March 10, 2022 • 22 mins
The conclusion of our series on the civil war in Myanmar.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm Robert Evans, and this is part four of me
and mar printing the revolution. And then once we got there,
we couldn't rest, you know, reign side whatever. Women as well,
and we were all like try when they came when
we were leaving, they were all like very fair skin beautiful.
And then we went in and then everyone got tanned.
(00:27):
In the jungle. We're training all the time, you know,
people in training camp. We were driven with the part
and the reason that we were all doing this is
because of Man nine coup as students and how much
he has terrorized the public and the people. And that's
why we were We have this morale and the ability
to get through the training and be able to wield weapons.
(00:51):
Zor and his friends went into the jungleist students, programmers
and kids. Now the fight is they would tech savvy
young people. He says, they grew up online and that
generational divide was the Internet brought here came much later
in Mima. It wasn't until twenty eleven the people really
gained accurcity the Internet and with it the new ideas
(01:13):
and identities that it brought. Those generations are among the
first to embrace global connectivity. And now after having it
taken away, they're refusing to give it up. The start
of the coup in February, the military, well, gen Z
was organizing online social media and all that so, and
they were kind of I think this is from my experience,
(01:36):
but um kind of organizing around like gen Z is
going to be different than the generation because we have
the Internet, and also we know more about the world
and can come communicate to the rest of the world.
I think one thing that was big was that in
two thousand eight, it just took one video leaking out
(01:57):
of the country for there to be big international repercussions.
It's worth noting that when people in Burma talk about
the Internet, they mean Facebook. Phones come with the Facebook
app installed and it's sometimes exempt from data charges. For
many people in Burma, using the Internet means using Facebook.
(02:17):
Zor and his friends are different from their parents in
many ways, not at least in their perceptions of authority.
This has led to a situation where the PDF people's
defense force units are much less hierarchical than units of
the tamaid or. So when we make decisions in our group,
there's no master and student, there's no teacher and student.
(02:38):
But you know the way that it works. There are
people who are good, they're older, people who are more trained,
and then their new recruits, new people who just came in.
So of course the people who were there for longer
and know more about situation have more voice. And when
we discussed so especially people who were there when we
(02:59):
founded the groups. There are only really eight people from
when we group. So those eight people kind of discussed
on the bigger strategy. You know, we don't really vote there.
He says he wants to do it. He thinks it's good.
We are there's the seven of us we think is good,
(03:20):
or we support him, or someone says, well, we don't
really like that idea, then we don't do it. They
try to achieve more gender quality as well. There's your
explained that in his unit the women are not always
the frontline fight is that's the place there's no discrimination.
You know, women can women and men were training whoever
could try. But like on the battlefield, people, we don't
(03:46):
use women that much on the battlefield. That's one thing
that we do know is that it's not it's not
really discrimination. But if women are with us together, we
have a confusion about whether we need to protect them,
or they're just fighting with with them, or they're fighting
in front of us. And that there's one thing that
(04:10):
is very different is that in terms of mentality, we
we can't. We never take the women out really far
into very dangerous fights. So often they're in the back,
gets back up or two supplies or things like that.
(04:31):
But as you know, the military government, the military terroristists
are very very uh, it's very unethical. They don't follow
the rules, so you know, they're gonna shoot wherever they see.
So even if they're hanging back and they're sending medical
supplies there, they can still get hit for Zor in particular.
There's a lot at stake. After almost an hour and
(04:51):
a half of talking, I asked about his parents. I've
heard of retribution attacks against the families of fighters and
wondered if he was worried about that. So Mom and
that are both they support me fighting against the military.
They're very happy. Is that really wants to do c
d M. But he can't run away because the military
(05:15):
has taken his uh mother and his sisters. He's still
has five sisters. They're all still in that military command
and they're worked there in the military stool schools, so
it's very hard for them to run away, right, So
he really wants to leave the military, but he can't.
(05:36):
So well, so that the fact that I am they're
trying to fight against the military. He's very happy, and
but he tells me to be careful about my own life.
They're supportive and they really want to come fight themselves,
but they can't because of my sisters and my mother.
So in seeing that I can do it, it's really
(05:59):
wonderful for them. So his father, his other brother and
other people are three of them below him. They have
all usually just lived together with his grandfather and stuff
in the military trumpounds or near the military. So he
really wants to call all the people that are still there,
(06:20):
but they can't leave. This is what civil ward does.
Trapped us in a situation where we can't make the
right choice even when we know what it is, and
in many situations it's pretty hard to discern right from
wrong in the midst of so much violence. This all
has been able to fight, but his dad is stuck
fighting against people like his son in order to protect
(06:41):
his daughters. Thousands of families across the country divided in
the same way by circumstance or ideology. The military is
something of a separate society, has its own schools in
its own culture, but ethnic arms organizations have not been
close to Oban populations either, and so whole new identities
of being forged by generation z while their families often
(07:03):
struggle to abandon all certainties. As we record this, Zaw
is still fighting, his girlfriend is still healing. Every few
weeks a video of him and his friends pops up
on redditor Facebook. They have optics on their rifles now
(07:25):
and are taking long range shots at the Top Medal
who rely on iron sights. They shoot and reload like soldiers,
and they laugh like kids. The Topmadaw still controls the cities,
but to move between them they have to travel in
convoys at breakneck speeds using ambushes, mines and knowledge of
the terrain. E A O S and the PDF are
able to deny the military access to large portions of
(07:47):
the countryside. Without a serious change in the conflict, it
might stay like this for years. A report published this
month detailed the attacks in the Karini State by the
Topmadah on churches, residential homes, camps were displaced people, which
killed sixty one and the months since Saw left the city.
On Christmas Eve in Prusso's township, they killed at least
(08:07):
forty civilians. Autopsy show some were gagged and burned alive.
In recent months, the TOTMADA has increased its use of
air strikes against targets that it deems legitimate. Ming Anhlang,
the junta's leader, flew to Russia twice. In one he
was proclaimed an honorary professor of the Military University of
the Russian Armed Forces. Quote. We are determined to continue
(08:30):
our efforts to strengthen bilateral ties based on the mutual understanding, respect,
and trust that have been established between our two countries,
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with
the coup leader on June twenty two. We pay special
attention to this meeting as we see mean Mar as
a time tested strategic partner and a reliable ally in
Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific region. He went on.
(08:52):
Min On Hlang was equally lavish with his praise, saying
that he saw Russia as a friend forever. Meanwar relies
heavily on Russi and hind In my thirty five helicopter gunships,
transport helicopters Mid twenty nine and s U thirty fighter
jets and Yak one thirty ground attack aircraft to carry
out bombing raids and strafe civilians. All of these weapons
(09:13):
systems have been seen more recently in the fighting in Ukraine.
One prominent Burmese Irish family, the Kiyotongs, has helped the
junta avoid an international arms embargo using their global connections
and a network of shady shadow companies. They have purchased
helicopters under the pretense of using them for tourism and
the oil and gas industry, and handed them over to
(09:33):
the top Meadaw. They've also helped shuttle coastal radar to
me Anmar, which the Topmadal used to track Rohinga refugees
and provide cover for several aircraft purchases. To fund these
arms purchases, the Totmadah has found willing markets for luxury
goods abroad. According to Justice for Menmar, since the coup
in February, the United States has imported fifteen hundred and
(09:55):
sixty five metric tons of teak from the Anmar using
intermediaries to avoid saying actions, and the two seventeen two
eighteen financial year, the last year for which data is available,
the government received one hundred million US dollars in revenue
from taxes and royalties applied to the timber tradee there
were more shipments than two thousand eighteen, offering the top
(10:15):
medal the chance to make enough money to continue purchasing
weapons to use against their population. The conflict in me
and Mar remains complicated. It's easy to reduce the alphabet
soup of rebel groups to E, A, O, S and
the PDF, but these groups and their motivations are diverse.
Pierre explained to us that even within the Kuran there
are deep divisions. Well, first, you have to know that
(10:36):
historically the Karen rebellion that started in nineteen forty eight nineteen,
so quite a long time ago, was led by by
Christian the Christian minority, okay, of the of the talent
people because obviously that was the most Western educated people
(11:00):
um at the time. And so this elite kind of
reproduced itself in the canoe. Who is out being the
canoe is the current National Union is a democratic movement.
But you know, our elites tend to reproduce themselves, and
(11:23):
so most of the leadership, let's say, of the Karen
National Union and the current National Liberation Army was christian like.
And so the Burmese Junta, the Burmese military government, decided
(11:48):
to use this to create a wedge between between the
Karen Christians and the Karen Buddhists UH and the center
monkst to say, agitate and try to cause this split
on the religious grounds no UH. And they succeeded in
(12:10):
parts and succeeded to to separate a part of Karen
Buddhists that created the Democratic Karen Buddhists. The army, which
then allied themselves of course to the to the junta
and to UH to attack the to attack the kind
(12:36):
of and the manor of Plow, which of course they
knew all the all the holes there on the defenses
and where was the defense is situated, et cetera, and
succeeded in destroying the capital of the of the Karen
National Union in Manaplow in ninety five. So that was
the situation pretty much when I arrived. It was the
(13:00):
pretia like UH. There was not so much territory anymore
held by the Callen, and most more importantly they lost
a lot of income because a lot of their income
comes from a tax at the border that control you know.
(13:21):
Uh so, yeah, that was a situation. Not every e
a O has embraced the National Unity Government directly, after all,
many of its members were enthusiastically running cover for the
Rohinga genocide a few years ago. Many of the e
a O s remain technically under a ceasefire with the
top Medal, and the top medon knows that if it
pushes too far into e AO territory, it risks provoking
(13:44):
a full blown response. The e a O s, meanwhile,
have been aiding and training the PDF and still maintaining
enough deniability that the top Medal has not been forced
into a confrontation. E a O PDF alliances look different
in different regions and often realities on the ground a
little relationship to the back door diplomacy and official stances
embraced by leadership and public. The war continues to have
(14:06):
a huge toll on civilians. According to the United Nations,
in total, some four hundred and forty thou people have
been newly displaced since the coup happened in February one,
adding to an existing three hundred and seventy thousand who
had fled their homes from earlier waves of violence, and
over a million people who had fled the Regina genocide.
(14:27):
More than half the population of Corenni State has fled.
Humanitarian access is hard. Much of the relief effort for
displaced people occurs within local communities. Thousands of refugees are
camping along the border with Thailand, which is defined by rivers. Initially,
many people fled into Thailand, but terrible conditions in refugee
(14:49):
camps led some of them to return to my and Mar.
Now they wade across the river for international aid donations
of food and water, but they can't bring themselves to
stay in the crowded camps overnight, so they wave back
to sleep on the Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR,
the High Commission on Refugees, it's been unable to access
camps in Thailand or My and Ma to check on
(15:11):
the conditions, but it has urged the Thaire government, which
has been incredibly accused of forcing people back across the border,
to move people to better conditions further into Thailand instead
of keeping them in camps near the border. And here
we find the unfortunate, unavoidable reality of the civil war
in Mi and Ma. For all the uniqueness of aspects
of the conflict, the innovative ways gen Z militias have
(15:33):
interfaced with older ethnic military forces, the three D printed arms,
et cetera, at the end of the day, this is
another brutal, horrific conflict between large numbers of people who
want to be free and a small number of people
who want to control them. From me and mar to
our media, Ukraine to Syria, Ethiopia, through Iraq and beyond.
(15:53):
The novelties are twenty one century conflict don't change the
fact that, at the end of the day, each war
brings with it might be the truest symbol of our
current age. Parents saying goodbye to their kids, camps field
with deathperate people fleeing violence, and government's all over the
world willing to send nothing more than kind words and
to stern warnings. This is a PostScript, Episode four. It's
(16:18):
not one that we've been intending to record, because it's
not news that we'd ever hoped to have to share,
But here we are. Unfortunately, we found out that about
ten days after we last spoken, a couple of weeks
before we released our podcast. Zor died, and he died
(16:38):
in battle fighting with the top my door. He's really was,
I suppose, an amazingly brave and courageous young man. And Um,
I think that his loss is one that reflects the
realities of of what war is, which is not great
(17:02):
and glorious and exciting. It's young men and sometimes young women, uh,
young non binary folks. I imagine too, um dying when
they had no quarrel with anyone, when they just wanted
to live their lives. Two years ago, a year and
a half ago, even he was just loving the people,
(17:24):
he loved, having fun, being a kid, riding his motorcycle,
speaking to his girlfriend on his phone, living a happy life.
And then someone who had power decided that they wanted
to have more power, and they decided that it didn't
matter how many kids had to die so they could
have what they want. And he decided to say no
(17:47):
to that, And that's brave. And I think all of
us would agree that what he did was right and
morally courageous, and that that we would hope to be
brave enough to do the same of this anything happened
to us. This one's hit me quite hard. Honestly, I
know this is my job, and it's happens that it's
(18:08):
happened before and it will happen again. But he was
such a happy, polite, kind young man. He never didn't
pick up the phone, He never got tired of explaining
stuff that we didn't understand, and he always answered our questions.
There was nothing that was off the table, there was
(18:28):
nothing that he wouldn't talk about with us. He was
completely open, And yeah, we will miss him greatly. He
died fighting the thing that we all have to fight, right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, militarization,
and yeah, we'll will grieve his loss. Both Robert and I.
(18:54):
We've just spoken on the phone, and we found out
because the contact of mine on the ground sent a
Reddit message with a link to a Facebook post and
it's very clearly zorin no doubt about that. It names him,
and unfortunately it also shows him dead. So we were
not in any doubt that it was him who died,
(19:17):
and we're not in any doubt that we will gravely
miss him either. We both hoped to go over and
record with him, to speak with him, to meet him.
I've spoken to him several times on video sometimes just
to chat, not even to to record anything, just just
to chat, just to catch up and and and look
(19:37):
at what each of us was doing that day. So
it's a hard loss for me and for Robert will
As I said, we've just spoken, um, so yeah, that's
the news that we hadn't hoped to end on. Obviously, though,
this is the reality of war. And as the world
(19:57):
is looking at the conflict in Ukraine now i'd urge
you too to look at the conflict in Myanmar to
another Russian bomb killed another nice kid who never had
any quarrel with anyone, who just wanted to live his life,
and I didn't want to live the rest of his
life with a boot on his neck, and so he
(20:18):
decided to stand up against it. As you can probably
hear my voice, I'm quite upset bye by his loss,
and will be probably for a few days. So I'm
sorry to have to end this podcast on such a
sad note. I'm sorry for his family who are now
(20:39):
caught between the loss of their son and trying to
protect their daughters. I'm sorry for his girlfriend who's dealing
with shrapnel in her own leg, and now the loss
of the person she loved, and I'm sorry for his comrades.
And they've said they'll go on fighting, and I hope
they do. And I don't think there's any point really
(21:00):
pretending to be objective at this stage in the games,
and I hope they win, um, but I mostly just
hope that like one day, young men and women and
everyone else just gets to live their lives without having
to kill and die, because ultimately, no one should have
(21:22):
to and no parents should have to bury their kids.
So yeah, as much as we're all focusing on Ukraine
and what's happening there is terrible, Please don't forget Zora's comrades,
Please don't forget his legacy, and please don't forget him.
We won't and we obviously want to dedicate this podcast
to him and what he stood for. So yeah, thanks.
(21:52):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zone media dot com, or check us out on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could
Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com
slash sources. Thanks for listening,
I'm Robert Evans, and this is part four of me
and mar printing the revolution. And then once we got there,
we couldn't rest, you know, reign side whatever. Women as well,
and we were all like try when they came when
we were leaving, they were all like very fair skin beautiful.
And then we went in and then everyone got tanned.
(00:27):
In the jungle. We're training all the time, you know,
people in training camp. We were driven with the part
and the reason that we were all doing this is
because of Man nine coup as students and how much
he has terrorized the public and the people. And that's
why we were We have this morale and the ability
to get through the training and be able to wield weapons.
(00:51):
Zor and his friends went into the jungleist students, programmers
and kids. Now the fight is they would tech savvy
young people. He says, they grew up online and that
generational divide was the Internet brought here came much later
in Mima. It wasn't until twenty eleven the people really
gained accurcity the Internet and with it the new ideas
(01:13):
and identities that it brought. Those generations are among the
first to embrace global connectivity. And now after having it
taken away, they're refusing to give it up. The start
of the coup in February, the military, well, gen Z
was organizing online social media and all that so, and
they were kind of I think this is from my experience,
(01:36):
but um kind of organizing around like gen Z is
going to be different than the generation because we have
the Internet, and also we know more about the world
and can come communicate to the rest of the world.
I think one thing that was big was that in
two thousand eight, it just took one video leaking out
(01:57):
of the country for there to be big international repercussions.
It's worth noting that when people in Burma talk about
the Internet, they mean Facebook. Phones come with the Facebook
app installed and it's sometimes exempt from data charges. For
many people in Burma, using the Internet means using Facebook.
(02:17):
Zor and his friends are different from their parents in
many ways, not at least in their perceptions of authority.
This has led to a situation where the PDF people's
defense force units are much less hierarchical than units of
the tamaid or. So when we make decisions in our group,
there's no master and student, there's no teacher and student.
(02:38):
But you know the way that it works. There are
people who are good, they're older, people who are more trained,
and then their new recruits, new people who just came in.
So of course the people who were there for longer
and know more about situation have more voice. And when
we discussed so especially people who were there when we
(02:59):
founded the groups. There are only really eight people from
when we group. So those eight people kind of discussed
on the bigger strategy. You know, we don't really vote there.
He says he wants to do it. He thinks it's good.
We are there's the seven of us we think is good,
(03:20):
or we support him, or someone says, well, we don't
really like that idea, then we don't do it. They
try to achieve more gender quality as well. There's your
explained that in his unit the women are not always
the frontline fight is that's the place there's no discrimination.
You know, women can women and men were training whoever
could try. But like on the battlefield, people, we don't
(03:46):
use women that much on the battlefield. That's one thing
that we do know is that it's not it's not
really discrimination. But if women are with us together, we
have a confusion about whether we need to protect them,
or they're just fighting with with them, or they're fighting
in front of us. And that there's one thing that
(04:10):
is very different is that in terms of mentality, we
we can't. We never take the women out really far
into very dangerous fights. So often they're in the back,
gets back up or two supplies or things like that.
(04:31):
But as you know, the military government, the military terroristists
are very very uh, it's very unethical. They don't follow
the rules, so you know, they're gonna shoot wherever they see.
So even if they're hanging back and they're sending medical
supplies there, they can still get hit for Zor in particular.
There's a lot at stake. After almost an hour and
(04:51):
a half of talking, I asked about his parents. I've
heard of retribution attacks against the families of fighters and
wondered if he was worried about that. So Mom and
that are both they support me fighting against the military.
They're very happy. Is that really wants to do c
d M. But he can't run away because the military
(05:15):
has taken his uh mother and his sisters. He's still
has five sisters. They're all still in that military command
and they're worked there in the military stool schools, so
it's very hard for them to run away, right, So
he really wants to leave the military, but he can't.
(05:36):
So well, so that the fact that I am they're
trying to fight against the military. He's very happy, and
but he tells me to be careful about my own life.
They're supportive and they really want to come fight themselves,
but they can't because of my sisters and my mother.
So in seeing that I can do it, it's really
(05:59):
wonderful for them. So his father, his other brother and
other people are three of them below him. They have
all usually just lived together with his grandfather and stuff
in the military trumpounds or near the military. So he
really wants to call all the people that are still there,
(06:20):
but they can't leave. This is what civil ward does.
Trapped us in a situation where we can't make the
right choice even when we know what it is, and
in many situations it's pretty hard to discern right from
wrong in the midst of so much violence. This all
has been able to fight, but his dad is stuck
fighting against people like his son in order to protect
(06:41):
his daughters. Thousands of families across the country divided in
the same way by circumstance or ideology. The military is
something of a separate society, has its own schools in
its own culture, but ethnic arms organizations have not been
close to Oban populations either, and so whole new identities
of being forged by generation z while their families often
(07:03):
struggle to abandon all certainties. As we record this, Zaw
is still fighting, his girlfriend is still healing. Every few
weeks a video of him and his friends pops up
on redditor Facebook. They have optics on their rifles now
(07:25):
and are taking long range shots at the Top Medal
who rely on iron sights. They shoot and reload like soldiers,
and they laugh like kids. The Topmadaw still controls the cities,
but to move between them they have to travel in
convoys at breakneck speeds using ambushes, mines and knowledge of
the terrain. E A O S and the PDF are
able to deny the military access to large portions of
(07:47):
the countryside. Without a serious change in the conflict, it
might stay like this for years. A report published this
month detailed the attacks in the Karini State by the
Topmadah on churches, residential homes, camps were displaced people, which
killed sixty one and the months since Saw left the city.
On Christmas Eve in Prusso's township, they killed at least
(08:07):
forty civilians. Autopsy show some were gagged and burned alive.
In recent months, the TOTMADA has increased its use of
air strikes against targets that it deems legitimate. Ming Anhlang,
the junta's leader, flew to Russia twice. In one he
was proclaimed an honorary professor of the Military University of
the Russian Armed Forces. Quote. We are determined to continue
(08:30):
our efforts to strengthen bilateral ties based on the mutual understanding, respect,
and trust that have been established between our two countries,
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with
the coup leader on June twenty two. We pay special
attention to this meeting as we see mean Mar as
a time tested strategic partner and a reliable ally in
Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific region. He went on.
(08:52):
Min On Hlang was equally lavish with his praise, saying
that he saw Russia as a friend forever. Meanwar relies
heavily on Russi and hind In my thirty five helicopter gunships,
transport helicopters Mid twenty nine and s U thirty fighter
jets and Yak one thirty ground attack aircraft to carry
out bombing raids and strafe civilians. All of these weapons
(09:13):
systems have been seen more recently in the fighting in Ukraine.
One prominent Burmese Irish family, the Kiyotongs, has helped the
junta avoid an international arms embargo using their global connections
and a network of shady shadow companies. They have purchased
helicopters under the pretense of using them for tourism and
the oil and gas industry, and handed them over to
(09:33):
the top Meadaw. They've also helped shuttle coastal radar to
me Anmar, which the Topmadal used to track Rohinga refugees
and provide cover for several aircraft purchases. To fund these
arms purchases, the Totmadah has found willing markets for luxury
goods abroad. According to Justice for Menmar, since the coup
in February, the United States has imported fifteen hundred and
(09:55):
sixty five metric tons of teak from the Anmar using
intermediaries to avoid saying actions, and the two seventeen two
eighteen financial year, the last year for which data is available,
the government received one hundred million US dollars in revenue
from taxes and royalties applied to the timber tradee there
were more shipments than two thousand eighteen, offering the top
(10:15):
medal the chance to make enough money to continue purchasing
weapons to use against their population. The conflict in me
and Mar remains complicated. It's easy to reduce the alphabet
soup of rebel groups to E, A, O, S and
the PDF, but these groups and their motivations are diverse.
Pierre explained to us that even within the Kuran there
are deep divisions. Well, first, you have to know that
(10:36):
historically the Karen rebellion that started in nineteen forty eight nineteen,
so quite a long time ago, was led by by
Christian the Christian minority, okay, of the of the talent
people because obviously that was the most Western educated people
(11:00):
um at the time. And so this elite kind of
reproduced itself in the canoe. Who is out being the
canoe is the current National Union is a democratic movement.
But you know, our elites tend to reproduce themselves, and
(11:23):
so most of the leadership, let's say, of the Karen
National Union and the current National Liberation Army was christian like.
And so the Burmese Junta, the Burmese military government, decided
(11:48):
to use this to create a wedge between between the
Karen Christians and the Karen Buddhists UH and the center
monkst to say, agitate and try to cause this split
on the religious grounds no UH. And they succeeded in
(12:10):
parts and succeeded to to separate a part of Karen
Buddhists that created the Democratic Karen Buddhists. The army, which
then allied themselves of course to the to the junta
and to UH to attack the to attack the kind
(12:36):
of and the manor of Plow, which of course they
knew all the all the holes there on the defenses
and where was the defense is situated, et cetera, and
succeeded in destroying the capital of the of the Karen
National Union in Manaplow in ninety five. So that was
the situation pretty much when I arrived. It was the
(13:00):
pretia like UH. There was not so much territory anymore
held by the Callen, and most more importantly they lost
a lot of income because a lot of their income
comes from a tax at the border that control you know.
(13:21):
Uh so, yeah, that was a situation. Not every e
a O has embraced the National Unity Government directly, after all,
many of its members were enthusiastically running cover for the
Rohinga genocide a few years ago. Many of the e
a O s remain technically under a ceasefire with the
top Medal, and the top medon knows that if it
pushes too far into e AO territory, it risks provoking
(13:44):
a full blown response. The e a O s, meanwhile,
have been aiding and training the PDF and still maintaining
enough deniability that the top Medal has not been forced
into a confrontation. E a O PDF alliances look different
in different regions and often realities on the ground a
little relationship to the back door diplomacy and official stances
embraced by leadership and public. The war continues to have
(14:06):
a huge toll on civilians. According to the United Nations,
in total, some four hundred and forty thou people have
been newly displaced since the coup happened in February one,
adding to an existing three hundred and seventy thousand who
had fled their homes from earlier waves of violence, and
over a million people who had fled the Regina genocide.
(14:27):
More than half the population of Corenni State has fled.
Humanitarian access is hard. Much of the relief effort for
displaced people occurs within local communities. Thousands of refugees are
camping along the border with Thailand, which is defined by rivers. Initially,
many people fled into Thailand, but terrible conditions in refugee
(14:49):
camps led some of them to return to my and Mar.
Now they wade across the river for international aid donations
of food and water, but they can't bring themselves to
stay in the crowded camps overnight, so they wave back
to sleep on the Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR,
the High Commission on Refugees, it's been unable to access
camps in Thailand or My and Ma to check on
(15:11):
the conditions, but it has urged the Thaire government, which
has been incredibly accused of forcing people back across the border,
to move people to better conditions further into Thailand instead
of keeping them in camps near the border. And here
we find the unfortunate, unavoidable reality of the civil war
in Mi and Ma. For all the uniqueness of aspects
of the conflict, the innovative ways gen Z militias have
(15:33):
interfaced with older ethnic military forces, the three D printed arms,
et cetera, at the end of the day, this is
another brutal, horrific conflict between large numbers of people who
want to be free and a small number of people
who want to control them. From me and mar to
our media, Ukraine to Syria, Ethiopia, through Iraq and beyond.
(15:53):
The novelties are twenty one century conflict don't change the
fact that, at the end of the day, each war
brings with it might be the truest symbol of our
current age. Parents saying goodbye to their kids, camps field
with deathperate people fleeing violence, and government's all over the
world willing to send nothing more than kind words and
to stern warnings. This is a PostScript, Episode four. It's
(16:18):
not one that we've been intending to record, because it's
not news that we'd ever hoped to have to share,
But here we are. Unfortunately, we found out that about
ten days after we last spoken, a couple of weeks
before we released our podcast. Zor died, and he died
(16:38):
in battle fighting with the top my door. He's really was,
I suppose, an amazingly brave and courageous young man. And Um,
I think that his loss is one that reflects the
realities of of what war is, which is not great
(17:02):
and glorious and exciting. It's young men and sometimes young women, uh,
young non binary folks. I imagine too, um dying when
they had no quarrel with anyone, when they just wanted
to live their lives. Two years ago, a year and
a half ago, even he was just loving the people,
(17:24):
he loved, having fun, being a kid, riding his motorcycle,
speaking to his girlfriend on his phone, living a happy life.
And then someone who had power decided that they wanted
to have more power, and they decided that it didn't
matter how many kids had to die so they could
have what they want. And he decided to say no
(17:47):
to that, And that's brave. And I think all of
us would agree that what he did was right and
morally courageous, and that that we would hope to be
brave enough to do the same of this anything happened
to us. This one's hit me quite hard. Honestly, I
know this is my job, and it's happens that it's
(18:08):
happened before and it will happen again. But he was
such a happy, polite, kind young man. He never didn't
pick up the phone, He never got tired of explaining
stuff that we didn't understand, and he always answered our questions.
There was nothing that was off the table, there was
(18:28):
nothing that he wouldn't talk about with us. He was
completely open, And yeah, we will miss him greatly. He
died fighting the thing that we all have to fight, right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, militarization,
and yeah, we'll will grieve his loss. Both Robert and I.
(18:54):
We've just spoken on the phone, and we found out
because the contact of mine on the ground sent a
Reddit message with a link to a Facebook post and
it's very clearly zorin no doubt about that. It names him,
and unfortunately it also shows him dead. So we were
not in any doubt that it was him who died,
(19:17):
and we're not in any doubt that we will gravely
miss him either. We both hoped to go over and
record with him, to speak with him, to meet him.
I've spoken to him several times on video sometimes just
to chat, not even to to record anything, just just
to chat, just to catch up and and and look
(19:37):
at what each of us was doing that day. So
it's a hard loss for me and for Robert will
As I said, we've just spoken, um, so yeah, that's
the news that we hadn't hoped to end on. Obviously, though,
this is the reality of war. And as the world
(19:57):
is looking at the conflict in Ukraine now i'd urge
you too to look at the conflict in Myanmar to
another Russian bomb killed another nice kid who never had
any quarrel with anyone, who just wanted to live his life,
and I didn't want to live the rest of his
life with a boot on his neck, and so he
(20:18):
decided to stand up against it. As you can probably
hear my voice, I'm quite upset bye by his loss,
and will be probably for a few days. So I'm
sorry to have to end this podcast on such a
sad note. I'm sorry for his family who are now
(20:39):
caught between the loss of their son and trying to
protect their daughters. I'm sorry for his girlfriend who's dealing
with shrapnel in her own leg, and now the loss
of the person she loved, and I'm sorry for his comrades.
And they've said they'll go on fighting, and I hope
they do. And I don't think there's any point really
(21:00):
pretending to be objective at this stage in the games,
and I hope they win, um, but I mostly just
hope that like one day, young men and women and
everyone else just gets to live their lives without having
to kill and die, because ultimately, no one should have
(21:22):
to and no parents should have to bury their kids.
So yeah, as much as we're all focusing on Ukraine
and what's happening there is terrible, Please don't forget Zora's comrades,
Please don't forget his legacy, and please don't forget him.
We won't and we obviously want to dedicate this podcast
to him and what he stood for. So yeah, thanks.
(21:52):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zone media dot com, or check us out on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could
Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com
slash sources. Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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