CZM Rewind: Printing the Revolution

A chance to listen to the first scripted series on Myanmar again and hear the stories of how people there stayed in the streets and refused to accept dictatorship.

For new listeners, the second series on Myanmar begins here: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/how-to-build-a-revolution-myanmar-104249884/ 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
A media. Hi everyone, it's President's Day today. Cool anyway,
that means that we are giving you a rerunt and
the rerun that I wanted to air today was the
first series that I ever made for iHeart, or indeed
the first series I ever made for anyone. It's called
Myanma Printing the Revolution, and if you've heard it before,
you know what it's about. If you haven't, this takes

(00:22):
us through the early days of the Mianma Revolution, from
the coup to people taking to the mountains and fighting.
I wanted to share this because it's been a couple
of years since we first made it, and I think
at a time when the whole world is worried about
the way politics are going and the way that states
are behaving, we can learn a lot from the people
of Meanma. I don't think it matters where you are.

(00:45):
There's something that you can take from this, from the
way that these people stayed in the street and the
way that they were willing to work together to learn
from one another and to become better people as they
struggled to make their world better. It's a long series,
spoken to many of the people who are in it
this week, most of them are fine, they're doing well,
but you will hear about somewhat dying at the end

(01:08):
of this. This is war like, this is a thing
that happens in war, but I wanted to give a
content warning for that such if anybody was upset by it,
they could turn off. It just comes at the end
of the final episode. If you've not heard this before,
I hope you'll take the time to listen. We worked
very very hard on it and it's very important to me.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Hey everyone, I'm Robert Evans and this is Me and
Mar printing the Revolutions. It could happen here special mini series,
an in depth documentary investigation with me and journalist James Stout.
Over the next four days, you're going to learn about
the gin Z militias of the Me and Mar Civil War,
three D printed weapons, and a bunch of other really

(01:50):
fascinating stuff. Besides, so, without any further ado, here's James.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Ever since the first person built the first fence, took
land from everybody and to themselves, property rights and violence
have gone hand in hand. With property grew the state,
and with the state came the police. Today, most of
us grew up under the control of states and they're
so ubiquitous that their violence is often overlooked until a

(02:15):
particularly egregious incident occurs. But all states, even the most benign,
rest on a monopoly on violence. State to the entities
that imposed laws on a given area, and if you
break those laws, state can beat you up, lock you up,
or shoot you up. When the state loses the monopoly
on violence, it ceases to be able to enforce its laws,

(02:37):
charges taxes, and enforce its will on the people at rules.
We've seen this all over the world, from the Democratic
Republic of Congo to briefly downtown Seattle. Our state in
the USA speaks a language of rights and liberties. When
we want to appeal to the state, we tend to
use that language, even though our state, as we saw
in twenty twenty, is backed by plenty of violence, as

(03:00):
much as any other, goes a long way to camouflage
that violence. Some states are a bit more mask off.
They speak to their citizens more or less exclusively through violence,
and when citizens need to respond to that state, they
respond to the language it uses to speak to them.
That's how a teenager from yangon Meh and Mar ended
up on Reddit in summer of twenty twenty one asking

(03:21):
strangers have to use a three D printer and computer
to make a rifle. Me and Ma isn't a country
that is on the radar for most of the US.
If it is at all, it's probably because of State
Councilor and Foreign Minister ensign Suchi. She managed perhaps the
history's fastest pivot from Nobel Peace Prize winner to head
of a government accused of genocide. But Tsuki is in

(03:43):
jail now, and the Rahingia, the Muslim ethnic group that
the military attempted to eliminate from the east of the
country under her rule, are just one of many ethnic
and political groups. They're in open armed conflict with the
military who now hold control of the government of me
and Ma, known locally as a tatmodor the military's whose power.
In early twenty twenty one, you might have seen a
video of a woman doing an aerobics workout as the

(04:05):
vehicles rolled in behind her to seize power. Ever since
that day, they've been committing crimes against humanity all over
the country. Mia Mah has a longer history of dictatorship
than democracy. The British East India Company occupied the area
that now represents the country in the nineteenth century. As always,
they talked about civilizing missions and freedoms, but in practice

(04:27):
the occupation was extractive and only benefited the Anglo Burmese
and a few Indian civil servants. They bought with them often,
but this month led to resistance that manifested itself in
hunger strikes and everyday acts of disobedience, small ways of
saying no. In a few instances, it became open an
unbrest build into the streets. The country became a major

(04:49):
battleground during the Second World War, with Japan evading and
seizing the country before Allied forces took it back in
a fierce campaign in nineteen forty four. As many as
one hundred and fifty thousand Japanese troops died. Burmese people
fought on both sides. Ag San Agsan Suchi's father demanded
that Britain grant him and his fellow Burmese people independence
if they fought for the Allies. The British refused. Ansan

(05:13):
then went first to China and eventually Japan for support,
and eventually he fought against the British with his Burmer
Independence Army, but after two years of occupation, Agsian and
his comrade changed sides under a broad alliance called the
Anti Fascist Organization. They turned on the Japanese and they
once again took up arms to liberate their country. On
the fourth of January nineteen forty seven, Burma became an

(05:35):
independent republic. The new republic's territory combined three British territories
and over one hundred distinct ethnic groups. For the next
fourteen years, these groups struggled to find a democratic Burma
and an identity for themselves within it. Mostly they failed.
The period was characterized by the Chinese Civil War, spilling

(05:56):
it to Burma ethnic armed insurgencies and repeated to Ma
for a federal republic with a weak central government. In
nineteen sixty two, the military a rate at new demands
for a federal republic stage to coup. Burmer spent the
next twenty two years under the military rule of a council,
pursuing what they called the Burmese Way to socialism. Burmer's

(06:20):
planned economy left it largely isolated from the rest of
the world. At home, the press was censored, and a
type of nationalism that combined nominal socialism and Burmer ethnic
identity became the official state ideology. During this period, Burmer
became one of the world's poorest countries. Sporadic protests were
met with overwhelming force, and the eighth of August nineteen

(06:41):
eighty eight, an uprising began. It started among his students
in Yangon, it took real quickly around the country. The
so called eight eight eight eight Uprising because of the date,
began with the general strike and huge non violent protests.
These were met with gunfire. Protesters fought back with molotov
cocktails and rocks. The military fired into hospitals, and by

(07:04):
September eighteenth they'd launched a coup to take the country
from a one party state back to a military dictatorship.
Through in these protests, Angsan Suki, the daughter of independence
here at Anksan, emerged as a national figurehead, especially in
the west. Amitov Ghusch, the Indian writer, wrote the following
about a eight eight eight across Burma. People poured out

(07:29):
in thousands to join the protests, not just students, but
also teachers, monks, children, professionals, and trade unionists of every shape.
It was on this day, too, that the Hunter made
its first determined attempt at repression. Soldiers opened fire on
the demonstrators and hundreds of unarmed marchers were killed. The
killings continued for a week, but still the demonstrators continued

(07:49):
to flood the streets. After the uprising had been suppressed,
multi party elections were later held, while the new National
League for Democracy party of Angsang shu Ki won the
most votes. The Hunter refused to see power. Protests continued
off and on for decades, with the two thousand and
seven Saffron Revolution, which the government violently cracked down on monks,

(08:12):
resulting in the most international condemnation. Following the Saffron Revolution,
the government's isolationism hindering aid After extensive cyclone damage in
two thousand and eight, the military government finally implemented the
Roadmap to discipline flourishing democracy that had developed in nineteen
ninety three. If you're wondering about the name of the country,
this officially changed in nineteen eighty nine as well, but

(08:33):
like much of the nation's history, a grand proclamation from
the government didn't mean much on the ground. Both words
derived from Buranma, a name that the majority ethnic group
who we're calling Berman here used for themselves. Many opposition
groups still use Burma instead of Mienma. It's another small
way of saying no to the military's attempt to control
every aspect of their lives.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Finally, on the eighteenth of September, the army took to
the streets and the coup, led by Chief of Stamp
General Sumoon. The next day the killings began again. The

(09:21):
army later described these people as lutus.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
It was not until twenty eleven that the military junta
finally stepped down and passed on power to the Union,
Solidarity and Development Party in an election that was widely
seen as fraudulent. A year later, long San sou Chi
was released, and by twenty fifteen her National League for
Democracy won an absolute majority. While she was barred from
holding the presidential office, she took on the role of

(09:53):
State councilor, and Mienmar entered a period of liberalization, which,
although never the federal democracy promised when the country gained
its independence in nineteen forty seven, allowed for significant freedoms
of communication and speech, especially for the Burman majority ethnic group.
Not everyone was reconciled to the change. Many of Myanmars
one hundred and thirty five ethnic groups feel marginalized by

(10:15):
the state, which tends to be dominated by the Burman ethnicity.
Some of these groups have armed insurgeon wings, often more
than one per ethnic group, as they disagree on politics
or religion. These groups have fought various Burmese governments since
the nineteen forties, but many of them reached a ceasefire
with the government as the country passed from military to
civilian rule. One group, however, saw a huge uptick in violence.

(10:37):
The Rohingya ethnic group have been persecuted by Buddhist nationals
since the nineteen seventies, but the campaign against them increased
in violence and scale in twenty sixteen, when the Tatmadab
began a huge crackdown against Rohinga people in Rakin's State.
The persecution began in response to attacks by the Arkan
Rohinga Salvation Army on Burmese border outposts, but the campaign

(10:58):
that followed had nothing to do with a small insurgent
group and a lot to do with the desire of
the Totmadaw to destroy or drive out all Rohinka people,
who they claim are undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and not
citizens of Myanmar. While the world praised Suki her government
looked the other way as the military carried out a
genocide that displaced over a million people and killed tens

(11:20):
of thousands. It was in the context of growing international
condemnation of the genocide that Mianmar went to the polls
in November of twenty twenty. The November twenty twenty election
was only the nation's second since the official end of
military rule. On Sansuchi's National League for Democracy won a
resounding victory. The military backed Union Solidarity and Development Party

(11:41):
holds twenty five percent of seats under a constitution that
SUCHI wanted to change. It didn't take defeat well. The
election was neither perfectly free nor fair. The Rohinga have
been almost wholly disenfranchised. The government claims they are illegal
immigrants from Bangladesh and thus unable to vote. Areas with
ethnic armed organ as if which opposed the government often

(12:01):
had poles canceled and internet cut off. According to Human
Rights Watch, The Carter Center estimates that one point four
million citizens couldn't vote. The one opposition party that was
certainly not short changed was the military's. However, it was
the Union Solidarity and Development Party USDP, which had been
calling for election delays due to COVID before poles opened.

(12:23):
Once the elections concluded, they immediately began questioning the results.
They continued to attempt to undermine the vote for months
before they resorted to force on the first to February
twenty twenty one, the day before the newly elected legislators
were due to be sworn in. The world largely ignored
the situation, apart from the one viral video where a
masked fitness instructor dances in the foreground as APC's roll

(12:45):
through a roadblock and into the parliament complex behind her.
Ensang su Chi was arrested, charged with breaching COVID nineteen
restrictions and illegally importing a walkie talkie, and General min
Angkhlang was installed at the head of a military hojna
to If this sounds a little like a stop to
Steel fantasy, that's because it is eerily similar to one.

(13:06):
Meanmar's democracy is not what academics call a consolidated one,
which is to say that democracy has never been the
only game in town there, but the United States seems
to be rapidly deconsolidating its own democracy. The allegations of
election fraud in Meanmar were no more credible than those
in Arizona. However, the military's tradition of political engagement there
removed many of the barriers in between electoral defeat and

(13:29):
the death of a short lived democracy. Within twenty four
hours of the coup, the people of Myanmar had fought back.
Healthcare workers and civil servants were on strike by February third,
and a boycott of junta owned businesses had begun. Protests
began with a handful of people. The memories of massacres
of pro democracy protesters in the nineteen eighties kept many away,
but a younger generation who had grown up with relative liberty,

(13:51):
internet access and basic freedoms had not seen blood in
the streets like their parents. They had seen activists in
Hong Kong, the USA, and Ukraine on violent state APPARATUSUS,
and they'd often seen them win.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
By the sixth of February, twenty thousand people in the
streets of Yangon, the largest city, and the internet was
shut down nationwide. Protests began peacefully, with mimeable signs like
my eggs is bad, but the military is worse and
we are protesting peacefully. But with the WAP capitalized so
it said whap. These signs were designed by a generation

(14:25):
of kids who grew up with access to the Internet
to attract international attention. Despite the ban, they used VPNs
to show imagury to their struggle. One sign read I've
messed with the wrong generation. Now we'll never be allowed
to ruin our own lives. The Tatmador showed its cards
pretty quickly. Police began the suppression with sling shots and clubs,

(14:48):
then tear gas and flashbrang and quickly they moved to
rifles and rocket the pel grenades. By the ninth of February,
maya thway thway, heine, a twenty year old woman have
been shot in the street.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
What did you.

Speaker 5 (15:31):
Soon?

Speaker 1 (15:32):
There's young protesters to switch signs for shields. By mid
March and I'm forties day, one hundred and forteen civilians
were killed in a single day, including sixty five in
Yangon who were kettled by police, surrounded net shot. Quickly,
shield walls were set up. Medics identified themselves in the
protest movement, and hard hats and goggles were distributed, but

(15:54):
this didn't tip the balance of power in their favor.
So Orlin, a former student union leader, was there from
the start. In a text message, he told me I
did not miss a single day as a member of
the Caya State National Strike Committee. I later became more
involved in anti authoritarian protests. In the early protests, you

(16:14):
see him in photos walking at the front of the
group carrying flags and banners with his student ID card
on a lanyard around his neck. But by March he's
wearing a black shirt, goggles and a hard construction hat. Meanwhile,
the National League for Democracy politicians who had escaped attention
joined other parties and set up a National Unity Government
in April. The National Unity Government contained members of the

(16:38):
National League for Democracy, but significantly, a Rahindio activist was
appointed an advisor in the Ministry of Human Rights, and
the National Unity Government has announced it would for the
first time accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court
with respect to all international crimes committed in me and
Mah since two thousand and two. This would include the
Rhinga genocide. By May, both the National Unity Government and

(17:02):
Zwelin had realized that no amount of non violent protests
was going to this lodge regime that was happy to
gun down kids in the street. So on the fifth
of May, he left for the jungle. That same day,
the National Unity government announced the formation of the People's
Defense Force or PDF. Within a month, eight hundred soldiers
has it affected to these pro democracy guerrilla units. Many

(17:23):
bought their guns with them, but Twa didn't join the PDF. Instead,
he joined one of ME and R's many ethnic armed
organizations groups opposed to a central state and its domination
by the Burman ethnicity. To understand these groups, you need
to understand that ME andm R is composed of dozens,
not hundreds, of ethnic groups, but that the Burman, who

(17:44):
make up about two thirds of the population, have always
controlled the state and used it as a tool in
furthering their interest. Some of these groups, like the Kurrent
National Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army, have been
fighting for decades since the country emerged from British colonial
rule at the end of World War Two. All of
these groups drew on a combination of ethnic and political grievances.

(18:04):
Many of them administer semi autonomous territories like the Kurrent State.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
In twenty thirteen, thirteen ethnic armed organizations or EAOs came
together to form the nationwide Ceasefire Coordinating Team in CCT
and signed an eleven point Common Position of Ethnic Resistance
Organizations on national Ceasefire or the LEISA Agreement. Most of
them seemed to agree that they would accept a federal
system rather than complete autonomy. In twenty fifteen, a ceasefire

(18:33):
was signed, but conflict between ethnic armed organizations and between
EAOs and the government continued. Since the coup began, EO
membership has skyrocketed, and in October, the National Unity government
announced alliances with several groups under a central chain of command.
Some political organizations who played a part in the nineteen
eighty eight uprising, like the Al Burma Students Democratic Front,

(18:56):
have been revived as armed groups. The ABSDF recently attacked
top Madaw ships using an RPG. Attacks on military bases
have also stepped up. PDF units have ambushed and killed
policemen and raided police and military outposts. Each time they do,
they steal valuable weapons and ammunition. The top Madaw has
responded with shellings and airstrikes against residential areas, executions, mass

(19:19):
physical retribution, and the murdering of civilians and aid workers
and burning of their bodies. As a result of all this,
ethnic armed organizations have joined forces with anti authoritarian Burman
people under the auspices of the People's Defense Forces, which
are under the command of the exiled National Unity Government.

Speaker 6 (19:39):
We have never experienced such kind of brutalities from the
military as well as as strong resistance from the people.
They try to make sure the whole country submit to them,
but we still refuse to allow them to be our rulers.

Speaker 7 (20:05):
This defiance has led to the formation of the People's
Defense Forces or PDF, a coalition of thousands of resistance
fighters who carrying out surprise attacks on hunter checkpoints, bombing
army convoys, and supporting ethnic armies in their fight against
the regime. Twelve months ago, these men and women were

(20:26):
students and office workers protesting the coup. Today they're training
to overthrow the military.

Speaker 6 (20:34):
The Annesota is the tough choints, but the young people
they are ready to defend the communities. They have to,
of course, sacrifice their own daily life, ordinary life.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Since March of twenty twenty, the influx of new recruits
has changed these groups. Generation Z militias like the Carini
gin Z Liberation Army have sprung up, founded by kids
who were holding ammable signs at protests a few months earlier.
They care less about ethnic independence and more about beating
the junta. Many Berman kids join these groups. These organizations

(21:08):
of young fighters received training from the experienced guerrillas hiding
in the jungle, but they tended to adopt a less
top down military structure and armed themselves by scavenging whatever
weapons they could find, often twenty two caliber rifles better
suited to shooting squirrels than soldiers. It was these kids
who grew up online and knew that there was nothing
you couldn't learn about on Reddit who tipped the balance

(21:29):
of force away from the state. Unlike the ethnic armed
organizations and other more experienced guerrillas than menmar these kids
have little military experience. Their organizations have few rules and regulations.
They're made up entirely of young people. As a result,
there are certain things that they're less proficient at, but
they're much better at things like grasping the use of

(21:50):
new technologies, which has led to me and Maar being
the first country in the world where three D printed
weapons have taken part in a revolution against the government.
To hear more about that and many other things as
this series continues. Hey, everybody, I'm Robert Evans, and this

(22:20):
is me and mar printing the Revolution Part two. Since
the dawn of firearms, regular people all over the world
have had the same basic idea, maybe if I made
myself a gun, the government wouldn't be able to be
such a dick to me. Historically, this has had little
impact on the willingness of governments to be dicks to people.
In the beginning, all gun manufacturing was done by individual artisans,

(22:42):
and thus making a gun in your home was really
no different from making it in a shop, as long
as you had the proper tools. Guns in this period
weren't super useful on their own and were best fired
in a volley by a shitload of dudes at once.
Since individual firearms were extremely inaccurate and cumbersome to use,
the fact that some poor or blacksmith could make himself
one wasn't much of a threat to anybody in power.

(23:04):
It did mean that battlefield prowess came from large blocks
of trained soldiers, not fuel lords on horseback rallying untrained peasants.
This change in technology led to a change in warfare
and helped to change society. As firearms evolved and became
these central weapons of battle. They required more intense tooling
and more expensive manufacturing capacity. Nations and peoples without the

(23:25):
know how our infrastructure were at a tremendous disadvantage. As
soon as this situation came into being, these unfortunate communities
set to work finding ways to gain the advantages of
firearms without the manufacturing capacity their foes enjoyed. Indigenous cannons
and regions resisting imperialism often consisted of composite materials less

(23:45):
sturdy than brods or iron. In the sixteen hundreds and
seventeen hundreds, Indigenous Americans in South America used wooden cannons
to fight against Spanish and Portuguese conquerors. The Vietnamese used
wooden cannons to resist the French during the coachin China
Campaigane of eighteen sixty two. American Indians used wooden artillery
to blast settler fortifications in the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds.

(24:07):
In the months that led up to the outbreak of
the Revolutionary War, the men who fought to create the
United States busied themselves building rifles and cannons in their
homes and communities to resist the English. This trend has
never really stopped in warfare. The day before we recorded this, James,
my partner in this series, sent me a screen grab
from a live stream of someone in Ukraine printing pieces

(24:28):
for AK forty sevens on a three D printer. Firearms
manufactured outside the arms industry have played a role in
every conflict of the modern era, but as you've probably guessed,
they have had the greatest influence in the little wars
of colonialism.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
European nations rarely allowed any sort of firearms ownership in
their colonies except the individuals and ethnic groups that adopted
its local enforces. Since most of these places had never
developed their own industrial base for arms industry, colonial rebellions
often relied on home made weapons in their early stages,
along with modern firearms pilfered by deserting local soldiers. Where

(25:05):
domestic productive capacity existed, European colonizing nations went out of
their way to relocate it, along with the profit it generated,
to the metropol All were reflected on this in his
novel Burmese Dates, saying in the eighteenth century, the Indians
cast guns that are at any rate up to the
European standard. Now after we've been in India one hundred

(25:27):
and fifty years. You can't make so much as a
brass cartridge case in the whole continent. Meanwhile, among the colonizers,
being armed became almost a synonym for being a man.
This was particularly true for the colonial police forces and militaries,
but it was also true domestically. Most people are broadly
familiar with the u s. Second Amendment the robust gun

(25:49):
culture that it's spawned, but during the higher colonialism, English
citizens are also free to arm themselves. In nineteen hundred,
Prime Minister Robert gascoyne Cecil Marquis of Salisbury, gave a
speech in which he claimed he would lud the day
when there was a rifle in every cottage in England.
Firearms were utterly and restricted at this point. The first

(26:12):
chains to this came in nineteen oh three with the
first Law that required a permit to carry a handgun
and restricted children from buying guns. Still, firearms were widely
available until a red panic gripped the nation in nineteen
nineteen following the Bolshek Revolution in Russia. Across the ocean
in Spain, where firearms ownership was less strictly restricted, where

(26:36):
Orwell himself would learn what it was to fire a
rifle at someone who shot back. Armed unions and working
people served as the only bullwalk to a military coup.
In nineteen thirty six, in Madrid, one officer opened his
armory to the union militias, but another refused to hand
over for the bolts for the guns they had been issued.
In Barcelona, where the anarchist left had a long tradition

(26:58):
of armed political violence, the coup was repelled by workers
with guns, and a general leading troops there was imprisoned
and executed. The same pattern played out all across the
country in July nineteen thirty six, when the military rose
up to topple the elected government. In the cities where
the government opened the armories to the people, the coup

(27:20):
was repelled. In the cities where the government did not,
the coup succeeded. Reflecting on this in nineteen forty one,
or Wit, the totalitarian states can do great things, but
there is one thing they cannot do. They cannot give
factory worker a rifle and tell him to take it
home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle on

(27:41):
the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat
is a symbol of democracy. It's a job to see
that it's stays there.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Despite Orwell's please. The years that followed the Second World
War led to greater restrictions of the ability of the
public to arm itself. By the nineteen fifties, carrying any
weapon for self defense was illegal. Semi automatic center fire
arms were banned in nineteen eighty eight, and pistols were
banned in nineteen ninety six after a mass shooting killed
sixteen children in Dunblane. This was all utterly infuriating to

(28:12):
a man named Philip A.

Speaker 8 (28:13):
Loody.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Loudy, born in nineteen sixty five grew up on a
farm in West Yorkshire, England. We don't have a tremendous
amount of detail about his upbringing, but by the time
he was in his early thirties he'd become a committed
crusader for an unrestricted right to bear arms. A skilled
machinist with a well equipped shop, Loody began the long
process of learning how to craft home made firearms. Soon

(28:37):
he was building semi and fully automatic weapons. Now these
were not military grade firearms. The barrels were unrifled, which
made them terribly inaccurate, but every piece could be crafted
from widely available things like sheet metal, washers and screws.
The person assembling a looty gun would need to be
a skilled craftsman, but they would not need access to

(28:58):
welding rigs forges, rather expensive industrial equipment. Loody published a
book Expedient Homemade Firearms, The nine millimeters Submachine Gun in
nineteen ninety eight through Paladin Press. In the late nineteen nineties,
Paladin was one of the places you could go to
mail order fringe political literature and guides for stuff like
trapping human beings or disabling the drive system of an

(29:21):
Abrams tank in the United States. Nothing about Loudy's book
was or is illegal, but Phil didn't live in the
United States. He was arrested several times, starting in the
late nineteen nineties when a pair of illegal home built
guns were found on his property. Ludy spent the rest
of his life, which ended in twenty eleven, operating a
website where he raged against gun control. His main argument

(29:44):
was that England was headed for totalitarianism, and like Orwell,
he believed only public ownership of arms could prevent this.
Unlike Orwell, Ludy was firmly on the right wing. He
traced society's problems to quote a combination of political correctness
and anti freedom of speech laws legislation governing how we
speak about such subjects as religion or a person's race

(30:06):
being just two examples. Words and phrases that have been
used for centuries without malice are now insipid in people's
mouths and said to cause offence by those very same
speech police, who, on the other hand, turned a blind
eye to the violence, foul language, and sexual references blasted
daily through our TV sets, a phenomenon that really does
cause a fence to many people. Luty never succeeded in

(30:28):
sparking a renaissance and civilian arms ownership in the UK,
but his ideas were adopted by organized criminal groups all
around the world. In Brazil, looty guns can go for
as much as twenty five hundred dollars. From twenty eleven
to twenty twelve, nearly half of the submachine guns seized
by police in sal Polo were homemade. Most of these
arms were certainly used as tools by drug dealers or

(30:50):
other gangsters, but some of them were surely also the
tools of citizens who simply sought a way to defend
themselves in a place with no real rule of law.
Looty guns have long been popular among motorcycle gangs in Australia,
and in October of twenty nineteen, a fascist terrorist carried
out the last of that year's eight Chan shootings in Hulla,

(31:11):
Germany with a looty gun. His weapons, thankfully did not
work well. As a general rule, looty guns were never
going to be of much use to anyone besides organized criminals.
They aren't great in a gunfight, but you can use
them to spray bullets into a room or a vehicle
at close range pretty well. The year after Phil Loudy

(31:31):
died twenty twelve, a fellow named Cody Wilson decided to
carry on his work. Cody felt three D printing carried
the possibility of eventually manufacturing arms of a quality that
might rival traditionally produced guns. He started simple with a
single shot three eighty handgun based around the old Liberator
pistol from World War II. The Liberator had been a

(31:54):
single shot forty five caliber handgun meant to be dropped
into Nazi occupied territories and used by insurgents to stealthily
kill single German soldiers and take their guns. Cody Wilson
described himself as a crypto anarchist, and when his ideas
began to draw attention, he dropped out of law school
to create Defense Distributed. This organization was dedicated to the

(32:15):
development and distribution of plans to craft three D printed weapons.
It used a platform called death Cad to allow users
to develop and share blueprints. In twenty thirteen, the first
CAD gun file became available online to everyone. It was
downloaded more than one hundred thousand times in two days.
I'd like to quote now from an article on the
website three D Natives. This prompted the US government to

(32:38):
demand that Defense Distributed remove the file from their site.
What followed is a legal battle between Cody Wilson and
the US government, consisting of back and forth lawsuits. It
lasted five years until in twenty eighteen, the Trump administration
legalized three D printed guns. The same year, Wilson was
charged with sexual assault of an underage girl and had
to step down from Defense Distributed. Nonetheless, the organization did

(32:59):
not cease to exist without Cody. Today for a yearly
fee of fifty dollars. Users of the DEAFCAD website can
access the files containing different designs of three D printed guns.
And I should note here that it's probably more accurate
to say the Trump administration legalized sharing the plans and
printing the files and whatnot of three D printed guns,
not legalized three D printed guns. Homemade firearms have been

(33:21):
federally legal in the United States since forever. The fighting
in the courts over all this has continued ever since,
and in twenty nineteen, a federal judge in Seattle temporarily
blocked DEAFCAD. This sparked the creation of a new group,
de Terence Dispensed, which was even less centralized. The basic
idea was that this would make them harder to take
down via lawsuits or police action. Not stated was that

(33:43):
this might also protect their reputation from a Cody Wilson's situation.
The debate over the legality of three D printed firearm
plans continues on to the present day, but the development
of these arms has continued at an ever faster pace.
The best modern three D printed arms can even rival
conventional guns. It's worth emphasizing that these are not purely
plastic tools. The Liberator pistol used a metal nail, and

(34:06):
the better three D arms have metal barrels rifled using
other craft methods that require some nohow but arguably less
than it took to manufacture a looty gun. Three D
printed arms have been confiscated by police around the world,
but in recent months they've begun to crop up somewhere
new in the arms of revolutionaries fighting against a military coup.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Me and ma Berman before that, sad relatively strict gun
control laws for decades. When George Orwell was a policeman
there in the nineteen twenties, he may have carried a gun,
but the people he was policing did not. In the
nineteen thirties, the British leaders allowed tat organizations similar to
militias to form and drill, but they weren't allowed to

(34:48):
carry guns. Gun licenses under the dictatorship were issued primarily
to party members, but most were revoked after nineteen eighty
eight failed Pro democracy uprising. The only civilians who were
permitted to own arms through the Chin, the nation's poorous
ethnic group who rely on guns to hunt for food.
In many cases, these guns were flintlocks that would not

(35:11):
have looked that out of place on a battle till
two centuries before. In practice, though, things are very different.
The current conflict is best seen as a flare up
in violence, so it has been ongoing since Britain left
the country in nineteen forty seven. The Tatmador has consistently
used violence against marginalized ethnic groups in the country, and
they have consistently taken up arms in response. But unlike

(35:35):
civil wars in the Middle East, wealthy nations in the
West have not been flooding me and Mihle with weapons
for decades, and the various eos or ethnic armed organizations
have had to turn to much more unorthodox roots to
arm and equip selves against the government. To get a
better idea of what things are like on the ground,
we spoke to Pierre. He's French, but he's a serial

(35:55):
volunteer with national liberation struggles around the world. A fought
with the Korrenn people in the early two thousands.

Speaker 4 (36:02):
Yes, so the ammunition is a constant problem. The shortage
is absolutely permanent, and yes, there is two sources for
the for the for the weapons, there is the black market,

(36:22):
and the prices, especially of ammunition, are prohibitive. This is
why I would like to have my notebook here with me,
because I think I wrote down the conversation I had
with some leaders of the kind at the time, asking
them why we didn't do more persons. But we just

(36:43):
can't afford it, you know, we just can't afford it.

Speaker 8 (36:48):
Like strictly, we we don't.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
We don't have enough ammunition to do any kind of
of operation.

Speaker 8 (36:56):
We need to.

Speaker 4 (36:57):
So all the operations we did well always focused on
if we could get cure some ammunition, if we could
cuture like weapons, but especially ammunition. Yeah, so there is
you know, that's that's the second source of of course,
of of weapons. Uh, let's say sources. The it's the

(37:23):
captures of course. Then the black markets. The black markets
used to be huge in Cambodia. I don't know what's
the situation now. That was in the nineties. That was
it was a bit of the Albania of sosieties at
this time, right.

Speaker 9 (37:42):
And so there is also the other a ethnic groups
that receive sometimes say a lot of of.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
Of arms and ammunition from sponsors. Okay, some of them,
like the Western dam is our sponsored by China. So
like their supply of ammunition. It's pretty good of weapons.
I think it's even cartolony and stuff. Then there is

(38:16):
also groups that also produced locally quite good. They're on arms,
light arms usually, so yeah, these are the different sources
of what comes to in the time I was there.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
In the early weeks of the protests. Once I claim
clear that non violent demonstrators are going to be met
with state violence, protests began to fashion weapons. First, I
fought soldiers with assault rifles, using catapults and bows and arrows.
It was incredibly brave, but it wasn't very effective. By
the twenty eighth of March, protesters are taking a step

(38:58):
from the group calling itself the Calais Civil Army, set
up barricades and defended them using pressurized air rifles that
fired marbles and bicycle wheel bearings. The rifles all used
the same design and the same components. They were based
on a video someone found on YouTube, but they weren't lethal.

(39:19):
They helped protesters defend their space, albeit at a great cost,
and at first clash, four protesters and four soldiers were killed.
The protesters in Calais were able to hold out a
few days using old hunting rifles and air guns the
ambush military patrols and they took four police hostage. Then
they exchanged them for nine incarcerated protesters. But in early April,

(39:42):
the Tapmador returned to the protest camp in Calay with
rocket propelled grenades and machine guns and killed eleven people.
We must fight back against them. If not, our generation
will face a worse situation than us. They have no laws,
a neighborhood villager who battled the regime's forces told the Irrawoody,
a local paper. The air guns spread around the country quickly.

(40:05):
To avoid surveillance, protesters talked about cooking up berryani on
telegram channels, and what they meant was desperately scouring the
internet for a way to fight back and finding a
way to make an air rifle out of a buttane canister,
a pipe and a cigarette lighter, combined with fireworks and
smoke bombs made of potassium nitrate. The air rifle gave

(40:26):
protests just enough cupboard to escape police charges, but they
also gave the junta an excuse to further escalate the violence.

Speaker 10 (40:35):
Attitudes are hardening among the protesters too. In Mandalay, they
took air rifles to the barricades on Saturday, hardly a
match for the weapons of war they face, but now
they know this is a fight to the death and
more destruction. After a fire raged in pg Dagon township overnight,
people living there but kept away by security forces returned

(40:59):
to find sixty homes burned to the ground. Now all
they can do is pick through the ashes, trying to
save anything from the military's policy of scorched earth.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Even the top Madaw makes its own weapons, a highly
unusual move for a relatively small nation. Topmada troops and
police can be seen with a bewildering array of indigenously
produced copies of M sixteen's oozies and even five five
six Galil pattern AK style rifles, as well as M
three light machine guns, which are slightly updated copies of
the MG forty two used by the Nazis in World

(41:32):
War Two. After the failed eight eight eight eight uprisings
in nineteen eighty eight, the military offered concessions to China
in return for more advanced weapons. They got them, but
it didn't stop China from also supplying ethnic armed organizations.
EAOs don't have access to the same munitions factories that
the government does. But there is a long tradition of

(41:53):
homemade weapons in Myanmar. In more remote parts of the country,
homemade air rifles and shotguns seem to have been relatively
common place before the start of the conflict, and they
were mostly used for hunting. The country is also covered
with land mines, which the EAOs used a great effect
against the top at all. We spoke to Pierre, a
former combatant with the KRIN who no longer lives in

(42:13):
me and Maar. His experience is not that recent, but
it helps us to understand the way this conflict has
been fought for decades.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
What we used to to produce A lot of land mines,
that's that's produced at the base.

Speaker 8 (42:28):
Yes, with like you know, very lot of systems. Is
a little bit of.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
One type of plastic explosive, a couple of BOMBOO for
contactors and.

Speaker 8 (42:43):
Batterie. That's it.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Pellet guns are not good for combat, and EAOs mostly
relied on weapons imported from Thailand, India or China. Overwhelmingly
these were ak or In sixteen pattern rifles.

Speaker 8 (42:55):
Yeah, I mostly in my.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
In the units have been there is probably a majority
of A platforms.

Speaker 8 (43:05):
In this time. Yes, yeah, definitely. I mean, it's more
reliable and you know, simple to perate.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
It's very adapted to the to the to.

Speaker 8 (43:18):
The type of guerrilla it was. It was quite correct,
I mean.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
From the moment that I switched to a case at least,
because at first I tried to use this creparency M
sixteen and it was a nightmare of malfunctions. So I
switched back to a case what I best know and

(43:45):
used doesn't have this. I never really.

Speaker 8 (43:52):
Had any any malfunction with the case.

Speaker 4 (43:55):
Maybe one time with a faulty lot of communition, but
that's it.

Speaker 8 (43:59):
Not really the.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Rightful the fight, Pierre says, has never been restricted to
the battlefield for the top of the door. Violence against
civilians is part of their four cuts doctrine that cuts
off funding, food, intelligence, and recruits for the EAOs. Now
they are moving that same outlook to the cities.

Speaker 8 (44:16):
Like literally.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
Literally by by absolutely no euros of hels. I mean,
like one of the first things that I saw when
we went going patrolling in the in the Karen villages,
huh around a thousand of operation, is that there was

(44:42):
absolutely no girl between the edge of eleven to the
edge of seventeen. I was like, I asked you know,
my my commando about it, and he says, yeah, like
obviously if a stays, they will be rapped by the
tapmado and the first patrol like the first time they

(45:04):
will will come.

Speaker 8 (45:05):
You know.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
So this this gives you a little bit of the
tone of what they are about. They constantly ransom civilians
when they don't model them, like you know, shell villages
for norrision or because there had been an operation of
the kind of a and they take revenge and who

(45:28):
they can take revenge and with the civilians.

Speaker 8 (45:31):
You know, this is this is how they be, This
is who they are. Basically.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
The Topmadaw is a large army in many of the
conscripts are hardly high speed operator types, but that hasn't
stopped them from killing thousands of innocent civilians.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
I mean they have as many army, different units with
different military value. Let's say, uh, you know, many times
the the units that they stuck on hilltop in the

(46:06):
middle of rebel zone are not like the most combative
let's say, but sometimes you will get surprised resistance. But yeah,
except for that, when they do an operation in in

(46:26):
a place, they bring in like more elite troops.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Let's say By contrast, the kN l A, the Karnean
National Liberation Army and other e aos relied on civilian
support to survive.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
The Canada operates in in Karen.

Speaker 8 (46:46):
Territory and the civilians are Karen.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
I mean, uh pretty much when we when we arrive
in in the village.

Speaker 8 (46:56):
As as medics, you know.

Speaker 4 (46:57):
That with us take care of the population, distribute medicine. No,
like I don't know what to tell you, is like
quite it's quite a funny accusation coming from the technology.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
This attitude has helped them, Per says, and they have
always been open to non current recruits.

Speaker 8 (47:19):
First of all, it's not absolutely not.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
That's some kind of ethnicist organization or ethno nationally, it's like,
you know, with some heat for I think group, including
the Obama I think group that like traditionally you know
are the leaders of the Tamadeo that have been oppressing

(47:43):
them for seventeen years.

Speaker 8 (47:45):
But they have absolutely no resentment.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
They are extremely open to work with Democrats, democratic forces
from every impacts.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yes, since nineteen eighty eight, Per said, the k in
LA had been willing to link up with democratic rebels,
providing them with training and shelter in order to further
their shared goal of a federal and democratic country that
treated all ethnicities with respect.

Speaker 8 (48:09):
So PDFs.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
So these rebels, let's say, uh also trend by the
Karrents and uh so by people I know very well
since it was my commander then Nea. So I've seen
I've seen the Karrents. I've always been extremely accommodating to

(48:31):
the Bama opposition, meaning the Bamar, the main ethnic group
are I say this for people that might not know
the difference. And so the Karrents always add representation and
they took like you know, political refugees, let's say, from

(48:56):
from inside the.

Speaker 8 (48:57):
Boma in the territory.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
The control manor prose or was like the student association,
which exact na my cantricle right now.

Speaker 8 (49:07):
But all these.

Speaker 4 (49:09):
Organization of the position and so now they keep this
tradition by helping the UH, these new rebels of the
PDF to get military training.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
And yes, by the summer of twenty twenty, young people
had fled into the Jungles, and many of them, even
the ones of Burman ethnicity, were fighting alongside the Karin
and Karni rebels they'd previously seen as troublemakers and terrorists
just a year or two before. We spoke with one
of these people, Zallin, who left his home in May
of twenty twenty one.

Speaker 5 (49:44):
There were students, friends, but also young people from just
the neighborhood. Most people were just above twenty. A lot
of some were single. You know, there's women as well,
new technology, young people from the from the technology computer

(50:06):
apologists Whycott University. A lot of these people who knew
modern technology went into the jungle to go in the
jungle to train and be able to overthrow the men
online government. So there it was very tiring. We had

(50:27):
to go up and down a lot of hills. It
was two days of walking get there, going up and
down the hills and back down, up and down until
we got to the training plan.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Hey everyone, I'm Robert Evans, and welcome to episode three
of Printing the Revolution. Here's my partner, James Stout.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
In the spring and summer of twenty twenty, millions of
Americans had versions of the same experience. State forces killed
the helpless man. Protesters took to the streets in anger,
and armed agents of the state responded with mass violence.
A lot of people's lives changed forever. In fairly short order.
What happened in Me and Mara after the military coup

(51:23):
was that story turned up to eleven within days. The
military had used live fire and demonstrators. Zor a Saurce
for today's episode. We're twenty two years old. At the time.
He spend his days working as a delivery driver, hang
out with his girlfriend playing video games. On the day
the coup started, he was playing pubg after a long shift.

(51:47):
Soon he and his girlfriend took to the streets with
thousands of other gen z Burmese kids. The state responded
with massacres, often firing automatic weapons into the crowds. Saw
Helen been particularly politically active before this moment. In fact,
he felt pretty poorly towards revolutionary supposing the government in
the jungle, seeing them as rebellious trouble makers.

Speaker 5 (52:09):
In the past, we thought that the military is a
group that loves all the people, all the different groups
in the in the country, and then there's just a
few people who really hate the military, but especially after
the one who we face it with our own foreheads,

(52:31):
you know, with the guns we can face the evil
the military and all the human rights and things that
people who hated the military before we're talking about we
understand it now because we had to face it ourselves.
And then they're going to tell us terrorists, and however
must they call us. We know that we're finding for

(52:52):
human rights, and we know that each person deserves these
basic things, you know, So so even when we capture
a soldier, we don't kill them immediately that they're unarmed.
You know, when they capture a PDF, they torture and
kill them very very horrifically or horrendously, and they kill

(53:15):
and do hurt all the citizens and ordinary bystanders. So
for us, what they're calling as rebels before, we're not rebels.
They're the ones that are rebels, so we have to
call them rebels. They're the terrorists.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
But as violence against protests escalated, so All began to
see through the lies he'd been told by the military.

Speaker 5 (53:39):
Of his life. What we're calling as rebels are what
we kind of become. But we know why we are
now rebels. That's because of their terrorism, their oppressive reviews,
and their violation of human rights. That's why we have
to revolt against them.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
For a time, protesters responded creatively with giant potato guns
meant to fire leslie to protect ours long distances. These
homemade guns will be fired in volleys. Well, other protested
protected them with shields. Some of these tactics were effective
a point, but it quickly became clear that the government
was willing to massacre everyone's standing up to them. So

(54:20):
his girlfriend and their friends quickly decided that non violent
resistance wasn't going to work, but they didn't give up.

Speaker 5 (54:26):
As we get onto into June, there's two paths, right,
we can be normal, we can go on the streets,
we can ask for the people's power back, and since
that's not working, we know that what we have to
do is we need to hold these guns. Get these guns.
And on the military side, all they know is that

(54:49):
they will solve this by folding guns. So the only thing,
the only path that's left for us is to take
those guns for ourselves. So around the end of we
started entering training school. So the downtoy is what the
word we use, and it's something like this corner part

(55:11):
so one corner part one to do so talking. What
that means is that in the huntings huntings that we
were doing, hunting rifles that we were using for that.
So we kind of start started, and we fought first
and demoso, if we can ask the military nicely, then

(55:32):
there's no reason for us to be using guns. But
since they don't listen to our demands or our requests
at all, then and since that all we can do,
all they are saying, all they're doing is using the
guns and being terrorists trying to shoot us. So the
only thing that we can do to get what we
need and what we want is to take the guns

(55:54):
for ourselves.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
And so, like hundreds of people, is age. So All
headed into the jungle in May twenty twenty one. The
decision wasn't an over night one or an easy one.
But after protesting non violently, then meeting state violence with
community defense, then seeing his peers gunned down in the street,
he didn't have many other choices. He'd picked up a megaphone,

(56:17):
then a shield, and now he was heading in the
jungle to pick up a rifle. The only problem was
that there weren't any rifles.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
He left with his girlfriend and quote with the blessing
of his parents. Keep that in mind for later. When
he first went to the jungle, Zall went to a
two week training camp where the Karni People's Defense Force
taught him the basics of guerrilla warfare, but they didn't
have enough weapons to arm him and his friends. So
these Ginz militants began their fighting careers with twenty two

(56:46):
caliber rifles. If you aren't a gun person, the twenty
two was one of the smallest widely available bullets. Like
any bullet, it can kill, but as a caliber it's
better suited for shooting rabbits than soldiers. Two rifles were
handmade locally and only fired one shot at a time,
but it was those rifles that Zaw, his girlfriend, and

(57:07):
their friends carried into their first gunfight with the Tautmadaw.
After battling like that for about three weeks, the shooting stopped,
he said in an interview we conducted over signal. After
the shooting stopped, we grouped together money to buy arms
by asking for donations. They were massively outgunned, but determined
to fight on with the weapons they could make and
buy on the black market until they could find something better,

(57:30):
even if that meant taking guns from dead soldiers. The
military's guns are extremely good, of course, compared to point
two two's, he said. We fight with the mindset that
we must win our minds are always prepared to take
their guns when a soldier falls. It's a mindset to
want the enemy's arms to beat your own arms. You
need to want to resist injustice. Because we are fighting

(57:50):
for what is right. We do not get sad even
if we die. We are happy, even when wounded. We
no longer care if our arms are matched. Unevenly their enthusiasm,
PDF units all over the country were finding themselves in
the same desperate situation. When thousands of young people in
Menmar decided to take up arms against the government, they're
just warn enough guns to go around. Ak pattern rifles

(58:13):
sell for three thousand dollars on the black market, and
ar's sell for up to seven thousand dollars. The GDP
per capita in twenty twenty was just twelve hundred and
eighteen dollars and thirty five cents per person, and unlike
militias in Syria and Iraq, the pro democracy EAOs and
Myanmar don't have the benefit questionable benefit of the US

(58:34):
flooding the region with its fire hose of guns and money. Undeterred,
Zaw and his squad took to YouTube, where they found
videos explaining how to make two two three caliber bolt
action rifles. Again, if you're not a gun person, two
two three may not sound very different than twenty two,
But whereas twenty two is commonly used to shoot squirrels,
two two three is the standard rifle round more or

(58:55):
less for the US military. These new bolt action two
two threes Zaw and his friends were making could not
match the rate of fire of a modern rifle, but
they could at least match those rifles in stopping power.
Once these gen z insurgeons had the technique down, they
created a detailed album on Facebook showing how everything from
the stalk to the barrel could be made with pipes, lumber,

(59:16):
and hours and hours of detailed hard work. Unlike their
guerrilla warfare instructors, these kids had grown up on the
Internet rather than the jungle, so they knew that if
it exists, there's a subreddit for it. It was the
Internet that came to their rescue. Three D printed guns
have been around for a decade, but the early models
didn't work well and suffered from a pretty bad reputation

(59:37):
due in part to Cody Wilson, the pedophile libertarian activists
we discussed last episode. Jake Hanrahan of Popular Front has
covered the printed gun movement extensively.

Speaker 11 (59:46):
Cody Wilson mighte his whole thing like, I'm the guy
with the three D printed guns, and he was on
this moral CRUs side. The three D printed gun lads,
particularly Determs Dispense, well, like, yeah, don't give a shit
about that. We just putting our stuff out into the world. See,
they got the ideas, but they weren't really wedded to
this idea of it being one person.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Deterrens Dispensed was a group of anonymous activists who were
more concerned with making printed guns that worked than making
a name for themselves. Hamrahan was connected to one activist
who used the pseudonym j Stark through the group, and
after three years of conversing online, Hamrahan met Stark in
Germany to produce a documentary. Jay Stark died of a
heart attack following a police raid last year, So we

(01:00:27):
spoke to Hanrahan about Stark's worldview.

Speaker 11 (01:00:30):
His whole worldview comes from this idea that you know,
it's everybody should have the right to be able to
fight tyranny, and if you can't fight tyranny, like you're fucked.
And the way to fight tyranny in the modern era
is firearms.

Speaker 8 (01:00:45):
We know that. You know, there's there's.

Speaker 11 (01:00:47):
No you can't argue it's there's no peaceful march gets
rid of a fascist dictatorship or whatever. But he he was,
he he was you know, some people would say he
was far right, some people say he was an anarchist.
Some people say he was a US patriot type. I mean, first,
he wasn't even from America, and he had a lot
of he liked the laws in America, but he wasn't

(01:01:07):
like some of the American kind of fan boy or
anything on that sense. He liked the gun laws. He
liked the freedom of speech lords, which I do as well.
You know, like personally I in this country. You know,
if you tweet the wrong thing, even in jest, like
police will literally come to your house in Britain like
it's happened, it's fucking mental. So yeah, he liked that
kind of thing, and I think I think for him

(01:01:30):
it was he was very tonal vision. You know, he
was a very tonal vision. It was just freedom, freedom
of freedom, and if you said, well what about this,
what about that? He was like, I don't care about
that until the freedom is there, there's no point looking
at anything else, and so his brain was always on
people that are living under tyranny, you know, and it
genuinely was. I know, there's a lot of people, even leftists,
particularly leftists, that tried to completely smear him as a

(01:01:53):
white supremacist. They were saying, oh, everything he said in
that doc that I made was really he was secret
anti Jewish white supremacy. And then it came out that
he wasn't even white.

Speaker 8 (01:02:03):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:02:03):
It says like very good, very good, you fucking idiots.
So there was a lot of that going around. But
I honestly believe that deep down he was just tunnel
vision focused on this idea of every until everybody is
not living under tyranny, I must go on this mission.
And Okay, if someone shoots up at school with what
I've invented, so be it. You know, which I'm not
saying that's good, but that was just his idea.

Speaker 8 (01:02:25):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:02:25):
He was like, so be it, fuck it if I can.
You know, he was very genuine when he was on
about the wigas, or he was on about the mistreatment
of Kurds from Turkey, and you know, he was like, look,
if we can build something that can help them. Well,
sorry that the West might get fucked up because of it,
but I'm focused on this now. Obviously, in practice that
would be chaos probably, But you know, he just saw

(01:02:47):
it the way he saw it, and that was that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
The cavalier attitude Stark seems to have had how his
invention might be used is of course worthy of criticism.
But the revolutionaries on the ground in me Anmar were
not concerned with ideal life logical debates over the ethics
of homemade firearms. They needed guns, and they needed them now.
J Stark's FGC nine, which stands for Fuck Gun Control
nine millimeter, was simple to make, easy to use, and

(01:03:12):
relied entirely on parts you could print or buy in
any hardware store. In September of twenty twenty one, a
post popped up on the foss cads subreddit, which is
dedicated to the manufacturing of three D printed guns. Stark
is a hero there. The post said, wanted to say
thanks to this community, the creators of FGC nine and
the various mods when we could, you guys are literally

(01:03:34):
empowering the armed revolution against dictators in one of the
most underdeveloped countries. We are now equipped with FGC nine
and starting the armed revolution to the coup leader dictator.
As one poster comments, the account quote went from posting
about mobile games to how to three D print SMGs
to desperately asking people to pay attention what was happening
in me and mar Then after the FGC nine post

(01:03:56):
it was deleted entirely. Never lived to see this.

Speaker 11 (01:04:02):
He would have loved it. What everything that he was doing.
That was the main focus in my opinion, that like,
it couldn't be a more perfect, like practical actual realization
of its project. You couldn't pick a more perfect version
of it to happen like that, you know. And there's

(01:04:22):
a lot of talk of oh where there's a lot
of drug dealers in Amsterdam. I have FGC nine's. There
was a NATS he recently arrested with one.

Speaker 8 (01:04:30):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:04:30):
These people are awful, of course, But the most prevalent
use of the FGC nine, at least from what I've observed,
has been from the rebels in my Ammam making them.
I think I've seen like thirty of them so far,
you know, that's a lot of them, And there was
one was found stashed in a bush. My theory is
they're left around for ambush attacks and areas that are
not as fully controlled by the rebels.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Fostcred, a community of mostly US based gun printers, lost
its collective mind, and it didn't take long for people
to make the connection between the post and a desperate
plight of me and Mars Spring Revolution. Soon after the post,
the Tatmador started posting pictures of FGC nines, often without sights,
captured from fighters in Yangon. On the twenty first of September,

(01:05:18):
Tatmador's Ministry of Information released a statement I Miat Thwei
and Ye mint Ang were found with an FGC nine
Mark two pistol five rounds of nine millimeters ammunition. They
were arrested along with their drone. The military alleged they
were in an urban unit from the same generation z

(01:05:41):
E Freedom ARMI that Zor was a part of. That
same month, the military posted pictures of three more captured
FGC nines, suggesting that at least five have been captured
by late September. Then two months later, a new post
popped up and the foscad subreddit, Hey I'm back, and

(01:06:02):
the guy who posted a thank you note back in
September here Now that the FGC nines are ready known
by the dictator, I can proudly announce that we're from
me and marh. Yes, we are mass producing FGC nines
to fight back against the Dictator. More info about our
production will be published later this time, the user u
slash daddy UMCD hung around to answer questions. Those basters

(01:06:28):
didn't know we had the tech back then. Now that
everything is in public, we can proudly say we're from
me and Mar. We are mostly responsible for production and
R and D, even though we also involved in other
ground missions. We distribute the FDC nine to a lot
of different urban guerrillas in urban and rural areas. Some
of the units got arrested a few weeks ago, which

(01:06:48):
you might have already seen on the subreddit. Apart from
the FGC nine, there are other equipments and weapons that
are being produced with three D printers, he wrote. He
said his team we're residing in ethnic armed organization areas,
mainly the Koren National Union and the Kachin Independence Army
controlled zones. He posted that they'd tried other three D

(01:07:10):
printer designs, such as the PLASTICOV, which is a printed
AK forty seven receiver, but getting the other parts made
it impractical. By contrast, the FGC nine could be made
entirely using a three D printer and some hardware store parts.
According to another source, ME and Mars small motorcycle repair
shops made quick work at the metal barrels and bolts.

(01:07:32):
Electrochemical machining was used to make more barrels. They also
had the chance to buy a few clock barrels from Thailand,
Daddy UMCD said, but those cost a lot more than
the FGC nine barrels. While his account continued to post,
the military continued to share photos of captured FGC nines.

(01:07:53):
Three workshops that have been using lathes to make the
barrels for raided. A photos of three more captured guns
popped up in November, alongside bolt action rifles. It still
had stickers on their stocks from what looked like US
gun shops. Production and decentralized locations continued despite the raids,
while other groups fought on with homemade revolving rifles, crewde

(01:08:16):
homemade wooden stocks, and other improvised weapons. A telegram channel
with instructions in Burmese on how to make the guns
made sure that even when one shop or gunsmith was
taken out of the fight. The knowledge wasn't lost. Although
filament for their three D printers were becoming harder to get,
they'd stockpiled a lot in advance. Daddy UMCD tried to

(01:08:40):
manufacture automatic FGC nines and another printable model called Professor
Parabellum Square tubes are machine gun, but nothing else seemed
as easier as reliable as the FGC nun Of course
read it. Being read it, people questioned the veracity and
utility of his posts. He responded, FDC nines are just

(01:09:01):
part of the game because they could be produced with
what we have are the lowest cost available rifles of
four thousand to seven thousand US dollars at our border.
Fgcs are under one hundred dollars. Rifle parts are ten
times more expensive than parts. To all those who are
saying that these photos of sus we don't want to

(01:09:21):
blame your suspicion. If an if you remember the thread
I posted in September, you will remember that we are
mass producing FGC knights. The ones in the photos you've
seen were supplied by us. There are many groups like
this now we do the main production, just like I
explained in September. Then Daddy UMCD went on to thank
the other members of the subreddit, claiming their active help

(01:09:43):
was your only reason he and other revolutionaries have been
able to overcome certain technical issues. We wouldn't be here
without you, guys, especially with someone who shared with me.
The buffer spring and fire control groups bring the measurements,
he said. By late November, photos of FGC nineis in
the hands of fighters emerged and they shared sites. This

(01:10:03):
time they had longer barrels and homemade suppressors too. The
FDC nines were apparently used by urban units for close
up fighting and for the training of new fighters, since
they have essentially the same controls as an AR fifteen
or M sixteen rifle, both of which are common in
ME and r's rebel units. We have successfully streamlined a

(01:10:24):
variety of techniques to produce FGC nine one thousand plus efficiently.
Our primary forces arequipped with proper rifles. FDC nines are
for guerrilla warfare. We started using those in hit and
run and Special Task Force missions too. We don't share
much about the missions to the public yet, it will
definitely come, and when it does, are updated here. If

(01:10:46):
I'm still alive haha, wrote daddly Umcd on the foscat subreddit.
Even with production and full swing, ammunition remained a problem.
Although some regions can produce twenty two and nine millimeter
a home. According to daddy Umcd, five five six can
be purchased in large quantities at the border with Thailand,

(01:11:09):
but it isn't cheap. Instead, the PDF relied on raiding
police and military outposts in the same way the EEOS
had for years. Nine millimeter is the most common center
fire pistol around in the world. That's why Deterrent's Dispense
picked it for the FGC nine. Seized weapons often only
have a handful of rounds, but that's enough to kill

(01:11:30):
a soldier and take his weapon. Jay Stark might not
have been around to see his invention used to fight tyranny,
but Hanrahan thinks he would have been happy with the results.

Speaker 11 (01:11:40):
He would have been made up. I think that's everything
he wanted to achieve. You know what I'm saying, That
really is everything you wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Even the National Unity Government mir Mar's government in exile
has come around to at least some of Jay Stark's
ways of thinking. According to Daddy umcd our Minister of
Defense Minister already promised about the right to bare arms
in the first day of the revolution.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
Promises made by revolutionary governments are not exactly solid commitments,
but it's not hard to see why a generation of
kids like Zaw, forged by an asymmetrical conflict with a
government that possessed a near absolute advantage in armaments, might
be committed to staying armed even if they win. At
the moment, the future of their struggle is very much
in doubt. Scrolling through Facebook photos of Zaw and his

(01:12:25):
comrades is a surreal experience. They look not just young
soldiers mostly look young, but they look like students kids
from some weirdly militarized university. Photos on Facebook show them
sprawled out together in the grass and camo fatigues bearing rifles,
but each glued to their phones as they cuddle in together.
Zaw and his girlfriend, who he described to us as

(01:12:47):
the girl I love, fought alongside each other until January
seventh of this year.

Speaker 5 (01:12:52):
The battle that we started, she was coming within and
you know, as half a sense of weapons landed near
her and it hit her like so their bone broke,
so she had to go to the hospital.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Three D printed and homemade guns have helped, but Zae
and his friends are still fighting against a modern military
with planes, night vision goggles, and tanks. Despite this, more
than a year after the coup, they're still fighting and
more soldiers deffect to join them weekly. It's hard to
see what victory looks like. The cities will be another
battle altogether, But in the jungle camp where Zaw video

(01:13:30):
calls us from, it's impossible to see what giving up
might look like. Either he's still fighting, his girlfriend is healing,
and they're both committed to staying out in the jungle
until they are in their freedom back or die a trying.

(01:13:56):
I'm Robert Evans and this is part four of me
and mar printing the revolution.

Speaker 5 (01:14:02):
And then once we got there we could in rest,
you know, rain, sun whatever. Women as well, we were
all like try when they came when we were leaving,
they were all like very fair skinned, beautiful, and then
we went in and then everyone got tanned. In the jungle,
we're training all the time. You know, people in training

(01:14:23):
camp were driven reallypart and the reason that we were
all doing this is because of Minile nine School. As
students and how much he has terrorized the public and
the people. And that's why we were we have this
morale and the ability to get through the training and
be able to wield weapons.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
Zora and his friends went into the jungleist students, programmers
and kids. Now they're fighters. They would tech savvy young people,
he says, they grew up online and that generational divide
was the Internet brought here came much later in Miamah.
It wasn't until twenty eleven that people really gained accest internet.

(01:15:02):
With it the new ideas and identities that they brought.
So as generation are among the first to embrace global
connectivity and now after having it taken away, they're refusing
to give it up.

Speaker 5 (01:15:15):
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, but kind of organizing around like gen Z
is going to be different than the eightya generation because

(01:15:36):
we have the Internet and also we know more about
the world and can come communicate to the rest of
the world. I think one thing that was big 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 (01:15:53):
It's worth noting that when people in Burma talk about
the Internet, they mean Facebook. Phones come with a 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.

(01:16:14):
This has led to a situation where the PDF people's
defense force units are much less hierarchical than units of
the Tamador.

Speaker 5 (01:16:21):
So when we make decisions in our group, there's no
master and student. There's no teacher and 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

(01:16:42):
and know more about the situation have more voice and
when we discuss so especially people who were there when
we founded this group. There were only really eight people
from when we group, so those eight people kind of
discussed on the bigger strategy. You know, we don't really
vote there, he says, he wants to do it. He

(01:17:06):
thinks it is good. We are there's the seven of
us we think is good, or we support him, or
someone says, well, we don't really like that idea, then
we don't do it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
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 5 (01:17:24):
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

(01:17:46):
women are with us together, we have a confusion about
whether we need to protect them or we're just fighting
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

(01:18:11):
women out really far into very dangerous fights. So often
they're in the back as backup or to supplies or
things like that. But as you know, the military government,
the military terrorists are very very very unethical. They don't
follow the rules, so you know they're going to shoot

(01:18:32):
whoever they see. So even if they're hanging back and
they're sending medical supplies. They can still get hit.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
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 the
families of fighters and wondered if he was worried about that.

Speaker 5 (01:18:50):
So mom and dad are both they support me fighting
them against the military. They're very happy. Is that really
wants to CDUM, 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

(01:19:15):
their work, they're in the military school schools, so it's
very hard for them to run away, right hect So
he really wants to leave the military, but he can't.
So while so that the fact that I am there
trying to fight against the military, is very happy, but

(01:19:37):
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 and seeing that I can do it, it's really
wonderful for them. So his father, his father, brother, and
other people three of them below him. They have all

(01:20:01):
usually just lived together with his grandfather and stuff in
the military from pounds or near the military. So he
really wants to call all the people that are still there,
but they can't leave.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
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, Zaul 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

(01:20:35):
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 2 (01:20:57):
As we record this, Zau is still fighting. His girl
friend 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 Mada who rely on
iron sights they shoot and reload like soldiers, and they
laugh like kids. The top Madaw still controls the cities,

(01:21:17):
but to move 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 state by the tot Madaw on churches,

(01:21:40):
residential homes, camps for displaced people, which killed sixty one
in the months since Saw 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

(01:22:01):
junta's leader, flew 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
our two countries, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at

(01:22:22):
a meeting with the coup leader on June twenty second.
We pay special attention to this meeting as we see
Mianmar as a time tested strategic partner and a reliable
ally in Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific region. He
went on. Min Onnhlang was equally lavish with his praise,
saying that he saw Russia as a friend forever. Mianmar
relies heavily on Russian hind Mi I thirty five helicopter gunships,

(01:22:45):
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
have been seen more recently in the fighting in Ukraine.
One prominent Ermese Irish family, the kiah Tongs, has helped
the junta avoid an international arms embargo using their global

(01:23:06):
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 top MADA. They've also helped shuttle coastal radar
to Myanmar, which the Top Medal used to track Rohinga
refugees and provide cover for several aircraft purchases. To fund
these armed purchases, the top Mada has found willing markets

(01:23:28):
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 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

(01:23:49):
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 conflict in the NMAR remains complicated.
It's easy to reduce the alphabet super of revel groups,
the EOS and the PDF, but these groups and their

(01:24:11):
motivations are diverse. Pierre explained to us that even within
the Korean there are deep divisions.

Speaker 4 (01:24:16):
Well, first, 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 of the Kharan people, because obviously

(01:24:37):
that was the most Western educated people.

Speaker 8 (01:24:43):
At the time.

Speaker 4 (01:24:45):
And so this eliot kind of reproduced itself in the
new without being the CANU is. The Karen National Union
is a democratic movement, but you know, elits tend to
reproduce themselves. And so most of the leadership, let's say,

(01:25:08):
of the Karen National Union and the Karen National Liberation Army.

Speaker 8 (01:25:15):
Was Christian Like.

Speaker 4 (01:25:20):
And so the Burmese Junta, the Burmese military government, decided
to use this to create a wedge between between the
Karen Christians and the Karran Buddhists UH and sent monks

(01:25:41):
to say, agitate and try to cause this split on
religious grounds no UH, And they succeeded in parts and
succeeded to separate a part of Karent Buddhists that created
the the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army d B, which then

(01:26:08):
I like themselves of course.

Speaker 8 (01:26:10):
To the to the junta and to.

Speaker 4 (01:26:15):
Attack the to attack the Kinnel and the Manor Clow,
which of course they knew all the all the roads
there and the defenses and where was the defense is situated,
et cetera, and succeeded in destroying the capital of the
Karen National.

Speaker 8 (01:26:33):
Union in Manorplot in ninety five.

Speaker 4 (01:26:36):
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 more importantly,
they lost a lot of income because a lot of

(01:26:57):
their income come from a tax at the border, a
Zecan contour, you know.

Speaker 8 (01:27:04):
So yeah, that was the situation.

Speaker 2 (01:27:07):
Not every EAO 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 remain technically under a ceasefire with the top
Meda and the top MADA knows that if it pushes
too far into EO territory, it risks provoking a full
blown response. The EAOs, meanwhile, have been aiding and training

(01:27:30):
the PDF and still maintaining enough deniability that the top
Meda 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 The.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
Wall 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 Rahingia genocide. More than half the population

(01:28:10):
of Kareni State has fled. Humanitarian access is hard. Much
of the relief effort for displaced people occurs 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 some of them

(01:28:32):
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 waded back to sleep on the
Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR, the High Commission
on Refugees, it's been unable to access camps in Thailand
or Me and Mah to check on the conditions, but

(01:28:55):
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 interfaced with older

(01:29:16):
ethnic military forces, the three D printed 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.

Speaker 5 (01:29:29):
From Miah Mah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:29):
To Armenia, Ukraine, to Syria, Ethiopia to Iraq and beyond.
The novelties of twenty first 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

(01:29:50):
the world willing to send nothing more than kind words
and stern warnings. This is a PostScript to episode four.
It's not but one that we'd been intending to record,
because it's not news that we'd ever hoped to have.

Speaker 8 (01:30:05):
To share, But.

Speaker 5 (01:30:07):
Here we are.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
Unfortunately, we found out that about ten days after we
last spoke, and a couple of weeks before we released
our podcast, Zor died. And he died in battle fighting
with the Tutmador. He's really was, I suppose, an amazingly
brave and courageous young man, and I think that his

(01:30:35):
loss is one that reflects the realities of 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, dying when they had no quarrel with anyone,

(01:30:58):
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 power

(01:31:18):
decided 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

(01:31:39):
hope to be brave enough to do the same if
the same thing happened to us. This once hit me
quite hard.

Speaker 8 (01:31:46):
Honestly.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
I know this is my job, and it 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
explaining stuff that we didn't understand, and he always answered
our questions. It was nothing that was off the table.

(01:32:10):
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 fight, right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, militarization,
And yeah, will grieve his loss. Both Robert and I

(01:32:36):
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 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,

(01:32:59):
and we're not in any doubt we will gravely miss
him either. We both hoped to go over and record
with him, 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 look at what each of us

(01:33:20):
was doing that day. So it's a hard loss for
me and for Robert till as I said, we'd just spoken.
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

(01:33:40):
Ukraine now, I'd urge you to look at the conflict
in Myanmar to another Russian bomb killed, another nice kid
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,
so he decided to stand up against it. As you

(01:34:03):
can probably hear in my voice, I'm quite upset by
his loss and will be probably for a few days.
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

(01:34:24):
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
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

(01:34:47):
mostly just hope that.

Speaker 5 (01:34:50):
One day, young.

Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
Men and women and everyone else just gets to live
their lives without 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 Zor's comrades, Please don't forget his legacy

(01:35:17):
and please don't forget him. We won't and we obviously
want to dedicate this podcast to him and what he
stood for. So yeah, thanks. It Could Happen Here as
a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 6 (01:35:36):
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 2 (01:35:45):
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.

Speaker 5 (01:35:50):
Thanks for listening.