November 11, 2022 • 20 mins
We conclude our series on Myanmar, and look at how the revolution is sustaining itself after more than a year and a half of fighting without international aid.
Music for this series was provided by Rebel Riot, check out their Bandcamp here https://therebelriot.bandcamp.com/album/one-day
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's not easy to leave your home, even when people
there are trying to kill you. Doctor Wonder, like everyone else,
struggled with the choice. His hospital had next to no supplies.
COVID's third wave was ravaging the population, and he couldn't
even get oxygen to treat sick patients. All around him
was death and fear, but he still wanted to stay.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Actually, I don't want to live my country because if
we just live like that, our country will be We'll
go back to yes before centuries. You know, you know,
they control everything. We have to just queue. We have
to just make it queue to get a patrolium, petroleum.
(00:46):
We have faith in our young age. I don't. I
don't want to fit that feeling again, not for me,
not just for me, not of for our people, for
our new generation are too young accents. Yes, one is
a five year one is the ideas. So I just
(01:07):
want to fight. Yeah, and then my last friend back,
I can't tolerate because they are trying, you know, around movement.
I'm trying my best.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
From the decision to go was made for him. By
the top of door.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
We are making the meeting with him. He is in
a control at those times he is a control yes
at those times. So we're making a meeting then asking
him did did he's safe or not? You know, I
start at the end of the meeting, he he, he
told me the hint. They were going to the insight
(01:49):
oh oh ship, the holy ship.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
He was arrested.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So so time I was living the younger and you
know the government of that, the Millers. We also announced
that the remain do arrest Yeah, REMAINU arrests too. I'm
thinking all of my things that you have to goal
because you have all of the data, so you have
the goal. So I decided to go.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, Andy and the boys made the decision to abandon
their apartment and head for Karin Territory and eventually Thailand.
Once one of their protest friends was arrested by the government,
his phone was on him when he got caught, potentially
exposing all of them. After a harrowing drive into the
jungle and several days among the Koran, they succeeded in
finding a people smuggler to get them across the border
(02:36):
without getting stuck in one of the refugee camps operated
by the Thai government.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
Three days later, we were trying to cross at night time,
and these guys said, okay, you know, you go in,
you cross, you get to Thailand at the same night.
And we thought, okay, you know, and we swim across
the river. It was very scary, but for me, I've
done it like three times, so it was a little bit.
(03:00):
I thought it was going to be better, but it
was more stressful because I had them right. So I
was like, if it was me alone, maybe I could,
you know, whatever happened, I would find a way out.
I'm not sure if I could do that with three
other people, you know, so I was quite nervous. We
paid what five thousand bodies. Yeah, it is not cheap,
(03:21):
it is, no, no, but because that's the thing, it's
not just one person. Yeah, it's not just one person.
He the person that crossed us from the river from
the Avidy to this side is one and then from
there to the nomansland is another one. Right, So yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Saw the soldier were like Alex stayed in four or
attempted to fight with the current, but most of the
time only did with stamp sentry. Where about getting enough
to eat? I wonder when he gets his hands on
something better than.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
A squirrel rifle kind because we don't have like enough girls.
Uh you know, Like so by the time like there
was like STROI happening in uh Lekic, I thought like, oh,
we're gonna have to like go and you know like
fight them now. But uh stay, like we have to
(04:16):
pack our staff and move to a deba jungle. So
we were like kind of like refugees with uniforms. But yeah,
you know, if I just keep staying there like we
if we are just going to keep running away like this,
Like I don't want to stay there. I want to
do something about the needs, like you know, like the
(04:38):
Maynes in our canvas, the weapons against So I want
to like come here and like you know, like walk
work for that.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
He called his unit refugees with uniforms, and that's about
what they were. This is why rebels like me Off
and Daddy UMCD are so motivated to find a way
to reliably print functional semi automatic weapons. The Karin are
desperately under armed, and yet they've been able to hold
off the military for decades. If the Korn and other
ethnic organizations were able to build functional arms production infrastructure
(05:11):
alongside the new rebels with the PDF, they have a
real chance at victory. If they succeed in building this,
the repercussions around the world could be massive. That is, however,
a story for another day.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Seeing this kind of conflict isn't good for you. Nobody's
supposed to live through this kind of stuff, and certainly
not when they're just kids. Even in a rich country
replete with therapists and VA clinics. Thousands of US veterans
live every day with PTFT. The difference for them is
that they went to war in myanma what comes to you?
Speaker 5 (05:56):
And then there's another one, which is this one. And
I did the first part and I'm too scared to
do the second part. So yeah, I mean this is
fucked up, Like every time I have to do it,
I get my head get fucked like.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
That's one of the guys.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
And so that's in Yang in the protest, that's one
of the nightway, that's one of the days. But the
AANA but on a hundred people would kill over one
hundred people. You can see in the video they come
in and you will see that the military, how the
(06:37):
military came in and how they were trying to I'm
not sure if I have in anymore.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Maybe here.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
You developing.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Me. They surrounded and they killed everyone.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
What they've seen is bonded the boys. They do anything
for each other, and I've already done things that most
of us can't imagine. When one of their mothers wanted
to take him home, he felt helpless without them. When
the rest of them crossed. One of their moms came
back to get him without them and stuck in the country,
falling apart, he didn't want to keep going. Every day
(07:17):
he watched soldiers outside himself popping yabber pills. Yaba's a
myth based drug and soldiers are often given by the military.
He worried they'd kill him. His brother in law was
arrested and tortured just for having a lighter. Can you
remember what it felt like when your mom came home.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
He kept saying, he's going to fucking kill himself for
a long time, for a line time I will come to. Yeah,
he wasn't in a good space. I so he was
(07:59):
saying that if he has to go back. He was
telling us like, you know, now he's alone, like he
doesn't even have us anymore. And so he was saying,
like he's going to go out to the protest and
he's going to try to kill the cops, right, the soldiers,
the police. And it was very difficult like for us too,
like because we know his mom can't really like help
(08:23):
him with that stuff. You know we can, but she
really wanted to take him.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So over time they chatted on the phone and he
felt better. But now he's here with the boys. It's
him playing his guitar and the music you heard.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
He got a lot better coping with this in a
good way, you know what I mean. I mean, if
you're young and you see people killing people like this terribly,
you have some job fucked up thoughts yourself too, right,
Like well I could do this to someone too, and
stuff like that. So he's struggled a lot with that
(08:56):
for a long time. And I think the worst thing
was being alone. He was alone. He couldn't talk to
his mom about all these things, right, He was paranoi,
he was scared, he was traumatized. So I mean, it's
just see like the first time we write, but then
actually can na ask you. It's been five months since
he was he's here, but the first few months it
(09:17):
was very difficult. Yeah, I'm kind of like I talked
to them all the time about this, because I know
talking helps with these stubs, like and especially when you
all feeling the same thing. It's like, you know, and
I think our ways of coping with this is like
we talk about it, but like kind of like a
joking way, like you put humor in it. That's the
(09:38):
best way.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
To deal with it, Like to get through those hard
days on his own, looking down at men who wanted
him dead, he picked up a cheap acoustic guitar. When
he got back, he began teaching the others if you
hadn't picked it up, they're pretty good. When we went
out to the pool bar at night, in between kicking
your asses, the boys would look up at the stage.
It was occupied by a pretty second rate cover band
(10:01):
for whatever reason, probably not helped by the incredibly rough
ti gin we've been smashing back. I looked at them
looking at the stage on our last night, and I
wanted to cry. Teenage kids shouldn't be caught picking up
guns to fight or picking up cameras to film their
friends die. They should be doing what I was doing
when I was a teenager, which is making a complete
prick of myself on a stage with a guitar one day.
(10:23):
Hopefully soon they'll be able to sing happy songs again
and the war will just be a memory. I start,
then when you write it.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
Before, Yeah, I don't have from for tall like, so
I start.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Their bond is so close now, they're barely ever apart.
It's a lot of responsibility for Andy, who's just twenty
two himself, but he wouldn't want it any other way,
and neither would they one right, and you and Sarah
have appointments, and so Robert and I take the boys
for dinner. It's a lot of fun and actually a
lot of food. But when we talked to him about
(11:09):
their options, it's refugees. He might be able to come
to the US. One thing is clear. They don't want
to be a part.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
For me, it's like I'd rather fucking take bullet than
any of them, because if they die or if something
happened to them, I am in so much trouble, you
know what I mean. But I know that that's what
they want to do. Like if the mom trap him
in Yangon and he doesn't do anything and the revolution
is over, he's going to feel so much regret, you know,
(11:37):
like for not being involved in this and that's for me.
It's like people, if people want to fight, like, you know,
like we shouldn't keep them. We shouldn't just say yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's been a few months since we got back from
May Saught. It's the rainy season there now and that
makes fighting reporting harder. Amrah is still stuck in mayst
It's not safe for her to go back to a
country where her family wants her dead, but it's not
possible for her to leave May Sought either without travel documents,
something the UNHCR would have to issue. She's stuck in
(12:19):
a little room in a hotel. It's not a great
place for a young woman, and it's even worse when
she has to watch her friends continue to struggle without her.
We both wrote to the UN and the various embassies
on her behalf, but months later we've heard nothing. This
is typical of a lot of refugees. They're often presented
as a faceless mass of humanity, bereft of hope, but
(12:40):
each of them has a story, and those refugee camps
along the border between Thailand and Myanmar are full of stories.
Some of those are stories of fear, some of heroism,
and some of tragedy, but until things change at the
UN all of those stories aren't being told.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
The three D printed firearms Maalk and his colleagues are
working on I've made massive progress over the last few months,
but even though three D printed guns cost a small
fraction of the price of an M sixteen or an
AK forty seven, the pro democracy forces are still desperately underfunded.
They're at war with the state, but they don't have
any of the apparatus of a state with which to
fight back. Instead, the gen Z rebels have turned once
(13:19):
again to the Internet. Alongside crowdfunding campaigns like Liberate Memma,
they've developed a more innovative fundraising method that allows for
donations even from people who don't have any money. Instead
of soliciting cash donations risking exposing their donors, they began
using a method that they call click to Donate, where
supporters could help the rebels by clicking on adverts on
(13:40):
certain videos and websites in order to generate advertising revenue.
It's used to find everything from weapons purchases to shelter
for the ten thousand eternally displaced people in the Anmar.
I spoke to several people in Themma who asked not
to be named for their own safety, but are very
familiar with the funding of the PDF. One of them
told me to donate started to support government staff who
(14:02):
had decided to join a civil disobedience movement. Government staff
are always low paid and so they were not very
financially stable in the beginning. The fund from click to
donate allowed these workers to strike without pay. After a
few weeks of being on strike, financial concerns were weakening
the movement and people were being forced to work or stave.
(14:23):
Younger pro democracy activists responded by setting up YouTube channels
and then using the anti coup telegram channels to direct
millions of views and add clicks to them from across
the country and from supporters abroad. The resulting advertising revenue
allowed them to fund the civil disobedience movement and later
to equip the PDF. By December of twenty twenty one,
(14:44):
these clicks were yielding an income of about five hundred
million kiats about twenty eight thousand dollars every day.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The Military Hunter responded to this an international indignation at
videos of protesters being massacred in the street by tripling
data prizes and throat modeling Internet connection speeds. Pro democracy
keyboard warriors responded with viral content that required less bandwidth,
including writing personal finance blogs to attract a US audience
that was unknowingly supporting a revolution with its clicks. People
(15:14):
in Myanmar also began to use VPNs to access the Internet.
This helped them get around some of the junta's restrictions
and also yielded a higher advertising payment per click on
a given advert. Websites like Digital Revolution allow users to
find content that supports pro democracy rebels and click on it,
lending their support with nothing more than a broadband connection
and a few seconds of their time. Alongside their videos
(15:36):
and websites, the Ginz rebels also launched games. At first,
they were just simple little online phone app games that
would let you throw darts at the coup leader or something.
One source told us that these games didn't just support
the rebels through funding, but also provided a little bit
of mental health care. You know, at least people could
virtually kill the folks in their city and their home
(15:57):
who were ruining their lives, and at the same time
time the games earned the money, and that money went
to fund the PDF.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
The most impressive of these games is a recently launched
War of Heroes, which you can buy for just a
dollar on the Apple and Google App stores if you
want to check it out. In the game, which is
available in Burmese or English, a player can fight as
a man or a woman and take on government troops
and even zombies. The money donated via these games and
adverts doesn't just go into a black hole, According to
(16:25):
the sources I spoke to, we have a click to
donate Facebook page, they said, and regularly we release financial
statements on a Facebook page, saying like this month we
gave ten million kyats to that group. I spoke to
Billy Ford, a program officer for the Burmer team at
the US Institute of Peace. He says this kind of
innovation is what's allowed the pro democracy movement to survive
(16:46):
in me and Mah since it was last violently suppressed
in nineteen eighty eight. Activists and resistance movements in Miamma
have historically been an example to the world of creative, strategic,
and resilient models of activism, he said. This post twenty
two one movement has taken that to a new level,
enabling it to defy all historical precedent and sustain an
(17:06):
anti coup movement for more than eighteen months, now actually
gaining ground against a regime with an enormous structural advantage,
rather than seeing their lack of weapons and funds as
the fatal flaw. Ford says that the highly onlined rebels
have looked for areas where they could outflank the aging
generals who stole their futures from them. The movement has
leveraged comparative advantages large numbers of people with time and
(17:29):
tech savvy to raise money. He says. This tactic, although unusual,
has been a great success. According to Ford, the approach
has grown enormously, with one of the video games, for example,
rising to become the number two paid app on the
App Store at one point.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
However, all the clicks in the world might not be
enough to sweep the rebels into Mandolay and return the
country on its path towards democracy. Sources inside me en
Mars say that less and less revenue is generated by
a me and marip address, and that they have had
to encourage men members of the People's Click Force to
install VPNs to make their clicks appear to come from
the US or Europe. Sometimes the traffic is so massive
(18:07):
that Utube's algorithm mistakes it for an artificial intelligence botnet.
They're looking, they tell me, at pivoting towards affiliate links
and the sort of content driven commerce that has swept
the US media thanks to the success of sites like
The Wirecutter. Meanwhile, on the ground, PDF forces are regularly
getting the better of the totmadaw in small arms conflict,
but coming off worse when they can't defend themselves against
(18:30):
the Russian jets which the HUNTA uses to bomb civilian
and military targets. Without man portable anti aircraft systems, the
rebels are sitting ducks. The world has sent thousands of
these to Ukraine and none to people in Myanmar fighting
the same battle for democracy against the same Russian jets.
Despite this, they're not discouraged. PDF rebels tell me they
(18:50):
have been scouring the Internet and they're working on a
solution that doesn't need the apparatus of support of a
state and instead relies on stable broadband and the increasing
ingenuity they've shown and in eighteen months of revolution, demo
crazy word.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
My joh.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
Oh do o ye.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Has on you.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
On you.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah he d.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Oh my.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Really young irby boy.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Okay lang and on this long heavy.
Speaker 6 (19:43):
Ollo.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Hi everyone, it's me again, James.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Don't worry.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I'm not coming to you at the end of the
series to report something tragic like I did, and I'll
ask me. I'm my series. I'm just recording this little
message at the end to say that we're very grateful
to Daniel an Ian for all their hard work on this,
and we've gone through countless edits for this particular project,
and they've done a lot of hard work to get
it to you in the form that you listen to
(20:10):
it today and for the last week. We also want
to say that although this appears to be a podcast
written and recorded by Robert and I, that Andy is
very much a co author and that none of this
would have been possible without him. As we said, Andy's
not his real name, and we can't put his real
name in the credits because we're worried for his safety.
But his work has been invaluable and without him, none
(20:34):
of what you've heard would be possible.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
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,
you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Thanks for listening.
It's not easy to leave your home, even when people
there are trying to kill you. Doctor Wonder, like everyone else,
struggled with the choice. His hospital had next to no supplies.
COVID's third wave was ravaging the population, and he couldn't
even get oxygen to treat sick patients. All around him
was death and fear, but he still wanted to stay.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Actually, I don't want to live my country because if
we just live like that, our country will be We'll
go back to yes before centuries. You know, you know,
they control everything. We have to just queue. We have
to just make it queue to get a patrolium, petroleum.
(00:46):
We have faith in our young age. I don't. I
don't want to fit that feeling again, not for me,
not just for me, not of for our people, for
our new generation are too young accents. Yes, one is
a five year one is the ideas. So I just
(01:07):
want to fight. Yeah, and then my last friend back,
I can't tolerate because they are trying, you know, around movement.
I'm trying my best.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
From the decision to go was made for him. By
the top of door.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
We are making the meeting with him. He is in
a control at those times he is a control yes
at those times. So we're making a meeting then asking
him did did he's safe or not? You know, I
start at the end of the meeting, he he, he
told me the hint. They were going to the insight
(01:49):
oh oh ship, the holy ship.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
He was arrested.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So so time I was living the younger and you
know the government of that, the Millers. We also announced
that the remain do arrest Yeah, REMAINU arrests too. I'm
thinking all of my things that you have to goal
because you have all of the data, so you have
the goal. So I decided to go.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Okay, Andy and the boys made the decision to abandon
their apartment and head for Karin Territory and eventually Thailand.
Once one of their protest friends was arrested by the government,
his phone was on him when he got caught, potentially
exposing all of them. After a harrowing drive into the
jungle and several days among the Koran, they succeeded in
finding a people smuggler to get them across the border
(02:36):
without getting stuck in one of the refugee camps operated
by the Thai government.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
Three days later, we were trying to cross at night time,
and these guys said, okay, you know, you go in,
you cross, you get to Thailand at the same night.
And we thought, okay, you know, and we swim across
the river. It was very scary, but for me, I've
done it like three times, so it was a little bit.
(03:00):
I thought it was going to be better, but it
was more stressful because I had them right. So I
was like, if it was me alone, maybe I could,
you know, whatever happened, I would find a way out.
I'm not sure if I could do that with three
other people, you know, so I was quite nervous. We
paid what five thousand bodies. Yeah, it is not cheap,
(03:21):
it is, no, no, but because that's the thing, it's
not just one person. Yeah, it's not just one person.
He the person that crossed us from the river from
the Avidy to this side is one and then from
there to the nomansland is another one. Right, So yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Saw the soldier were like Alex stayed in four or
attempted to fight with the current, but most of the
time only did with stamp sentry. Where about getting enough
to eat? I wonder when he gets his hands on
something better than.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
A squirrel rifle kind because we don't have like enough girls.
Uh you know, Like so by the time like there
was like STROI happening in uh Lekic, I thought like, oh,
we're gonna have to like go and you know like
fight them now. But uh stay, like we have to
(04:16):
pack our staff and move to a deba jungle. So
we were like kind of like refugees with uniforms. But yeah,
you know, if I just keep staying there like we
if we are just going to keep running away like this,
Like I don't want to stay there. I want to
do something about the needs, like you know, like the
(04:38):
Maynes in our canvas, the weapons against So I want
to like come here and like you know, like walk
work for that.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
He called his unit refugees with uniforms, and that's about
what they were. This is why rebels like me Off
and Daddy UMCD are so motivated to find a way
to reliably print functional semi automatic weapons. The Karin are
desperately under armed, and yet they've been able to hold
off the military for decades. If the Korn and other
ethnic organizations were able to build functional arms production infrastructure
(05:11):
alongside the new rebels with the PDF, they have a
real chance at victory. If they succeed in building this,
the repercussions around the world could be massive. That is, however,
a story for another day.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Seeing this kind of conflict isn't good for you. Nobody's
supposed to live through this kind of stuff, and certainly
not when they're just kids. Even in a rich country
replete with therapists and VA clinics. Thousands of US veterans
live every day with PTFT. The difference for them is
that they went to war in myanma what comes to you?
Speaker 5 (05:56):
And then there's another one, which is this one. And
I did the first part and I'm too scared to
do the second part. So yeah, I mean this is
fucked up, Like every time I have to do it,
I get my head get fucked like.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
That's one of the guys.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
And so that's in Yang in the protest, that's one
of the nightway, that's one of the days. But the
AANA but on a hundred people would kill over one
hundred people. You can see in the video they come
in and you will see that the military, how the
(06:37):
military came in and how they were trying to I'm
not sure if I have in anymore.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Maybe here.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
You developing.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Me. They surrounded and they killed everyone.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
What they've seen is bonded the boys. They do anything
for each other, and I've already done things that most
of us can't imagine. When one of their mothers wanted
to take him home, he felt helpless without them. When
the rest of them crossed. One of their moms came
back to get him without them and stuck in the country,
falling apart, he didn't want to keep going. Every day
(07:17):
he watched soldiers outside himself popping yabber pills. Yaba's a
myth based drug and soldiers are often given by the military.
He worried they'd kill him. His brother in law was
arrested and tortured just for having a lighter. Can you
remember what it felt like when your mom came home.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
He kept saying, he's going to fucking kill himself for
a long time, for a line time I will come to. Yeah,
he wasn't in a good space. I so he was
(07:59):
saying that if he has to go back. He was
telling us like, you know, now he's alone, like he
doesn't even have us anymore. And so he was saying,
like he's going to go out to the protest and
he's going to try to kill the cops, right, the soldiers,
the police. And it was very difficult like for us too,
like because we know his mom can't really like help
(08:23):
him with that stuff. You know we can, but she
really wanted to take him.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So over time they chatted on the phone and he
felt better. But now he's here with the boys. It's
him playing his guitar and the music you heard.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
He got a lot better coping with this in a
good way, you know what I mean. I mean, if
you're young and you see people killing people like this terribly,
you have some job fucked up thoughts yourself too, right,
Like well I could do this to someone too, and
stuff like that. So he's struggled a lot with that
(08:56):
for a long time. And I think the worst thing
was being alone. He was alone. He couldn't talk to
his mom about all these things, right, He was paranoi,
he was scared, he was traumatized. So I mean, it's
just see like the first time we write, but then
actually can na ask you. It's been five months since
he was he's here, but the first few months it
(09:17):
was very difficult. Yeah, I'm kind of like I talked
to them all the time about this, because I know
talking helps with these stubs, like and especially when you
all feeling the same thing. It's like, you know, and
I think our ways of coping with this is like
we talk about it, but like kind of like a
joking way, like you put humor in it. That's the
(09:38):
best way.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
To deal with it, Like to get through those hard
days on his own, looking down at men who wanted
him dead, he picked up a cheap acoustic guitar. When
he got back, he began teaching the others if you
hadn't picked it up, they're pretty good. When we went
out to the pool bar at night, in between kicking
your asses, the boys would look up at the stage.
It was occupied by a pretty second rate cover band
(10:01):
for whatever reason, probably not helped by the incredibly rough
ti gin we've been smashing back. I looked at them
looking at the stage on our last night, and I
wanted to cry. Teenage kids shouldn't be caught picking up
guns to fight or picking up cameras to film their
friends die. They should be doing what I was doing
when I was a teenager, which is making a complete
prick of myself on a stage with a guitar one day.
(10:23):
Hopefully soon they'll be able to sing happy songs again
and the war will just be a memory. I start,
then when you write it.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
Before, Yeah, I don't have from for tall like, so
I start.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Their bond is so close now, they're barely ever apart.
It's a lot of responsibility for Andy, who's just twenty
two himself, but he wouldn't want it any other way,
and neither would they one right, and you and Sarah
have appointments, and so Robert and I take the boys
for dinner. It's a lot of fun and actually a
lot of food. But when we talked to him about
(11:09):
their options, it's refugees. He might be able to come
to the US. One thing is clear. They don't want
to be a part.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
For me, it's like I'd rather fucking take bullet than
any of them, because if they die or if something
happened to them, I am in so much trouble, you
know what I mean. But I know that that's what
they want to do. Like if the mom trap him
in Yangon and he doesn't do anything and the revolution
is over, he's going to feel so much regret, you know,
(11:37):
like for not being involved in this and that's for me.
It's like people, if people want to fight, like, you know,
like we shouldn't keep them. We shouldn't just say yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's been a few months since we got back from
May Saught. It's the rainy season there now and that
makes fighting reporting harder. Amrah is still stuck in mayst
It's not safe for her to go back to a
country where her family wants her dead, but it's not
possible for her to leave May Sought either without travel documents,
something the UNHCR would have to issue. She's stuck in
(12:19):
a little room in a hotel. It's not a great
place for a young woman, and it's even worse when
she has to watch her friends continue to struggle without her.
We both wrote to the UN and the various embassies
on her behalf, but months later we've heard nothing. This
is typical of a lot of refugees. They're often presented
as a faceless mass of humanity, bereft of hope, but
(12:40):
each of them has a story, and those refugee camps
along the border between Thailand and Myanmar are full of stories.
Some of those are stories of fear, some of heroism,
and some of tragedy, but until things change at the
UN all of those stories aren't being told.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
The three D printed firearms Maalk and his colleagues are
working on I've made massive progress over the last few months,
but even though three D printed guns cost a small
fraction of the price of an M sixteen or an
AK forty seven, the pro democracy forces are still desperately underfunded.
They're at war with the state, but they don't have
any of the apparatus of a state with which to
fight back. Instead, the gen Z rebels have turned once
(13:19):
again to the Internet. Alongside crowdfunding campaigns like Liberate Memma,
they've developed a more innovative fundraising method that allows for
donations even from people who don't have any money. Instead
of soliciting cash donations risking exposing their donors, they began
using a method that they call click to Donate, where
supporters could help the rebels by clicking on adverts on
(13:40):
certain videos and websites in order to generate advertising revenue.
It's used to find everything from weapons purchases to shelter
for the ten thousand eternally displaced people in the Anmar.
I spoke to several people in Themma who asked not
to be named for their own safety, but are very
familiar with the funding of the PDF. One of them
told me to donate started to support government staff who
(14:02):
had decided to join a civil disobedience movement. Government staff
are always low paid and so they were not very
financially stable in the beginning. The fund from click to
donate allowed these workers to strike without pay. After a
few weeks of being on strike, financial concerns were weakening
the movement and people were being forced to work or stave.
(14:23):
Younger pro democracy activists responded by setting up YouTube channels
and then using the anti coup telegram channels to direct
millions of views and add clicks to them from across
the country and from supporters abroad. The resulting advertising revenue
allowed them to fund the civil disobedience movement and later
to equip the PDF. By December of twenty twenty one,
(14:44):
these clicks were yielding an income of about five hundred
million kiats about twenty eight thousand dollars every day.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The Military Hunter responded to this an international indignation at
videos of protesters being massacred in the street by tripling
data prizes and throat modeling Internet connection speeds. Pro democracy
keyboard warriors responded with viral content that required less bandwidth,
including writing personal finance blogs to attract a US audience
that was unknowingly supporting a revolution with its clicks. People
(15:14):
in Myanmar also began to use VPNs to access the Internet.
This helped them get around some of the junta's restrictions
and also yielded a higher advertising payment per click on
a given advert. Websites like Digital Revolution allow users to
find content that supports pro democracy rebels and click on it,
lending their support with nothing more than a broadband connection
and a few seconds of their time. Alongside their videos
(15:36):
and websites, the Ginz rebels also launched games. At first,
they were just simple little online phone app games that
would let you throw darts at the coup leader or something.
One source told us that these games didn't just support
the rebels through funding, but also provided a little bit
of mental health care. You know, at least people could
virtually kill the folks in their city and their home
(15:57):
who were ruining their lives, and at the same time
time the games earned the money, and that money went
to fund the PDF.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
The most impressive of these games is a recently launched
War of Heroes, which you can buy for just a
dollar on the Apple and Google App stores if you
want to check it out. In the game, which is
available in Burmese or English, a player can fight as
a man or a woman and take on government troops
and even zombies. The money donated via these games and
adverts doesn't just go into a black hole, According to
(16:25):
the sources I spoke to, we have a click to
donate Facebook page, they said, and regularly we release financial
statements on a Facebook page, saying like this month we
gave ten million kyats to that group. I spoke to
Billy Ford, a program officer for the Burmer team at
the US Institute of Peace. He says this kind of
innovation is what's allowed the pro democracy movement to survive
(16:46):
in me and Mah since it was last violently suppressed
in nineteen eighty eight. Activists and resistance movements in Miamma
have historically been an example to the world of creative, strategic,
and resilient models of activism, he said. This post twenty
two one movement has taken that to a new level,
enabling it to defy all historical precedent and sustain an
(17:06):
anti coup movement for more than eighteen months, now actually
gaining ground against a regime with an enormous structural advantage,
rather than seeing their lack of weapons and funds as
the fatal flaw. Ford says that the highly onlined rebels
have looked for areas where they could outflank the aging
generals who stole their futures from them. The movement has
leveraged comparative advantages large numbers of people with time and
(17:29):
tech savvy to raise money. He says. This tactic, although unusual,
has been a great success. According to Ford, the approach
has grown enormously, with one of the video games, for example,
rising to become the number two paid app on the
App Store at one point.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
However, all the clicks in the world might not be
enough to sweep the rebels into Mandolay and return the
country on its path towards democracy. Sources inside me en
Mars say that less and less revenue is generated by
a me and marip address, and that they have had
to encourage men members of the People's Click Force to
install VPNs to make their clicks appear to come from
the US or Europe. Sometimes the traffic is so massive
(18:07):
that Utube's algorithm mistakes it for an artificial intelligence botnet.
They're looking, they tell me, at pivoting towards affiliate links
and the sort of content driven commerce that has swept
the US media thanks to the success of sites like
The Wirecutter. Meanwhile, on the ground, PDF forces are regularly
getting the better of the totmadaw in small arms conflict,
but coming off worse when they can't defend themselves against
(18:30):
the Russian jets which the HUNTA uses to bomb civilian
and military targets. Without man portable anti aircraft systems, the
rebels are sitting ducks. The world has sent thousands of
these to Ukraine and none to people in Myanmar fighting
the same battle for democracy against the same Russian jets.
Despite this, they're not discouraged. PDF rebels tell me they
(18:50):
have been scouring the Internet and they're working on a
solution that doesn't need the apparatus of support of a
state and instead relies on stable broadband and the increasing
ingenuity they've shown and in eighteen months of revolution, demo
crazy word.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
My joh.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
Oh do o ye.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Has on you.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
On you.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah he d.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Oh my.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Really young irby boy.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Okay lang and on this long heavy.
Speaker 6 (19:43):
Ollo.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Hi everyone, it's me again, James.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Don't worry.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I'm not coming to you at the end of the
series to report something tragic like I did, and I'll
ask me. I'm my series. I'm just recording this little
message at the end to say that we're very grateful
to Daniel an Ian for all their hard work on this,
and we've gone through countless edits for this particular project,
and they've done a lot of hard work to get
it to you in the form that you listen to
(20:10):
it today and for the last week. We also want
to say that although this appears to be a podcast
written and recorded by Robert and I, that Andy is
very much a co author and that none of this
would have been possible without him. As we said, Andy's
not his real name, and we can't put his real
name in the credits because we're worried for his safety.
But his work has been invaluable and without him, none
(20:34):
of what you've heard would be possible.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
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,
you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Thanks for listening.
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