WEBVTT - How To Build A Revolution: Myanmar, Part Three 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.280 Sitting at a pool bar in Masack, listening to covers 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.720 of Credence songs by the house band and losing at 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.280 pool against Andy and the boys. It's hard to think 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.840 of them hold up behind a barricade clutching molotovs. But 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.599 not so long ago, the choices the boys faced were 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.720 pretty stark. Every day, every time they went out from 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.319 their little apartment, they knew they might not come back. 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.280 But I think the most fucked up thing that we 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:30.680 had to plan was what if someone get shot one 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.400 of us and the other person have to go carry. 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:35.800 Who do you go? 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:36.680 Who gets hit? 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:37.000 You know? 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:39.120 And we had to kind of like what we did 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:43.080 just now, but like, okay, if I get hit, you know, 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.760 two of you, this, this, and this person will come 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:48.800 out and you know, do this to me because it's 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.480 I don't know. I think we were planning because it's 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.240 just good to have that, you know, because if someone 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.200 gets shot and if all of five of us go 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.400 ran in there, there's more targets, you know what I mean. 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.800 So then like if someone would wait, lass weight get shots, 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.480 then you know this person go, if someone heavier get shot, 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:10.559 this two person go. Something like that. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.800 When Andy says like we did earlier. He's talking about 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.240 a small stop the bleed type course that we had 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.960 given the boys. Most journalists operating in war zones will 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.960 take at minimum a week long Hostile Environment and First 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.000 Aid training or he FAT course. Many of us will 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.000 take extra courses. James and I both refreshed our Wilderness 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.600 first Responder certificates once we had this trip planned. Andy 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:34.600 and his brothers didn't have access to any of this. 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.040 They learned what they could off the internet and tried 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.280 to protect themselves as best as they were able with 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.640 gear they purchased from an airsoft store. The afternoon we 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.720 spent practicing skills. Wasn't nearly enough, but until they can 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:47.919 travel safely more than a few miles from the border, 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:50.960 it was better than nothing. Their little apartment had one 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.480 way in and one way out. If the cops came, 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.600 there was no escape. They had a plan for that too. 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.080 Yeah, So our plan was literally just to burn that 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.800 fucking door down so then it would be difficult for 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.040 them to come in. And then you know, we'll do 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:07.040 I don't know, whatever we can with the weapon we have, 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:09.800 but we weren't going to make it out, you know, 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.280 And how to do plan all that with these kids, 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:14.320 like it's like fucked up. There were times that like 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.600 they wake up a nice greaming like they you know 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.040 they I think now it's better, Right, it's been a 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.320 year and a half and we are like we're better 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.079 at coping with it. But at that time it was very, 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:27.160 very scary. 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.360 So that they'd be prepared to burn their door and 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.000 the rest of their apartment down around themselves. The boys 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.880 kept a stockpile of molotovs mixed and ready by the 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.720 front door at all times. They lived in a state 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:41.720 of permanent readiness to commit revolutionary suicide for weeks on end. 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:56.120 Eventually they decided they had to flee. We should probably 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.200 talk history here for just a little bit. Me and 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.119 mar is a now for a very old land. Over 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.760 the centuries, it's been ruled by a series of empires 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.600 and dynasties. The Mongols took over for a while in 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:09.959 the twelve hundreds and thirteen hundreds, and when they left 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.119 Lower Burma had a warring states period of its own. 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.959 The modern nation of Burma didn't start to come together 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.200 until the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, and things didn't 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.920 really congeal into a state until the reign of the 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.760 last two Burmese kings, who industrialized the country and reformed 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.240 its military enough to win a series of wars against 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.240 neighboring groups like the Irakan. This is what brought them 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:34.920 into conflict with the British Raj right at the turn 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:38.960 of the nineteenth century. Their wars were sending refugees into India, 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.920 and the Burmese king's designs on Thailand and British controlled 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.520 Bangladesh led to a policy wherein the Bridge supported insurgent 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.040 fighters who struck out at Burmese positions. A series of 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.320 near clashes between British and Burmese forces followed, and in 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.000 January of eighteen twenty four, the Burmese king Bagidah gave 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.520 his generals the order to attack a pair of brutal 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.240 jungle wars. Wars followed, and despite winning several victories early on, 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.520 Burmese troops were crushed comprehensively whenever they engaged British forces 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.800 in conventional battles. In January of eighteen eighty six, British 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.680 forces entered the capital, Mandalay and brought an end to 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:19.599 Burmese independence for almost sixty years. These are the broad 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.200 strokes of the story, as you'll find them summed up 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.880 in almost any history book. As with most colonial history, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.800 the reality is somewhat messier than that. The Burmese Empire 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.280 the British destroyed was dominated heavily by the Bumah people, 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.159 who gave the colony its name, but there were other 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:41.279 peoples in the territory. They claimed the Shin, the kirn Urakan, 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.440 the Rohinga, and dozens. More Like most empires dominated by 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.200 a single ethnicity, they were brutal. Father San Germano, who 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.279 lived in pre Raj Burma, wrote of the king, he 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.120 is considered by himself and others absolute lord of the lives, properties, 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.919 and personal services of his subjects. He exalts and oppresses, confers, 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.120 takes away honor and rank, and without any process of law, 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.280 can put to death not only criminals guilty of capital offenses, 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.120 but any individual who happens to incur his displeasure. It 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.360 is here a perilous thing for a person to become 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.320 distinguished for wealth and possessions, for the day may easily 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.920 come when he will be charged with some supposed crime 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:20.560 and so put to death in order that his property 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.240 may be confiscated. Every subject is the Emperor's born slave, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:26.960 and when he calls anyone his slave, he thinks thereby 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.600 to do him honor. Hence, also he considers himself entitled 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.400 to employ his subjects in any work of service without 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.160 salary or pay, and if he makes them any recompense, 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.680 it is done not from a sense of justice, but 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.240 as an act of bounty. And while Bagidah was a 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.400 fairly modern king, brutality like this went back hundreds of 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.239 years in the region. Most of the kings and princes 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.240 and other people who ruled the land we now call 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.360 me Anmar did so with brutal force and an awful 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.599 lot of conscription. This is broadly true of much of 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.880 Southeast Asia. Western histories of this region tend to flatten 0:05:59.880 --> 0:06:02.680 life into kingdoms and empires and assume life in the 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.919 region coincided politically with the lines drawn on maps. This 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.440 was never the case. Much of mainland Southeast Asia, from 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.919 the central highlands of Vietnam through Myanmar, northeast India, and 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.120 several southern Chinese provinces, is filled with terrifying mountains and 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.479 brutal hills covered with the densest jungle imaginable standing in 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.560 Maysot and staring across the border into Myanmar, all you 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.120 see is a vast expanse of jagged, deep green peaks 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.560 rolling endlessly on. James and I are both experienced backpackers, 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:35.359 and neither of us would have wanted to take on 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.720 that terrain without quality gear and weeks of endurance training. 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.200 In an era of four plains, helicopters, or satellite communications, 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.960 this area was practically ungovernable. People were aware of this 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.920 at the time, and for roughly the last two thousand years, 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:54.120 this chunk of highland Southeast Asia, known to political scientists 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.480 as Zomia, has been a refuge for people pushed out 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:59.760 and put down by the great state powers of the 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.320 air area. Empires and kings would stick to the coasts 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.840 and the flat plains, perfect for cultivating rice. When they 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.920 taxed their subjects too hard or conscripted too many of 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.560 them into the military, some would flee to the hills 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.080 to take their freedom. As James C. Scott, a Yale 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:20.000 polysci professor, writes, the frontier operated as a rough and 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.040 ready homeostatic device. The more estate pressed its subjects, the 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.800 fewer subjects it had. The Frontier under rote freedom. He 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.800 calls the people who chose to inhabit this stateless zone 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.720 barbarians by choice. While many of these ethnic groups were 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.800 mocked for their lack of so called civilized values like 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.920 widespread literacy, Scott argues that this lack was actually a 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.720 conscious rejection. Their refusal to educate themselves in a manner 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.480 acceptable to the powers of the day was a rebellion 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.800 against the legitimacy of those powers and their standards. Human 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.800 history in our modern globe is filled with places like this, 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.040 muddied areas at the borders of great powers, where the 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:04.400 detritus of war, refugees and beaten soldiers can congregate without 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.400 fear of the state. The term for these places is 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:12.600 shatter zones. Rojava, the radical feminist enclave in northeast Syria, 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.080 would be one example of a shatter zone and the 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:19.840 unique political potential such places have. Myanmar is by land mass, 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.880 mostly shatter zones, and since nineteen forty nine, different ethnic 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.000 armed organizations have existed in a more or less constant 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.360 conflict with the state. This includes the Karin people, whose 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.600 territory borders Thailand. When the young millennial and Zoomer protesters 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.600 in the cities realized they were going to have to 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.920 flee their homes to continue the fight. Korin territory was 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.840 a natural place to retreat to. People had been making 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.760 versions of the same decision for two thousand years. The 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.840 current situation between the Koran and Mianmar's military junta actually 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.360 owes a lot to the British Empire. When they took 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.440 over in Myanmar, they had to figure out how to 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:57.839 govern it, and they went with the tactic that had 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.000 served them well all across India and Africaica. They picked 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.199 a minority ethnic group to act as their colonial shock troops. 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.040 In Uganda, their preferred warrior race were the Kokwa people, 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.160 from whom future dictator Idiamine descended. For their colonial troops 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.160 in India, the Brits used Sikhs and Gurkhas, and in 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.360 colonial Burma they used the Karin. Ever since the British left, 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:21.840 the Karin have wanted as little as possible to do 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.320 with the central government in Napiadah. Instead, they fought to 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.120 maintain Kadulay, a land without darkness, as they were promised 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.920 in Burma's nineteen forty eight constitution. Today, they might not 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.480 be recognized by the UN or the US, but the 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.760 Korin have their own schools, hospitals, and army. They have 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.520 been at war since nineteen forty nine. Andy, whose father 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.719 is Karin, only really found out about the struggle for Quadulay, 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.679 a home for the Karin language peoples, when he became 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.920 a refugee. He moved into the camps along the border 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.120 after the Saffron Revolution. He was only eight years old. 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.000 The border is dotted with camps, some of them more 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.080 like towns, but they're always timber. And while the Thai 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.600 government tolerates the Karin presence, people there are seen as 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.640 temporarily displaced. They can't build solid homes and don't have 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.400 the identity documents they need to travel even internally in Thailand. 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.440 Despite not growing up there. Andy's identity cards, says Karin, 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.560 It doesn't take a PhD in history to know that 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:24.000 ethnic identity cards issued by imperial and formerly postcolonial governments 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.280 are bad news. But if you need more information about that, 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.160 maybe google ID cards Comma, Rwanda. 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.720 Like most people in most places, the young people from 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.720 Miamma we talked to had thought relatively little about the 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.439 injustices on the edge of their world. They tend to 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:44.360 think of the Koran as terrorist up in the hills 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:48.240 rather than freedom fighters. But once a topmodor started unloading 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.600 machine guns into crowds, people were confronted with the reality 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:53.840 of a situation that they'd been able to ignore before. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.240 Suddenly they saw that the Koran and other marginalized ethnic 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.040 groups were victims of the same gun violence that they 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.959 now faced. But now that the scales had fallen from 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.640 their eyes, they were going to do something about it. 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.760 The main majority of groups people there are current people, 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:17.839 which is another ethnic groups from Memoir, and they they 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:22.160 had a different view, right because obviously the military. While 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.240 we were like because we were born in the city, 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.160 we were more like you know, like we didn't suffer 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.000 that much, even though it wasn't that great, you know. 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.600 But then for them, the military come to their states, 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.640 the military come to their villages, they burned the villages, 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:37.600 they kill the people, they read the people, you know, 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:42.200 they do all these atrocities. So then they have a 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.720 very different view on the Memar military and how the 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:50.240 country is you know, working doing. And so that's when 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:52.920 I started learning, oh shit, like there is some other 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.640 stuff going on in the country, but you know, like 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.160 you kind of just like you kind of just live 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.360 with your life. You know, your kid, You're trying to 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.240 get by day to day, so you didn't really think 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.800 about it. And for me that going on, that went 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.520 on for a long time until the military could happen 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:11.440 in Ya. 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.040 Mic the present revolution is not the only flare up 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.880 of inter ethnic violence in the country. In twenty seventeen, 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.800 the Tatmodor under ming An Klan began a conservative campaign 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:25.440 of genocidal ethnic cleansing against the Rhinia people, a largely 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:27.880 Muslim ethnic group who live in the country's were a 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:33.040 kind state. The Tatmodor, claiming the Rhinia were variously terrorists 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.120 or illegal immigrants native to modern day Bangladesh and hence 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.520 not native to mih and Mar, spent months raping, killing, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.839 and burning the villages of the Rhininggia people. While the world, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.679 perhaps distracted by a neoliberal consensus which demonizes both migrants 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:51.000 and Muslims, did fuck all to stop them. In Myanmar, 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.800 nobody spoke about the genocide, at least not in those terms. 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:57.920 Most people didn't even speak about the Rhindia in those terms. 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.840 Because Tatmodor propaganda was so effect that citizens in Yangon 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.120 really believed that their Hingia were migrants and terrorists coming 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.960 from Bangladesh. Government newspapers like The New Light of Myanmar 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:14.120 published daily stories linking them to groups like ISIS or Arkaeda, who, 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.320 despite their best efforts, remained totally irrelevant in this story. 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.280 Bots popped up on Facebook, which is basically synonymous with 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.080 the Internet for many people living in Myanmar, and fed 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.600 a steady diet of anti Rehingia hate speech into political discourse, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:33.440 gradually shifting the Overton window towards genocide. And without better information, 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.760 most people believe them, and these Western friends, probably weirdos 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:39.920 like me who had crept into his DMS at some point, 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:41.640 started to ask him questions. 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:44.800 So the Rundan thing happened in two thousand and seventeen. 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.640 I was seventeen, and you know, we started hearing it. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.440 I started getting phone calls from my friend in the 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.240 western countries, like Westerners. They would be like, Hey, what's 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.320 happening in your country? Why are you killing like all 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.080 the Muslims? And I'm like, mess out Tiler, and I'm like, 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.840 I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:07.360 anything like that, right, and so yeah, and then like 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.400 I try to learn a little bit more. But everyone 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.440 had so intense opinions about it that at some point 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:15.440 I'm like, ah, fuck, I don't know anymore, you know, 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.320 because the military was in control at that time, still 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.120 kind of so they control the news, they control the media, 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.440 they control it's the same thing, you know, like they 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.920 control who were saying what, and so we never hear 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.960 about it that much. If you only, if only you 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.480 care so much and you're following everyone that is saying 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.800 you know the truth, then you know. But otherwise you 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.720 didn't know. It was all very blurry, very So that's 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.040 another time when I'm like, oh fuck, like I don't 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:45.520 know what to do. I'm just gonna you know, and 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.720 then one on with my life. And yeah, I never 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.840 I never realized how much, like how much they had 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.320 to suffer, and they are still suffering, right. 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.920 No number of international protests stop the ethnic cleanding of 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:03.480 the Rainie. As they huddled hidden in their apartment, Andy 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.240 and his brothers began to embrace the need deadly violence 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:07.240 against their oppressors. 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:11.000 We never had any plans, actually, we were just like no, 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.720 I think I remember, it's like that was not really planned. 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:16.600 It was like they killed our people who were fucking 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:17.280 hurt them back. 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:17.520 You know. 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.840 It wasn't to get their guns or shoot them back, 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:22.760 like we didn't even know how to use any of that, 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.240 you know, And honestly, we didn't even want to kill them. 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.960 We just want to be like, you can't do these 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.960 things and not feel, not feel any anything, you know, 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.680 not not feel any consequences of that. Like we're not 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.560 fucking We're not animals. You know. You can't just come 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.280 in and killed one of our friends and think that 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.720 we're not going to do anything back, you know, Like 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.520 and if we let that happen, then they're never going 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.320 to stop, you know. You they were trying to scare us, 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.000 and we were trying to scare them back, but they 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.120 actually kill people. We didn't. We never wanted to kill anyone. 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:57.320 You know. 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.160 Andy's situation felt hopeless at this stage. Trapped at the 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.400 capitol and watching his friends disappear one by one. It 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.480 seemed like he was running out of options. Thousands of 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.720 young people and me and mar felt the same, and 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.440 some of them decided to take an option they hadn't 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.720 even known existed. A few weeks earlier, while we were 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.680 in Massat we conducted a phone interview with a former 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.120 rebel fighter named Alex. Like everyone else we talked to, 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.480 he woke up on the first to February to find 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.600 out that his phone didn't work and the internet was out. 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:29.480 Yeah, I thought like it was just you know, like 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.680 something wrong with my phone. And then like I started 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.400 talking to my friends, and all my friends are having 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.480 the same problem. So we looked down and everybody is 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.600 like watching down to the market because we live close 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.560 to the market, and like they were like you know, 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.920 like doing like like buy and lots of rise and 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.200 like food too. I stole because no one know what's 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:50.800 going to happen. 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.120 Like everyone else, he wasn't that into politics, but he 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.800 was absolutely not into having the military fuck with every 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:00.440 aspect of his life. So he got into the streets first. 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.399 Like we are not like that into the politics and stuff, 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:09.280 so we didn't know. But the you know, like they 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:11.919 can even like shut down the Internet is kind of 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.359 like controlling our life, right, so like if they can 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:17.440 even do that, like you know, like we can only 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.080 imagine like what other things they can do and which 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:24.320 they did like killing the Inno civilians and stuff. So yeah, 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.280 at first we're just like, oh, yeah, we need to 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.080 do something about this and then join the protests. 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.200 He and his friends later found a shop to buy 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.680 gas masks, tasers, and goggles, but even with all the gear, 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.520 they were powerless against soldiers with guns and tear gas. 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.880 He said that the next few weeks were hard. Protests 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.360 were less and less safe, but nobody dared to talk 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:46.200 about their plans to take the fight to the military. 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.399 Everyone was worried about informants and snitches. 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.719 We didn't really like actually talk about those stuff. Like 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.680 we're only like discussing about you know, like a protests 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.480 and also like how to get attention from the like 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:06.040 embassies and stuff. But for like fight fighting back and 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.120 you know, like going on the wars or like I think, 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:12.840 like almost everyone they just decide on their own unless 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.040 they have super like trust deference. 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.120 By April, he says he'd seen people die in the streets. 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.399 He decided the protesting wasn't working and he needed to 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.280 pick up a gun. The only problem was he didn't 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.480 have one, nor did his friends. He knew some people 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:30.840 who had guns and hated the top of the door, but 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:32.440 he'd been raised his whole life to think of them 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:33.240 as terrorists. 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:38.080 Before this web you know, like brainwashed by the military 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.359 like pretty much our whole life. So you know, we 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.439 always think, oh, ethnic groups are like like you know, 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.359 they were okay, like whoever they see or and he 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:54.199 didn't like it. Just terrorsts, terrorists, right, that's what like 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.919 the military like make us believe our whole life. And 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.000 I was kind of scared of like joining them because yeah, 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.440 I didn't know like you know, how to live there 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.159 or like if they're gonna came in just because like 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:08.399 I don't speak Karen. 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:13.239 So yeah, it was bizarrely his boss who hooked him 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.480 up with the rebels in the hills, but he couldn't 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.080 tell anyone he was going in case they got captured 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.760 or turned out to be a snitch. Instead, he packed 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:22.800 his bag with some of his old clothes, didn't even 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.399 say goodbye to his family, and took a bus. He 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:28.639 got off that bus waited intil a man in the 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.840 car picked him up. By that night, he was in 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:32.720 the jungle. 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.159 Doing the first night there, like you know, we have 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.679 to go guard like one or the leader from the jungle, 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.439 like you know, like trainers by you like walking in 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.159 the dark in the forest. So we had to walk 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.240 to like somewhere we don't even know, and we have 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.280 to sleep in the like deep jungle. 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.600 He'd read about the PDF on Facebook, but suddenly he 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.399 found himself among them. Technically they were distinct unit fighting 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.760 for return to democracy, but in practice there and equipped 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.600 by the Karrent National Liberation Army who have been fighting 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.600 for federal democracy for decades. Pretty soon his opinion of 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:08.600 the Karent had changed. 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:13.600 But like during my time, I did some observation about them. Yeah, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.080 it was like obviously, like the government, it's not the 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.920 current people fighting the cup are the military. The military 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.240 has been like you know, like invading the Karrent villagers 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:28.560 like karen Land. And yeah, they did like banning down 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.760 the like villagers, like raving the Woomors, you know, like 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.879 killing the people for like many years. So they cannot 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.439 do anything but to fight back, you know, they have 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:41.320 to fight back to prota their. 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.600 Land, just like Zo, the now deceased rebel soldier who 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.800 interviewed for our last series. Alex receive rudimentary training. He 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.440 never fired a gun before, and supplies are very limited, 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:53.520 but he's still got a kick out of sending a 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:55.760 few rounds down range, like not even in. 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:57.560 My dream, like I never do, like I will be 0:20:57.720 --> 0:20:59.600 like houlting it again, or I shouldn't. 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:01.000 Should it so. 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:03.400 Pretty good? 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:06.560 Yeah? 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:08.520 Do you were what kind of gun was it? Was 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.200 it a point two too or was it? 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:12.800 Yes, the first one was point to two? 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:14.560