November 10, 2022 • 23 mins
When governments around the world abandoned the spring revolution, Myanmar’s rebels found support from people all over the world instead.
Music for this series was provided by Rebel Riot, check out their Bandcamp here https://therebelriot.bandcamp.com/album/one-day
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Through the time we were reporting this story, Robert and
I walked miles and miles around the streets Maysot. Being
the only two journalists in town and also both giant
white guys, we kind of stood out and taking a
taxi to a sensitive interview isn't always the smart choice.
Even when it was, they frequently dropped us off in
a wrong place and we'd end up walking anyway. Everyone
(00:37):
in Masot rides scooters, but riding without a helmet can
get you a fine. We figured that, as relative novices
to the world of scooting, we probably fucked something up
and we probably better off walking. When the time came
to meet me out, though he offered us a ride
that was very nice, but it put us in an
interesting position. What exactly you say when a guy you've
(01:01):
never met, who's a friend of a guy you DMed
on Reddit who know is engaged in the illegal production
and smuggling of guns into a war zone officers to
pick you up at a cafe so you can go
out for dinner. We decided to call our friend, a
long suffering guy we go to when we have a
security question, Paul. At his request, We're keeping him anonymous,
but he works in security and has an extensive professional
(01:22):
background dealing with situations just like this, or maybe mostly
like this.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So basically, Paul, we're meeting with these people.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We don't have an established human chain with them of trust.
They're they're just a Reddit account that James has been
talking with. But for like six or seven months. It
doesn't really seem like there's much else we can do
besides keep our eyes open and try to meet in
a digital place.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
I mean, the big concern is they would be get
the government, which is not from what you guys have said.
The government simply doesn't have the wherewithal to do operations
like this, and I mean rebel groups like this, they're
they're trying, they want to get everything out there they can. So, yeah,
(02:18):
is there a concern about the fact that you don't
have a chain of people that can vouch for each other.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Yeah, but the situation therein.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Everything's in their favor, they are, everything's in your favor.
Even minor cultural faux pause shouldn't be an issue.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
With Paul's help, we came up with a watertight plan.
I should note here that he was at least as
concerned with our fate as he was with the fate
of the pair of pants he'd loaned James for the trip.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
And I mean, yeah, it's a story that needs to
get out.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
So being slightly lax on the rules while knowing that
it's an everybody's favorite that it goes well.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
I guess you gotta been the rules sometimes.
Speaker 7 (03:06):
I guess we'll check in.
Speaker 8 (03:08):
We'll try to proof of life.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah, we'll do a proof of life.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I will.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I will send you a picture of James holding a
piece of paper that says big wife guy. And if
if we are kidnapped, I'll send you a picture of
me that says Elon Musk will be a good custodian
of Twitter.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
Okay, I'll know that that's the that's the sign.
Speaker 6 (03:31):
Yeah, you know, I'll yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
I'll figure out something. Yeah, me and me and a
few friends will be on our way. That sounds awful.
James has my favorite pants.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yea, yeah, you gotta get those pants bag.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Oh yeah, this is all about the pants.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
If I find James dead body, I'm getting those pants off.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Luckily, both I and Paul's trousers made it back that night. Yeah,
any damage was to several delicious plates of food. Milk.
His fiance and their godfather were the most gracious hosts,
and we decided not to record that first night. Instead,
we met up the next day. But there is one
thing from that night that I want to share with you.
(04:15):
Rather than explaining it, I'll let the song me out
played for us talk to you through the beautiful medium
of punk music. Bella Choo, of course, is an anti
(04:40):
fascist anthem. Then it's original version tells the story of
a young partisan who says goodbye to his girlfriend before
he goes off to fight Italian fascist. If he dies,
he says he wants to be buried under a flower
in the mountains so people will see it and remember him.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
Oh boo, no, no, they do not all job a job.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
A job, job job.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
Day, No dog gonna do they.
Speaker 9 (05:18):
M away episode.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Rather shy oh, I guess a job A job, a job,
job job.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
I want a job as same job wall photo and
a nod A job as a job.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
Had a job job John.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Do bas oh john jay?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Dad's all okay, y'all shabat a job rather jo a job.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
A job, job jack.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Job. After a few months of revolution, all our characters
found themselves mourning their friends and many of them were
in the mountains. Their struggle is one they see in
the same vein as the Italian partisans who fought fascism
in their mountains and the anti fascists who came from
around the world to fight in the Spanish Civil War.
(06:21):
I first heard that song Belachoo from a Spanish Civil
War veteran, and it's a strange closing of the loop
to be here sitting hearing it with young people who,
just like the Spanish Republicans, are fighting a coup with
next to no international support and a critical shortage of weapons.
(06:42):
But Miant was trying his best to fix that shortage.
A month into what would become the Spring Revolution, and
the stakes had become clear when the first protester would
shot and they kept marching. When people decided to go
back into the streets, they showed that the future of
their country was worse dying for weeks later, some of
them decided it was also worth killing for. It was
(07:04):
about then that me Out's buddy and Keen Reddit use
a Daddy UMCD said he'd been online we reckon they
could use their three D printers, a steel pipe and
the expertise and some strains on the internet to arm themselves.
The promise of revolutionary technology would take quite some time
to have any kind of battlefield impact in Meanmma, but
the effects of a different kind of revolution would be
(07:25):
felt immediately. But the nation's young activists took up arms
against their government.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Uh, I was like, I'm interested us in Horwest and
three D printing especially my profession is a grand us
some virtuariality and one the test three D prinding is
my hobby. So I just do I just donload some
five from thinking bus or other three D three D
print in criminal dy and just do it for my
dad's not specially especially.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Yeah, yeah, desk toys and stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah yeah, yeah, just a twice.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Yes, what do you think of guns? Then?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I have never emergined a care because you know, we
have been living in a military booth for a long time,
so we're afraid of soldier, especially not the soldier, especially
the care that they hold. So we are so afraid
of that, so we never imagine, like like we are
the same as in Korea. We're so afraid of that,
so we never imagine making gan. But after that the story.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Began at first and his team felt safe despite the
dangerous nature of their work. He felt the Topmador was
so behind the times they wouldn't even know what a
three D printer.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Was like at those tide the military didn't didn't know
or didn't give out a funk about brind So it
is okay at those time, it's really okay. And when
when day can we need to hide the campus if
they see three D printer, that that's okay because we
were saying this is for our job or for some
(08:55):
hobby that we can say at those times, but not
this time. If this time, if they found trainder, yes,
cam can go to day like yeah or hashot headshot.
Speaker 10 (09:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Soon that headshot became a lot closer to being a possibility.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It's like as soon as we we we finished the
second second APCNI, we try and to do tasted in
Yangon and we send it to our warehouse. But unfortunately, uh,
this warehouse is exposed and uh ambushed by the military
and this gun is taken by the military. Uh. And
(09:33):
they they did announced this on the new by pataring
this uh like like Hamdmaigins and Podle give fun about
this just a ham again they just stay at the
very first time. But later and later later and Lada
when they were uh the second time they were arrest
(09:54):
there a this time that they arrested my revolutionary from
my team. So I told hand about the efficiency and
how do you use and the history. Also the gamp
at the time maybe maybe he was, you know, investigator
and he told the crew I was that He says
like the nine yeah, and now and now was the
(10:16):
name nine like this before before the at the very
first antee and now the gamp from the Turkish gap.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
From if you missed that, they thought the guns were Turkish.
The reason we giggled at this is that whenever we
see videos of combat in me and mar James and
I send them to a group chat and try to
work out what the weapons are and where they came from.
Nearly every time we're stumped. The guns turned out to
be some kind of niche Turkish shotgun made to look
like an AR fifteen. It seems the military were operating
(10:45):
on the same assumption, only this time they were very wrong.
Like Allan's k Yok started this second, more deadly phase
of the Spring Revolution by taking a trip out to
the jungle, and he stayed for several months to learn
(11:07):
some of the skills he was going to need to
fight back against the top Madar.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I was going the Mandai as a culminated data so
I'm not like the I'm not have a video training
or something like that. I just going as a culminated aga.
So I met with Gan specially or Sam Trena, and
I said, I want to know how to shoot Gan,
how to ask Mber the gang. So they teach me,
(11:34):
I said, saying, I'm an acuminadaga. I can't do the trainer,
but I want to lamb the books out of things.
So they sent me some videos that ideas to lamb
by myself.
Speaker 7 (11:46):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yes, Later he went back to carry prototype printed guns
to the EAOs for testing. We asked if it was
scary being an undercover gun runner in a dictatorship. He
says it was, but he found that he had a
powerful ally in his fire. Homophobia.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, but we need to discus it, so you know, yeah,
disguises though. I just that I have a long hair,
so I act like a day So you know that
the military has sold China and equality, so.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
They hate gays.
Speaker 7 (12:16):
That's why.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Just just our advantage.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
The military assuming Miok was gay and therefore incapable of fighting,
let him go. Miok kept his mouth shut and let
their homophobia help him smuggle the guns with which he
hopes to help topple the regime that places so much
stock and values like these. Miok said he had to
go to the jungle to prove that his guns worked
because at first the eeos didn't believe him.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
About again, no one, no one believes believed that. No
one believes that. So we have to make made it
first and show them. So we made it first. I
wish that we got again. It's it's a sulfu. We lie,
we need to lie, and we send this to the EO.
Then they made it and it didn't walk out and
(13:01):
the achas and it walk out.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
How do they feel.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
When they oh, oh, oh my my one of my
revolutionary and EO s. They said, oh, they're really really happy.
They said all that, all of the brand that and
campaigns for this, let's do it right now. Yes.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, almost everyone we met spent time in the jungle.
Rooney that's a nom the gear, not a given name,
started off as a protester, and just like everyone else,
he fled into the jungle to avoid being murdered by
the government and to learn from the ethnic armed organizations
how to fight back.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
When we try and make peaceful protesting and it's really
break down. Then he decided like he also we, so
we decided to choose to have a hands and to
make it to make a revolution. So at this times
he goes to the e or stays and he lands
the trainings, you know, even especially the explosive trainees, and
(13:55):
he got back to the town and he's started making
this explosive with the head of teachings.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
After learning from the eeos, he came back to Yangon
to put his knowledge to use. Of course, just like
Miyok's gun making team and the street protesters who learned
from Hong kongers, he took to YouTube and Google to
try and find a better way to build killing machines.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
So it's like the EO teach us the very business
exposed just kembaumb like this, but after the land a
very business then and they want to improve. So the lambindself,
it's just like Di I y the lam googear with YouTube,
so later and later even they can make tan T
(14:36):
and DN.
Speaker 11 (14:37):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Of course, nearly everyone we met at some point googled
something like how to make gun or how to make bomb.
Now this is not ideal opsect, but it speaks to
the desperation of the times. They used crowdfunding websites to
raise money for ingredients, and Rooney soon started putting his
knowledge into practice. What that meant was that people died.
(15:02):
He killed human beings with the explosives that he made. Now,
those people would have killed Rooney or anyone else we've
spoken to in this series. He was defending himself and
others by making killing machines. But still, if you're a
decent person, it's not easy to watch your work result
in a stranger being blown into a pink mist.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
He is not proud of that, but you know he
is never trying to ky event a cat on any man.
He is sad, but he had to do because of revolution.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yes, revolution was in Rooney's blood. The military had stolen
his house as a kid, and he'd grown up with
his uncle sharing memories of the nineteen eighty eight pro
democracy uprising and its violent repression. He'd seen his family,
his cousin brothers, and their parents harassed for his whole life.
Now he had a chance to fight back. He carried
(15:50):
out hundreds of missions before he eventually had to flee
the city when an accident led to serious injury.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
To Jone Saba. There is a nine mission, so he
has to be made nine bone. Yeah, really bit bone.
So they did trying to assembly this bowl as one
of his friends smoking and this this famy is called Gamhau.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
After the blast, he had to run away from his
house before the police arrived. His friend was not so
lucky and is in jail now. Rooney is mostly recovered,
but it's not safe for him to go back, so
he's hoping to make a new start in Massont.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
The fight didn't stay in Yangon, in Napid or either.
For villages living outside, the coup was just as real,
and so was a desire to fight back. People outside
of town found themselves in the crosshouse at the Topmador
as well. The military employs a strategy which they call
four cuts. It's designed to alienate the rebels from local support.
It doesn't work. His kind of SCORCHDF stuff has never worked.
(16:57):
Didn't work when the Nazis tried in Europe, did work
when the US tried it in the Middle East of Vietnam.
Doesn't work when Israel keeps doing it, and it doesn't
work in Meanmar. What it does do is drive people
who lose their families to pick up a gun and
kill soldiers. And it's not hard to see why. I
just want to play you our conversation watching one of
Andy's videos about one of hundreds of masacrets that have
(17:19):
happened since last February, and as a warning, the stuff
we're going to talk about, it's about horrible as stuff
can be.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
But yeah, basically about I think twenty eight people would
kill that day.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
They just came into a village and shot everyone.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
That's a handmade guns that these villagers had, but it
was just they weren't shooting anyone.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Though, they just had that's all that. Everyone died. All
these guys died.
Speaker 10 (17:46):
Look at that his hands tied. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's
what electrical.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Game it looks like.
Speaker 11 (17:58):
And they burned the whole village. Now yeah they do,
yeah you guys, Yeah.
Speaker 8 (18:11):
Yeah, hell, And that's why we say massacre because it's
fucking look at all the brains up, you know.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Yeah, all these kids, they weren't even eighteen.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So all the villagers that run away, they took a
photo of the village from Afar, and.
Speaker 10 (18:30):
They burned their relatives and then left.
Speaker 11 (18:33):
Yeah, O Jesus fucking Christ.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And he says a nonprofit called Liberate Mianba supports the
families every month, keeping them fared and sheltered, because however
hard the government tries to divide the people from one another,
it always seems to fail. Instead, it just pushes them
closer and closer together. While we were in Thailand having
(19:16):
a drink on a rooftop actually and talking about some
kind of meditation retreat that a guy we'd met had
gone on, we got to see some of the action
for ourselves. That night was a fun one. We were
hanging out with some nonprofit folks and we'd acquired some
pretty terrible whiskey. At various points in the evening we
would ambush one of the boys and tell them they've
been shot in the arm or the leg, and have
the others rush into practice they stop the bleed skills.
(19:39):
Robert and I demonstrated some improvised carrying techniques and how
to effectively turn and drop to the floor when you're
in the intimate presence of a grenade. Everyone else at
the party probably thought we were pretty strange, but we
were having fun. Then in the distance we saw a
huge yellow flash. It took a few seconds of us
all wondering if that whiskey had sent us blind before
the boom reached us. At first we thought it's one
(20:02):
of the air strikes that have been happening in the
border region. But it was close and it was just
one huge boom, not the rockets had cluster bombs the
Tupma door liked to drop on civilians. Within minutes, minutes
of nervously waiting on the rooftop to see what was
coming next, and his phone started buzzing. It was a
car bomb and it had gone off about one hundred
yards from the border where we stood earlier that day.
Speaker 9 (20:24):
A camera or something let me see, Yeah, right, scam,
How did they fucking get it in there?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Immediately we had questions, but very few answers. Car bombs
hadn't been the thing thus far in the revolution. This
was new. Car bombs are also extremely scary. It's hard
not to be around cars in a city, and when
any one of those cars might kill you, it's hard
to do anything feeling any semblance of safety.
Speaker 7 (20:54):
I want to know who's did what I mean in
the air.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, no car bombs. I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
It hasn't yet.
Speaker 7 (21:06):
Is it somebody who driving it?
Speaker 8 (21:07):
Or do they like I don't think if someone driving it?
Is it like you don't see anything there?
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Like uh no, I mean it could have Wait is
it by the because if if there was a person,
there wouldn't be anything left.
Speaker 8 (21:18):
Yeah, no, no, no, But the thing is, Look, there's the
fence like that that looks like it was there when
it was Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It looks like it's the shocks. Yeah, it's right by
the bridge.
Speaker 8 (21:30):
But I don't know why what this what happened.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
We still aren't sure who set off the car bomb,
or if anyone died. In a conflict like the one
in Meanmar, it's sometimes as confusing as it is scary.
The military are more than capable of a false flag
style attack, killing civilians and then blaming the PDF, and
it has done this before. That's what totalitarianism does. It
aims to control every aspect of everyday life, even the truth.
(21:54):
The jungle haunted us the whole time we were there, unattainable,
but right next door, just a few miles away, in
lochhe Kaw, the fight was raging. Lakee Kaw is what's
called a friendship town. It was built with Japanese money
as a place for k and U fighters to live
after they put down their arms. It was supposed to
be a symbol of hope in a new, peaceful and
democratic mianmar Now it's a battlefield. But while we couldn't
(22:18):
get there, we could walk along the river bank and
look at the jungle and imagine what it must be
like up in those mountains, which we did almost every day.
Myanmar itself looms like a mountain over the town of Maysaut.
It's a border town without a border, but the city
is surrounded by refugee camps, non profit offices, and even
museums for political prisoners that can't exist on the other
(22:39):
side of the river. One day, we took a cab
to see a monastery on a bluff overlooking the river
down into Myanmar. We could see a casino still doing
business with Chinese tourists despite the bombing. Nearby. On the
walls of the monastery were a colorful but horrific scenes
of rape and murder Buddhist stages of Hell, a reminder that,
according to the Four New noble truths of Buddhism, All
(23:01):
life is suffering and greed is the cause of suffering.
The same thing could be said for the refugees and
fighters forced to hide in the endless green of the jungle,
driven away from their homes by the greed of men
who worship.
Speaker 12 (23:13):
Power O Yeah, Demo, Crazy dig wandream my Josh hold on.
Speaker 10 (23:24):
Oh do.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Ye.
Speaker 12 (23:32):
It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
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You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Through the time we were reporting this story, Robert and
I walked miles and miles around the streets Maysot. Being
the only two journalists in town and also both giant
white guys, we kind of stood out and taking a
taxi to a sensitive interview isn't always the smart choice.
Even when it was, they frequently dropped us off in
a wrong place and we'd end up walking anyway. Everyone
(00:37):
in Masot rides scooters, but riding without a helmet can
get you a fine. We figured that, as relative novices
to the world of scooting, we probably fucked something up
and we probably better off walking. When the time came
to meet me out, though he offered us a ride
that was very nice, but it put us in an
interesting position. What exactly you say when a guy you've
(01:01):
never met, who's a friend of a guy you DMed
on Reddit who know is engaged in the illegal production
and smuggling of guns into a war zone officers to
pick you up at a cafe so you can go
out for dinner. We decided to call our friend, a
long suffering guy we go to when we have a
security question, Paul. At his request, We're keeping him anonymous,
but he works in security and has an extensive professional
(01:22):
background dealing with situations just like this, or maybe mostly
like this.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So basically, Paul, we're meeting with these people.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We don't have an established human chain with them of trust.
They're they're just a Reddit account that James has been
talking with. But for like six or seven months. It
doesn't really seem like there's much else we can do
besides keep our eyes open and try to meet in
a digital place.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
I mean, the big concern is they would be get
the government, which is not from what you guys have said.
The government simply doesn't have the wherewithal to do operations
like this, and I mean rebel groups like this, they're
they're trying, they want to get everything out there they can. So, yeah,
(02:18):
is there a concern about the fact that you don't
have a chain of people that can vouch for each other.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Yeah, but the situation therein.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Everything's in their favor, they are, everything's in your favor.
Even minor cultural faux pause shouldn't be an issue.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
With Paul's help, we came up with a watertight plan.
I should note here that he was at least as
concerned with our fate as he was with the fate
of the pair of pants he'd loaned James for the trip.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
And I mean, yeah, it's a story that needs to
get out.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
So being slightly lax on the rules while knowing that
it's an everybody's favorite that it goes well.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
I guess you gotta been the rules sometimes.
Speaker 7 (03:06):
I guess we'll check in.
Speaker 8 (03:08):
We'll try to proof of life.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah, we'll do a proof of life.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I will.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I will send you a picture of James holding a
piece of paper that says big wife guy. And if
if we are kidnapped, I'll send you a picture of
me that says Elon Musk will be a good custodian
of Twitter.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
Okay, I'll know that that's the that's the sign.
Speaker 6 (03:31):
Yeah, you know, I'll yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
I'll figure out something. Yeah, me and me and a
few friends will be on our way. That sounds awful.
James has my favorite pants.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yea, yeah, you gotta get those pants bag.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Oh yeah, this is all about the pants.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
If I find James dead body, I'm getting those pants off.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Luckily, both I and Paul's trousers made it back that night. Yeah,
any damage was to several delicious plates of food. Milk.
His fiance and their godfather were the most gracious hosts,
and we decided not to record that first night. Instead,
we met up the next day. But there is one
thing from that night that I want to share with you.
(04:15):
Rather than explaining it, I'll let the song me out
played for us talk to you through the beautiful medium
of punk music. Bella Choo, of course, is an anti
(04:40):
fascist anthem. Then it's original version tells the story of
a young partisan who says goodbye to his girlfriend before
he goes off to fight Italian fascist. If he dies,
he says he wants to be buried under a flower
in the mountains so people will see it and remember him.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
Oh boo, no, no, they do not all job a job.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
A job, job job.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
Day, No dog gonna do they.
Speaker 9 (05:18):
M away episode.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Rather shy oh, I guess a job A job, a job,
job job.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
I want a job as same job wall photo and
a nod A job as a job.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
Had a job job John.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Do bas oh john jay?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Dad's all okay, y'all shabat a job rather jo a job.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
A job, job jack.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Job. After a few months of revolution, all our characters
found themselves mourning their friends and many of them were
in the mountains. Their struggle is one they see in
the same vein as the Italian partisans who fought fascism
in their mountains and the anti fascists who came from
around the world to fight in the Spanish Civil War.
(06:21):
I first heard that song Belachoo from a Spanish Civil
War veteran, and it's a strange closing of the loop
to be here sitting hearing it with young people who,
just like the Spanish Republicans, are fighting a coup with
next to no international support and a critical shortage of weapons.
(06:42):
But Miant was trying his best to fix that shortage.
A month into what would become the Spring Revolution, and
the stakes had become clear when the first protester would
shot and they kept marching. When people decided to go
back into the streets, they showed that the future of
their country was worse dying for weeks later, some of
them decided it was also worth killing for. It was
(07:04):
about then that me Out's buddy and Keen Reddit use
a Daddy UMCD said he'd been online we reckon they
could use their three D printers, a steel pipe and
the expertise and some strains on the internet to arm themselves.
The promise of revolutionary technology would take quite some time
to have any kind of battlefield impact in Meanmma, but
the effects of a different kind of revolution would be
(07:25):
felt immediately. But the nation's young activists took up arms
against their government.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Uh, I was like, I'm interested us in Horwest and
three D printing especially my profession is a grand us
some virtuariality and one the test three D prinding is
my hobby. So I just do I just donload some
five from thinking bus or other three D three D
print in criminal dy and just do it for my
dad's not specially especially.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Yeah, yeah, desk toys and stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah yeah, yeah, just a twice.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Yes, what do you think of guns? Then?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I have never emergined a care because you know, we
have been living in a military booth for a long time,
so we're afraid of soldier, especially not the soldier, especially
the care that they hold. So we are so afraid
of that, so we never imagine, like like we are
the same as in Korea. We're so afraid of that,
so we never imagine making gan. But after that the story.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Began at first and his team felt safe despite the
dangerous nature of their work. He felt the Topmador was
so behind the times they wouldn't even know what a
three D printer.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Was like at those tide the military didn't didn't know
or didn't give out a funk about brind So it
is okay at those time, it's really okay. And when
when day can we need to hide the campus if
they see three D printer, that that's okay because we
were saying this is for our job or for some
(08:55):
hobby that we can say at those times, but not
this time. If this time, if they found trainder, yes,
cam can go to day like yeah or hashot headshot.
Speaker 10 (09:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Soon that headshot became a lot closer to being a possibility.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It's like as soon as we we we finished the
second second APCNI, we try and to do tasted in
Yangon and we send it to our warehouse. But unfortunately, uh,
this warehouse is exposed and uh ambushed by the military
and this gun is taken by the military. Uh. And
(09:33):
they they did announced this on the new by pataring
this uh like like Hamdmaigins and Podle give fun about
this just a ham again they just stay at the
very first time. But later and later later and Lada
when they were uh the second time they were arrest
(09:54):
there a this time that they arrested my revolutionary from
my team. So I told hand about the efficiency and
how do you use and the history. Also the gamp
at the time maybe maybe he was, you know, investigator
and he told the crew I was that He says
like the nine yeah, and now and now was the
(10:16):
name nine like this before before the at the very
first antee and now the gamp from the Turkish gap.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
From if you missed that, they thought the guns were Turkish.
The reason we giggled at this is that whenever we
see videos of combat in me and mar James and
I send them to a group chat and try to
work out what the weapons are and where they came from.
Nearly every time we're stumped. The guns turned out to
be some kind of niche Turkish shotgun made to look
like an AR fifteen. It seems the military were operating
(10:45):
on the same assumption, only this time they were very wrong.
Like Allan's k Yok started this second, more deadly phase
of the Spring Revolution by taking a trip out to
the jungle, and he stayed for several months to learn
(11:07):
some of the skills he was going to need to
fight back against the top Madar.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I was going the Mandai as a culminated data so
I'm not like the I'm not have a video training
or something like that. I just going as a culminated aga.
So I met with Gan specially or Sam Trena, and
I said, I want to know how to shoot Gan,
how to ask Mber the gang. So they teach me,
(11:34):
I said, saying, I'm an acuminadaga. I can't do the trainer,
but I want to lamb the books out of things.
So they sent me some videos that ideas to lamb
by myself.
Speaker 7 (11:46):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yes, Later he went back to carry prototype printed guns
to the EAOs for testing. We asked if it was
scary being an undercover gun runner in a dictatorship. He
says it was, but he found that he had a
powerful ally in his fire. Homophobia.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, but we need to discus it, so you know, yeah,
disguises though. I just that I have a long hair,
so I act like a day So you know that
the military has sold China and equality, so.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
They hate gays.
Speaker 7 (12:16):
That's why.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Just just our advantage.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
The military assuming Miok was gay and therefore incapable of fighting,
let him go. Miok kept his mouth shut and let
their homophobia help him smuggle the guns with which he
hopes to help topple the regime that places so much
stock and values like these. Miok said he had to
go to the jungle to prove that his guns worked
because at first the eeos didn't believe him.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
About again, no one, no one believes believed that. No
one believes that. So we have to make made it
first and show them. So we made it first. I
wish that we got again. It's it's a sulfu. We lie,
we need to lie, and we send this to the EO.
Then they made it and it didn't walk out and
(13:01):
the achas and it walk out.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
How do they feel.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
When they oh, oh, oh my my one of my
revolutionary and EO s. They said, oh, they're really really happy.
They said all that, all of the brand that and
campaigns for this, let's do it right now. Yes.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, almost everyone we met spent time in the jungle.
Rooney that's a nom the gear, not a given name,
started off as a protester, and just like everyone else,
he fled into the jungle to avoid being murdered by
the government and to learn from the ethnic armed organizations
how to fight back.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
When we try and make peaceful protesting and it's really
break down. Then he decided like he also we, so
we decided to choose to have a hands and to
make it to make a revolution. So at this times
he goes to the e or stays and he lands
the trainings, you know, even especially the explosive trainees, and
(13:55):
he got back to the town and he's started making
this explosive with the head of teachings.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
After learning from the eeos, he came back to Yangon
to put his knowledge to use. Of course, just like
Miyok's gun making team and the street protesters who learned
from Hong kongers, he took to YouTube and Google to
try and find a better way to build killing machines.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
So it's like the EO teach us the very business
exposed just kembaumb like this, but after the land a
very business then and they want to improve. So the lambindself,
it's just like Di I y the lam googear with YouTube,
so later and later even they can make tan T
(14:36):
and DN.
Speaker 11 (14:37):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Of course, nearly everyone we met at some point googled
something like how to make gun or how to make bomb.
Now this is not ideal opsect, but it speaks to
the desperation of the times. They used crowdfunding websites to
raise money for ingredients, and Rooney soon started putting his
knowledge into practice. What that meant was that people died.
(15:02):
He killed human beings with the explosives that he made. Now,
those people would have killed Rooney or anyone else we've
spoken to in this series. He was defending himself and
others by making killing machines. But still, if you're a
decent person, it's not easy to watch your work result
in a stranger being blown into a pink mist.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
He is not proud of that, but you know he
is never trying to ky event a cat on any man.
He is sad, but he had to do because of revolution.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yes, revolution was in Rooney's blood. The military had stolen
his house as a kid, and he'd grown up with
his uncle sharing memories of the nineteen eighty eight pro
democracy uprising and its violent repression. He'd seen his family,
his cousin brothers, and their parents harassed for his whole life.
Now he had a chance to fight back. He carried
(15:50):
out hundreds of missions before he eventually had to flee
the city when an accident led to serious injury.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
To Jone Saba. There is a nine mission, so he
has to be made nine bone. Yeah, really bit bone.
So they did trying to assembly this bowl as one
of his friends smoking and this this famy is called Gamhau.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
After the blast, he had to run away from his
house before the police arrived. His friend was not so
lucky and is in jail now. Rooney is mostly recovered,
but it's not safe for him to go back, so
he's hoping to make a new start in Massont.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
The fight didn't stay in Yangon, in Napid or either.
For villages living outside, the coup was just as real,
and so was a desire to fight back. People outside
of town found themselves in the crosshouse at the Topmador
as well. The military employs a strategy which they call
four cuts. It's designed to alienate the rebels from local support.
It doesn't work. His kind of SCORCHDF stuff has never worked.
(16:57):
Didn't work when the Nazis tried in Europe, did work
when the US tried it in the Middle East of Vietnam.
Doesn't work when Israel keeps doing it, and it doesn't
work in Meanmar. What it does do is drive people
who lose their families to pick up a gun and
kill soldiers. And it's not hard to see why. I
just want to play you our conversation watching one of
Andy's videos about one of hundreds of masacrets that have
(17:19):
happened since last February, and as a warning, the stuff
we're going to talk about, it's about horrible as stuff
can be.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
But yeah, basically about I think twenty eight people would
kill that day.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
They just came into a village and shot everyone.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
That's a handmade guns that these villagers had, but it
was just they weren't shooting anyone.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Though, they just had that's all that. Everyone died. All
these guys died.
Speaker 10 (17:46):
Look at that his hands tied. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's
what electrical.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Game it looks like.
Speaker 11 (17:58):
And they burned the whole village. Now yeah they do,
yeah you guys, Yeah.
Speaker 8 (18:11):
Yeah, hell, And that's why we say massacre because it's
fucking look at all the brains up, you know.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Yeah, all these kids, they weren't even eighteen.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So all the villagers that run away, they took a
photo of the village from Afar, and.
Speaker 10 (18:30):
They burned their relatives and then left.
Speaker 11 (18:33):
Yeah, O Jesus fucking Christ.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And he says a nonprofit called Liberate Mianba supports the
families every month, keeping them fared and sheltered, because however
hard the government tries to divide the people from one another,
it always seems to fail. Instead, it just pushes them
closer and closer together. While we were in Thailand having
(19:16):
a drink on a rooftop actually and talking about some
kind of meditation retreat that a guy we'd met had
gone on, we got to see some of the action
for ourselves. That night was a fun one. We were
hanging out with some nonprofit folks and we'd acquired some
pretty terrible whiskey. At various points in the evening we
would ambush one of the boys and tell them they've
been shot in the arm or the leg, and have
the others rush into practice they stop the bleed skills.
(19:39):
Robert and I demonstrated some improvised carrying techniques and how
to effectively turn and drop to the floor when you're
in the intimate presence of a grenade. Everyone else at
the party probably thought we were pretty strange, but we
were having fun. Then in the distance we saw a
huge yellow flash. It took a few seconds of us
all wondering if that whiskey had sent us blind before
the boom reached us. At first we thought it's one
(20:02):
of the air strikes that have been happening in the
border region. But it was close and it was just
one huge boom, not the rockets had cluster bombs the
Tupma door liked to drop on civilians. Within minutes, minutes
of nervously waiting on the rooftop to see what was
coming next, and his phone started buzzing. It was a
car bomb and it had gone off about one hundred
yards from the border where we stood earlier that day.
Speaker 9 (20:24):
A camera or something let me see, Yeah, right, scam,
How did they fucking get it in there?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Immediately we had questions, but very few answers. Car bombs
hadn't been the thing thus far in the revolution. This
was new. Car bombs are also extremely scary. It's hard
not to be around cars in a city, and when
any one of those cars might kill you, it's hard
to do anything feeling any semblance of safety.
Speaker 7 (20:54):
I want to know who's did what I mean in
the air.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, no car bombs. I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
It hasn't yet.
Speaker 7 (21:06):
Is it somebody who driving it?
Speaker 8 (21:07):
Or do they like I don't think if someone driving it?
Is it like you don't see anything there?
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Like uh no, I mean it could have Wait is
it by the because if if there was a person,
there wouldn't be anything left.
Speaker 8 (21:18):
Yeah, no, no, no, But the thing is, Look, there's the
fence like that that looks like it was there when
it was Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It looks like it's the shocks. Yeah, it's right by
the bridge.
Speaker 8 (21:30):
But I don't know why what this what happened.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
We still aren't sure who set off the car bomb,
or if anyone died. In a conflict like the one
in Meanmar, it's sometimes as confusing as it is scary.
The military are more than capable of a false flag
style attack, killing civilians and then blaming the PDF, and
it has done this before. That's what totalitarianism does. It
aims to control every aspect of everyday life, even the truth.
(21:54):
The jungle haunted us the whole time we were there, unattainable,
but right next door, just a few miles away, in
lochhe Kaw, the fight was raging. Lakee Kaw is what's
called a friendship town. It was built with Japanese money
as a place for k and U fighters to live
after they put down their arms. It was supposed to
be a symbol of hope in a new, peaceful and
democratic mianmar Now it's a battlefield. But while we couldn't
(22:18):
get there, we could walk along the river bank and
look at the jungle and imagine what it must be
like up in those mountains, which we did almost every day.
Myanmar itself looms like a mountain over the town of Maysaut.
It's a border town without a border, but the city
is surrounded by refugee camps, non profit offices, and even
museums for political prisoners that can't exist on the other
(22:39):
side of the river. One day, we took a cab
to see a monastery on a bluff overlooking the river
down into Myanmar. We could see a casino still doing
business with Chinese tourists despite the bombing. Nearby. On the
walls of the monastery were a colorful but horrific scenes
of rape and murder Buddhist stages of Hell, a reminder that,
according to the Four New noble truths of Buddhism, All
(23:01):
life is suffering and greed is the cause of suffering.
The same thing could be said for the refugees and
fighters forced to hide in the endless green of the jungle,
driven away from their homes by the greed of men
who worship.
Speaker 12 (23:13):
Power O Yeah, Demo, Crazy dig wandream my Josh hold on.
Speaker 10 (23:24):
Oh do.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Ye.
Speaker 12 (23:32):
It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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. Thanks for listening.
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