Speaker 1: Calls media.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, it's me James, and I am joining you
Speaker 2: today for another and long series of the little recordings
Speaker 2: where I ask you to give us your money. Once again,
Speaker 2: I am asking you to support the mutual aid work
Speaker 2: being done at the border. I'm recording this in November,
Speaker 2: and this week we have terrible weather forecasts that will
Speaker 2: make conditions in her Cumba extremely dangerous for people who
Speaker 2: are detained out there by the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 2: It will mean that it's no exaggeration to say that
Speaker 2: people's lives will be at risk, and that the important
Speaker 2: mutual aid work that's already been done will only become
Speaker 2: more important as we get rain, we get snow, and
Speaker 2: we get cold temperatures, and people continue to be detained
Speaker 2: without shelter, food, water, or adequate clothing. If you would
Speaker 2: like to support those efforts, you can find the way
Speaker 2: to do so at link tree slash Border Kindness. There's
Speaker 2: a dot before the ee, so it's l I n
Speaker 2: k t E R dot e E slash Border Kindness.
Speaker 2: I'll suppose a link on my Twitter if you'd like
Speaker 2: to find it there. Thank you. In the week since
Speaker 2: the end of October, the conflict landscape in Miamma has
Speaker 2: significantly changed. The Hunter and its alignment issues have taken
Speaker 2: unprecedented losses in the PDF, as well as several ethnic
Speaker 2: revolutionary organizations have swept across the country, seizing bases, weapons, tanks,
Speaker 2: and even towns and cities. As the offensive was ongoing,
Speaker 2: I spoke to Sire montine A, leader in the madelid PDF,
Speaker 2: and Billy Ford of the United States Institute for Peace.
Speaker 2: What follows is my conversation with Billy and some insights
Speaker 2: on a situation on the ground with the madel Ai PDF.
Speaker 2: You'll hear more from Sire Montiney in another episode that
Speaker 2: we're working on, but I wanted you to hear his
Speaker 2: personal on the ground perspective now as well. First, I
Speaker 2: let nine nine, the translator from mandele A PDF, introduce
Speaker 2: our guest.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Layes.
Speaker 1: He is the leader of the Commanding and Cohesion team,
Speaker 1: and you can also.
Speaker 3: Say that he the leader of our organization.
Speaker 2: To start with, I asked Billy to explain for you
Speaker 2: the developments in the conflict in the last few weeks.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's really been just the past, what is
Speaker 4: it since the twenty seven so thirteen days kind of
Speaker 4: a level whole change in the conflict trajectory. Whereas I'd say,
Speaker 4: I mean you got coup February first, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: major military operate resistance operations began September seventh, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: and frankly since then it's been more or less incremental change.
Speaker 4: You can, I wouldn't characterize it as a stalemate as
Speaker 4: many have, but there's there's essentially been, you know, small
Speaker 4: pockets of progress where the resistance is capturing territory, but
Speaker 4: all almost exclusively rural areas of the country. And then
Speaker 4: things changed radically on October twenty seventh, when whereas before
Speaker 4: the twenty seventh you had a range of armed stakeholders
Speaker 4: involved in the conflicts, some under the deposed National Unity government,
Speaker 4: as well as what's called the K three C which
Speaker 4: is four of the biggest ethnic army organizations. But a
Speaker 4: lot a lot of the reason why we hadn't seen
Speaker 4: the level change in the military balance of power was
Speaker 4: because of the absence of some of the biggest and
Speaker 4: most powerful armed organizations that had more or less state
Speaker 4: on the sidelines. I mean they were arming and training
Speaker 4: resistance forces that were engaged in active combat, but they
Speaker 4: hadn't themselves in a meaningful way. But on the twenty
Speaker 4: seventh that totally changed. This alliance called the Brotherhood Alliance
Speaker 4: that involves three of the biggest armed organizations initiated coordinated
Speaker 4: attacks in Northern Shan State on the border with China
Speaker 4: and have since the twenty seventh. We're talking to you
Speaker 4: on the tenth here of November, one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: posts have been taken. Seven towns are now under full
Speaker 4: resistance control, seven others by my counter under partial resistance control.
Speaker 4: And the operation in Northern Shan State on the border
Speaker 4: has effectively spurred resistance operations in other parts of the country,
Speaker 4: and so now you essentially have operations in all corners
Speaker 4: of the country. I mean, you've seen PDFs taking towns
Speaker 4: in sagaiin along the Indian border. You've seen the can
Speaker 4: you taking important towns on the logistics corridor on the
Speaker 4: Thai border. Karenni groups have moved into Meyse on the
Speaker 4: Thaie border with Kareni State. The Chin National Front has
Speaker 4: initiated attacks in Balatwa and Southern Chin State near the
Speaker 4: Bangladesh India border. Yeah, so it's really just the trajectory
Speaker 4: of conflict has gone from an incremental trajectory where it's
Speaker 4: like this is a slow burn that could last a
Speaker 4: long time to a we need to start thinking about
Speaker 4: potentially day after. I mean, nothing is a given, and
Speaker 4: the Minama military has been resils in the past, but
Speaker 4: it does feel like this is a historic moment in
Speaker 4: a lot of ways, and the military is weakened in
Speaker 4: a way that we've really never seen in the history
Speaker 4: of the country.
Speaker 2: I asked Montiney to explain a little about how he
Speaker 2: got to a point where his force, who hadn't fought
Speaker 2: it all in twenty twenty one, we're able to fight
Speaker 2: alongside the eros and did a serious defeat to the junta.
Speaker 1: So in twenty one March he decided to go for
Speaker 1: the unrevolutions and then he started reading the books about
Speaker 1: the military and tactics and then warfare things. And then
Speaker 1: he said that he is still learning and reading from
Speaker 1: the books about the military tactics till now. And one
Speaker 1: more thing is we are having some problems about the
Speaker 1: other rebirth defense for dif that they don't have the
Speaker 1: well farming and then they don't follow the code of
Speaker 1: context or something like that. So we organize well that
Speaker 1: we won't become a blood dirsty organization, but just to
Speaker 1: fight for the military pool. And one more thing is
Speaker 1: we are following the two CEOC, which is a code
Speaker 1: of conduct and then chain of commands before we bomb
Speaker 1: up us.
Speaker 3: The these military organizations, a.
Speaker 2: Number of the Eros or Acnams you won't have heard before,
Speaker 2: and that's because they haven't been part of the conflict before.
Speaker 2: So I asked Billy to explain who the Eros in
Speaker 2: the north were and how and why are they identityfied now?
Speaker 4: Sure? So, the ark On Army is a kind ethnic
Speaker 4: based armed organization. They're based on the China border, but
Speaker 4: for the who know memr geography or kind state is
Speaker 4: actually on the complete other side of the country. But this,
Speaker 4: like many were like many newer armed organizations, they were
Speaker 4: essentially incubated by some of the longer term armed organizations.
Speaker 4: In this case, the Kachin Independence Army helped for the
Speaker 4: emergence of the Arakan Army, which has really grown in
Speaker 4: the past ten years into one of the strongest armed
Speaker 4: stakeholders in the country. Before the coup under the On
Speaker 4: Sansuchil National League for Democracy government they were in intense
Speaker 4: fighting with the MR military and on Sansuchi strongly supported
Speaker 4: the m R military's operations against the AA, and that
Speaker 4: kind of built some bad blood, as you might be
Speaker 4: might imagine, between the AA and the National League for Democracy,
Speaker 4: and that bad blood has made it difficult to build
Speaker 4: alliance across ethnic lines and with those resistance organizationations that
Speaker 4: involve NLD folks. But the key point here is that
Speaker 4: the AA is operating in two places, were Kind State
Speaker 4: and in Northern Shan State on the and Kachin State
Speaker 4: also actually it's a gay now but and they're an
Speaker 4: extremely powerful armed organization, highly disciplined, highly effective, well armed.
Speaker 4: The second group is the Ta'ang National Liberation Army. This
Speaker 4: is a an ethnic based army in northern Shan State
Speaker 4: that also is a relatively a newer armed organization. They
Speaker 4: it's it's a pretty complex military environment in Northern Shan
Speaker 4: State because the t n l A are often in
Speaker 4: tension with other Shan ethnic groups that are in Shan State,
Speaker 4: including the r c s S or the Shan State
Speaker 4: Army South, which is competing for control in other parts
Speaker 4: of Shan State. We've also seen some tension between the
Speaker 4: t n l A and the s s p P,
Speaker 4: which is another Northern Shan army that's closely aligned with
Speaker 4: the wah and Chinese. So that's a that's a pretty
Speaker 4: complex array of relationships there. But the t NLA is
Speaker 4: also an increasingly powerful armed organization one that administer Administer's
Speaker 4: territory and has also been locked in conflict with the
Speaker 4: MEMORY military for some time. The last group is the
Speaker 4: m n d a A the MEMR National Democratic Alliance
Speaker 4: Army UH. This is a Ko Kong ethnic based armed
Speaker 4: organization that for a long time controlled territory along the
Speaker 4: China border. In two thousand and nine, men Online who
Speaker 4: is now the commander in chief and the head of
Speaker 4: the SAC. He essentially was leading commands in north in
Speaker 4: the northeast and led operations to push the m n
Speaker 4: d a A out of that territory and replace it
Speaker 4: with a border guard force of another ethnic Ko Kong
Speaker 4: ethnic army. And we can get back to that. But
Speaker 4: that ethnic army became or is a criminal enterprise that's
Speaker 4: now operating massive scam and human trafficking operations with the
Speaker 4: support of the MR military. They're commissioned under the MEMR military,
Speaker 4: but I think a key point here is that there's
Speaker 4: it's very personal with the m n d a A
Speaker 4: and this Border Guard Force and and Men Online, and
Speaker 4: so this is really the m n d a A
Speaker 4: is an organization that has been pushing for a very
Speaker 4: long time to retake this territory and particularly this city
Speaker 4: of Lauchai. And so that that that three constitutes the
Speaker 4: Brotherhood Alliance. There's other stakeholders in this region, including the
Speaker 4: United Waw State Army, which is the largest armed organization
Speaker 4: in Myanmar, or non state armed organization as well, which
Speaker 4: is very closely tied with the Chinese. I mean they
Speaker 4: use Chinese currency, they speak Chinese, they fully administer their
Speaker 4: territory and autonomously. And then the other organizations that are
Speaker 4: relevant here is the National Democratic Alliance Army and d
Speaker 4: a A, which is essentially you can think of it
Speaker 4: as a closely tied with the law and the Chinese.
Speaker 4: And then the Kachin Independence Army, which is a Kachin
Speaker 4: ethnic based armed organization very much founded as a social
Speaker 4: services I mean it's it's kind of got a different
Speaker 4: identity from some of these other groups. It's very much
Speaker 4: like a revolutionary organization with political intentions. Uh, there's kind
Speaker 4: of Christian beliefs that are embedded within the organization. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I want to say it's a highly complex actors with
Speaker 4: different intentions and motivations, but in this particular case, they
Speaker 4: came together to at least the Brotherhood Alliance came together
Speaker 4: to launch this this coordinated attack.
Speaker 2: The T'ang National Liberation Army the group who received many
Speaker 2: of the young people of Mandalay who went on to
Speaker 2: form the Mandelaid PDF. Those young people started out as
Speaker 2: a strikeforce within Mandlay but there are only weapons on
Speaker 2: Molotov cocktails, and every action they took was the rest
Speaker 2: of their whole families if they were caught by march.
Speaker 2: A few weeks into the revolution, Montenay and others took
Speaker 2: to the mountains with the Tang National Liberation Army to
Speaker 2: learn to fight. Before the revolution, he said he had
Speaker 2: no experience and he didn't even play fighting video games.
Speaker 2: I asked him how it felt to be joining a
Speaker 2: group he'd been raised to hate and how he got there.
Speaker 1: Before we formed Manleay perif, we started as an MSDA,
Speaker 1: which is a Manlay four, the first training for our organizations,
Speaker 1: and at the time we only have a sam handmade
Speaker 1: weapons like Molotov, but we really don't use like handmade guns.
Speaker 1: But the after the support of TNLLY, we we got
Speaker 1: the automatic rifles with the help of our alliance and UH.
Speaker 1: At first when we act as a MSTF manally special
Speaker 1: Task Force, we restrict the rooms for not attaching to
Speaker 1: the schools or hospitals or the civilians. And then after
Speaker 1: that we start using the handmade weapons like just like Molotov.
Speaker 1: We didn't use any handguns at the time, but after
Speaker 1: that we trained UH and we contact with the atn
Speaker 1: l E. We have we now have the automatic rifles
Speaker 1: and then others UH missiles or something like that.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: So when he decided to contact with the t n
Speaker 1: l E the Nasal, what he expected were nothing else
Speaker 1: but some few problems that about the racists because of
Speaker 1: most of the ethnic groups, they most of them they
Speaker 1: hate Bumbis people and they even called the Bambi's army.
Speaker 1: So he was explaining that we will be having a
Speaker 1: racist problems. But when he actually reached to the end
Speaker 1: region UH, he found out that there is no hatred
Speaker 1: to the Bombish people and then there was no problem
Speaker 1: about the racist problems.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he also thought that it's because of the.
Speaker 1: Communit comunication between the Bambi's.
Speaker 3: People and the Aloan.
Speaker 1: Racist Uhlan people. They provide tea, leaves and the other
Speaker 1: things to eat bambished people and then they make some
Speaker 1: tradings and then some they do some business with barbised people,
Speaker 1: so that there was no problem about that. But the
Speaker 1: only other thing was about the weather, because of the
Speaker 1: rough weather in the mountains, it's a very different weather
Speaker 1: from the like Manulee region. It's very cool for the
Speaker 1: people from the Manley region, the Manleys, Yeah, and in
Speaker 1: mountains it's very cold in here. So we still having
Speaker 1: problems about the weather problems, but now we are getting
Speaker 1: used to it.
Speaker 3: And he said that he is also surprised that t.
Speaker 1: N l A, the AD National Division Army is wealth
Speaker 1: all military and then they also following the code of
Speaker 1: conduct and then the following the democracy way and then
Speaker 1: most of the leaders from the t and LA of
Speaker 1: the liberal ideas and then they also one we work
Speaker 1: on to the young leaders.
Speaker 3: From the revolution for us. So see, he was surprised
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 2: Billy told me that this same dynamic HAULD occurred all
Speaker 2: over the country. And this is probably a good time
Speaker 2: to remind listeners that we've covered the formation of the
Speaker 2: PDFs and our two previous series about Memmar and if
Speaker 2: you haven't had the time to listen to those, I
Speaker 2: really hope you do because it'll make this one a
Speaker 2: lot more interesting and this one probably won't make much
Speaker 2: sense without it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think this is really a key dynamic,
Speaker 4: and we can come back to the conversation maybe about
Speaker 4: day after the political dimensions of the conflict, but there's
Speaker 4: frankly before the coup, these sorts of coordinations would be
Speaker 4: uh like incomprehensible. I mean you'd see the Arakan Army,
Speaker 4: the Kachin Independence Army, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army, all
Speaker 4: of them have deep connections with mostly Bamar ethnic pds,
Speaker 4: some of whom work in coordination with the National Unity Government,
Speaker 4: some which are slightly more independent. But the this is
Speaker 4: an inter ethnic collaboration that's that's very novel and demonstrates
Speaker 4: a shift and inter ethnic and intercommunal dynamics in the
Speaker 4: country that are is very positive in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4: So Yeah, the t n l A. The has been
Speaker 4: providing weapons and training for PDFs in Mandalay, the k
Speaker 4: O the k I A has been providing weapons, in
Speaker 4: training and tactical and strategic support to PDFs in Sagan
Speaker 4: and the Arakan Army has been maybe more than any
Speaker 4: group providing tactical UH support and weapons and training to
Speaker 4: PDFs and b Goo Airwadi, Maguay and now more recently
Speaker 4: in Sigai in so really the the Burman heartland of
Speaker 4: the country. So yeah, all of these ethnic minority based
Speaker 4: armed organizations are now collaborating, sharing resources and knowledge with UH,
Speaker 4: with with Bamar ethnic PDFs. There's a so that I
Speaker 4: think the main question here is like, what does this
Speaker 4: mean for intercommunal relations? What does this mean for the
Speaker 4: future UH of you know, of the country? Is there?
Speaker 4: Does this indicate there's potential for greater national solidarity in
Speaker 4: the absence of the MEMR military, fracturing communities and so on.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's it's a it's a radical shift in
Speaker 4: those relationships.
Speaker 2: But he also shared that as we've heard from every
Speaker 2: single PDF fighter we've talked to, their time alongside the
Speaker 2: eros Is comrades in arms has changed the way they
Speaker 2: see ethnicity in the future of their country.
Speaker 4: And I think this is also manifesting a lot of
Speaker 4: the research that my organization, the US Institute of Peace,
Speaker 4: has been doing at the among the general public. I mean,
Speaker 4: we've done three different studies over the past year to
Speaker 4: assess intercremual relations in the post couperiod and to kind
Speaker 4: of see how relations have shifted, because there's a really
Speaker 4: dominant narrative that MEMR is kind of irreconcilably fractured and
Speaker 4: that the communities are loyal to their ethnic identities not
Speaker 4: their national identities and so on, and frankly, all of
Speaker 4: our research has has pointed to a similar trend, which
Speaker 4: is one, inter ethnic relations are considerably better. There's a
Speaker 4: there's greater solidarity. There's actually one of the the experimental
Speaker 4: research studies that we did found that national identity, as
Speaker 4: in being from MEMMR was more was more important to
Speaker 4: respond ince than ethnic identity, which totally cuts against narratives
Speaker 4: about MEMMAR. And Yeah, I mean, I think there's been
Speaker 4: considerable gains and inter ethnic relations, and it's you know,
Speaker 4: it's hard to determine, you know, the causal linkages here,
Speaker 4: whether you know, the improved inter ethnic relations are spurring
Speaker 4: greater military collaboration and collaboration on humanitarian assistants and governance
Speaker 4: and so on. But it does feel like there's a
Speaker 4: major shift and social dynamics in addition to these kind
Speaker 4: of military shifts that are taking place. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think that the research we've done has found there to
Speaker 4: be sort of extremist national perspectives still remain, but that
Speaker 4: they're the likelihood of them escalating to violence is reduced,
Speaker 4: in large part because the public's vulnerability to UH incitement
Speaker 4: or to a highly devisive political speech. Most of what
Speaker 4: came from Melmar military run troll farms is is much
Speaker 4: I mean, there's much more resilience to those that that
Speaker 4: form of political violence. So, you know, I think there's
Speaker 4: still a lot of work obviously to do to build
Speaker 4: intercommunal cohesion and understanding, but that the likelihood you know,
Speaker 4: for example, in a post sac world that you will
Speaker 4: be you know, see mass intercommunal violence, it seems much
Speaker 4: lower than a lot of people are presuming that it
Speaker 4: would be that the that the actual horizontal relationships across
Speaker 4: communities are not are not as bad as many presume. Actually,
Speaker 4: one of the surveys that we did found that Memar's
Speaker 4: intercommunal relations are no worse than countries with much lower
Speaker 4: levels of violence, which is kind of an indication of
Speaker 4: the fact that it's really vertical dynamics like violent political speech,
Speaker 4: highly exclusionary governance structures that are driving intercommunal violence, and
Speaker 4: so that those on that dimension at least that the
Speaker 4: person to person intercommunal relation or relationships. I think there's
Speaker 4: a lot to be a lot of positive narratives there.
Speaker 2: Talking of positive narratives, here's some positive narratives about products
Speaker 2: and or services. Another aspect of the conflict that's played
Speaker 2: out in Operation ten twenty seven, it's the role of
Speaker 2: China and the massive crime empires that the junta has
Speaker 2: facilitated along the country's borders in recent years. I asked
Speaker 2: Billy to explain some of those.
Speaker 4: So this has become the major political dynamic between China
Speaker 4: and the SAC over the past year. Frankly, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's essentially what we've seen is the emergence of these
Speaker 4: massive scam operations that use foreign labor that's trafficked into
Speaker 4: MEMR into areas controlled primarily by MEMMR military commissioned border
Speaker 4: guard forces. So these are commissioned under the MEMR military,
Speaker 4: which is a very key point in most cases, and
Speaker 4: they are running scam operations at a global level that
Speaker 4: are scamming people using a scheme called pig butchering, which
Speaker 4: is long term relationship building. And then you're yeah, theft
Speaker 4: at a large scale. This is like, these are sizable
Speaker 4: losses from individuals. So last year, for example, to give
Speaker 4: you a sense of that scale, China lost twenty billion
Speaker 4: dollars to these scam operations. Twenty billion, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: of states lost two billion dollars on scam operations emerging
Speaker 4: from Menmar. I mean, the scale of this is wild.
Speaker 4: I mean there's more than there's more than one hundred
Speaker 4: thousand people being held in scam zones in Meanmar from
Speaker 4: forty six different countries. I mean, it's a it's this
Speaker 4: is a total global operation because I mean this emerged
Speaker 4: actually before COVID, I mean in sia Hanookville, Cambodia and
Speaker 4: other places where there's you know, rule of laws is dubious.
Speaker 4: They have the initiated kind of casino operations which are
Speaker 4: illegal in China and really targeting Chinese public. And during COVID,
Speaker 4: when China a lot of Chinese nationals were forced back
Speaker 4: to mainland China. These criminal enterprises were short on labor,
Speaker 4: and so they shifted their approach. I mean they shifted
Speaker 4: to trafficking people into their zones and then operating at
Speaker 4: a global scale finding labor from around the world, you know,
Speaker 4: using not not low skilled labor. I mean this is
Speaker 4: these are high skilled kind of middle class workers seeking
Speaker 4: employment in the tech industry or some other scheme that
Speaker 4: they you know, eventually they're you know, held at gunpoint
Speaker 4: and forced to scam their co nationals. So that's a
Speaker 4: little bit of background. So this is happening in Ko
Speaker 4: Kong along the Chinese border, also in the Wa territories
Speaker 4: and in the n d a A territories. The largest
Speaker 4: areas are actually on the Thai Burma border with the
Speaker 4: Kren Border Guard Force and affiliated criminal organizations. So essentially,
Speaker 4: over the past year, the Chinese have have noticed not
Speaker 4: only the financial losses but the potential for social instability
Speaker 4: because as youth unemployment has grown in China, you know,
Speaker 4: these young people are seeking new employment opportunities, crossing the
Speaker 4: border and memr for high paying tech jobs and then
Speaker 4: being held at gunpoints. So you have you know, mothers
Speaker 4: on social media saying I haven't seen my son in
Speaker 4: three weeks and you know he's being held in a
Speaker 4: scam operation. So you know this is this is dileitarious
Speaker 4: at two levels. You know, the financial scam losses and
Speaker 4: the trafficking, and it's all being run by border guard
Speaker 4: forces that are commissioned by the Melamar military. And yet
Speaker 4: you see countries around the world, including China, going to
Speaker 4: the Malamar military and saying, please shut this down. And
Speaker 4: of course the Malmur military has no intention to shut
Speaker 4: this down because these these scam operations are financing the
Speaker 4: border guard forces that are their key weapon against the resistance.
Speaker 4: So they need the border guard forces and so they
Speaker 4: will never shut down the scam operations. And so what
Speaker 4: what ensued was essentially earlier this year, I mean, the
Speaker 4: Chinese came to the Malmour military and said, we will
Speaker 4: support you at every level. We will prop you up,
Speaker 4: provide you weapons, to provide you assistance if you can
Speaker 4: demonstrate the capacity to govern, the capacity to provide stability
Speaker 4: on our border, the capacity to provide to allow us
Speaker 4: to pursue our economic interests. And the SAC has completely
Speaker 4: failed this test. Scam operations have exploded China's economic interests.
Speaker 4: The Chupu, especially economic zone remains in a impact assessment phase.
Speaker 4: The lepid on copper mind is non functional, the Mitzo
Speaker 4: dam is non functional. They're just not getting out of
Speaker 4: the SAC what they wanted, and so there was a
Speaker 4: meaningful shift recently, it appears, and I think by all
Speaker 4: indicators that we can see the Chinese Greenlit Operation ten
Speaker 4: twenty seven that they at least did not stand in
Speaker 4: their way, and you'll see from the then Daa, I
Speaker 4: mean they really were the leaders of the operation that
Speaker 4: in the statements that they issued about the operation itself
Speaker 4: and when they articulated their objectives, the first objective was
Speaker 4: to shut down scam operations. I mean you can see
Speaker 4: that this is they're speaking to a Chinese public and
Speaker 4: the government indicating that we're a responsible, good faith actor
Speaker 4: that will shut down these enterprises that are trafficking your
Speaker 4: citizens and scamming the public out of billions of dollars.
Speaker 4: So this has become a really dominant dynamic in the
Speaker 4: relationship between the Chinese and the SAC, and it's it
Speaker 4: leads to a really weakened position for the SAC if
Speaker 4: they're not being propped up in the way that they
Speaker 4: have been for so long by by the Chinese. So
Speaker 4: we'll have to see how this kind of unfolds, but
Speaker 4: it's not looking good for the military.
Speaker 2: When we do see how this unfolds, it'll be people
Speaker 2: like the mandl a PDF who we see leading the
Speaker 2: charge for a new and democratic MIANDMA. We don't exactly
Speaker 2: know what that means, but I asked them if the
Speaker 2: weapons see is in operation ten twenty seven, we'll allow
Speaker 2: them to arm more fighters and get there faster.
Speaker 1: We are also now recruiting a new recruits, but we
Speaker 1: will we will have to recruit until the genter is gone.
Speaker 1: And we also need more soldiers to form up the
Speaker 1: better army than the gener after we want, even after
Speaker 1: we want, we are going to need some more human
Speaker 1: resources to form up the better army than the male army,
Speaker 1: you know. And for the arms and ammunitions, we got
Speaker 1: a lot of arm and ammunitions from the male like AMI,
Speaker 1: but we it's they use a different type of the ammunitions.
Speaker 1: And then because we, for example, we use like A
Speaker 1: K types, we have the different so it is not
Speaker 1: very possible to arm the better weapons from the the
Speaker 1: Maylie amy. We only used some of the weapons, like
Speaker 1: for the artillery or something like that, but that's only
Speaker 1: a few we got from them. What we really need
Speaker 1: is about the better artillery or S A M or
Speaker 1: something like that for the air strips. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not very usedful for us from the anthem ammunition we
Speaker 1: got from the Male Army. He said that the main
Speaker 1: points in the arm revolution is it's about two cature
Speaker 1: the important points, not to catcha all the CDs or
Speaker 1: something like that, like to catchure the enemy sec quotas
Speaker 1: or the important places. We are going to need more plants,
Speaker 1: and then he say that he's unclear about that.
Speaker 2: I asked Billy what he thought we could expect in
Speaker 2: the new Mianma. I see points out here. Everything every
Speaker 2: circled analysts has said has been proven wrong by the revolution.
Speaker 2: They've exceeded the wildest expectations of experts in London and Washington, DC,
Speaker 2: and where they go next is really up to them.
Speaker 4: Good question, and frankly, I don't have a lot of
Speaker 4: information about that. I mean, you've seen pictures over the
Speaker 4: past twelve days of the as the resistance has taken
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty posts. They've definitely captured a lot
Speaker 4: of heavy munitions and artillery, but yeah, I'm not sure
Speaker 4: service to air capabilities. I mean, I think the the
Speaker 4: fact that the Menommur military is not able to push
Speaker 4: the resistance out of urban areas. I mean, this is
Speaker 4: the first time really that the resistance moved into urban
Speaker 4: areas and held them, including into guy and I mean
Speaker 4: Colon has been they're holding it and so I mean
Speaker 4: that seems to be an indication to me that the
Speaker 4: ESSAYCS capability is weakening. I mean, yeah, their their access
Speaker 4: to foreign currency and to purchase weapons is highly constrained now.
Speaker 4: I mean their primary providers Russia and China, you know,
Speaker 4: ones fighting their own war and the other is kind
Speaker 4: of is a little bit more skeptical as to whether
Speaker 4: they deserve their support. I mean they just last week
Speaker 4: the US initiated new sanctions on the Meanoma oil and
Speaker 4: Gas enterprise. They provided half a billion dollars in revenue
Speaker 4: for the junta per year. Yeah, that's a major that's
Speaker 4: a major issue for them accessing US dollars, which they
Speaker 4: need to buy weapons. I mean, the Ties can no
Speaker 4: longer pay the Memoir military and USD and the memor
Speaker 4: military doesn't want bought, so they're literally negotiating barter agreements
Speaker 4: where they you know, sell gas for material goods. But
Speaker 4: now you have the Resistance controlling you know, part of
Speaker 4: cocker Rig on the Asia Highway into Thailand. I mean,
Speaker 4: they control the borders or the starting to in a
Speaker 4: way they hadn't before, So even this sort of bartering
Speaker 4: or material trade is less viable. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: I think they're just really asset constrained. And it does
Speaker 4: I mean, just the fact that they haven't been able
Speaker 4: to retake these critical logistic ups. I mean, the border
Speaker 4: crossings that the Resistance has have controlled constitute forty percent
Speaker 4: of the of the of the overland trade between China
Speaker 4: and memor It's like, you know, it's like four billion
Speaker 4: dollars in value that's being you know, that tax loss
Speaker 4: for the SAC it's considerable. It's considerable losses there as well.
Speaker 4: And how long they can really hold out and maintain
Speaker 4: their air assets is really questionable, particularly since they've had
Speaker 4: to massively diversify their air asset purchase, which really makes
Speaker 4: it more complex to service points. And so yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: I think I'm not sure that the Resistance has much
Speaker 4: more capacity in service to air or air defense, but
Speaker 4: it does seem like the SACS capacity to inflict atrocities
Speaker 4: in this way has also been constrained.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sort of flies in the face of every
Speaker 2: sort of like analytical idea about the assets that you
Speaker 2: need to have in order to be successful in one
Speaker 2: of these Like they've they've really proved a lot of
Speaker 2: people wrong in a really impressive way. I know, you
Speaker 2: have to go I want to ask one more real
Speaker 2: quick the did these towns did the SAC pull out
Speaker 2: of the towns or did they like fight house to
Speaker 2: house or like how did they did it?
Speaker 4: Very across Well, the I mean the SAC was you know,
Speaker 4: in their barracks themselves. I mean in these towns, it's
Speaker 4: a national uprising. The public is you know, opposed to
Speaker 4: the presence. This is an occupying force, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just moving in and capturing military posts. And as
Speaker 4: one person resistance fighter indicated, essentially you fire your gun
Speaker 4: in the air and they lay down their weapons, which
Speaker 4: is more you know, an indication of of where the
Speaker 4: military stands and the support that these these highly isolated
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a fractured light infantry force that's
Speaker 4: dispersed at posts all over the country, and you know
Speaker 4: they're resupplying from the Northwest Command in monuoas to town
Speaker 4: within thirty minutes drive by helicopter because they can't they
Speaker 4: can't move, so there's just not logistics support to these posts.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, you've got folks in there that just
Speaker 4: the will to fight is pretty small. Morale is shrinking
Speaker 4: from a very low base, and so I think there
Speaker 4: was the The general pattern is just resistance taking military
Speaker 4: barracks and posts rather than having to go house to house.
Speaker 4: I mean there's villages in towns where there's these groups
Speaker 4: called pew Sawtee that are like military aligned militias, but yeah,
Speaker 4: that's not really you know, a nationwide fighting force, and
Speaker 4: it's in most cases it really is just the resistance
Speaker 4: capturing posts and pushing out a military personnel. And I
Speaker 4: mean there was a they're also using drones to a
Speaker 4: high degree of effectiveness. They recently killed a colonel who
Speaker 4: was on he was about to be become a brigadier general,
Speaker 4: the highest ranking person who have been killed in battle
Speaker 4: from the Memora military through a drone strike in northern
Speaker 4: Shun State, I believe for kit Chen and I think that, yeah,
Speaker 4: the resistance drone capabilities have also increased considerably. And this
Speaker 4: is also an area where you see NUG collaborating a
Speaker 4: lot with the arrows. So yeah, it's it's it's just yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a barracks, you know, menmoial military personnel and they
Speaker 4: just in many cases just lay down their arms because
Speaker 4: it's just morale so low, and the probability of them
Speaker 4: to be able to fend off indefinitely is when they
Speaker 4: have the public against them and a resistance movement against them.
Speaker 4: It's just really a challenge ex set of conditions for them.
Speaker 2: We don't know exactly what the future of Myanmar is,
Speaker 2: but it took an interesting turn in the last few
Speaker 2: weeks with the k and DF the Saquareni National Defense
Speaker 2: Force fifth Battalion issuing a statement of solidarity with the
Speaker 2: people of Rejava and the people of Java in the
Speaker 2: form of the YPG and the YPGA, their defense units
Speaker 2: of men and women respectively, recording a response a great
Speaker 2: risk during the ongoing grown campaign expressing their solidarity and
Speaker 2: support for the revolutionary people of Myanmar, something will cover
Speaker 2: in greater detail on another episode, but it's yet another
Speaker 2: illustration of how the revolutionary people of Myanmar have continued
Speaker 2: to defy everyone's expectations about how and where they will
Speaker 2: go next, and how they've managed to dream up a
Speaker 2: vision for a more equal and just future even as
Speaker 2: they face the injustice and inequality of fighting a war
Speaker 2: the world doesn't seem to care about without a single
Speaker 2: dollar of international military little support, and then strongly worded
Speaker 2: letters from the UN At sporadic intervals. As we come
Speaker 2: to the end of the episode, I asked Sam Montine
Speaker 2: if he had anything else he would like to share
Speaker 2: with our listeners.
Speaker 3: Okay, he said that.
Speaker 1: If he is able to talk, he wants them to
Speaker 1: know that we are not the white people. We most
Speaker 1: of them are educated, and we are only plying for
Speaker 1: the democracy. But in some international news there will be
Speaker 1: some news that, like PDF the revolution forces are killing
Speaker 1: each other or something like that, but it's like not
Speaker 1: fully correct. Maybe some a few will be doing that,
Speaker 1: but most of us are not doing that way.
Speaker 3: It's just a propagonna from.
Speaker 1: The like me.
Speaker 3: You know. We also say that we are no more
Speaker 3: expecting for the help from the other countries.
Speaker 1: We will be fighting our own and then with our
Speaker 1: spiritatively in And he also wanted to say that to
Speaker 1: the US government or the King of England or the
Speaker 1: other countries authorities that we are not wild ones. We
Speaker 1: are educated, and then we are just fighting to get
Speaker 1: the democracy back to our country.
Speaker 3: He's using a little.
Speaker 1: Bit from wards, you know, say that if other governments
Speaker 1: are not helping us because they can't get any benefits
Speaker 1: from helping us, even if they don't want to help us,
Speaker 1: just don't look as like we are the wild ones.
Speaker 1: We will be trying to get the level of the
Speaker 1: other countries. We will always be trying for that. If
Speaker 1: you have any chance to speak out in a seminar
Speaker 1: or the workshops or any other things or any meetings,
Speaker 1: he wants you to tell the news about killings each
Speaker 1: other of our revolution forces is just a propagunnas of sac.
Speaker 1: If there is no more Sac, there would be no
Speaker 1: issues like the anymore. Most of some issues are just
Speaker 1: because of Sac and then they spread in some rumors
Speaker 1: about that and then take news. You know, if you
Speaker 1: guys can come and visit us, and then you can
Speaker 1: see how we treat people, and then how we respect
Speaker 1: the civilians, and then how we follow a lot of
Speaker 1: context in person.
Speaker 2: If you want to follow the mate APDF, you can
Speaker 2: search them on Facebook. Where they post regular updates. We'll
Speaker 2: include the link in the show notes for you. If
Speaker 2: you want to hear more from Billy, I'll let him
Speaker 2: tell you how sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, we put out a paper at us
Speaker 4: IP dot org yesterday on the relationship between the scam
Speaker 4: operations and the the the conflict dynamics. I'm putting one
Speaker 4: out probably next week on the day after quote unquote dynamics,
Speaker 4: summarizing some of our research. I'm on Twitter at b
Speaker 4: I L L E E the number four, the letter D,
Speaker 4: so you can try to stay up on some of
Speaker 4: the conflict dynamics there. But yeah, the USIP website where
Speaker 4: we published most of our most of our stuff.
Speaker 2: In closing, I just want to share how much hope
Speaker 2: I found in the conflict in the MR in recent weeks.
Speaker 2: At a time when the world seems so full of cruelty,
Speaker 2: it's inspiring to see people relatively unified, committed to respecting
Speaker 2: life and civilians and succeeding against all the odds. This
Speaker 2: doesn't mean they don't need help. They do desperately, and
Speaker 2: I hope that as people continue to advocate to civilians
Speaker 2: in Gaza, they can include civilians and revolutionaries from Meandmark
Speaker 2: in their demands going forward, It could happen here as
Speaker 2: a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.