker 1: the FGC nine barrels. While his account continued to post,
Speaker 1: the military continued to share photos of captured FGC nines.
Speaker 1: Three workshops that have been using lathes to make the
Speaker 1: barrels for raided. A photos of three more captured guns
Speaker 1: popped up in November, alongside bolt action rifles. It still
Speaker 1: had stickers on their stocks from what looked like US
Speaker 1: gun shops. Production and decentralized locations continued despite the raids,
Speaker 1: while other groups fought on with homemade revolving rifles, crewde
Speaker 1: homemade wooden stocks, and other improvised weapons. A telegram channel
Speaker 1: with instructions in Burmese on how to make the guns
Speaker 1: made sure that even when one shop or gunsmith was
Speaker 1: taken out of the fight. The knowledge wasn't lost. Although
Speaker 1: filament for their three D printers were becoming harder to get,
Speaker 1: they'd stockpiled a lot in advance. Daddy UMCD tried to
Speaker 1: manufacture automatic FGC nines and another printable model called Professor
Speaker 1: Parabellum Square tubes are machine gun, but nothing else seemed
Speaker 1: as easier as reliable as the FGC nun Of course
Speaker 1: read it. Being read it, people questioned the veracity and
Speaker 1: utility of his posts. He responded, FDC nines are just
Speaker 1: part of the game because they could be produced with
Speaker 1: what we have are the lowest cost available rifles of
Speaker 1: four thousand to seven thousand US dollars at our border.
Speaker 1: Fgcs are under one hundred dollars. Rifle parts are ten
Speaker 1: times more expensive than parts. To all those who are
Speaker 1: saying that these photos of sus we don't want to
Speaker 1: blame your suspicion. If an if you remember the thread
Speaker 1: I posted in September, you will remember that we are
Speaker 1: mass producing FGC knights. The ones in the photos you've
Speaker 1: seen were supplied by us. There are many groups like
Speaker 1: this now we do the main production, just like I
Speaker 1: explained in September. Then Daddy UMCD went on to thank
Speaker 1: the other members of the subreddit, claiming their active help
Speaker 1: was your only reason he and other revolutionaries have been
Speaker 1: able to overcome certain technical issues. We wouldn't be here
Speaker 1: without you, guys, especially with someone who shared with me.
Speaker 1: The buffer spring and fire control groups bring the measurements,
Speaker 1: he said. By late November, photos of FGC nineis in
Speaker 1: the hands of fighters emerged and they shared sites. This
Speaker 1: time they had longer barrels and homemade suppressors too. The
Speaker 1: FDC nines were apparently used by urban units for close
Speaker 1: up fighting and for the training of new fighters, since
Speaker 1: they have essentially the same controls as an AR fifteen
Speaker 1: or M sixteen rifle, both of which are common in
Speaker 1: ME and r's rebel units. We have successfully streamlined a
Speaker 1: variety of techniques to produce FGC nine one thousand plus efficiently.
Speaker 1: Our primary forces arequipped with proper rifles. FDC nines are
Speaker 1: for guerrilla warfare. We started using those in hit and
Speaker 1: run and Special Task Force missions too. We don't share
Speaker 1: much about the missions to the public yet, it will
Speaker 1: definitely come, and when it does, are updated here. If
Speaker 1: I'm still alive haha, wrote daddly Umcd on the foscat subreddit.
Speaker 1: Even with production and full swing, ammunition remained a problem.
Speaker 1: Although some regions can produce twenty two and nine millimeter
Speaker 1: a home. According to daddy Umcd, five five six can
Speaker 1: be purchased in large quantities at the border with Thailand,
Speaker 1: but it isn't cheap. Instead, the PDF relied on raiding
Speaker 1: police and military outposts in the same way the EEOS
Speaker 1: had for years. Nine millimeter is the most common center
Speaker 1: fire pistol around in the world. That's why Deterrent's Dispense
Speaker 1: picked it for the FGC nine. Seized weapons often only
Speaker 1: have a handful of rounds, but that's enough to kill
Speaker 1: a soldier and take his weapon. Jay Stark might not
Speaker 1: have been around to see his invention used to fight tyranny,
Speaker 1: but Hanrahan thinks he would have been happy with the results.
Speaker 11: He would have been made up. I think that's everything
Speaker 11: he wanted to achieve. You know what I'm saying, That
Speaker 11: really is everything you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Even the National Unity Government mir Mar's government in exile
Speaker 1: has come around to at least some of Jay Stark's
Speaker 1: ways of thinking. According to Daddy umcd our Minister of
Speaker 1: Defense Minister already promised about the right to bare arms
Speaker 1: in the first day of the revolution.
Speaker 2: Promises made by revolutionary governments are not exactly solid commitments,
Speaker 2: but it's not hard to see why a generation of
Speaker 2: kids like Zaw, forged by an asymmetrical conflict with a
Speaker 2: government that possessed a near absolute advantage in armaments, might
Speaker 2: be committed to staying armed even if they win. At
Speaker 2: the moment, the future of their struggle is very much
Speaker 2: in doubt. Scrolling through Facebook photos of Zaw and his
Speaker 2: comrades is a surreal experience. They look not just young
Speaker 2: soldiers mostly look young, but they look like students kids
Speaker 2: from some weirdly militarized university. Photos on Facebook show them
Speaker 2: sprawled out together in the grass and camo fatigues bearing rifles,
Speaker 2: but each glued to their phones as they cuddle in together.
Speaker 2: Zaw and his girlfriend, who he described to us as
Speaker 2: the girl I love, fought alongside each other until January
Speaker 2: seventh of this year.
Speaker 5: The battle that we started, she was coming within and
Speaker 5: you know, as half a sense of weapons landed near
Speaker 5: her and it hit her like so their bone broke,
Speaker 5: so she had to go to the hospital.
Speaker 2: Three D printed and homemade guns have helped, but Zae
Speaker 2: and his friends are still fighting against a modern military
Speaker 2: with planes, night vision goggles, and tanks. Despite this, more
Speaker 2: than a year after the coup, they're still fighting and
Speaker 2: more soldiers deffect to join them weekly. It's hard to
Speaker 2: see what victory looks like. The cities will be another
Speaker 2: battle altogether, But in the jungle camp where Zaw video
Speaker 2: calls us from, it's impossible to see what giving up
Speaker 2: might look like. Either he's still fighting, his girlfriend is healing,
Speaker 2: and they're both committed to staying out in the jungle
Speaker 2: until they are in their freedom back or die a trying.
Speaker 2: I'm Robert Evans and this is part four of me
Speaker 2: and mar printing the revolution.
Speaker 5: And then once we got there we could in rest,
Speaker 5: you know, rain, sun whatever. Women as well, we were
Speaker 5: all like try when they came when we were leaving,
Speaker 5: they were all like very fair skinned, beautiful, and then
Speaker 5: we went in and then everyone got tanned. In the jungle,
Speaker 5: we're training all the time. You know, people in training
Speaker 5: camp were driven reallypart and the reason that we were
Speaker 5: all doing this is because of Minile nine School. As
Speaker 5: students and how much he has terrorized the public and
Speaker 5: the people. And that's why we were we have this
Speaker 5: morale and the ability to get through the training and
Speaker 5: be able to wield weapons.
Speaker 1: Zora and his friends went into the jungleist students, programmers
Speaker 1: and kids. Now they're fighters. They would tech savvy young people,
Speaker 1: he says, they grew up online and that generational divide
Speaker 1: was the Internet brought here came much later in Miamah.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until twenty eleven that people really gained accest internet.
Speaker 1: With it the new ideas and identities that they brought.
Speaker 1: So as generation are among the first to embrace global
Speaker 1: connectivity and now after having it taken away, they're refusing
Speaker 1: to give it up.
Speaker 5: The start of the coup in February, the military, well
Speaker 5: gen Z was organizing online, social media and all that,
Speaker 5: and they were kind of I think this is from
Speaker 5: my experience, but kind of organizing around like gen Z
Speaker 5: is going to be different than the eightya generation because
Speaker 5: we have the Internet and also we know more about
Speaker 5: the world and can come communicate to the rest of
Speaker 5: the world. I think one thing that was big was
Speaker 5: that in two thousand and eight, it just took one
Speaker 5: video leaking out of the country for there to be
Speaker 5: big international repercussions.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that when people in Burma talk about
Speaker 1: the Internet, they mean Facebook. Phones come with a Facebook
Speaker 1: app installed and it's sometimes exempt from data charges. For
Speaker 1: many people in Burma, using the internet means using Facebook.
Speaker 1: Zora and his friends are different from their parents in
Speaker 1: many ways, not at least in their perceptions of authority.
Speaker 1: This has led to a situation where the PDF people's
Speaker 1: defense force units are much less hierarchical than units of
Speaker 1: the Tamador.
Speaker 5: So when we make decisions in our group, there's no
Speaker 5: master and student. There's no teacher and student. But you
Speaker 5: know the way that it works, there are people who
Speaker 5: are good, they're older, people who are more trained, and
Speaker 5: then there are new recruits, new people who just came in.
Speaker 5: So of course the people who are there for longer
Speaker 5: and know more about the situation have more voice and
Speaker 5: when we discuss so especially people who were there when
Speaker 5: we founded this group. There were only really eight people
Speaker 5: from when we group, so those eight people kind of
Speaker 5: discussed on the bigger strategy. You know, we don't really
Speaker 5: vote there, he says, he wants to do it. He
Speaker 5: thinks it is good. We are there's the seven of
Speaker 5: us we think is good, or we support him, or
Speaker 5: someone says, well, we don't really like that idea, then
Speaker 5: we don't do it.
Speaker 1: They try to achieve more gender quality as well. Those
Speaker 1: are explained that in his unit, the women are not
Speaker 1: always the frontline fighters.
Speaker 5: That's the place there's no discrimination. You know, women can
Speaker 5: women and men were training whoever could come. But like
Speaker 5: on the battlefield, people, we don't use women that much
Speaker 5: on the battlefield. That's one thing that we do know
Speaker 5: is that it's not it's not really discrimination. But if
Speaker 5: women are with us together, we have a confusion about
Speaker 5: whether we need to protect them or we're just fighting
Speaker 5: with them or they're fighting in front of us. And
Speaker 5: that there's one thing that is very different is that
Speaker 5: in terms of mentality, we can't. We never take the
Speaker 5: women out really far into very dangerous fights. So often
Speaker 5: they're in the back as backup or to supplies or
Speaker 5: things like that. But as you know, the military government,
Speaker 5: the military terrorists are very very very unethical. They don't
Speaker 5: follow the rules, so you know they're going to shoot
Speaker 5: whoever they see. So even if they're hanging back and
Speaker 5: they're sending medical supplies. They can still get hit.
Speaker 1: For Zora in particular, there's a lot at stake. After
Speaker 1: almost an hour and a half of talking, I asked
Speaker 1: about his parents. I'd heard of retribution attacks against the
Speaker 1: families of fighters and wondered if he was worried about that.
Speaker 5: So mom and dad are both they support me fighting
Speaker 5: them against the military. They're very happy. Is that really
Speaker 5: wants to CDUM, but he can't run away because the
Speaker 5: military has taken his mother and his sisters. He still
Speaker 5: has five sisters. They're all still in that military command
Speaker 5: their work, they're in the military school schools, so it's
Speaker 5: very hard for them to run away, right hect So
Speaker 5: he really wants to leave the military, but he can't.
Speaker 5: So while so that the fact that I am there
Speaker 5: trying to fight against the military, is very happy, but
Speaker 5: he tells me to be careful about my own life.
Speaker 5: They're supportive and they really want to come fight themselves,
Speaker 5: but they can't because of my sisters and my mother.
Speaker 5: So and seeing that I can do it, it's really
Speaker 5: wonderful for them. So his father, his father, brother, and
Speaker 5: other people three of them below him. They have all
Speaker 5: usually just lived together with his grandfather and stuff in
Speaker 5: the military from pounds or near the military. So he
Speaker 5: really wants to call all the people that are still there,
Speaker 5: but they can't leave.
Speaker 1: This is what civil wood does. Traps us in a
Speaker 1: situation where we can't make the right choice even when
Speaker 1: we know what it is, and in many situations it's
Speaker 1: pretty hard to discern right from wrong. In the midst
Speaker 1: of so much violence, Zaul has been able to fight,
Speaker 1: but his dad is stuck fighting against people like his
Speaker 1: son in order to protect his daughters. Thousands of families
Speaker 1: across the country divided in the same way by circumstance
Speaker 1: or ideology. The military is something of a separate society.
Speaker 1: It has its own schools and its own culture. But
Speaker 1: ethnic armed organizations have not been close to urban populations either,
Speaker 1: and so whole new identities have been forged by Generation
Speaker 1: Z while their families often struggle to abandon all certainties.
Speaker 2: As we record this, Zau is still fighting. His girl
Speaker 2: friend is still healing. Every few weeks a video of
Speaker 2: him and his friends pops up on Reddit or Facebook.
Speaker 2: They have optics on their rifles now and are taking
Speaker 2: long range shots at the top Mada who rely on
Speaker 2: iron sights they shoot and reload like soldiers, and they
Speaker 2: laugh like kids. The top Madaw still controls the cities,
Speaker 2: but to move between them they have to travel in
Speaker 2: convoys at breakneck speeds, using ambushes, mines and knowledge of
Speaker 2: the terrain. EAOs and the PDF are able to deny
Speaker 2: the military access to large portions of the countryside. Without
Speaker 2: a serious change in the conflict, it might stay like
Speaker 2: this for years. A report published this month detailed the
Speaker 2: attacks in the Karini state by the tot Madaw on churches,
Speaker 2: residential homes, camps for displaced people, which killed sixty one
Speaker 2: in the months since Saw left the city on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2: In Upruso's township, they killed at least forty civilians. Autopsies
Speaker 2: show some were gagged and burned alive. In recent months,
Speaker 2: the tot Mada has increased its use of air strikes
Speaker 2: against targets that it deems legitimate. Ming An Hlang, the
Speaker 2: junta's leader, flew to Russia twice. In twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: He was proclaimed an honorary professor of the Military University
Speaker 2: of the Russian Armed Forces. Quote. We are determined to
Speaker 2: continue our efforts to strengthen bilateral ties based on the
Speaker 2: mutual understanding, respect and trust that have been established between
Speaker 2: our two countries, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at
Speaker 2: a meeting with the coup leader on June twenty second.
Speaker 2: We pay special attention to this meeting as we see
Speaker 2: Mianmar as a time tested strategic partner and a reliable
Speaker 2: ally in Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific region. He
Speaker 2: went on. Min Onnhlang was equally lavish with his praise,
Speaker 2: saying that he saw Russia as a friend forever. Mianmar
Speaker 2: relies heavily on Russian hind Mi I thirty five helicopter gunships,
Speaker 2: transport helicopters Mid twenty nine and SU thirty fighter jets
Speaker 2: and Yak one thirty ground attack aircraft to carry out
Speaker 2: bombing raids and straight civilians. All of these weapons systems
Speaker 2: have been seen more recently in the fighting in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: One prominent Ermese Irish family, the kiah Tongs, has helped
Speaker 2: the junta avoid an international arms embargo using their global
Speaker 2: connections and a network of shady shadow companies. They have
Speaker 2: purchased helicopters under the pretense of using them for tourism
Speaker 2: and the oil and gas industry and handed them over
Speaker 2: to the top MADA. They've also helped shuttle coastal radar
Speaker 2: to Myanmar, which the Top Medal used to track Rohinga
Speaker 2: refugees and provide cover for several aircraft purchases. To fund
Speaker 2: these armed purchases, the top Mada has found willing markets
Speaker 2: for luxury goods abroad. According to Justice for Meanmar, since
Speaker 2: the coup in February twenty twenty one, the United States
Speaker 2: has imported fifteen hundred and sixty five metric tons of
Speaker 2: teak from Myanmar, using intermediaries to avoid sanctions. In the
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen twenty eighteen financial year, the last year for
Speaker 2: which data is available, the government received one hundred million
Speaker 2: US dollars in revenue from taxes and royalties applied to
Speaker 2: the timber trade. In twenty twenty one, there were more
Speaker 2: shipments than twenty eighteen, offering the top Madal the chance
Speaker 2: to make enough money to continue purchasing weapons to use
Speaker 2: against their population. The conflict in the NMAR remains complicated.
Speaker 2: It's easy to reduce the alphabet super of revel groups,
Speaker 2: the EOS and the PDF, but these groups and their
Speaker 2: motivations are diverse. Pierre explained to us that even within
Speaker 2: the Korean there are deep divisions.
Speaker 4: Well, first, you have to know that historically the Karen
Speaker 4: Rebellion that started in nineteen forty eight, nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 4: so quite a long time ago, was led by Christian
Speaker 4: by the Christian minority of the Kharan people, because obviously
Speaker 4: that was the most Western educated people.
Speaker 8: At the time.
Speaker 4: And so this eliot kind of reproduced itself in the
Speaker 4: new without being the CANU is. The Karen National Union
Speaker 4: is a democratic movement, but you know, elits tend to
Speaker 4: reproduce themselves. And so most of the leadership, let's say,
Speaker 4: of the Karen National Union and the Karen National Liberation Army.
Speaker 8: Was Christian Like.
Speaker 4: And so the Burmese Junta, the Burmese military government, decided
Speaker 4: to use this to create a wedge between between the
Speaker 4: Karen Christians and the Karran Buddhists UH and sent monks
Speaker 4: to say, agitate and try to cause this split on
Speaker 4: religious grounds no UH, And they succeeded in parts and
Speaker 4: succeeded to separate a part of Karent Buddhists that created
Speaker 4: the the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army d B, which then
Speaker 4: I like themselves of course.
Speaker 8: To the to the junta and to.
Speaker 4: Attack the to attack the Kinnel and the Manor Clow,
Speaker 4: which of course they knew all the all the roads
Speaker 4: there and the defenses and where was the defense is situated,
Speaker 4: et cetera, and succeeded in destroying the capital of the
Speaker 4: Karen National.
Speaker 8: Union in Manorplot in ninety five.
Speaker 4: So that was the situation pretty much when I arrived,
Speaker 4: it was pretty hard like there was not so much
Speaker 4: territory anymore held by the Karen and more more importantly,
Speaker 4: they lost a lot of income because a lot of
Speaker 4: their income come from a tax at the border, a
Speaker 4: Zecan contour, you know.
Speaker 8: So yeah, that was the situation.
Speaker 2: Not every EAO has embraced the National Unity Government directly,
Speaker 2: after all, many of its members were enthusiastically running cover
Speaker 2: for the Rohinga genocide a few years ago. Many of
Speaker 2: the EAOs remain technically under a ceasefire with the top
Speaker 2: Meda and the top MADA knows that if it pushes
Speaker 2: too far into EO territory, it risks provoking a full
Speaker 2: blown response. The EAOs, meanwhile, have been aiding and training
Speaker 2: the PDF and still maintaining enough deniability that the top
Speaker 2: Meda has not been forced into a confrontation EAO PDF.
Speaker 2: Alliances look different in different regions, and often realities on
Speaker 2: the ground bear little relationship to the back door diplomacy
Speaker 2: and official stances embraced by leadership and public The.
Speaker 1: Wall continues to have a huge toll on civilians. According
Speaker 1: to United Nations, in total, some four hundred and forty
Speaker 1: thousand people have been newly displaced since the coup happened
Speaker 1: in February twenty twenty one, adding to an existing three
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy thousand who had fled their homes from
Speaker 1: earlier waves of violence and over a million people who
Speaker 1: had fled the Rahingia genocide. More than half the population
Speaker 1: of Kareni State has fled. Humanitarian access is hard. Much
Speaker 1: of the relief effort for displaced people occurs within local communities.
Speaker 1: Thousands of refugees a camp along the border with Thailand,
Speaker 1: which is defined by rivers. Initially, many people fled into Thailand,
Speaker 1: but terrible conditions in refugee camps led some of them
Speaker 1: to return to Me and Ma. Now they weighed across
Speaker 1: the river for international aid donations of food and water,
Speaker 1: but they can't bring themselves to stay in the crowded
Speaker 1: camps overnight, so they waded back to sleep on the
Speaker 1: Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR, the High Commission
Speaker 1: on Refugees, it's been unable to access camps in Thailand
Speaker 1: or Me and Mah to check on the conditions, but
Speaker 1: it has urged a Thai government which has been credibly
Speaker 1: accused of forcing people back across the border, to move
Speaker 1: people to better conditions further into Thailand instead of keeping
Speaker 1: them in camps near the border. And here we find
Speaker 1: the unfortunate, unavoidable reality of the civil war in me
Speaker 1: and Mah. For all the uniqueness of aspects of the conflict,
Speaker 1: the innovative ways gen Z militias have interfaced with older
Speaker 1: ethnic military forces, the three D printed arms, etc. At
Speaker 1: the end of the day, this is another brutal, horrific
Speaker 1: conflict between large numbers of people who want to be
Speaker 1: free and a small number of people who want to
Speaker 1: control them.
Speaker 5: From Miah Mah.
Speaker 1: To Armenia, Ukraine, to Syria, Ethiopia to Iraq and beyond.
Speaker 1: The novelties of twenty first century conflict don't change the
Speaker 1: fact that at the end of the day. Each war
Speaker 1: brings with it what might be the truest symbol of
Speaker 1: our current age, parents saying goodbye to their kids, camps
Speaker 1: filled with desperate people fleeing violence, and governments all over
Speaker 1: the world willing to send nothing more than kind words
Speaker 1: and stern warnings. This is a PostScript to episode four.
Speaker 1: It's not but one that we'd been intending to record,
Speaker 1: because it's not news that we'd ever hoped to have.
Speaker 8: To share, But.
Speaker 5: Here we are.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, we found out that about ten days after we
Speaker 1: last spoke, and a couple of weeks before we released
Speaker 1: our podcast, Zor died. And he died in battle fighting
Speaker 1: with the Tutmador. He's really was, I suppose, an amazingly
Speaker 1: brave and courageous young man, and I think that his
Speaker 1: loss is one that reflects the realities of of what
Speaker 1: war is, which is not great and glorious and exciting.
Speaker 1: It's young men and sometimes young women, young non binary folks,
Speaker 1: I imagine too, dying when they had no quarrel with anyone,
Speaker 1: when they just wanted to live their lives. Two years ago,
Speaker 1: a year and a half ago, even he was just
Speaker 1: loving the people, he loved, having fun, being a kid
Speaker 1: riding his motorcycle, speaking to his girlfriend on his phone,
Speaker 1: living a happy life. And then someone who had power
Speaker 1: decided that they wanted to have more power, and they
Speaker 1: decided that it didn't matter how many kids had to
Speaker 1: die so they could have what they want. And he
Speaker 1: decided to say no to that, And that's brave, and
Speaker 1: I think all of us would agree that what he
Speaker 1: did was right and morally courageous, and that we would
Speaker 1: hope to be brave enough to do the same if
Speaker 1: the same thing happened to us. This once hit me
Speaker 1: quite hard.
Speaker 8: Honestly.
Speaker 1: I know this is my job, and it happens that
Speaker 1: it's happened before and it will happen again. But he
Speaker 1: was such a happy, polite, kind young man. He never
Speaker 1: didn't pick up the phone, He never got tired of
Speaker 1: explaining stuff that we didn't understand, and he always answered
Speaker 1: our questions. It was nothing that was off the table.
Speaker 1: There was nothing that he wouldn't talk about with us.
Speaker 1: He was completely open, And yeah, we will miss him greatly.
Speaker 1: He died fighting the thing that we all have to fight, right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, militarization,
Speaker 1: And yeah, will grieve his loss. Both Robert and I
Speaker 1: we've just spoken on the phone, and we found out
Speaker 1: because the contact of mine on the ground sent me
Speaker 1: a Reddit message with a link to a Facebook post
Speaker 1: and it's very clearly zorin no doubt about that it
Speaker 1: names him, and unfortunately it also shows him dead. So
Speaker 1: we're not in any doubt that it was him who died,
Speaker 1: and we're not in any doubt we will gravely miss
Speaker 1: him either. We both hoped to go over and record
Speaker 1: with him, to speak with him, to meet him. I'd
Speaker 1: spoken to him several times on video, sometimes just to chat,
Speaker 1: not even to record anything, just just to chat, just
Speaker 1: to catch up and look at what each of us
Speaker 1: was doing that day. So it's a hard loss for
Speaker 1: me and for Robert till as I said, we'd just spoken.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's the news that we hadn't hoped to
Speaker 1: end on. Obviously, though, this is the reality of war,
Speaker 1: and as the world is looking at the conflict in
Speaker 1: Ukraine now, I'd urge you to look at the conflict
Speaker 1: in Myanmar to another Russian bomb killed, another nice kid
Speaker 1: who never had any quarrel with anyone, who just wanted
Speaker 1: to live his life and didn't want to live the
Speaker 1: rest of his life with a boot on his neck,
Speaker 1: so he decided to stand up against it. As you
Speaker 1: can probably hear in my voice, I'm quite upset by
Speaker 1: his loss and will be probably for a few days.
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry to have to end this podcast on
Speaker 1: such a sad note. I'm sorry for his family, who
Speaker 1: are now caught between the loss of their son and
Speaker 1: trying to protect their daughters. I'm sorry for his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: who's dealing with shrapnel in her own leg and now
Speaker 1: the loss of the person she loved. And I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for his comrades. And they've said they'll go on fighting,
Speaker 1: and I hope they do, and I don't think there's
Speaker 1: any point really pretending to be objective at this stage
Speaker 1: in the games, and I hope they win, but I
Speaker 1: mostly just hope that.
Speaker 5: One day, young.
Speaker 1: Men and women and everyone else just gets to live
Speaker 1: their lives without having to kill and die, because ultimately,
Speaker 1: no one should have to and no parents should have
Speaker 1: to bury their kids. So yeah, as much as we're
Speaker 1: all focusing on Ukraine and what's happening there is terrible,
Speaker 1: Please don't forget Zor's comrades, Please don't forget his legacy
Speaker 1: and please don't forget him. We won't and we obviously
Speaker 1: want to dedicate this podcast to him and what he
Speaker 1: stood for. So yeah, thanks. It Could Happen Here as
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 6: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 6: cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
Speaker 6: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 2: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 5: Thanks for listening.