September 28, 2023 • 24 mins
James chose to return to the end of the first series he and Robert made about Myanmar. This episode profiles some of the young men and women of the PDF.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, It's me James, and if you're hearing this,
it's because I am on holiday along with all my colleagues.
But in order to help you as you wander lonely
as a cloud through the contentless abyss of our one
week of holiday, we are re releasing some episodes of
the show that we like and that you may also like.
(00:21):
Avid listeners would have probably listened to them before, but
I picked one from a little while ago, March of
twenty twenty two, so it's when you can revisit and
hopefully enjoy. It's the culmination of our first series on Myanmar,
called Printing the Revolution, and I like this one because
it was the first thing I did for it could
(00:43):
happen here. And I was really happy to have a
home for this story because I've been pitching it for
months and just getting a fuck all response from editors
because they have no reason to care about me andmar
because there's no money in it for global capital, and
therefore it seems like people in the US don't care
to include or your non left its publications, and so
I was really happy to have a home for this story.
(01:04):
And obviously it's not one with a particularly happy ending.
I won't spoil it, I guess, but yes, it's rough
one and that is something that like I still think
about and it still upsets me. And it's also I think,
a perspective on the reality of conflict coverage. It doesn't
get shard enough. I think for twenty years this country
(01:27):
has been at war, and the media has for a
large part participated in the sort of propaganda that makes
conflict seem other than what is, which is the worst
thing that humans do to each other, and it did.
Good guys don't always win, and sometimes the good guys die,
and whilst that's something that I wish didn't happen, it does.
(01:49):
And I'm happy that we were able to in that moment,
which was a very sad moment, difficult moment for both
Robert myself, especially myself. I think I just think quite
a long time before I met Robert talking to Zora
and working on this story, and we were able to
share that with you and share the realities of like
(02:09):
we're not kind of unfeeling automaton side that like this
this shit is difficult for us and it affects us,
and I know a lot of people felt that affected
them as well. And this episode stuck a cold with
a lot of people. So yeah, I hope that you
enjoy it. I'm Robert Evans and this is part four
(02:30):
of me and mar printing the revolution.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
And then once we got there we could in rest,
you know, rain, sun whatever. Women as well, we were
all like try it when they came when we were leaving,
they were all like, very fair skin and beautiful. And
then we went in and then everyone got tanned. In
the jungle, we're training all the time, you know, people
(02:55):
in training camp.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
We were driven apart.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And the reason that we were all doing this is
because from an online coup as students and how much
he has terrorized the public and the people.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
And that's why were we.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Have this morale and the ability to get through the
trading and be able to wield weapons.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Zora and his friends went into the junglist students, programmers
and kids. Now they're fighters. They were tech savvy young people,
he says, they grew up online and that generational divide
which the Internet brought here came much later in Miamar.
It wasn't until twenty eleven that people really gained access
to the internet and with it the new ideas and
(03:36):
identities that it brought. Soul's generation are among the first
to embrace global connectivity, and now after having it taken away,
they're refusing to give it up.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
The start of the coup in February, the military, well,
gen Z was organizing online, social media and all that,
and they were kind of I think this is from
my experience kind of organizing around like gen Z is
going to be different than the Ada generation because we
(04:08):
have the Internet, and also we know more about the
world and can come communicate.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
To the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I think one thing that was being was that in
two thousand and eight, it just took one video leaking
out of the country for there to be big international repercussions.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's worth noting that when people in Burma talk about
the Internet, they mean Facebook. Phones come with the Facebook
app installed and it's sometimes exempt from data charges. For
many people in Burma, using the internet means using Facebook.
Zora and his friends are different from their parents in
many ways, not at least in their perceptions of authority.
(04:46):
This has led to a situation where the PDF People's
defense force units are much less hierarchical than units of
the Tamador.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So when we make decisions in our group. There's no
master in student, there's no teacher student. But you know
the way that it works, there are people who are good,
they're older, people who are more trained, and then there
are new recruits, new people who just came in. So
of course the people who are there for longer and
(05:15):
know more about the situation have more voice and when
we discuss so especially people who were there.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
When we founded this group.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There were only really eight people from when we grouped,
so those eight people kind of discussed on the bigger strategy.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
You know, we don't really vote there. He says he
wants to do it, he thinks is good.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
We are there's the seven of us we think is good,
or we support him, or someone says we don't really
like that idea, then we don't do it.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
They try to achieve more gender quality as well. Those
are explained that in his unit, the women are not
always the frontline fighters.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
That's the place there's no discrimination. You know, women can
women and men were training whoever could come. But like
on the battlefield, people, we don't use women that much
on the battlefield. That's one thing that we do know
is that it's not it's not really discrimination. But if
(06:18):
women are with us together, we have confusion about whether
we need to protect them or we're just fighting with
with them, or they're fighting in front of us. And
that there's one thing that is very different is that
in terms of mentality, we can't. We never take the
(06:43):
women out really far into very dangerous fights. So often
they're in the back as backup or supplies or things
like that. But as you know, the military government, the
military terrorists are very very they're very unethical. They don't
follow the rules, so you know they're going to shoot
(07:05):
whoever they see. So even if they're hanging back and
they're sending medical supplies, they can still get hit.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
For Zora in particular, there's a lot at stake. After
almost an hour and a half of talking, I asked
about his parents. I'd heard of retribution attacks against families
of fighters and wondered if he was worried about that.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
So mom and dad are both they support me fighting
them against the military.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
They're very happy. His dad really wants to.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Do CDM, but he can't run away because the military
has taken his mother and his sisters. He still has
five sisters, they're all still in that military command the work.
They're in the military school schools, so it's very hard
(07:52):
for them to run away rightact.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So he really wants to leave the military, but he can't.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Though, while so that the fact that I am there
trying to fight against the military, see is very happy,
but he tells me to be careful about my own life.
They're supportive and they really want to come fight themselves,
but they can't because of my sisters and my mother.
So him seeing that I can do it, it's really
(08:22):
wonderful for them. So his father, his other brother and
other people, three of them below him. They've all usually
just lived together with his grandfather and stuff in the
military Trump Pounds or near the military. So he really
wants to call all the people that are still there,
(08:44):
but they can't leave.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
This is what civil wood does. Traps us in a
situation where we can't make the right choice even when
we know what it is, and in many situations it's
pretty hard to discern right from wrong. In the midst
of so much violence, Seel has been able to fight,
but his dad is stuck fighting against people like his
son in order to protect his daughters. Thousands of families
(09:07):
across the country divided in the same way by circumstance
or ideology. The military is something of a separate society.
It has its own schools and its own culture. But
ethnic armed organizations have not been close to urban populations either,
and so whole new identities have been forged by Generation
z while their families often struggle to abandon all certainties.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
As we record this, Zaw is still fighting, his girlfriend
is still healing. Every few weeks a video of him
and his friends pops up on Reddit or Facebook. They
have optics on their rifles now and are taking long
range shots at the top Madar, who rely on iron sights.
They shoot and reload like soldiers, and they laugh like kids.
The top Madara still controls the cities, but to move
(10:00):
between them they have to travel in convoys at breakneck speeds,
using ambushes, mines and knowledge of the terrain. EAOs and
the PDF are able to deny the military access to
large portions of the countryside. Without a serious change in
the conflict, it might stay like this for years. A
report published this month detailed the attacks in the Karini
(10:20):
State by the tout Madaw on churches, residential homes, camps
for displaced people, which killed sixty one in the months
since Zau left the city On Christmas Eve. In Upruso's township,
they killed at least forty civilians. Autopsies show some were
gagged and burned alive. In recent months, the tot MADA
has increased its use of air strikes against targets that
it deems legitimate. Ming An Hlang, the junta's leader, flew
(10:44):
to Russia twice. In twenty twenty one, he was proclaimed
an honorary professor of the Military University of the Russian
Armed Forces. Quote. We are determined to continue our efforts
to strengthen bilateral ties based on the mutual understanding, respect
and trust that have been established between US two countries,
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with
the coup leader on June twenty second. We pay special
(11:07):
attention to this meeting as we see Myanmar as a
time tested strategic partner and a reliable ally in Southeast
Asia and the Asia Pacific region.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He went on.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Min On Hlang was equally lavish with his praise, saying
that he saw Russia as a friend forever. Myanmar relies
heavily on Russian hind Mi I thirty five helicopter gunships,
transport helicopters Mid twenty nine and SU thirty fighter jets
and Yak one thirty ground attack aircraft to carry out
bombing raids and straight civilians. All of these weapons systems
(11:37):
have been seen more recently in the fighting in Ukraine.
One prominent Burmese Irish family, the kiah Toongs, has helped
the junta avoid an international arms embargo using their global
connections and a network of shady shadow companies. They have
purchased helicopters under the pretense of using them for tourism
and the oil and gas industry, and handed them over
to the Tautmadau. They've also helped shuttle coastal race to Meanmar,
(12:01):
which the Top Medal used to track Rohinga refugees and
provide cover for several aircraft purchases. To fund these armed purchases,
the top Meda has found willing markets for luxury goods abroad.
According to Justice for Meanmar, since the coup in February
twenty twenty one, the United States has imported fifteen hundred
and sixty five metric tons of teak from Myanmar using
(12:21):
intermediaries to avoid sanctions. In the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen
financial year, the last year for which data is available,
the government received one hundred million US dollars in revenue
from taxes and royalties applied to the timber trade. In
twenty twenty one, there were more shipments than twenty eighteen,
offering the top Madal the chance to make enough money
to continue purchasing weapons to use against their population. The
(12:45):
conflict in Myanmar remains complicated. It's easy to reduce the
alphabet soup of revel groups to EAOs and the PDF,
but these groups and their motivations are diverse. Pierre explained
to us that even within the Koran there are deep divisions.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Well, trust, you have to know that historically the Karen
Rebellion that started in nineteen forty eight, nineteen forty nine,
so quite a long time ago, was led by Christian
by the Christian minority, okay of the current people, because
obviously that was the most Western educated people at the time.
(13:27):
And so this Elits kind of reproduced itself in the
New without being the can new is the current National
Union is a democratic movement, but you know elits tend
to reproduce themselves. And so most of the leadership, let's say,
(13:50):
of the current National Union and the current National Liberation
Army was Christian.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Like.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
And so the Burmese Junta, the Burmese military government, decided
to use this to create a wedge between between the
Karen Christians and the Karen Buddhists uh, and sent monks
(14:23):
to say, agitate and try to cause this split on
religious grounds no uh. And they succeeded in parts, and
succeeded to to separate part of of Karent Buddhists. That
created the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army d k B, which
(14:49):
then allied themselves of course, to the to the junta
and to to attack the to attack the kind the
Manor Plow which of course they knew all the roads
there and the defenses and where was the defense is situated,
et cetera, and succeeded in destroying the capital of the
(15:14):
Karen National Union in Manorplo in ninety five. So that
was the situation pretty much when I arrived, it was
pretty hard like there was not so much territory anymore
held by the Karen and more importantly, they lost a
(15:36):
lot of income because a lot of their income come
from tax at the border that they can control, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
So yeah, that was the situation.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Not every EEO has embraced the National Unity Government directly,
after all, many of its members were enthusiastically running cover
for the Rohinga genocide a few years ago. Many of
the EAOs remained technically under a ceasefire with the Top MADA,
and the Top MADA knows that if it pushes too
far into EAO territory, it risks provoking a full blown response.
(16:09):
The EAOs, meanwhile, have been aiding and training the PDF
and still maintaining enough deniability that the Top MADA has
not been forced into a confrontation. EAO PDF alliances look
different in different regions, and often realities on the ground
bear little relationship to the back door diplomacy and official
stances embraced by leadership and public.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
The war continues to have a huge toll on civilians.
According to United Nations, in total, some four hundred and
forty thousand people have been newly displaced since the coup
happened in February twenty twenty one, adding to an existing
three hundred and seventy thousand who had fled their homes
from earlier waves of violence, and over a million people
who had fled the Hingia genocide. More than half the
(16:51):
population of Kreni State has fled. Humanitarian access is hard.
Much of the relief effort for displaced people occur within
local communities. Thousands of refugees a camp along the border
with Thailand, which is defined by rivers. Initially, many people
fled into Thailand, but terrible conditions in refugee camps led
(17:13):
some of them to return to Me and Ma. Now
they weighed across the river for international aid donations of
food and water, but they can't bring themselves to stay
in the crowded camps overnight, so they wighed back to
sleep on the Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR,
the High Commission on Refugees, has been unable to access
camps in Thailand or Me and Mah to check on
(17:35):
the conditions, but it has urged a Thai government, which
has been credibly accused of forcing people back across the border,
to move people to better conditions further into Thailand instead
of keeping them in camps near the border. And here
we find the unfortunate, unavoidable reality of the civil war
in Me and Mah. For all the uniqueness of aspects
of the conflict, the innovative ways gen Z militias have
(17:57):
interfaced with older ethnic military forces, the three D intoed arms, etc.
At the end of the day, this is another brutal,
horrific conflict between large numbers of people who want to
be free and a small number of people who want
to control them. From mir Mar to Armenia, Ukraine to Syria,
Ethiopia to Iraq and beyond. The novelties of twenty first
(18:18):
century conflict don't change the fact that, at the end
of the day, each war brings with it what might
be the truest symbol of our current age, parents saying
goodbye to their kids, camps filled with desperate people fleeing violence,
and governments all over the world willing to send nothing
more than kind words and stern warnings. This is a
PostScript to episode four. It's not one that we'd been
(18:43):
intending to record, because it's not news that we'd ever
hoped to have to share, but.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Here we are.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Unfortunately, we found out that about ten days after we
last spoken, a couple of weeks before we released our podcast,
Zor died and he died in battle fighting with the topmador.
He's really was, I suppose, an amazingly brave and courageous
(19:12):
young man, and I think that his loss is one
that reflects the realities of what war is, which is
not great and glorious and exciting. It's young men and
sometimes young women, young non binary folks. I imagine too,
(19:37):
dying when they had no quarrel with anyone, when they
just wanted to live their lives. Two years ago, a
year and a half ago, even he was just loving
the people he loved, having fun, being a kid, riding
his motorcycle, speaking to his girlfriend on his phone, living
a happy life. And then someone who had Howard, decided
(20:00):
that they wanted to have more power, and they decided
that it didn't matter how many kids had to die
so they could have what they want. And he decided
to say no to that, And that's brave, and I
think all of us would agree that what he did
was right and morally courageous, and that we would hope
(20:21):
to be brave enough to do the same if the
same thing happened to us. This one's hit me quite hard. Honestly.
I know this is my job and this happens, that
it's happened before and it will happen again. But he
was such a happy, polite, kind young man. He never
didn't pick up the phone, He never got tired of
(20:42):
explaining stuff that we didn't understand, and he always answered
our questions. It was nothing that was off the table.
There was nothing that he wouldn't talk about with us.
He was completely open, And Yeah, we will miss him greatly.
He died fighting the thing that we all have to
(21:05):
fight right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, militarization, and yeah, will grieve
his loss. Both Robert and I. We've just spoken on
the phone, and we found out because the contact of
mine on the ground sent me a Reddit message with
a link to a Facebook post and it's very clearly
(21:27):
zorin no doubt about that it names him, and unfortunately
it also shows him dead. So we're not in any
doubt that it was him who died, and we're not
in any doubt that we will gravely miss him either.
We both hoped to go over and record with him,
(21:48):
to speak with him, to meet him. I'd spoken to
him several times on video, sometimes just to chat, not
even to record anything, just just to chat, just to
catch up and and look at what each of us
was doing that day. So it's a hard loss for
me and for Robert two. As I said, we've just spoken,
(22:13):
so yeah, that's the news that we hadn't hoped to
end on. Obviously, though, this is the reality of war.
And as the world is looking at the conflict in
Ukraine now, i'd urge you to look at the conflict
in Myanmar to another Russian bomb killed another nice kid
(22:33):
who never had any quarrel with anyone, who just wanted
to live his life and didn't want to live the
rest of his life with a boot on his neck,
and so he decided to stand up against it. As
you can probably hear in my voice, I'm quite upset
by his loss and will be probably for a few days.
(22:55):
So I'm sorry to have to end this podcast on
such a sad note. I'm sorry for his family who
are now caught between the loss of their son and
trying to protect their daughters. I'm sorry for his girlfriend
who's dealing with shrapnel in her own leg and now
the loss of the person she loved. And I'm sorry
(23:17):
for his comrades. And they've said they'll go on fighting,
and I hope they do, and I don't think there's
any point really pretending to be objective at this stage
in the games, and I hope they win, but I
mostly just hope that one day, young men and women
and everyone else just gets to live their lives without
(23:40):
having to kill and die, because ultimately, no one should
have to and no parents should have to bury their kids.
So yeah, as much as we're all focusing on Ukraine
and what's happening there is terrible, Please don't forget Zora's comrades,
Please don't forget his legacy, and please don't forget him.
(24:02):
We won't and we obviously want to dedicate this podcast
to him and what he stood for. So yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Thanks for listening,
Hello everyone, It's me James, and if you're hearing this,
it's because I am on holiday along with all my colleagues.
But in order to help you as you wander lonely
as a cloud through the contentless abyss of our one
week of holiday, we are re releasing some episodes of
the show that we like and that you may also like.
(00:21):
Avid listeners would have probably listened to them before, but
I picked one from a little while ago, March of
twenty twenty two, so it's when you can revisit and
hopefully enjoy. It's the culmination of our first series on Myanmar,
called Printing the Revolution, and I like this one because
it was the first thing I did for it could
(00:43):
happen here. And I was really happy to have a
home for this story because I've been pitching it for
months and just getting a fuck all response from editors
because they have no reason to care about me andmar
because there's no money in it for global capital, and
therefore it seems like people in the US don't care
to include or your non left its publications, and so
I was really happy to have a home for this story.
(01:04):
And obviously it's not one with a particularly happy ending.
I won't spoil it, I guess, but yes, it's rough
one and that is something that like I still think
about and it still upsets me. And it's also I think,
a perspective on the reality of conflict coverage. It doesn't
get shard enough. I think for twenty years this country
(01:27):
has been at war, and the media has for a
large part participated in the sort of propaganda that makes
conflict seem other than what is, which is the worst
thing that humans do to each other, and it did.
Good guys don't always win, and sometimes the good guys die,
and whilst that's something that I wish didn't happen, it does.
(01:49):
And I'm happy that we were able to in that moment,
which was a very sad moment, difficult moment for both
Robert myself, especially myself. I think I just think quite
a long time before I met Robert talking to Zora
and working on this story, and we were able to
share that with you and share the realities of like
(02:09):
we're not kind of unfeeling automaton side that like this
this shit is difficult for us and it affects us,
and I know a lot of people felt that affected
them as well. And this episode stuck a cold with
a lot of people. So yeah, I hope that you
enjoy it. I'm Robert Evans and this is part four
(02:30):
of me and mar printing the revolution.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
And then once we got there we could in rest,
you know, rain, sun whatever. Women as well, we were
all like try it when they came when we were leaving,
they were all like, very fair skin and beautiful. And
then we went in and then everyone got tanned. In
the jungle, we're training all the time, you know, people
(02:55):
in training camp.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
We were driven apart.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And the reason that we were all doing this is
because from an online coup as students and how much
he has terrorized the public and the people.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
And that's why were we.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Have this morale and the ability to get through the
trading and be able to wield weapons.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Zora and his friends went into the junglist students, programmers
and kids. Now they're fighters. They were tech savvy young people,
he says, they grew up online and that generational divide
which the Internet brought here came much later in Miamar.
It wasn't until twenty eleven that people really gained access
to the internet and with it the new ideas and
(03:36):
identities that it brought. Soul's generation are among the first
to embrace global connectivity, and now after having it taken away,
they're refusing to give it up.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
The start of the coup in February, the military, well,
gen Z was organizing online, social media and all that,
and they were kind of I think this is from
my experience kind of organizing around like gen Z is
going to be different than the Ada generation because we
(04:08):
have the Internet, and also we know more about the
world and can come communicate.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
To the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I think one thing that was being was that in
two thousand and eight, it just took one video leaking
out of the country for there to be big international repercussions.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's worth noting that when people in Burma talk about
the Internet, they mean Facebook. Phones come with the Facebook
app installed and it's sometimes exempt from data charges. For
many people in Burma, using the internet means using Facebook.
Zora and his friends are different from their parents in
many ways, not at least in their perceptions of authority.
(04:46):
This has led to a situation where the PDF People's
defense force units are much less hierarchical than units of
the Tamador.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So when we make decisions in our group. There's no
master in student, there's no teacher student. But you know
the way that it works, there are people who are good,
they're older, people who are more trained, and then there
are new recruits, new people who just came in. So
of course the people who are there for longer and
(05:15):
know more about the situation have more voice and when
we discuss so especially people who were there.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
When we founded this group.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There were only really eight people from when we grouped,
so those eight people kind of discussed on the bigger strategy.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
You know, we don't really vote there. He says he
wants to do it, he thinks is good.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
We are there's the seven of us we think is good,
or we support him, or someone says we don't really
like that idea, then we don't do it.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
They try to achieve more gender quality as well. Those
are explained that in his unit, the women are not
always the frontline fighters.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
That's the place there's no discrimination. You know, women can
women and men were training whoever could come. But like
on the battlefield, people, we don't use women that much
on the battlefield. That's one thing that we do know
is that it's not it's not really discrimination. But if
(06:18):
women are with us together, we have confusion about whether
we need to protect them or we're just fighting with
with them, or they're fighting in front of us. And
that there's one thing that is very different is that
in terms of mentality, we can't. We never take the
(06:43):
women out really far into very dangerous fights. So often
they're in the back as backup or supplies or things
like that. But as you know, the military government, the
military terrorists are very very they're very unethical. They don't
follow the rules, so you know they're going to shoot
(07:05):
whoever they see. So even if they're hanging back and
they're sending medical supplies, they can still get hit.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
For Zora in particular, there's a lot at stake. After
almost an hour and a half of talking, I asked
about his parents. I'd heard of retribution attacks against families
of fighters and wondered if he was worried about that.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
So mom and dad are both they support me fighting
them against the military.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
They're very happy. His dad really wants to.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Do CDM, but he can't run away because the military
has taken his mother and his sisters. He still has
five sisters, they're all still in that military command the work.
They're in the military school schools, so it's very hard
(07:52):
for them to run away rightact.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So he really wants to leave the military, but he can't.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Though, while so that the fact that I am there
trying to fight against the military, see is very happy,
but he tells me to be careful about my own life.
They're supportive and they really want to come fight themselves,
but they can't because of my sisters and my mother.
So him seeing that I can do it, it's really
(08:22):
wonderful for them. So his father, his other brother and
other people, three of them below him. They've all usually
just lived together with his grandfather and stuff in the
military Trump Pounds or near the military. So he really
wants to call all the people that are still there,
(08:44):
but they can't leave.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
This is what civil wood does. Traps us in a
situation where we can't make the right choice even when
we know what it is, and in many situations it's
pretty hard to discern right from wrong. In the midst
of so much violence, Seel has been able to fight,
but his dad is stuck fighting against people like his
son in order to protect his daughters. Thousands of families
(09:07):
across the country divided in the same way by circumstance
or ideology. The military is something of a separate society.
It has its own schools and its own culture. But
ethnic armed organizations have not been close to urban populations either,
and so whole new identities have been forged by Generation
z while their families often struggle to abandon all certainties.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
As we record this, Zaw is still fighting, his girlfriend
is still healing. Every few weeks a video of him
and his friends pops up on Reddit or Facebook. They
have optics on their rifles now and are taking long
range shots at the top Madar, who rely on iron sights.
They shoot and reload like soldiers, and they laugh like kids.
The top Madara still controls the cities, but to move
(10:00):
between them they have to travel in convoys at breakneck speeds,
using ambushes, mines and knowledge of the terrain. EAOs and
the PDF are able to deny the military access to
large portions of the countryside. Without a serious change in
the conflict, it might stay like this for years. A
report published this month detailed the attacks in the Karini
(10:20):
State by the tout Madaw on churches, residential homes, camps
for displaced people, which killed sixty one in the months
since Zau left the city On Christmas Eve. In Upruso's township,
they killed at least forty civilians. Autopsies show some were
gagged and burned alive. In recent months, the tot MADA
has increased its use of air strikes against targets that
it deems legitimate. Ming An Hlang, the junta's leader, flew
(10:44):
to Russia twice. In twenty twenty one, he was proclaimed
an honorary professor of the Military University of the Russian
Armed Forces. Quote. We are determined to continue our efforts
to strengthen bilateral ties based on the mutual understanding, respect
and trust that have been established between US two countries,
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with
the coup leader on June twenty second. We pay special
(11:07):
attention to this meeting as we see Myanmar as a
time tested strategic partner and a reliable ally in Southeast
Asia and the Asia Pacific region.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He went on.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Min On Hlang was equally lavish with his praise, saying
that he saw Russia as a friend forever. Myanmar relies
heavily on Russian hind Mi I thirty five helicopter gunships,
transport helicopters Mid twenty nine and SU thirty fighter jets
and Yak one thirty ground attack aircraft to carry out
bombing raids and straight civilians. All of these weapons systems
(11:37):
have been seen more recently in the fighting in Ukraine.
One prominent Burmese Irish family, the kiah Toongs, has helped
the junta avoid an international arms embargo using their global
connections and a network of shady shadow companies. They have
purchased helicopters under the pretense of using them for tourism
and the oil and gas industry, and handed them over
to the Tautmadau. They've also helped shuttle coastal race to Meanmar,
(12:01):
which the Top Medal used to track Rohinga refugees and
provide cover for several aircraft purchases. To fund these armed purchases,
the top Meda has found willing markets for luxury goods abroad.
According to Justice for Meanmar, since the coup in February
twenty twenty one, the United States has imported fifteen hundred
and sixty five metric tons of teak from Myanmar using
(12:21):
intermediaries to avoid sanctions. In the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen
financial year, the last year for which data is available,
the government received one hundred million US dollars in revenue
from taxes and royalties applied to the timber trade. In
twenty twenty one, there were more shipments than twenty eighteen,
offering the top Madal the chance to make enough money
to continue purchasing weapons to use against their population. The
(12:45):
conflict in Myanmar remains complicated. It's easy to reduce the
alphabet soup of revel groups to EAOs and the PDF,
but these groups and their motivations are diverse. Pierre explained
to us that even within the Koran there are deep divisions.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Well, trust, you have to know that historically the Karen
Rebellion that started in nineteen forty eight, nineteen forty nine,
so quite a long time ago, was led by Christian
by the Christian minority, okay of the current people, because
obviously that was the most Western educated people at the time.
(13:27):
And so this Elits kind of reproduced itself in the
New without being the can new is the current National
Union is a democratic movement, but you know elits tend
to reproduce themselves. And so most of the leadership, let's say,
(13:50):
of the current National Union and the current National Liberation
Army was Christian.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Like.
Speaker 5 (14:02):
And so the Burmese Junta, the Burmese military government, decided
to use this to create a wedge between between the
Karen Christians and the Karen Buddhists uh, and sent monks
(14:23):
to say, agitate and try to cause this split on
religious grounds no uh. And they succeeded in parts, and
succeeded to to separate part of of Karent Buddhists. That
created the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army d k B, which
(14:49):
then allied themselves of course, to the to the junta
and to to attack the to attack the kind the
Manor Plow which of course they knew all the roads
there and the defenses and where was the defense is situated,
et cetera, and succeeded in destroying the capital of the
(15:14):
Karen National Union in Manorplo in ninety five. So that
was the situation pretty much when I arrived, it was
pretty hard like there was not so much territory anymore
held by the Karen and more importantly, they lost a
(15:36):
lot of income because a lot of their income come
from tax at the border that they can control, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
So yeah, that was the situation.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Not every EEO has embraced the National Unity Government directly,
after all, many of its members were enthusiastically running cover
for the Rohinga genocide a few years ago. Many of
the EAOs remained technically under a ceasefire with the Top MADA,
and the Top MADA knows that if it pushes too
far into EAO territory, it risks provoking a full blown response.
(16:09):
The EAOs, meanwhile, have been aiding and training the PDF
and still maintaining enough deniability that the Top MADA has
not been forced into a confrontation. EAO PDF alliances look
different in different regions, and often realities on the ground
bear little relationship to the back door diplomacy and official
stances embraced by leadership and public.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
The war continues to have a huge toll on civilians.
According to United Nations, in total, some four hundred and
forty thousand people have been newly displaced since the coup
happened in February twenty twenty one, adding to an existing
three hundred and seventy thousand who had fled their homes
from earlier waves of violence, and over a million people
who had fled the Hingia genocide. More than half the
(16:51):
population of Kreni State has fled. Humanitarian access is hard.
Much of the relief effort for displaced people occur within
local communities. Thousands of refugees a camp along the border
with Thailand, which is defined by rivers. Initially, many people
fled into Thailand, but terrible conditions in refugee camps led
(17:13):
some of them to return to Me and Ma. Now
they weighed across the river for international aid donations of
food and water, but they can't bring themselves to stay
in the crowded camps overnight, so they wighed back to
sleep on the Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR,
the High Commission on Refugees, has been unable to access
camps in Thailand or Me and Mah to check on
(17:35):
the conditions, but it has urged a Thai government, which
has been credibly accused of forcing people back across the border,
to move people to better conditions further into Thailand instead
of keeping them in camps near the border. And here
we find the unfortunate, unavoidable reality of the civil war
in Me and Mah. For all the uniqueness of aspects
of the conflict, the innovative ways gen Z militias have
(17:57):
interfaced with older ethnic military forces, the three D intoed arms, etc.
At the end of the day, this is another brutal,
horrific conflict between large numbers of people who want to
be free and a small number of people who want
to control them. From mir Mar to Armenia, Ukraine to Syria,
Ethiopia to Iraq and beyond. The novelties of twenty first
(18:18):
century conflict don't change the fact that, at the end
of the day, each war brings with it what might
be the truest symbol of our current age, parents saying
goodbye to their kids, camps filled with desperate people fleeing violence,
and governments all over the world willing to send nothing
more than kind words and stern warnings. This is a
PostScript to episode four. It's not one that we'd been
(18:43):
intending to record, because it's not news that we'd ever
hoped to have to share, but.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Here we are.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Unfortunately, we found out that about ten days after we
last spoken, a couple of weeks before we released our podcast,
Zor died and he died in battle fighting with the topmador.
He's really was, I suppose, an amazingly brave and courageous
(19:12):
young man, and I think that his loss is one
that reflects the realities of what war is, which is
not great and glorious and exciting. It's young men and
sometimes young women, young non binary folks. I imagine too,
(19:37):
dying when they had no quarrel with anyone, when they
just wanted to live their lives. Two years ago, a
year and a half ago, even he was just loving
the people he loved, having fun, being a kid, riding
his motorcycle, speaking to his girlfriend on his phone, living
a happy life. And then someone who had Howard, decided
(20:00):
that they wanted to have more power, and they decided
that it didn't matter how many kids had to die
so they could have what they want. And he decided
to say no to that, And that's brave, and I
think all of us would agree that what he did
was right and morally courageous, and that we would hope
(20:21):
to be brave enough to do the same if the
same thing happened to us. This one's hit me quite hard. Honestly.
I know this is my job and this happens, that
it's happened before and it will happen again. But he
was such a happy, polite, kind young man. He never
didn't pick up the phone, He never got tired of
(20:42):
explaining stuff that we didn't understand, and he always answered
our questions. It was nothing that was off the table.
There was nothing that he wouldn't talk about with us.
He was completely open, And Yeah, we will miss him greatly.
He died fighting the thing that we all have to
(21:05):
fight right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, militarization, and yeah, will grieve
his loss. Both Robert and I. We've just spoken on
the phone, and we found out because the contact of
mine on the ground sent me a Reddit message with
a link to a Facebook post and it's very clearly
(21:27):
zorin no doubt about that it names him, and unfortunately
it also shows him dead. So we're not in any
doubt that it was him who died, and we're not
in any doubt that we will gravely miss him either.
We both hoped to go over and record with him,
(21:48):
to speak with him, to meet him. I'd spoken to
him several times on video, sometimes just to chat, not
even to record anything, just just to chat, just to
catch up and and look at what each of us
was doing that day. So it's a hard loss for
me and for Robert two. As I said, we've just spoken,
(22:13):
so yeah, that's the news that we hadn't hoped to
end on. Obviously, though, this is the reality of war.
And as the world is looking at the conflict in
Ukraine now, i'd urge you to look at the conflict
in Myanmar to another Russian bomb killed another nice kid
(22:33):
who never had any quarrel with anyone, who just wanted
to live his life and didn't want to live the
rest of his life with a boot on his neck,
and so he decided to stand up against it. As
you can probably hear in my voice, I'm quite upset
by his loss and will be probably for a few days.
(22:55):
So I'm sorry to have to end this podcast on
such a sad note. I'm sorry for his family who
are now caught between the loss of their son and
trying to protect their daughters. I'm sorry for his girlfriend
who's dealing with shrapnel in her own leg and now
the loss of the person she loved. And I'm sorry
(23:17):
for his comrades. And they've said they'll go on fighting,
and I hope they do, and I don't think there's
any point really pretending to be objective at this stage
in the games, and I hope they win, but I
mostly just hope that one day, young men and women
and everyone else just gets to live their lives without
(23:40):
having to kill and die, because ultimately, no one should
have to and no parents should have to bury their kids.
So yeah, as much as we're all focusing on Ukraine
and what's happening there is terrible, Please don't forget Zora's comrades,
Please don't forget his legacy, and please don't forget him.
(24:02):
We won't and we obviously want to dedicate this podcast
to him and what he stood for. So yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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