April 28, 2021 • 48 mins
This week we talk to Aye Min Thant about the military coup in Myanmar, the protest movement that has risen against it and how the international community can help.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything so don't don't and welcome back to
(00:23):
the Worst Year Ever. Dang, We're still here. Keep ever
never stops. It really does, doesn't it. Why would we
ever leave? How could we possibly leave? Let us know
if if you know, how we could possibly leave, because
(00:44):
we are pretty desperate at this point. Yeah m hm.
With that, we have a really great interview for you
guys today with freelance journalists aim and then did I right?
Aim in? Then Daniel you got me? Who is who
(01:08):
is currently covering the military coup in myan mar And
we were very very grateful that they took the time
to speak with us because it's a pretty dire situation
and um and and it was a very informative conversation.
You guys got stuff. It's about to happen. That happen.
(01:30):
You can't stop it. Like the year, nothing can be
done to stop this from hitting your ears. It's inevitable.
You do not changing of the tides. Have an option
to press pause or stop your buckle up, baby know.
Whenever somebody pauses this podcast, we send out Cody with
a brick to break their kneecaps. It hasn't worked yet,
(01:52):
but I still go. I still go and try. No
he is he is not good at the job in
it but no it's not. But don't make us fire Cody.
Not during a pandemic. No, So hand over your knees
to Cody, or just keep listening to the podcast that's
about to come. So today we are joined by Aim
(02:13):
and then uh Burmese, American pulitz Or Prize winning freelance
journalists currently covering the military coup that started on February
one in myan Mar and up top. Um, I just
want to acknowledge this is an incredibly dangerous time to
be journalists covering this, and we just really want to
(02:34):
thank you for taking the time and check in to
see how you're doing, because this is a lot that
you've been been going through right now. Yeah, no, thank
you for covering the story. Um. I know we got
a lot of attention in the first month or so
of the coup, and now that they have kind of
I guess plateau in terms of action, Uh, there's a
(02:54):
lot less coverage on and so it's really great to
see platforms like this that are listed in being sure
that this stay is in the national conversation, especially in
countries like the US, where you know, a big difference
can be made. We'll see decisions. Would you be able
to give us kind of an overview of how things
(03:14):
have gone, right, Like, here's how how how it started,
Here's when violence escalated, Here's where we are now, just
to kind of start us off. Yeah. So basically, this
coup was started on February one, and now I say
it's started because to me, this coup is something that
hasn't been successful yet. The military arrested a number of
(03:39):
elected leaders on the day that the new government was
supposed to form, and you know, they attempted to essentially
take over all government functions and to be in charge
of the country. But you know, given that there's been
mass protests throughout the streets every single day essentially since
the beginning of February um there is a civil disobedience
movement that has as actually stopped the banking system in
(04:02):
the country. And you know, doctors, teachers, uh anyone who
has uh I been working with the government or through
the government as an employee have largely stopped working. You know,
they haven't been able to be the government. They haven't
been able to exert control except through the end of
a gun and sort of through terror. Um. Yeah, so
(04:27):
you know, they arrested over a hundred fifty elected politicians
on that first day, essentially preventing the new government from forming,
and began arresting activists, union leaders, people who would pose
a threat, who could bring the public together in any
sort of organized way. Uh. And yet you know, you
had millions of people who have been out industries protesting
(04:51):
even as the military began to kill people essentially in
cold blood. There's been over seven hundred people who are
now confirmed to have and killed by the military or police.
Um since the beginning of the coup by local rights groups. Uh.
Thousands of people have been jailed, a number of them
(05:11):
have been released, but there are hundreds who have essentially
just been disappeared. Um. You know, their families don't know
where they are, but the military and the police also
will not admit that they have been taken. And so
those people are the ones people are the most worried
about because those are the sorts of people who come
back as mutilated bodies essentially. Um. You know, you have politicians,
(05:33):
um in hiding activists and hiding journalists who have either
left the country or in hiding. UM. And you know,
on the other side of the resistance to the coup,
you know, very early on there was a leaderless mass
movement that sprung up, largely led by civil servants such
as doctors and teachers, but also you know, people you
(05:54):
would normally not think of as leaders in society, like
railway workers and garment industy workers, people who are heavily
unionized and really organized and who you know have been
fighting for their rights and freedoms for a long time.
And even as the movement right now is very focused
on returning to a civilian government and restoring people who
(06:17):
have rightfully won the two thou twenty election. UM. You know,
people do also really understand that in the last ten
years of largely civilian quasi democratic rule, that a lot
of people, especially the poor, especially ethnic and religious minorities,
were not treated as full country who had equal rights. Um.
(06:41):
And now we've moved into a base where there's essentially
to opposing groups uh claiming to be the government of
rmart There is the National Unity Government and all of
their allies. Um. There's a lot of acronyms. I'm not
going to go into that right now. But they're called
the nug um. We like to call ourselves nuggets. Now.
(07:06):
All of them are um, were elected, many of them
were appointed. Many of them were early protest leaders who
you know are in their late twenties thirties, people who
would never have made it into governments in the previous times. UM.
And they are now, you know, trying to get international recognition. UM.
And this is the National Unity government. Yeah, so now
(07:29):
they're trying to set up essentially a functional governments, a
an alternative system for people to answer to and work
with who are not the military. And so right now,
the power struggle is really between these two groups, UM,
one of whom is made up of elected officials as
well as leaders who have emerged through the antique coquipment.
(07:50):
And then the military, which you know, not only are
they very oppressive and brutal institution, UM, there's also quite
a numb of people who are part of the military
who were essentially recruited as child soldiers. US groups test
anywhere between thirty and six of recruits were forced into
(08:11):
the military. And when it comes to actual like territorial
control within these two groups, how does that kind of
break down? Like is it is it a situation where
you've got like regime controlled territory and not or is
it just kind of much more muddled and mixed. So
it's very complicated. Are Somar has essentially been in a
(08:33):
civil war for sixty almost seven years now, UM between
the largely Bama ethnic majority group controlled military and a
number of UM political organizations that often have armed wings
in minority areas or minority majority areas which are tend
(08:54):
to be around the borders of the country. So there
are currently whether called being called free zone, which is
areas being controlled by ethnic armed organizations. These are in
allyship with the National Unity government, but they're not under
the control of the National Unity governments UM and the
majority of ethnic armed organizations in your mind, there's dozens
(09:16):
have essentially declared that they will protect protesters regardless of UM,
you know, their political affiliation. It's more about millions as
opposed to aligning them. It's very smart, well together everything.
(09:38):
So don't don't they didn't talk a little bit about UH.
You've you've mentioned it's pseudo democracy and it's been a
relatively new UH institution there and so can we talk
a little bit about UM that power struggle, that power
share that led us to this, because I think we
(09:59):
also need to talk about on San Succi of course,
and and um, just it's complicated. It's a complicated situation
you've got going on away, Yeah, because I I can.
I mean, I'm nothing. I don't have a particularly deep
base of knowledge here. But I remember hearing earlier a
lot of allegations that she was um kind of being
(10:19):
used as a puppet by the military for a lot
of the stuff that was happening with the Rohinga. And
so that's very unclear as we are over here trying
to unpack everything that's happening there, because of course she
was sold to us as a democratic leader that we
should get behind, an inspiration, and then very quickly it
turned out that this huge humanitarian crisis was happening under
(10:40):
her watch. Anyway, you're the expert, Oh, I think what
happened without sant Sugi and the sort of like very
divided view of her because she's still seeing as this
for a lot of people and are not seeing as this,
you know, perfect icon, uh and faultless leader in myrmar
(11:00):
whereas in the West, because she was sold as this
perfect icon, right like any mistake or like genuine awful
things she did, and she did awful things. Um was
seeing that's like, oh were like she we were lied to,
we were tricked where you know, she's a complicated person
with imperfect politics. Um, She's always been extremely Buddhist, quite nationalist.
(11:25):
It makes sense, you know that, considering her father fought
against colonialism. Right. Colonially breeds a lot of nationalism into people. Uh.
And so she's always been someone who has been quite
open about the fact that she thinks Memar is first
and foremost a Buddhist Bama nation where everyone else is
(11:45):
kind of guests who should have behave appropriately, um and so.
And the country is you know, quite majority with us
and Mama. So you know, I think what has been
happening with the sort of transition into democracy from m
R is we had colonialism and then that really created
(12:07):
the country as we know it today. You know that
it drew the orders of the country and brought together
a bunch of various kingdoms and like essentially hill tribes
and people who had various forms of government and put
them all and smashed them into one nation of people
never existed as a political entity. Uh. Together before and
(12:30):
basically immediately after independence, people began declaring internal independence from
the new country that had been formed UM and then
through a series of coups and sort of military takeovers,
the country essentially became a totalitarian state, really second only
to North Korea for decades, and then in two thousand
(12:53):
and ten the country began to transition into democratic into
more of a democratic form. So we had elections where
everyone was allowed to run, essentially who wasn't in jail,
and there were thousands of people in jail as political prisoners,
but you know, if you weren't in jail, you were
allowed to run. And many people boycotted it because the
(13:17):
constitution wasn't great guaranteed the military twenty five seats to
military officials, and then also allowed military parties and military
affiliated parties to run. And so in two thousand and
ten we began to have a more democratic UM country
and government, but it was still essentially run by the military,
(13:39):
but with reform minded generals, and so we began to
see more press freedom. We saw censorship and or official censorship,
prepublication censorship, and we saw the release of quite a
number of political prisoners. We saw liberalization of the economy
and the allowance of essentially the statement of police to
(14:00):
end UH and allow other sorts of businesses to begin
to establish themselves. And then in two thousand fifteen, UM,
all of these parties that had boycotted the twenty ten
election decided, you know, the constitution isn't perfect. There's a
lot we need to change, but we can't do that
completely from the outside, so we're going to run UH.
(14:21):
And after that election, we ended up with a government
where the military control basically every gun in the country.
They controlled the armed forces, the police, and the border guard,
as well as UM a lot of the sort of
day to day administration UM. So like thank your local
district office, UM, that would be controlled by the military,
(14:44):
but the majority of the rest of the government was
controlled by elected civilians. In this case it ended up
being outside the Juice party. And so yeah, there was
this very uneasy power sharing UM and one of the
rain of crisis have and I think the people of
them really felt that they were being unfairly blamed for
(15:06):
something that the military did and it cost us like
intense defensiveness that didn't allow them to have the conversation
of Okay, well, why are we not fighting for the branch.
You know, why are we okay with this group being victimized?
You know, what does it mean that some group can
be victimized in the country? What does this mean on
(15:26):
a more systematic institutional level beyond the sort of like
basic decency of like no one deserves to be subject
to genocide. Um. But yeah, I think that's in a
nutshell kind of what was happening here. Yeah, that sounds
like there's like a rapid expansion in a short period
of time for you guys culturally, economically and everything. When
(15:50):
when things started to shift, and it feels like this
this crux and time probably feels very different, approaching this
protest movement, approaching organizing, um have you. Yeah, I would
just love to have a comparison between this time and
in the past when there has been a lot of
large organized movements against the military. Yeah. So there's been
(16:14):
a few mass uprisings, there's this is also the third
coup from MR and No. I think what has made
this time really different is there's internal factors. So the
main one would be that now people are fighting to
keep something where in and so after the first coup
(16:36):
you essentially went from Uh, you know, British colonial masters
to like a very chaotic quasi military government into you know,
fairly still a military government. But it wasn't that bad
in the sixties, and so it wasn't that jarring of
a transition. But by the time eight Um elections happened
(17:02):
and the uprising happened, people had been under dictatorship for decades, right,
and so it's much more difficult for people to imagine
something that they were trying to build, as opposed to
just saying we don't like what's currently happening, um and
what the protest movement now, what we're really seeing is
people saying, you know, what we had was imperfect, but
(17:23):
we need to get back there so we can go
somewhere and better. And I think that's the really big
difference and the key difference we're seeing, uh internally and
then externally, I think, you know, the international response has
not been ideal, but it's the community. International community has
also learned from past mistakes. Uh. They haven't imposed a
(17:44):
sort of blanket sanctions that we saw in the past
that really didn't harm the military. Right. There's right now
quite a lot of focus on targeting specific organizations and
individuals UM. And you know, if we could see more
unity on that, we could see countries stop selling our
to m R H. If we could see sort of
the release of MR State and UH assets to the
(18:08):
new civilian government. You know, these are all that could
really make a difference in the long run of this movement. Yeah,
you had mentioned that to me separately and wanted to
to bring that up. So this feels like a great time,
you know, specifically in terms of the the U S
sanctions UM. Yeah. So you know, in the very first
(18:29):
few days of the coup, UM, the US I think
Department of Treasury I guess essentially froze UM all MIMIR
assets stuff we're in in the US control. And that's
amounts about a billion dollars UM because even though there
wasn't sort of a set policy yet from the Biden administration, UM,
(18:51):
you know, they want to make sure that essentially trying
to withdraw a million dollars a billion dollars UH. So
now that is frozen. UM. Now that we do have
a civilian government made up of elected officials who have
a mandate from the people, who have been able to
get agreements UH and cooperation from ethnic armed organizations, they're
(19:14):
going to start needing money. You know, civil servants have
been uh striking for almost three months. These are not
people who are well paid. Most of them live in
government housing um and many of them have either been
terminated from their jobs or have been forced out of
their housing. And so what the Unity government is now
trying to uh pay all of these civil servants. They're
(19:36):
trying to ensure that there aren't food shortages and are
there people are already starting to suffer from that, and
really to make sure that people can continue to oppose
the military without essentially starving themselves, without feeling like they
have the choice to die or comply. Oh yeah, And
(19:57):
that's one of these one of the main problems we
get to when it comes to when the US does
take action about human rights abuses. Often our go to
is some form of sanctions, and they generally just wind
up hurting the people who live in that country rather
than the people who are committing whatever human rights abuse
inspired the the action. And I think it's good to
(20:19):
like freeze assets that that makes sense, and I've heard
suggestions of like, you know, releasing them to the the
I think we would consider the legitimate government Um, but
I don't know, like what what else can be done,
like because it it seems and maybe I have an
(20:40):
accurate view of this because of my distance, but it
seems like the deck is stacked pretty heavily in the
military's favor at the moment um, and I don't like,
what is it? What is it you think would need
to happen in order to change the situation in a
positive way. Yeah, so I think you're right in that
the deck is heavily stacked in the military's favor. But
(21:03):
they got the guns. Yeah, the guns, well they have
like bombed. Uh. And I actually have a whole other
question about the military. It's we'll get to but they
have all a whole separate ecosystem almost over there like
their own. But we'll we'll, we'll get to that. But yeah,
you know, I think a sign of hope, uh, and
(21:27):
a place to look if you want some optimism is
just the fact that despite them having you know, fighter
jets and guns and just so much information about people, um,
because you know, as an authoritarian country or just collects
lots and lots of data about other people who live there, Um,
they've not been able to win. You know, they haven't.
(21:47):
They can't get the banks to open, they can't get
doctors to go back to work. They recently, like yesterday,
called in the parents of civil servants to get them
to pressure their children. Like odd like got called to
the principles on the parents of the protesters, you know,
(22:09):
like they are really struggling. Um as they're you know,
killing people and terrorizing people, like people are really refusing
to be capt essentially. Um, sorry, I've forgotten the question.
Now that's that's how it goes here. Yeah, I'm just
kind of wondering. Yeah, I think the question we're trying
(22:29):
to answer is like what do you think what how
how could you see things ending in a positive direction?
Like what would have to happen? I guess part of
why I'm asking that questions, I'm trying to wonder what
the international community can do outside of you know, freezing
arms sales to the military would be one one thing,
although I don't know how likely that is given the
(22:50):
geopolitical situation. Um and kind of you know, releasing that
money to the legitimate government is another option, But like,
is there is there anything else? What do you think
would need to happen for things to resolve? In a
more positive direction, like what's it gonna take. UM if
that's a I that may be a question without a
clear answer at the moment. Yeah, UM, So I think
(23:11):
there's a few things that can be done by various actors. UM.
I think if we're talking about the U S side, UM,
you know, as we're saying earlier, FUNDS UM impression other
countries allied nations to recognize the National Unity Government as
the legimate legitimate of government MEMOIR and to to treat
them as such. Right. So, if ASSIE and the Association
(23:34):
of Southeast Asian Nations is going to have a meeting
about memoir, like they should be invited. They should be
the first invite. UM. If you know, countries like Singapore
and Japan and South Korea which are heavily invested in MIMIR,
there's some of the biggest investors in MIMIR are going
to continue to UM, you know, invest money, whether that's
(23:56):
in development or in you know, sort of private business.
They need to ensure that they're working with the civilian
government and not the military. UM. And these are things
that kind of can happen from the US end, which
is obviously a bit more difficult in that This is
one of the very few struggles in the world where
U s imperialism is not implicated really in any way. Uh.
(24:20):
And you know, the mirmor military does not care what
the West thinks of it. Uh, it does not care
about the West is money. They you know, survived for
decades and decades without it. Um. And Yeah, like the
sanctions can often really harm uh, sort of people who
like normal everyday people. I think something that the US
(24:42):
has done quite well in this case is to make
it very clear that no military interferention is coming. I
know that's something that many people on the ground have
been hoping for because they see things like, uh, what's
been happening in you know, Middle Eastern countries and say
like possible there? Why isn't possible here? Um, And the
(25:03):
US being very clear and that the language where they
talk about it ums, and like sanctioning very specific industry,
so mining and logging and these sort of like you know,
industries that are already extremely exploitative to the people who
work in it, and then pretty much only like mess
up the earth and benefit those are the very top
(25:24):
so like jade um. Yeah. And then I think on
the sort of broader international level. Um, yeah, just like
refusing to engage with the military besides trying to get
them to hand over power, as opposed to what Ascien did,
which was really just like a weird welcome party h
(25:47):
to the military leader where they told him like everyone
needs to stop the violence, uh and really doing this
like there wishy washy sort of language which was then
used by the military in MR and sort of these
now like military run propaganda outlets. That's like, you know,
the world has welcomed uh, this new government as a
(26:10):
stabilizing force in the region. I I know I mentioned
this in passing a minute ago, but I would like
to to hear a little bit. Gosh, I've got so
many things I want to hear about. But uh, from
what I understand, yes, the military is almost separate from
(26:31):
uh everybody else, the average citizen. You know, they have
their own schools and own hospitals. Uh you know, banks
are those things being affected by the strike. And I'm
also just I'm just curious about it because I guess
that has to play a huge part in how the
(26:55):
military can be so desensitized to or ers of killing citizens,
I mean, children, babies. There's just we don't need to
go into all the horrifying specifics, but this is a
horrifying story that's happening right now. Um, and I'm just
trying to wrap my mind around it all, you know. Yeah,
(27:16):
it's been very difficult to get into the psychology of
people who are in the security forces, where that is
military or police. Um, we're definitely seeing a lot more
police affections. And I think it's what you were saying of.
You know, most police officers are not sort of born
and raised into this very separate internal society, right. These
(27:40):
are usually just like people who for whom this is
like one of the few decent paying jobs with the
potential force pension in the future. And so you have
a lot of those people kind of running away into India,
into the free zones, into Thailand and such. Um. But yeah,
it's been very, very difficult to understand the mindsets of
(28:04):
the soldiers and and really what they're being told. Um.
So there was a lot of rumors in MR and
based on the testimony of recently defected soldiers, it seems
very likely that the internet the like mobile data internet
cuts were more targeted towards keeping soldiers from knowing what
was happening from the civilian organizing themselves. I mean, you know,
(28:27):
they obviously also don't want the civilian population organizing themselves.
But you know the fact that soldiers are telling us
they're not allowed to read non military papers, they're not
allowed to watch news, it's the military channels. They can't
listen to other types of radio um And you know,
many of them were taken when they were twelve thirteen.
(28:47):
They were raised in an environment where like brutality meant
not only did you survive and avoid violence yourself, but
you could be you know, greatly rewarded. And you know,
you're in this like extremely homo social environment where not
only are you being taught to be brutal, you're being
(29:08):
told that that is how you're protecting the country and
defending Buddhism and defending this idea of of what it
means to be in my mr. And you know, I
think in part why we're seeing the sort of violence
right now is because so many of the soldiers feel betrayed.
You know, they've been at war for decades, they've been
(29:30):
out in the force getting malaria, and now you have
all these ungrateful civilians who like don't understand their struggles.
Who are forcing them to essentially, like you know, work
all day every day, often with very little food. We
see soldiers stealing food all the time. We see them
sealing snacks like they're hungry. They're very poorly paid at
(29:52):
the sort of infantry level, um, and they're overworked, and
like that's part of the goal, Like they're trying to
make these usually young boys like much more aggressive than
they would otherwise be and see the people as their
well together everything. Don't. You can talk a lot about, um,
(30:21):
you know, a civil disobedience, the protest movement, and I'm
I'm curious what the mood on the ground is. Like
I guess this kind of goes along with Robert's kind
of questioning do people Do people feel galvanized by the
fact that you have been doing this protest movement such
as sustained fashion. I mean, I find it very inspiring.
(30:43):
I mean it sounds overwhelming in like an uphill battle.
But you know, a general strike is something that has
talked about a lot and very rarely executed, um, and
there has to be some sort of power in that.
So I am curious what the mood is, but but
also can can Firstly, people are being slaughtered, so you
(31:03):
know it's a lot yeah, um, I mean there's there's
a lot of terror. Uh that's on the ground, um,
obviously engineered to be so. Like there have been cases
where the police will come and try to arrest a
politician or you know, a member of a political party
and he won't be home because you know he's understands
(31:25):
the situation and isn't hiding, and that they will take
his children. Like the youngest person who has been arrested
is too and they were arrested because they couldn't find
their father. Um. And so there is a lot of
that happening. But at the same time, there's also justice,
like really defiant joy that's been very intentionally cultivated. You know,
(31:46):
like you go you look at protests and like all
the protests are themed, right, like there are people trying
to have fun, trying to be creative. Um. There was
a condom protest where they put love condoms and pictures
of people who shouldn't have been born in the that's
really good. That's and they started using sound grenades in
(32:12):
the cities. Uh, you know, after the kind of noise
would end, people yell at Happy New year. Um, we're
using water cannons. People started playing Burmese New Year's music
because our New Year's as a water festival, and people
would just start dancing in the water. Um, and so
people wi fall over because you know it's a water cannon.
But you know, just people really trying to make sure
(32:34):
that there's joy to be had um and that this
isn't sort of something like awful and miserable that we
all have to kind of just like hunker down and
get the room something. Joy is incredibly important when you're
trying to get people to endure violence for an extended
(32:55):
period of time. That that makes total sense. We're also
seeing a lot of sort of communities support uh that
works propping up Like essentially people are doing anarchy, although
they're fairly calling it that. Um. So like you go,
if you go to markets, there's quite a number of
stalls now that's say uh, take if you need it,
give if you like, don't, and so like it's there,
(33:18):
like it's really beautiful. No one at the stalls, like
you can just go and take all the food if
you wanted to. But you see just like a pile
of cash and then some people just you know they
can't pay, they can't afford it. Um. You know people
are like everyone is involved. There's like marketing agencies that
are paying for lawyers, fees for journalists. UM. There are
(33:41):
bankers who are secretly funding um, you know, transportation for protesters.
Like it's really this huge cross section of me and
our society. And you know it's one of the It's
one of those struggles where like the military like legitimately
has like no popular base, right, Like it's not like
(34:02):
a Thailand situation where there are legitimately people who are
on both sides. Uh, and you know are in sort
of contention with one another. Yeah. Um, I had something
else I wanted to ask, and now it's out of
my head. I'm curious. Do you see within kind of
the tactics used by the protest movement, what do you
(34:22):
see as like the main um influences UM from from
overseas on kind of how people have have organized and
carried things out. Yeah, so you see a lot of
influences from UM, Hong Kong and Thailand. Uh. You know
Mars now officially part of the MILTI Alliance. Uh. We
have a Twitter icon um that combines all all three
(34:44):
of these countries, um. And you know a lot of
these sort of protest safety tactics uh and digital security
especially tactics were really brought wholesale from Thailand and Hong Kong,
to the point where activists in those countries were translating
their resources into Burmese and disseminating them through their their networks.
(35:07):
In Yama. Um, you saw influences from the Black Lives
Matter movement. Um, although I would say that it was
a very sort of shallow sort of engagement with Black
Lives Matter. It was very confusing. But yeah, sort like
(35:27):
a lot of international meaning of memes. Uh. Yeah, it's
it's mostly um, the conversations mostly happening with other Asian
countries are facing authority characterism. Mhm, I'm curious. Um. But
the end goal would be, um, you know, for the resistance,
(35:50):
would this be too reinstidate long song succi or you know,
is that the goal here? So the goal has been
to um yeah uh. If you sort of were listening
to protest chance and looking at science in the earlier
days of the protests, it was almost entirely focused on
(36:13):
the free outce sugi uh and getting the getting democracy back,
by which they mean like just you know, like control
z the coup, just let the government form and like
we'll just kind of forget about everything. Um. But now
you know they the civilian government has abolished the Mazinate constitution. Yeah,
(36:36):
so they formed committees to uh create a new constitution
in consultation with stakeholders from across there's of society. Um.
For some reason, the new government has a prime Minister,
a president, and a state counselor. It's very confusing. I
don't understand why has made an early draft of the
(37:02):
United States Constitution. I do believe had as having three presidents.
So there's that. Yeah, we have two vice presidents. Um.
But yeah, that's but has been appoint reappointed as state counselor.
So you know, there is a there's quite a number
of people who would like to continue to see her
(37:24):
in that position. Um. And I think it's also really
important to remember, even as especially for those of us
who are very critical of the level of democracy that
is in Mirmar as well as and their party h
that they did win the election by huge like they
wont of the vote. She's extremely popular, right, Like I
(37:47):
can be as critical of her as I want, but
she is the legitimate leader of that the people chose
what is that? What is she? Is she still in
house arrest or are she? And like, what are the charges?
What is the case against her that they're trying to make.
So she's still in their house arrests as far as
(38:08):
I know, Um, her trial is ongoing, but it has
been postponed because she also doesn't have internet connection. Uh,
we're still dealing with COVID. So that was going to
be my next question. So she's theoretically on their house arrests.
Her lawyers have been able who have been able to
see her occasionally say that she looks to be in
(38:30):
good help. Um, they're not allowed to really talk about
anything that isn't the many cases there against her, So
there's a number of charges that have been levied against her,
I think currently. Therefore, she was first arrested because she
had illegally imported walkie talkies into the country. Okay, Um,
(38:50):
you know it was done because supposedly there was election fraud,
but they got her for Yeah, you do all your
election fraud via walkie talkie. Yeah, so walkie talkies, in questions,
were in use by her security detail, which are appointed
by the military. Okay, that's an interesting charge. The second
(39:11):
charge she was levied with was violating COVID restrictions by
essentially creating situations in which people would gather, which is
kind of true, like anytime she doesn't like a campaign, No,
it's just like if she goes outside, people gather like
they people love um. But yeah, like she had like
(39:34):
you know, she would like go to her home district
and be like I'm running again, and like thousands of
people would just which like you know, she shouldn't have done,
but you know everyone's also doing it. Like you could
arrest everyone for that. I mean around the world, politicians
are going out and people are gathering. So okay, but anyway, Yeah,
(39:56):
the third charge is the most serious charge she has
been charged under the Official Secrets Act UM, and she's
essentially being accused of having information that could be helpful
to enemies of m R. Which as the head of
(40:16):
government one, Yeah, it's kind of hard to be president
without getting some of that. Yeah, actually she's the highest
official in the government. Um. And then the fourth charge
I think is another COVID related charge. So very clearly
it starts with the walkie talkie and then they're just
(40:37):
like searching for other reasons to keep her. You go
into the election fraud yet, like everyone's wondering when that
will happen. So that was the justification for the coup. Yeah,
we're still waiting for proof on our election fraud too. Yeah,
it was like what court cases? Yeah, um and you
mentioned COVID, uh, which is of course still a thing.
(41:03):
And I know very little. I know nothing. I know
nothing about the COVID situation over there, and oh what
is it? Yeah, so Mirmar was doing okay, uh, not
economically like COVID devastated the country. The government weren't willing
to have very harsh lockdowns, or they weren't willing to
(41:26):
enforce their lockdown on paper, Miamar had one of the
strictest lockdowns in the world. But if you just kind
of didn't care, you could just do whatever you want,
Like people were clubbing. Uh and you know, like no,
like many people didn't care. But for the most part,
we were testing about really high, like twenty tests were
(41:49):
being done every day. Uh. And the positivity rate was
well under five percent for a good chunk of that time. Uh.
And we were getting vaccines, you know, we had Um,
I think the astros encovacs scene, like just a decent
amount of promise from India. Uh. And on paper, we're
currently one of the most vaccinated countries by percentage in
(42:10):
Southeast Asia over a million people. Southeast Asia is a
really poorly so it's not a good comparison, um, but
supposedly over a million people that been vaccinated. It's unclear
who those people are since no one's going to like
doctors aren't working at government facilities. Uh. And you know,
it's hard to imagine like random civilians just rolling up
(42:32):
to a military hospital being like, you know, I want
a vaccine, and I bet it's hard to trust that data. Yeah,
it's it's very difficult to trust the data. And you know,
testing is essentially non existent now there's about a thousand
uh tests being done every day. Uh and the majority
of those are people trying to leave the country due
(42:53):
to airline requirements and whatever, and a pretty high percentage
of those people are testing positive. These are people who
they're usually foreigners, so they're not going out to protest
because like they would get extra Yeah, it would just
be awful for them to be protesting, Like it's illegal. Um,
I mean I guess it's all illegal, but you know,
(43:13):
it's like if you're hyper visible, maybe don't want to
do it legal. Um, And they're usually like wealthy enough
to be able to fly out during this time because
flights are really expensive right now. So like in the
population of people who are probably just sitting at home,
uh and like don't have to go in anywhere to
(43:34):
work anyway, the fact that they're testing positive, I think
means that it's quite likely the pandemic is really just raging.
But you know, we don't have data, we don't know,
and you've got a lot of things going on to
keep track of. I mean, yeah, well, and also here
black Lives Matter, that's a good reason for people to
(43:56):
come outside and to protest, you know, and you guys
have well I think in the US situation like hospital
still existed, you know, like I mean, there was a
lot of concern about Black Lives Matter, like potentially sparking
like being super sweather of it, right, which they weren't hospital, Yeah,
they weren't. But you know, like even if they became
(44:17):
that it might have been handlable. Whereas here, like the
health infrastructure has gone essentially like people who have like
you know, fairly routine things like diabetes are really struggling
right now. UM, I'm just kind of curious as somebody
who's paying such close attention to this and and doing
all the reporting if there's if they're outlets that, um
(44:40):
you think are particularly good about this or particularly bad.
You know, there's especially in cases like this, Uh, perspectives
can seep into reporting. And I didn't know if there
was any anything on that. Yeah, like what are the
best outlets to follow? Yeah, so if anyone has any
extra money they want up to throw at this. Um
(45:00):
m R now and Frontier MR are really great local
news organizations. They published in both Burmese and English. Uh
you know, I mean the news industries has no money. Uh,
and like right now, not only are they dealing with
reporting under these very strenuous circumstances, many of them are
(45:20):
trying to flee or like hide out. Um. And also
the police keep smashing our equipment so new laptop. Um. Yeah,
so you are now in Frontier M are really great
award win organizations locally run um multi lingual. Um. Yeah,
(45:43):
I mean I think a lot of organizations are doing
a pretty decent job, especially if they've been operating in
Asia or in country for a long time. Um, Like
I wrote an article kind of blasting CNN for their
little parachute journalism trip, but CNN Asia has actually done
a really good job covering you know. Yeah, it really depends.
(46:08):
And then I guess you know, we've talked about things
the US could theoretically do the example they could set,
but as individuals, do you have any organizations, um, that
we could do not know of that we could donate
to that would go you know, directly to the right places. Yeah.
(46:29):
So there's a number of essentially go fund mes, um
pressure go fund me to release the funds. Uh. I
mean they're trying to do their due diligence. It's like okay,
or like you know, just hundreds of millions, like they
were not meant to fundraise for governments. Um, but you know,
but you know, in these unprecedented times, go fund me
(46:52):
to like move a little faster in their due diligence work.
You can donate to those, Um, we'll definitely linked to
to all of those resources so that people can do
something here. Uh. And man, thank you so much a
coming here. This was really informative and terrifying, but also inspiring.
(47:13):
I'm um, definitely gonna be following this really closely and
if you ever want to come back, please just let
us know. Yeah no, thank you for covering the story
and let our listeners know where they can find you online.
I'm mostly just on Twitter since every onee I'm not
reading in that online the person, but find me at
(47:36):
the underscore aimant that so just the underscore in my
full name. We'll definitely have you linked as well. Um yeah,
thank you, thank you again and day safe, everything everything again.
(47:57):
I tried, Worst Year Ever is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything so don't don't and welcome back to
(00:23):
the Worst Year Ever. Dang, We're still here. Keep ever
never stops. It really does, doesn't it. Why would we
ever leave? How could we possibly leave? Let us know
if if you know, how we could possibly leave, because
(00:44):
we are pretty desperate at this point. Yeah m hm.
With that, we have a really great interview for you
guys today with freelance journalists aim and then did I right?
Aim in? Then Daniel you got me? Who is who
(01:08):
is currently covering the military coup in myan mar And
we were very very grateful that they took the time
to speak with us because it's a pretty dire situation
and um and and it was a very informative conversation.
You guys got stuff. It's about to happen. That happen.
(01:30):
You can't stop it. Like the year, nothing can be
done to stop this from hitting your ears. It's inevitable.
You do not changing of the tides. Have an option
to press pause or stop your buckle up, baby know.
Whenever somebody pauses this podcast, we send out Cody with
a brick to break their kneecaps. It hasn't worked yet,
(01:52):
but I still go. I still go and try. No
he is he is not good at the job in
it but no it's not. But don't make us fire Cody.
Not during a pandemic. No, So hand over your knees
to Cody, or just keep listening to the podcast that's
about to come. So today we are joined by Aim
(02:13):
and then uh Burmese, American pulitz Or Prize winning freelance
journalists currently covering the military coup that started on February
one in myan Mar and up top. Um, I just
want to acknowledge this is an incredibly dangerous time to
be journalists covering this, and we just really want to
(02:34):
thank you for taking the time and check in to
see how you're doing, because this is a lot that
you've been been going through right now. Yeah, no, thank
you for covering the story. Um. I know we got
a lot of attention in the first month or so
of the coup, and now that they have kind of
I guess plateau in terms of action, Uh, there's a
(02:54):
lot less coverage on and so it's really great to
see platforms like this that are listed in being sure
that this stay is in the national conversation, especially in
countries like the US, where you know, a big difference
can be made. We'll see decisions. Would you be able
to give us kind of an overview of how things
(03:14):
have gone, right, Like, here's how how how it started,
Here's when violence escalated, Here's where we are now, just
to kind of start us off. Yeah. So basically, this
coup was started on February one, and now I say
it's started because to me, this coup is something that
hasn't been successful yet. The military arrested a number of
(03:39):
elected leaders on the day that the new government was
supposed to form, and you know, they attempted to essentially
take over all government functions and to be in charge
of the country. But you know, given that there's been
mass protests throughout the streets every single day essentially since
the beginning of February um there is a civil disobedience
movement that has as actually stopped the banking system in
(04:02):
the country. And you know, doctors, teachers, uh anyone who
has uh I been working with the government or through
the government as an employee have largely stopped working. You know,
they haven't been able to be the government. They haven't
been able to exert control except through the end of
a gun and sort of through terror. Um. Yeah, so
(04:27):
you know, they arrested over a hundred fifty elected politicians
on that first day, essentially preventing the new government from forming,
and began arresting activists, union leaders, people who would pose
a threat, who could bring the public together in any
sort of organized way. Uh. And yet you know, you
had millions of people who have been out industries protesting
(04:51):
even as the military began to kill people essentially in
cold blood. There's been over seven hundred people who are
now confirmed to have and killed by the military or police.
Um since the beginning of the coup by local rights groups. Uh.
Thousands of people have been jailed, a number of them
(05:11):
have been released, but there are hundreds who have essentially
just been disappeared. Um. You know, their families don't know
where they are, but the military and the police also
will not admit that they have been taken. And so
those people are the ones people are the most worried
about because those are the sorts of people who come
back as mutilated bodies essentially. Um. You know, you have politicians,
(05:33):
um in hiding activists and hiding journalists who have either
left the country or in hiding. UM. And you know,
on the other side of the resistance to the coup,
you know, very early on there was a leaderless mass
movement that sprung up, largely led by civil servants such
as doctors and teachers, but also you know, people you
(05:54):
would normally not think of as leaders in society, like
railway workers and garment industy workers, people who are heavily
unionized and really organized and who you know have been
fighting for their rights and freedoms for a long time.
And even as the movement right now is very focused
on returning to a civilian government and restoring people who
(06:17):
have rightfully won the two thou twenty election. UM. You know,
people do also really understand that in the last ten
years of largely civilian quasi democratic rule, that a lot
of people, especially the poor, especially ethnic and religious minorities,
were not treated as full country who had equal rights. Um.
(06:41):
And now we've moved into a base where there's essentially
to opposing groups uh claiming to be the government of
rmart There is the National Unity Government and all of
their allies. Um. There's a lot of acronyms. I'm not
going to go into that right now. But they're called
the nug um. We like to call ourselves nuggets. Now.
(07:06):
All of them are um, were elected, many of them
were appointed. Many of them were early protest leaders who
you know are in their late twenties thirties, people who
would never have made it into governments in the previous times. UM.
And they are now, you know, trying to get international recognition. UM.
And this is the National Unity government. Yeah, so now
(07:29):
they're trying to set up essentially a functional governments, a
an alternative system for people to answer to and work
with who are not the military. And so right now,
the power struggle is really between these two groups, UM,
one of whom is made up of elected officials as
well as leaders who have emerged through the antique coquipment.
(07:50):
And then the military, which you know, not only are
they very oppressive and brutal institution, UM, there's also quite
a numb of people who are part of the military
who were essentially recruited as child soldiers. US groups test
anywhere between thirty and six of recruits were forced into
(08:11):
the military. And when it comes to actual like territorial
control within these two groups, how does that kind of
break down? Like is it is it a situation where
you've got like regime controlled territory and not or is
it just kind of much more muddled and mixed. So
it's very complicated. Are Somar has essentially been in a
(08:33):
civil war for sixty almost seven years now, UM between
the largely Bama ethnic majority group controlled military and a
number of UM political organizations that often have armed wings
in minority areas or minority majority areas which are tend
(08:54):
to be around the borders of the country. So there
are currently whether called being called free zone, which is
areas being controlled by ethnic armed organizations. These are in
allyship with the National Unity government, but they're not under
the control of the National Unity governments UM and the
majority of ethnic armed organizations in your mind, there's dozens
(09:16):
have essentially declared that they will protect protesters regardless of UM,
you know, their political affiliation. It's more about millions as
opposed to aligning them. It's very smart, well together everything.
(09:38):
So don't don't they didn't talk a little bit about UH.
You've you've mentioned it's pseudo democracy and it's been a
relatively new UH institution there and so can we talk
a little bit about UM that power struggle, that power
share that led us to this, because I think we
(09:59):
also need to talk about on San Succi of course,
and and um, just it's complicated. It's a complicated situation
you've got going on away, Yeah, because I I can.
I mean, I'm nothing. I don't have a particularly deep
base of knowledge here. But I remember hearing earlier a
lot of allegations that she was um kind of being
(10:19):
used as a puppet by the military for a lot
of the stuff that was happening with the Rohinga. And
so that's very unclear as we are over here trying
to unpack everything that's happening there, because of course she
was sold to us as a democratic leader that we
should get behind, an inspiration, and then very quickly it
turned out that this huge humanitarian crisis was happening under
(10:40):
her watch. Anyway, you're the expert, Oh, I think what
happened without sant Sugi and the sort of like very
divided view of her because she's still seeing as this
for a lot of people and are not seeing as this,
you know, perfect icon, uh and faultless leader in myrmar
(11:00):
whereas in the West, because she was sold as this
perfect icon, right like any mistake or like genuine awful
things she did, and she did awful things. Um was
seeing that's like, oh were like she we were lied to,
we were tricked where you know, she's a complicated person
with imperfect politics. Um, She's always been extremely Buddhist, quite nationalist.
(11:25):
It makes sense, you know that, considering her father fought
against colonialism. Right. Colonially breeds a lot of nationalism into people. Uh.
And so she's always been someone who has been quite
open about the fact that she thinks Memar is first
and foremost a Buddhist Bama nation where everyone else is
(11:45):
kind of guests who should have behave appropriately, um and so.
And the country is you know, quite majority with us
and Mama. So you know, I think what has been
happening with the sort of transition into democracy from m
R is we had colonialism and then that really created
(12:07):
the country as we know it today. You know that
it drew the orders of the country and brought together
a bunch of various kingdoms and like essentially hill tribes
and people who had various forms of government and put
them all and smashed them into one nation of people
never existed as a political entity. Uh. Together before and
(12:30):
basically immediately after independence, people began declaring internal independence from
the new country that had been formed UM and then
through a series of coups and sort of military takeovers,
the country essentially became a totalitarian state, really second only
to North Korea for decades, and then in two thousand
(12:53):
and ten the country began to transition into democratic into
more of a democratic form. So we had elections where
everyone was allowed to run, essentially who wasn't in jail,
and there were thousands of people in jail as political prisoners,
but you know, if you weren't in jail, you were
allowed to run. And many people boycotted it because the
(13:17):
constitution wasn't great guaranteed the military twenty five seats to
military officials, and then also allowed military parties and military
affiliated parties to run. And so in two thousand and
ten we began to have a more democratic UM country
and government, but it was still essentially run by the military,
(13:39):
but with reform minded generals, and so we began to
see more press freedom. We saw censorship and or official censorship,
prepublication censorship, and we saw the release of quite a
number of political prisoners. We saw liberalization of the economy
and the allowance of essentially the statement of police to
(14:00):
end UH and allow other sorts of businesses to begin
to establish themselves. And then in two thousand fifteen, UM,
all of these parties that had boycotted the twenty ten
election decided, you know, the constitution isn't perfect. There's a
lot we need to change, but we can't do that
completely from the outside, so we're going to run UH.
(14:21):
And after that election, we ended up with a government
where the military control basically every gun in the country.
They controlled the armed forces, the police, and the border guard,
as well as UM a lot of the sort of
day to day administration UM. So like thank your local
district office, UM, that would be controlled by the military,
(14:44):
but the majority of the rest of the government was
controlled by elected civilians. In this case it ended up
being outside the Juice party. And so yeah, there was
this very uneasy power sharing UM and one of the
rain of crisis have and I think the people of
them really felt that they were being unfairly blamed for
(15:06):
something that the military did and it cost us like
intense defensiveness that didn't allow them to have the conversation
of Okay, well, why are we not fighting for the branch.
You know, why are we okay with this group being victimized?
You know, what does it mean that some group can
be victimized in the country? What does this mean on
(15:26):
a more systematic institutional level beyond the sort of like
basic decency of like no one deserves to be subject
to genocide. Um. But yeah, I think that's in a
nutshell kind of what was happening here. Yeah, that sounds
like there's like a rapid expansion in a short period
of time for you guys culturally, economically and everything. When
(15:50):
when things started to shift, and it feels like this
this crux and time probably feels very different, approaching this
protest movement, approaching organizing, um have you. Yeah, I would
just love to have a comparison between this time and
in the past when there has been a lot of
large organized movements against the military. Yeah. So there's been
(16:14):
a few mass uprisings, there's this is also the third
coup from MR and No. I think what has made
this time really different is there's internal factors. So the
main one would be that now people are fighting to
keep something where in and so after the first coup
(16:36):
you essentially went from Uh, you know, British colonial masters
to like a very chaotic quasi military government into you know,
fairly still a military government. But it wasn't that bad
in the sixties, and so it wasn't that jarring of
a transition. But by the time eight Um elections happened
(17:02):
and the uprising happened, people had been under dictatorship for decades, right,
and so it's much more difficult for people to imagine
something that they were trying to build, as opposed to
just saying we don't like what's currently happening, um and
what the protest movement now, what we're really seeing is
people saying, you know, what we had was imperfect, but
(17:23):
we need to get back there so we can go
somewhere and better. And I think that's the really big
difference and the key difference we're seeing, uh internally and
then externally, I think, you know, the international response has
not been ideal, but it's the community. International community has
also learned from past mistakes. Uh. They haven't imposed a
(17:44):
sort of blanket sanctions that we saw in the past
that really didn't harm the military. Right. There's right now
quite a lot of focus on targeting specific organizations and
individuals UM. And you know, if we could see more
unity on that, we could see countries stop selling our
to m R H. If we could see sort of
the release of MR State and UH assets to the
(18:08):
new civilian government. You know, these are all that could
really make a difference in the long run of this movement. Yeah,
you had mentioned that to me separately and wanted to
to bring that up. So this feels like a great time,
you know, specifically in terms of the the U S
sanctions UM. Yeah. So you know, in the very first
(18:29):
few days of the coup, UM, the US I think
Department of Treasury I guess essentially froze UM all MIMIR
assets stuff we're in in the US control. And that's
amounts about a billion dollars UM because even though there
wasn't sort of a set policy yet from the Biden administration, UM,
(18:51):
you know, they want to make sure that essentially trying
to withdraw a million dollars a billion dollars UH. So
now that is frozen. UM. Now that we do have
a civilian government made up of elected officials who have
a mandate from the people, who have been able to
get agreements UH and cooperation from ethnic armed organizations, they're
(19:14):
going to start needing money. You know, civil servants have
been uh striking for almost three months. These are not
people who are well paid. Most of them live in
government housing um and many of them have either been
terminated from their jobs or have been forced out of
their housing. And so what the Unity government is now
trying to uh pay all of these civil servants. They're
(19:36):
trying to ensure that there aren't food shortages and are
there people are already starting to suffer from that, and
really to make sure that people can continue to oppose
the military without essentially starving themselves, without feeling like they
have the choice to die or comply. Oh yeah, And
(19:57):
that's one of these one of the main problems we
get to when it comes to when the US does
take action about human rights abuses. Often our go to
is some form of sanctions, and they generally just wind
up hurting the people who live in that country rather
than the people who are committing whatever human rights abuse
inspired the the action. And I think it's good to
(20:19):
like freeze assets that that makes sense, and I've heard
suggestions of like, you know, releasing them to the the
I think we would consider the legitimate government Um, but
I don't know, like what what else can be done,
like because it it seems and maybe I have an
(20:40):
accurate view of this because of my distance, but it
seems like the deck is stacked pretty heavily in the
military's favor at the moment um, and I don't like,
what is it? What is it you think would need
to happen in order to change the situation in a
positive way. Yeah, so I think you're right in that
the deck is heavily stacked in the military's favor. But
(21:03):
they got the guns. Yeah, the guns, well they have
like bombed. Uh. And I actually have a whole other
question about the military. It's we'll get to but they
have all a whole separate ecosystem almost over there like
their own. But we'll we'll, we'll get to that. But yeah,
you know, I think a sign of hope, uh, and
(21:27):
a place to look if you want some optimism is
just the fact that despite them having you know, fighter
jets and guns and just so much information about people, um,
because you know, as an authoritarian country or just collects
lots and lots of data about other people who live there, Um,
they've not been able to win. You know, they haven't.
(21:47):
They can't get the banks to open, they can't get
doctors to go back to work. They recently, like yesterday,
called in the parents of civil servants to get them
to pressure their children. Like odd like got called to
the principles on the parents of the protesters, you know,
(22:09):
like they are really struggling. Um as they're you know,
killing people and terrorizing people, like people are really refusing
to be capt essentially. Um, sorry, I've forgotten the question.
Now that's that's how it goes here. Yeah, I'm just
kind of wondering. Yeah, I think the question we're trying
(22:29):
to answer is like what do you think what how
how could you see things ending in a positive direction?
Like what would have to happen? I guess part of
why I'm asking that questions, I'm trying to wonder what
the international community can do outside of you know, freezing
arms sales to the military would be one one thing,
although I don't know how likely that is given the
(22:50):
geopolitical situation. Um and kind of you know, releasing that
money to the legitimate government is another option, But like,
is there is there anything else? What do you think
would need to happen for things to resolve? In a
more positive direction, like what's it gonna take. UM if
that's a I that may be a question without a
clear answer at the moment. Yeah, UM, So I think
(23:11):
there's a few things that can be done by various actors. UM.
I think if we're talking about the U S side, UM,
you know, as we're saying earlier, FUNDS UM impression other
countries allied nations to recognize the National Unity Government as
the legimate legitimate of government MEMOIR and to to treat
them as such. Right. So, if ASSIE and the Association
(23:34):
of Southeast Asian Nations is going to have a meeting
about memoir, like they should be invited. They should be
the first invite. UM. If you know, countries like Singapore
and Japan and South Korea which are heavily invested in MIMIR,
there's some of the biggest investors in MIMIR are going
to continue to UM, you know, invest money, whether that's
(23:56):
in development or in you know, sort of private business.
They need to ensure that they're working with the civilian
government and not the military. UM. And these are things
that kind of can happen from the US end, which
is obviously a bit more difficult in that This is
one of the very few struggles in the world where
U s imperialism is not implicated really in any way. Uh.
(24:20):
And you know, the mirmor military does not care what
the West thinks of it. Uh, it does not care
about the West is money. They you know, survived for
decades and decades without it. Um. And Yeah, like the
sanctions can often really harm uh, sort of people who
like normal everyday people. I think something that the US
(24:42):
has done quite well in this case is to make
it very clear that no military interferention is coming. I
know that's something that many people on the ground have
been hoping for because they see things like, uh, what's
been happening in you know, Middle Eastern countries and say
like possible there? Why isn't possible here? Um, And the
(25:03):
US being very clear and that the language where they
talk about it ums, and like sanctioning very specific industry,
so mining and logging and these sort of like you know,
industries that are already extremely exploitative to the people who
work in it, and then pretty much only like mess
up the earth and benefit those are the very top
(25:24):
so like jade um. Yeah. And then I think on
the sort of broader international level. Um, yeah, just like
refusing to engage with the military besides trying to get
them to hand over power, as opposed to what Ascien did,
which was really just like a weird welcome party h
(25:47):
to the military leader where they told him like everyone
needs to stop the violence, uh and really doing this
like there wishy washy sort of language which was then
used by the military in MR and sort of these
now like military run propaganda outlets. That's like, you know,
the world has welcomed uh, this new government as a
(26:10):
stabilizing force in the region. I I know I mentioned
this in passing a minute ago, but I would like
to to hear a little bit. Gosh, I've got so
many things I want to hear about. But uh, from
what I understand, yes, the military is almost separate from
(26:31):
uh everybody else, the average citizen. You know, they have
their own schools and own hospitals. Uh you know, banks
are those things being affected by the strike. And I'm
also just I'm just curious about it because I guess
that has to play a huge part in how the
(26:55):
military can be so desensitized to or ers of killing citizens,
I mean, children, babies. There's just we don't need to
go into all the horrifying specifics, but this is a
horrifying story that's happening right now. Um, and I'm just
trying to wrap my mind around it all, you know. Yeah,
(27:16):
it's been very difficult to get into the psychology of
people who are in the security forces, where that is
military or police. Um, we're definitely seeing a lot more
police affections. And I think it's what you were saying of.
You know, most police officers are not sort of born
and raised into this very separate internal society, right. These
(27:40):
are usually just like people who for whom this is
like one of the few decent paying jobs with the
potential force pension in the future. And so you have
a lot of those people kind of running away into India,
into the free zones, into Thailand and such. Um. But yeah,
it's been very, very difficult to understand the mindsets of
(28:04):
the soldiers and and really what they're being told. Um.
So there was a lot of rumors in MR and
based on the testimony of recently defected soldiers, it seems
very likely that the internet the like mobile data internet
cuts were more targeted towards keeping soldiers from knowing what
was happening from the civilian organizing themselves. I mean, you know,
(28:27):
they obviously also don't want the civilian population organizing themselves.
But you know the fact that soldiers are telling us
they're not allowed to read non military papers, they're not
allowed to watch news, it's the military channels. They can't
listen to other types of radio um And you know,
many of them were taken when they were twelve thirteen.
(28:47):
They were raised in an environment where like brutality meant
not only did you survive and avoid violence yourself, but
you could be you know, greatly rewarded. And you know,
you're in this like extremely homo social environment where not
only are you being taught to be brutal, you're being
(29:08):
told that that is how you're protecting the country and
defending Buddhism and defending this idea of of what it
means to be in my mr. And you know, I
think in part why we're seeing the sort of violence
right now is because so many of the soldiers feel betrayed.
You know, they've been at war for decades, they've been
(29:30):
out in the force getting malaria, and now you have
all these ungrateful civilians who like don't understand their struggles.
Who are forcing them to essentially, like you know, work
all day every day, often with very little food. We
see soldiers stealing food all the time. We see them
sealing snacks like they're hungry. They're very poorly paid at
(29:52):
the sort of infantry level, um, and they're overworked, and
like that's part of the goal, Like they're trying to
make these usually young boys like much more aggressive than
they would otherwise be and see the people as their
well together everything. Don't. You can talk a lot about, um,
(30:21):
you know, a civil disobedience, the protest movement, and I'm
I'm curious what the mood on the ground is. Like
I guess this kind of goes along with Robert's kind
of questioning do people Do people feel galvanized by the
fact that you have been doing this protest movement such
as sustained fashion. I mean, I find it very inspiring.
(30:43):
I mean it sounds overwhelming in like an uphill battle.
But you know, a general strike is something that has
talked about a lot and very rarely executed, um, and
there has to be some sort of power in that.
So I am curious what the mood is, but but
also can can Firstly, people are being slaughtered, so you
(31:03):
know it's a lot yeah, um, I mean there's there's
a lot of terror. Uh that's on the ground, um,
obviously engineered to be so. Like there have been cases
where the police will come and try to arrest a
politician or you know, a member of a political party
and he won't be home because you know he's understands
(31:25):
the situation and isn't hiding, and that they will take
his children. Like the youngest person who has been arrested
is too and they were arrested because they couldn't find
their father. Um. And so there is a lot of
that happening. But at the same time, there's also justice,
like really defiant joy that's been very intentionally cultivated. You know,
(31:46):
like you go you look at protests and like all
the protests are themed, right, like there are people trying
to have fun, trying to be creative. Um. There was
a condom protest where they put love condoms and pictures
of people who shouldn't have been born in the that's
really good. That's and they started using sound grenades in
(32:12):
the cities. Uh, you know, after the kind of noise
would end, people yell at Happy New year. Um, we're
using water cannons. People started playing Burmese New Year's music
because our New Year's as a water festival, and people
would just start dancing in the water. Um, and so
people wi fall over because you know it's a water cannon.
But you know, just people really trying to make sure
(32:34):
that there's joy to be had um and that this
isn't sort of something like awful and miserable that we
all have to kind of just like hunker down and
get the room something. Joy is incredibly important when you're
trying to get people to endure violence for an extended
(32:55):
period of time. That that makes total sense. We're also
seeing a lot of sort of communities support uh that
works propping up Like essentially people are doing anarchy, although
they're fairly calling it that. Um. So like you go,
if you go to markets, there's quite a number of
stalls now that's say uh, take if you need it,
give if you like, don't, and so like it's there,
(33:18):
like it's really beautiful. No one at the stalls, like
you can just go and take all the food if
you wanted to. But you see just like a pile
of cash and then some people just you know they
can't pay, they can't afford it. Um. You know people
are like everyone is involved. There's like marketing agencies that
are paying for lawyers, fees for journalists. UM. There are
(33:41):
bankers who are secretly funding um, you know, transportation for protesters.
Like it's really this huge cross section of me and
our society. And you know it's one of the It's
one of those struggles where like the military like legitimately
has like no popular base, right, Like it's not like
(34:02):
a Thailand situation where there are legitimately people who are
on both sides. Uh, and you know are in sort
of contention with one another. Yeah. Um, I had something
else I wanted to ask, and now it's out of
my head. I'm curious. Do you see within kind of
the tactics used by the protest movement, what do you
(34:22):
see as like the main um influences UM from from
overseas on kind of how people have have organized and
carried things out. Yeah, so you see a lot of
influences from UM, Hong Kong and Thailand. Uh. You know
Mars now officially part of the MILTI Alliance. Uh. We
have a Twitter icon um that combines all all three
(34:44):
of these countries, um. And you know a lot of
these sort of protest safety tactics uh and digital security
especially tactics were really brought wholesale from Thailand and Hong Kong,
to the point where activists in those countries were translating
their resources into Burmese and disseminating them through their their networks.
(35:07):
In Yama. Um, you saw influences from the Black Lives
Matter movement. Um, although I would say that it was
a very sort of shallow sort of engagement with Black
Lives Matter. It was very confusing. But yeah, sort like
(35:27):
a lot of international meaning of memes. Uh. Yeah, it's
it's mostly um, the conversations mostly happening with other Asian
countries are facing authority characterism. Mhm, I'm curious. Um. But
the end goal would be, um, you know, for the resistance,
(35:50):
would this be too reinstidate long song succi or you know,
is that the goal here? So the goal has been
to um yeah uh. If you sort of were listening
to protest chance and looking at science in the earlier
days of the protests, it was almost entirely focused on
(36:13):
the free outce sugi uh and getting the getting democracy back,
by which they mean like just you know, like control
z the coup, just let the government form and like
we'll just kind of forget about everything. Um. But now
you know they the civilian government has abolished the Mazinate constitution. Yeah,
(36:36):
so they formed committees to uh create a new constitution
in consultation with stakeholders from across there's of society. Um.
For some reason, the new government has a prime Minister,
a president, and a state counselor. It's very confusing. I
don't understand why has made an early draft of the
(37:02):
United States Constitution. I do believe had as having three presidents.
So there's that. Yeah, we have two vice presidents. Um.
But yeah, that's but has been appoint reappointed as state counselor.
So you know, there is a there's quite a number
of people who would like to continue to see her
(37:24):
in that position. Um. And I think it's also really
important to remember, even as especially for those of us
who are very critical of the level of democracy that
is in Mirmar as well as and their party h
that they did win the election by huge like they
wont of the vote. She's extremely popular, right, Like I
(37:47):
can be as critical of her as I want, but
she is the legitimate leader of that the people chose
what is that? What is she? Is she still in
house arrest or are she? And like, what are the charges?
What is the case against her that they're trying to make.
So she's still in their house arrests as far as
(38:08):
I know, Um, her trial is ongoing, but it has
been postponed because she also doesn't have internet connection. Uh,
we're still dealing with COVID. So that was going to
be my next question. So she's theoretically on their house arrests.
Her lawyers have been able who have been able to
see her occasionally say that she looks to be in
(38:30):
good help. Um, they're not allowed to really talk about
anything that isn't the many cases there against her, So
there's a number of charges that have been levied against her,
I think currently. Therefore, she was first arrested because she
had illegally imported walkie talkies into the country. Okay, Um,
(38:50):
you know it was done because supposedly there was election fraud,
but they got her for Yeah, you do all your
election fraud via walkie talkie. Yeah, so walkie talkies, in questions,
were in use by her security detail, which are appointed
by the military. Okay, that's an interesting charge. The second
(39:11):
charge she was levied with was violating COVID restrictions by
essentially creating situations in which people would gather, which is
kind of true, like anytime she doesn't like a campaign, No,
it's just like if she goes outside, people gather like
they people love um. But yeah, like she had like
(39:34):
you know, she would like go to her home district
and be like I'm running again, and like thousands of
people would just which like you know, she shouldn't have done,
but you know everyone's also doing it. Like you could
arrest everyone for that. I mean around the world, politicians
are going out and people are gathering. So okay, but anyway, Yeah,
(39:56):
the third charge is the most serious charge she has
been charged under the Official Secrets Act UM, and she's
essentially being accused of having information that could be helpful
to enemies of m R. Which as the head of
(40:16):
government one, Yeah, it's kind of hard to be president
without getting some of that. Yeah, actually she's the highest
official in the government. Um. And then the fourth charge
I think is another COVID related charge. So very clearly
it starts with the walkie talkie and then they're just
(40:37):
like searching for other reasons to keep her. You go
into the election fraud yet, like everyone's wondering when that
will happen. So that was the justification for the coup. Yeah,
we're still waiting for proof on our election fraud too. Yeah,
it was like what court cases? Yeah, um and you
mentioned COVID, uh, which is of course still a thing.
(41:03):
And I know very little. I know nothing. I know
nothing about the COVID situation over there, and oh what
is it? Yeah, so Mirmar was doing okay, uh, not
economically like COVID devastated the country. The government weren't willing
to have very harsh lockdowns, or they weren't willing to
(41:26):
enforce their lockdown on paper, Miamar had one of the
strictest lockdowns in the world. But if you just kind
of didn't care, you could just do whatever you want,
Like people were clubbing. Uh and you know, like no,
like many people didn't care. But for the most part,
we were testing about really high, like twenty tests were
(41:49):
being done every day. Uh. And the positivity rate was
well under five percent for a good chunk of that time. Uh.
And we were getting vaccines, you know, we had Um,
I think the astros encovacs scene, like just a decent
amount of promise from India. Uh. And on paper, we're
currently one of the most vaccinated countries by percentage in
(42:10):
Southeast Asia over a million people. Southeast Asia is a
really poorly so it's not a good comparison, um, but
supposedly over a million people that been vaccinated. It's unclear
who those people are since no one's going to like
doctors aren't working at government facilities. Uh. And you know,
it's hard to imagine like random civilians just rolling up
(42:32):
to a military hospital being like, you know, I want
a vaccine, and I bet it's hard to trust that data. Yeah,
it's it's very difficult to trust the data. And you know,
testing is essentially non existent now there's about a thousand
uh tests being done every day. Uh and the majority
of those are people trying to leave the country due
(42:53):
to airline requirements and whatever, and a pretty high percentage
of those people are testing positive. These are people who
they're usually foreigners, so they're not going out to protest
because like they would get extra Yeah, it would just
be awful for them to be protesting, Like it's illegal. Um,
I mean I guess it's all illegal, but you know,
(43:13):
it's like if you're hyper visible, maybe don't want to
do it legal. Um, And they're usually like wealthy enough
to be able to fly out during this time because
flights are really expensive right now. So like in the
population of people who are probably just sitting at home,
uh and like don't have to go in anywhere to
(43:34):
work anyway, the fact that they're testing positive, I think
means that it's quite likely the pandemic is really just raging.
But you know, we don't have data, we don't know,
and you've got a lot of things going on to
keep track of. I mean, yeah, well, and also here
black Lives Matter, that's a good reason for people to
(43:56):
come outside and to protest, you know, and you guys
have well I think in the US situation like hospital
still existed, you know, like I mean, there was a
lot of concern about Black Lives Matter, like potentially sparking
like being super sweather of it, right, which they weren't hospital, Yeah,
they weren't. But you know, like even if they became
(44:17):
that it might have been handlable. Whereas here, like the
health infrastructure has gone essentially like people who have like
you know, fairly routine things like diabetes are really struggling
right now. UM, I'm just kind of curious as somebody
who's paying such close attention to this and and doing
all the reporting if there's if they're outlets that, um
(44:40):
you think are particularly good about this or particularly bad.
You know, there's especially in cases like this, Uh, perspectives
can seep into reporting. And I didn't know if there
was any anything on that. Yeah, like what are the
best outlets to follow? Yeah, so if anyone has any
extra money they want up to throw at this. Um
(45:00):
m R now and Frontier MR are really great local
news organizations. They published in both Burmese and English. Uh
you know, I mean the news industries has no money. Uh,
and like right now, not only are they dealing with
reporting under these very strenuous circumstances, many of them are
(45:20):
trying to flee or like hide out. Um. And also
the police keep smashing our equipment so new laptop. Um. Yeah,
so you are now in Frontier M are really great
award win organizations locally run um multi lingual. Um. Yeah,
(45:43):
I mean I think a lot of organizations are doing
a pretty decent job, especially if they've been operating in
Asia or in country for a long time. Um, Like
I wrote an article kind of blasting CNN for their
little parachute journalism trip, but CNN Asia has actually done
a really good job covering you know. Yeah, it really depends.
(46:08):
And then I guess you know, we've talked about things
the US could theoretically do the example they could set,
but as individuals, do you have any organizations, um, that
we could do not know of that we could donate
to that would go you know, directly to the right places. Yeah.
(46:29):
So there's a number of essentially go fund mes, um
pressure go fund me to release the funds. Uh. I
mean they're trying to do their due diligence. It's like okay,
or like you know, just hundreds of millions, like they
were not meant to fundraise for governments. Um, but you know,
but you know, in these unprecedented times, go fund me
(46:52):
to like move a little faster in their due diligence work.
You can donate to those, Um, we'll definitely linked to
to all of those resources so that people can do
something here. Uh. And man, thank you so much a
coming here. This was really informative and terrifying, but also inspiring.
(47:13):
I'm um, definitely gonna be following this really closely and
if you ever want to come back, please just let
us know. Yeah no, thank you for covering the story
and let our listeners know where they can find you online.
I'm mostly just on Twitter since every onee I'm not
reading in that online the person, but find me at
(47:36):
the underscore aimant that so just the underscore in my
full name. We'll definitely have you linked as well. Um yeah,
thank you, thank you again and day safe, everything everything again.
(47:57):
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