It Could Happen Here Weekly 59

They were met with police violence on a massive scale. Shootings, vehicle attacks, and assassinations occurred alongside these protests, often in defense of the police, and in total, at least twenty five Americans died. We now know that President Trump repeatedly urged General Mark Milly to deploy U S military forces to crack down violently on demonstrations. Milly claims that Trump told him to have his soldiers cracked skulls, beat the funk out of and just shoot protesters. In the end,

we were all lucky. Military leaders, including General Milly, resisted calls to use their men to suppress domestic descent. National Guard were called in to police several major cities, but in many cases their behavior was tame compared to the militarized police who were reliably shot and beat protesters. For millions of Americans, twenty twenty was their first exposure to the violence the state will do to avoid change. And

then Trump lost the election. He and his followers tried to carry out a coup but failed for now and millions of Americans who'd take into the streets mostly went back to their lives. Some were satisfied justice had been done, others were furious to have stopped short of instituting real change, But at the end of the day, business went on as usual. A version of normal prevailed. In twenty twenty one, the military of Myanmar, known as the Totmadau, overthrew the

elected government in a coup. Hundreds of thousands of citizens, most of them young, gin zy and millennial men and women, took to the streets. Police responded with tear gas, water cannons, and eventually bullets. The international community expressed its horror at the brutality of the Totmadau, but that's all they did. Over the course of several months, the military pushed protesters, mostly out of the cities and a protest movement against

the military coup turned into a civil war. Now those same protesters, mostly kids who wanted nothing more than a normal life, have become revolutionaries. With home made guns, three D printed rockets, and stolen rifles. They battled the Totmadau. Some of them fight in the jungles, some of them fight in the cities, and some of them fight on

the internet. This is their story. We're sitting in a large suburban home in my Sought, Thailand, a small city on the border of me An Mar. The boys singing and playing music around us range an age from seventeen to twenty two. Their existence in Thailand is a crime. If they are caught here, they'll be forced to cross the border into my an Mar, whose government executed their friends and sold the organs for profit. But tonight they're

playing music. We're drinking beer. Later, James Stout and I will play pool with them and get our asses just catastrophically wrecked. We met Andy, aged two and head of the family. For his Instagram page, that's only real name,

but for obvious reasons, we can't identify him. We first met when I sent him at d m asking we could buy one of his photos for our first series on Me and mar He was a bit skeptical, but I tried my best to get him to see we just wanted to give him money and promote his work. Over the next six months or so, we weren't from talking on the phone own to messaging almost every day, to Robert and I booking tickets to Thailand, to sitting

on the top floor of their house. It used to be his landlord's office, but now it's home to Andy and his partner Sarah. That's also not her real name, because she's a citizen of a Western nation working in Thailand. The boys we talk about are brothers, his cousin and friends. They live at a small building across the garden, and in the daytime they sit under a gazeeba and play their guitars. The first night we met Andy and Sarah,

we sat behind a barn an unpaved alleyway. We drank beer out of sippy cups because selling beer is still banned at the local COVID regulations, but apparently the cops don't check sippy cups. We drank far too much, in fact, and the next day I work up with a headache and a blurry photo of me, Robert and Andy engaged in a pose which was half hug and half mutual support structure. We walked home and according to my phone, at some point we took photos of a puppy and

and hopefully unrelated incident. At some point I started leading. It was immediately obvious that Andy needed the chance to blow off some steam over the last year and change, he is chronicled every stage of the coup in its aftermath. In early videos we see joyous protests, moments of resistance, and splendor in the streets of cities like me Awiti.

Later we see violence, death, and guerrilla warfare. And he didn't have what you would call an easy childhood, thanks in part to me and mas long history of revolutions being crushed by the army. People there, like people everywhere, want to be free and determine their own futures, and so each generation has its own uprising, and each generation has its own massacre and very little progress to show for it. I was born in two thou so Um. When I was seven seven, there was a revolution. It's

called Staffron revolution. It wasn't it wasn't like this you know, it wasn't like what happened now, but like there were a lot of people that were involved in it, a lot of people that killed. A lot of people left Myanmar and came to the refugee counts in here, and we were one of the families that came to the refugee counts. Um And Andy's mother is Buma, the dominant ethnic group in Myanmar due to their decades long control

of the military and government. His father is Karin, the ethnic group once used by the British government as soldiers. Since nineteen forty nine, the Karin have fought a war in the mountains against the Top Medal. Their name is often anglicized to be spelled just like the English name Karen, which, given present Internet trends, makes explaining the conflict sometimes awkward. Andy primarily identifies as and was raised Mamma. His family left after the Saffron Revolution. They did not flee to

escape political repression, but because the economy had collapsed. This put them in an awkward position in the camps, which were filled mostly with Karin people who had fled state violence. We weren't refugees, right, We were more like how do you say, like economic refugees. You know, we go because not because our village has been burned down and our family has been killed. You know. So then if we were to go back to Yangon, we still could find

a job, We still could find you know. Um, but then for these current people, like this place is the only place that they could exist at that moment, right and probably still now too. So yeah, so they said that, but that that education wasn't very good there. There's the life wasn't good, you know, it wasn't It wasn't. It

was very bad. Honestly, it was very bad. It was a lot of violence, a lot of hate, a lot of understandable you know, like these people have gone through so much ship and so much trauma that and nothing, no one is coming there to fix that. So they had a lot of anger, They had a lot of problems. Um, but my my mom said, yeah, we're going back because the education here is very bad. And if you go back to Nama, at least, you know, if you do

like the thing that people do, maybe you'll get somewhere. Yeah, in the future. Here there's no future. So she said, so we went back. Um, I was stay in your mar for like four years, Andy had never been very political. His family was more or less neutral, tending to side with the military more often than not out of a sense of inertia. Me and mar attended to cartwheel between

attempts at democracy and military dictatorship. So when the world media celebrated their first democratic elections in twenty five years, Andy was not particularly excited. Yeah, so, I mean, we we did realize that there was a change in the country, right because we grew up in the military to take your ship. But then when intensity take over took over, there were some changes, like the phones got cheaper, the internet got cheaper, and if you look back then you

can see big, big changes. But the thing is, it was never real democracy, and I think a lot of people in the Western countries thought that it was democracy when all Sensorgi took over. On Song Suchi came to prominence during a nineteen eighty eight uprising against the military, which ended in bloodshed in the streets of Yangon, and she'd been a long time democratic activist. As Andy noted, westerners celebrated her election as the first democratic head of

state for Myanmar. She even won a Nobel Prize, but the agreement her party had made with the military gave

the general significant permanent control over the government. But I think most of the people in the country knew it wasn't real democracy because you know, the military always had twenty five seats in the parliament, right like they were always they were in charge of electricity, entered, all these all these big things that weapons army, like the military itself, they are in charge of all these things, and they make it very clear, and even with a Nobel prize

on song SUCHI did not fight to stop the top Mada from pursuing their decades long wars against the ethnic armed organizations in the Hills, nor did she act to stop their ethnic cleansing of the Rohinga people. In act, she and others in her party didn't even call them Rohinga. They called them Bengali and insisted they were illegally residing in Myanmar, despite mountains of evidence documenting a group by that name living in what is now the Rocking State.

I think most Americans and Westerners in general can empathize with the feeling of electing someone who promises change and then getting very little of what you'd expected. I think all Sensuchi used to be this hope that that was

like the opposition against the military. But I think when she got powered, um, she couldn't do all the things that she promised to do or like you know, we we looked at her before, we looked at her as something, you know, something hope for everyone for you know, for all the ethnic groups and for everyone in the country. But then when she became empowered, she mainly focus all

these changes for the Bama people. Well, you know, the more the mainland people, like the military, Tree was still fucking killing people and killing athnic groups, they did they do something, you know, like, so then for the athnic groups, what's the difference? And so while Andy was hopeful that his country might take a better path, he was not exactly convinced that things were going to get better. Conflict within his family eventually pushed him to make the decision

to leave. My dad was very abusive. He would be the ship out of my mom every day like that. It was fine, Like it was fine when when we were younger, we couldn't do anything, you know, we just kind of watched it, right, But the older we got, the more we involved, the more we try to stop it. Um. But then we were fight with him too, you know, and that so at some point it became too much, and so I left my home I think in two six, just by myself, and I was like, I've been to Massa.

I will go back here, you know. So Andy lived across the border on his own for more than five years. He'd fallen in love, gotten a home with his own and set himself up in the sort of odd jobs you can do without papers or legal residency, and that's where things were for him. When the Topmadu carried out their coup in early two thousand one, February one, I was a mess. D I was here and yeah, in the morning, I woke up, called me my girlfriend and as she said, the military just did a coup in

your country, you should call your family. The military claimed voter fraud and used that as the pretext to stay in power. It's a situation that should be unsettlingly familiar to most of our audience. For a while, Safe and Masat Andy watched it in horror as he texted with friends and family across the border. The arrest alsen Sugi in all the big leaders right at the top. So we were kind of like, okay, is someone going to tell us what to do, and especially for us, we

didn't have any experiences. We didn't know anything about any of this that I'm talking about right now, I didn't have any knowledge of that. But yeah, So after I think six day, the military cut off the internet like for like two days, and I've lost all contact with everyone inside my family, my friends. And that's the night I started playing it, like, I started thinking, funk, I should go back and like and I saw the protest photos from yeng On. They looked amazing, right, and I'm like,

I'm a photographer. I should be there and you know, document that. While Andy was staring at the protest photo it's from the capital of Myanmar, napid Or, as well as Meality and the largest city, Yang Gone wondering if you should take his camera and document yet another rising for democracy in his home country. A young woman named a Mirror was in the thick of those protests and yeng Gone when the coup started. A Mirror, aged seventeen,

had just finished high school. She was looking forward to university and more oppressingly, looking forward to playing footsore with their friends. She'd like to spend a day's crafting. She says, making little things to gift or to keep, like every other day. When she woke up, she spent ten minutes in medication before facing the world on the first of February. Long Sam Suki was her hero, she says. In our view, her boyfriend translated for her. We'll get to their story later.

But when the Cube began, they lived a world apart. They joined the whole generation in feeling in rage. But Tapma door trying to rip the freedom their parents had fought for from them. A mirror took her rage into the street. Someone gave her a bullhorn because of her wife, and then she became the leader, you know with the bullhorn. Yeah, what kind of stuff would you say to the ball through the bullhorn? Helloa, you don't want you do? Oh, she's saying, uh, this is and fell and then uh

this is what? Oh that the erastian that ar Sansoti is a and fell not fair? Okay okay, yeah. And then and then she believed that, uh, she believed in what the sense she said, like everything is possible, and we haven't do anything, we haven't studied yet, and then but when we study it, and then we can finish it. So everything is possible. So so that's what she believed in. So she she went on the road and then she

put us across the city from a mirror. On co Dayak's girlfriend woke him up with the news that the government they had voted for had been arrested. We're calling him Yak here because that's his name. In the revolution, everyone has one. A mirror is his baby, because she's so young yet so fierce. Yeah, if you're wondering, means monkey.

These revolutionaries who have risked life and limb for each other, didn't know the legal names of the people they call their revolution family because it's safer that way, and we don't either. Miall could spend the night. Well, I'll let you hear Harry Phraset. Actually, I was just like I was chilling with my scare friend, you know, our tailing and we were you know, you know, Neflis and Chay like one in January Neflist and I think it's a Sunday.

I think it's Sunday. Nele and Chay we sleep together. If you didn't catch that they were Netflix and chilling, you know, I was literally no wake up but any louder show. I was so sleep but but at the four a m. There's a phone rains and I suddenly wake up. That's phone ring from my carel friend. How Angie called ca call call hat and she said there's a cool defeat. Oh and she wake up and she told me there's a cool And then you know, I don't believe it. I believe it. I didn't believe it.

So other time I chaed the social media. Oh ship, may I'll actually do this. I'm so angry and I'm so angry, you know. I was boord the doll down there and told to my family, there's a good of the everyone's angry at those things that the internet they cut off. The next revolutionary were going to mean, it's a fellow. Will call doctor Wonder because that's his revolution name. When the coup started, he was just waking up after a twenty four hour shift at the hospital and Yangon

where he worked. Doctors were some of the earliest and most visible dissidents in the protest. Their rarity and therefore their relative value to the regime made them oppotent symbol of the pro democracy movement. But as doctor Wondered me clear, many older medical professionals and not at all certain that resistance was the right move here at the morning, I saw the news that bad really really bad news for us. How could I say that? Ah name bro you know, yeah,

Dad broke our future. Doctors were some of the earliest most visible dissidents the pro democracy protests. Their rarity and relative value to the regime made them a potent symbol of the pro democracy movement, But as doctor Wonder made clear, many older medical professionals were not at all certain that

resistance was a right move. On that money, we go back to our h I also said our hospital we are send that you know or professors or concerntors did not much interest about that be whilst they told us, um, you know whoever rules our campee, this is not our business. This is one of our seniors doctors from our society for our department pool us like that. But we reply him, no, this should be the last time. You didn't catch that? He said, it should be the last time, the last

time kids had to die in the streets. They didn't want another generation to have to go through the same thing, so they got together a proposal, a sort of manifesto for peaceful, non violent resistance, and they submitted it to their seniors. We negotiated with our ship, you know, young resident, our society, and we discussed about that and we plan to start with our one of our prior movement before say that disagreement. We have got a rep one movement

because we want to try peacefully on the media. Okay, We started like that and then uh, some of our seniors from our society, they were from mentally hospital. Okay, they accept our propos yes, because our generation has already passed that difficulties before, but not your generation shouldn't accept that. Three days before the queue, t K got off a plane in San Francisco. He's from Myanmar, but he lives

in the Bay Area. Now before you ask, he says that the Burmese restaurant there is not as good as stuff back home. It's only three days three days before, three days before I went back to the to the United States, and I wish I'm would stay in a young ol and a doing the revolution and I participate in a everywhere that I can, but that I couldn't do from the from the loud distance, you know. So so that's all I can do for now. T K had just been in Mianma. He had connections to many

people on the ground there. His friends were there, his family were there. When the government cut off internet access, he remained able to get good international reporting on the situation in his home country. Slowly he found ways to communicate with his friends and a growing core of the protesters taking to the streets. I was a keyboard fighter. I have no idea about the politics. I have no

idea about the military stuff. This is a single most common sentiment we've heard across all the revolution we've met. None of them considered themselves to be very political prior to the coupe. They started marching in the street because the military coup was obviously bad, but they stayed there because the violence dished out by the state was so horrific. Safe at the house in Maso, we talked to the boys and his brothers and cousins, all of whom were

living in Napidor. When the cook kicked off, it didn't take him long to try and join them. Then I went in. I went to Maality, which is across the border in ther marside Um, and I was there for a week and it was it was something else like I've never been to protest now I've never been involved in any of this thing, and I never thought I would be, you know, like I I don't know. I always thought like I wasn't going to be a part

of it. But when I went there the first day, I write there were two thousand people on the street protesting. And then it's like, and this big group of people walk in streets after street and everyone coming out of their house and we have this symbol like three fingers from Hangar game. I think, um, yeah, so that's like our symbol for democracy now, our our our movement now. And everyone come out of their house doing that, and you know, like giving us water, food, everything. It was beautiful,

like it was. It was something else. It was something else. And then from that day I was like hook, I was like, Okay, this is what I'm gonna do. Now. I'm gonna be a photographer and I'm gonna in this, you know, and I'm gonna I'm gonna take photo of these people and their stories and I'm going to share it and that's that's my part, that's my rule. Soon he found friends among the protesters. Within a few days, he was feeling a feeling that so many people felt

in It's a eat you felt. If you've ever been in the thick of a crowd of people filled with righteous anger and facing down overwhelmed police or soldiers, it's a sensation. I can't really described you you haven't experienced it, but I can say that there's no time that I've ever felt more empowered than the times I've been crushed shoulders shoulder with strangers, toe to toe with state violence,

and watch cops break and retreat. It's incredible. It's addictive, and if I'm honest, it's probably why Robert and I booked a flight to visit a stranger. I've been dem ng on the grand Um. I think after three days, I met this group of people, young people, like students trying to be lawyers and so, and I figured out that they were the ones trying to organize these big protests, like two people, a hundred thousand people. They were the

ones that's making that happen. So I started kind of following them, trying to get close because I wanted to get stories from them. Um. And then they became they and they realized what I've been doing. They've been watching like and so they were like very welcome, and they took me to this hide out that they go to, and then we will have discussions and meetings about what we should do the next day. Da da da um.

But then it's because it's a small town. Right. Slowly, I think police and military started realizing that we are that group too young. Oh, Demo crazy died word very much. Oh so by now you're probably wondering what that cover of dust in the window. It's a song the boys learned when we first took to the streets. But it tells the story of a previous revelation, one that didn't succeed. Can you tell us with that? Songs about like you know what the lyrics are and stuff and everything. Yeah,

we can try. I heard the word democracy in there. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it's like all that were lost in fighting for democracy. Yeah. The people use it for the Spring Revolution as well as because tell the World, and that's the name of the song. Tell the World is cool, Yeah, I till the world. So basically the song is like, yeah, they sang it in the back in the AD eight and then it's like we used

it quite a lot when we were in the protest too. Um. Yeah, the laris are We'll keep fighting until the end of the world. For the sake of history and revolution in our blood and of the fallen heroes who fought for the democracy. Um oh, our DearS heroes. This is the lend of like heroes. M hmm. Yeah, and yeah it goes on and then m yeah, basically saying like something like the history went wrong along the way, but we

have to fix it. Yeah, like the country has shuttis blood and how could they commit such violence to its own people, you know, um yeah, and yeah, like they say, like the blood on the rose and the streets are not dried yet. Um. And for the sake of these people who have die for the democracy, for fighting for democracy, for the sake of them, we have to keep fighting basically. Yeah.

Now in their exile, they keep singing it to remember the first day of the revolution, when the fights are in the street, not the jungle, before they lost so many of their comrades. And then that was a night protest in front of the police. Issue candy. Oh, this is they're singing the song that the sing Yeah, I got very very heated. The protests our friends were just talking about occurred in reality, but the song popped up all across the country when you played it and young

you will sing it? Yeah, there they and yeah, it was in one guitar. It was a whole band, like will you have like protesters sitting down and then there's a group of people who are playing this and repeatedly there are a bunch of songs that will play. And then there was like words that we would say and yeah, so getting myself, yeah, being down and you'll see from the footage, Oh yeah it's yeah. Yeah, how does it make you feel seeing the game now? It's scary, you know,

it's like this song is very real. So like at first, um, um, we didn't want to play the song. It's too dark, it's too um it's too intense, right yeah, like yeah, but it's not like the levers are they're like you can see it, you know. It's like because we've don't we've been through it too, so it's very intense. And yeah, I think the first time I heard it, like I heard the song, I remember that we were few and of yeah, I still have it like every time we're

saying it now. This is not one of the songs that we usually say. It's not a fun song. Yeah, bo video must Room Wait the more crazy died word. On the next episode, which you'll be able to download tomorrow, we'll talk about how the Hunter began to clamp down on the protests. Now the protesters decided this struggle was too important to abandon and decided to fight back. Oh Like many people in my amber, the boys weren't usually political before the protest, but what they saw in the

street to change them. This wasn't about the minor disagreement between two parties. It was about fighting for the right to live their lives without a boot. On their next election, had delivered victory to Asan Suki's National League for Democracy and delivered a resounding vote of no confidence in the political arm of the top of the door, the nation's military. It's worth noting here that yes, we are compressing some

complex things. The elections weren't perfect, and people in areas that were largely non Berman tend not to support the NLD. The NLD had failed to prevent a genocide, but in the country that was well accustomed to harsh military rule, there remained a better option than a military which saw ruling is its right and it's sold just a separate from the citizens. So when the military lost a record

number of seats. Everyone knew what would happen next, the same thing that happened in the same thing that always happened when the people came a little too close to taking power from their military. So that happened on the very first one and the first few days we didn't know what to do. We I mean we we knew the military was going to make it coop because one

the analogy won the election. That's why. That's how it started, right and then and the military saying that they you know, they cheated, they like, I don't know how to say, they like funked up the votes, and you know, they make themselves win. It wasn't true. I mean, the military, what's not gonna win at all? Like it was because, like I said, there were changes. You know, people saw those changes, and and people were saying, yes, if she had one more you know, like four more years, qight

more years, she could make a real difference. Those first few days of protest, everyone says felt hopeful, just like our protagonists and Zor who he met in the previous episode, thousands of young people ran into the streets and found solidarity in a simple politics to fuck that guy. There were so many people man insane, so in reality there was I think two hundred thousand people that day. The marches got bigger every day and it seemed like nothing

could stop them. Briefly, Western news organizations public stories and everyone hoped that the U N or the U S or EU would show up and the Top Meadow will be dealt with once and for all. Yeah, I was trying to film, but then one of the guy pointed a gun at me and I was like, but none of that happened. The stories stopped. The West never sent a single bullet or soldier, and the Top Meda deployed thousands.

Even after a year. All the boys remember the first time they saw the force of the state turned against them. Even before he got out of the border town of Milwadi, and he saw the Top Medau begin to fight back against the movement that had grown up to oppose them. It's a story we heard from everyone we spoke to. Once they began organizing, the cops started trying to infiltrate their groups. I think police and military started realizing that we are that group too, so then they started trying

to like tracked down. So there was one night where two of the guys almost got arrested and then they ran away and then we're like, okay, they were kind of following us. Yeah yeah, And so after a week, Um, the same thing happened. I was living because I wasn't from yality. They didn't know I was just a new face, so they didn't really know where I lived or you know, and I always like take like two or three taxi just to get to where I was there. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,

but the same place or you like switching. No, that was the same place, but it was out of town. Three of his friends got arrested. They're still in jail. Actually in jail is the best case scenario because the top medal make a habit of executing captured activists. The stakes were life and death at every moment, and covering the movement on a daily basis took its toll on

Andy and his brothers too. So my younger brother, Um, they were in the capital city and that the first time the military killed someone, they were there, they were in the same protest, so they saw the whole thing, and you know, they were traumatized. And so I thought at the second time, I went back and I thought, well, you know, like it's better to bring them all together with me, like in the same place that we do it together than all of us spread out everywhere, you know.

And like I said, my family's military on the military side, so they didn't like that my brothers were going out to protest. So that I was like, Okay, I'm gonna bring you guys, um, and yeah, so we did all that. We did the young protests together, six of us. They came face to face with the potential cost of their struggle and they were in neapedal when that happened. They and it's it's military city, so it's very heavily controlled by the military. And the first time they went out

to the protest um, the military shoot people. And he was, yeah, there was like these trucks with the water penants. So he got here by one and like he he wasn't feeling well, so they took him to the angulands. But then once he got in there, there was a guy

without his eyes because they shot like broad bullets into him. Um, he was When Andy says Napierda is a military city, he isn't just saying it's a city like Colleen, Texas or San Diego Napioda is a city created out of nothing starting in two thousand two to be a capital for Myanmar. If you've seen it at all, it's probably in a TV show that mocks the totalitarian excess of building seven lane motorways in a city that was until

recently only populated by the people building it. Top Gear played car football on the empty freeways, and the TV show Dark Tourists also featured the city. Today, it is a real city with a real population, but everything about it was designed to reinforce authority. And yet the boys and thousands of others took to the streets here, streets built to reinforce the power of the people they were fighting to demand that the military listened to them. Andy shows us a picture of the man with his eyes

shot out. It looks how you think it would, and it is worth noting that shooting people's eyes out is a time honored international policing tactic. US cops shot more than a hundred and fifteen people in the face with less lethal munitions, thirty suffered permanent damage to their eyes. But in Myanmar everything escalated several levels higher than that. Shooting out eyes wasn't radical violence. For the Totmadal, they

treated it more like stretching before a run. In one protest, the boys saw some drunk people tossing water bottles at the police. The police responded with live gunfire from the police can fall. The people's are turned to the side and the retreat. Yeah, yeah, very intense situation. Peoples are running. They also some guys during rocks back to the police. That's when the police shooting. Andy translated the next part

for us. He so he was in the protest and then they started shooting, and he ran away and got a mail. But he was not in his neighborhood or in his area of the city. He was somewhere else. Um So when they started running, he didn't have anywhere to go. And then someone um like accepted him at the house. They say, coming, coming, and he hid and yeah, so yeah, he hid in that house for like two hours until the shooting stopped. It wasn't until they got

home that they realized the police had killed someone. In the early days of what became the revolution, people formed tight bonds and made radical commitments in the form of legal activity. Well, the top of the door was still scrambling to counter the counter coup. Everyone felt the clamp down bite at a different time. It longer than average for the cops to find the mirror and her carter of revolutionaries, but eventually that day came. It came, and she and her friends were gathered in a T shirt

preparing for an action. At that time on that day, they are trying to protects in a sandal provenience. Uh so before the protests that they catering the people at the T shop. Uh. They sitting in the table with with her teams about including her five people, but she had to go and give the banner to the other groups. So she's leaving just about like this match. And then then the soldiers came into the tea shop and then arrested her teammates. She's lucky to escape it, yeah, really narrowed,

you know. Yeah, so did she could leave immediately? Yeah? Yeah, So that's how she came here because her teammates know where she left, her house and everything. So she has no choice to stay in the Younger, but that she stay organizing her teams to the protests in the Younger from here? From here? What her parents think when she had to leave, So her parents told her the survival. It's the first so she can do whatever she wants

and then but she have to be on her own. Okay, well yeah, and then they don't they agree, you know, like if she wants to leave, just leave. If she stay want to do the you know, uh, protesting or whatever she wants, and they're not saying no to her, but they're not supporting. They just sort of thing she's on her own. Yeah, she's on her own. That's that's how last night I told you guys that she lost her inheritance. Uh, like you know, she had to give

up on everything. Well, every in San Francisco. T K could see what was happening through his scouts on the ground and soldiers post on Facebook. He started to amass a huge amount of intel. He also knew where the underground groups and obedience movement centers were in the city's and when he saw the cops of the military coming for them, he was able to give them their heads up.

So whenever we we have like you know, information about from the you know, some cd M soldiers, some CIDIUM police, and then they gave him the informations had so we got to inform mentions. So like okay, those guys are going to the you know, let's say, okay, this place and within one hour so from that place wherever living the underground kings move out to get out. Yeah, get out. Yeah. So so so that kind of things are with with that, we save a lot of people. And then we got

arrested people too, But we also saved people. Everyone we spoke to told us the same story. They went into the street thinking that if they made enough noise, the world would listen, and that the US or the EU or the u N would defend democracy and invoked their responsibility to protect innocent people being gunned down in the street.

To quote from the online publication The Diplomat, endorsed by all Member States of the United Dations in two thousand five, are two advances a potentially revolutionary idea that state sovereignty entails a responsibility for government to protect its population from massive trustee crimes and human rights violations. When a nation fails to exercise this responsibility, our two P grant the

international community the legal warrant to intervene. The doctrine authorizes the use for a range of coercive tools, with military intervention as a last resort. People in Myanma thought that if they were peaceful, civil and respectable, the government of the world would do the right thing. The government of the world, however, didn't give a fuck. But yeah, so

the protests are very very peaceful, you know. It's it's when you go into the protest, it's very peaceful, very organized, very um it's they try to make it look so clean, so nice because I guess you know, no, it was at the beginning they were trying to get attention from the international community, and they were hoping that someone will come in and say, you know, take down the military

and put our government back. Yeah, a lot of people die, just like there was this saying like to you, and you know, people were saying how many like how many dead people do you need for you to take action? Right? And there are people saying I will if you need one more, I'll be that person. I'll just sucking die. I'll just get killed by the military so that you will come in and fix it and change the situation

in the country. Right. A Mirror felt the same. She even organized the protest five people displaying the map of the whole country on the river and you ain't going She called it a suicide mission, but she thought it would send a visible signal to the world and it was worth risking her life to make the statement. At the time, she she she didn't know anything about the politics, so she believed in our TWOPI because people are protesting peacefully,

but the government take the action. So other countries are gonna wait in and see and then they're gonna take the actions about that. That's what she believed in. And then she she decided to go protesting Peacefolly Theater And Okay, did she think that other countries, United States, whatever, we're

gonna come in and intervene. Yeah, yeah, that that that's what she thought, Like, you know, I want the wall seal, the government take the actions and the convernment killing people and if they if the war knows, and then we can get a hab from the front. The other countries where they did find support within other countries in Asia, fighting games dictatorship, they formed the so called nulk Ti Alliance.

Drough on the example of Hong Kong to learn how to stay in the streets when the government doesn't want you there. But then when it happens in our country, it's like, oh fuck, where does it happen before. And then we went back straight with Hong Kong and there was it's not just us, like, there were so much infographics and like you know, how to be in the protests, how to do certain things. It depending on the situation. Um,

so we had a lot of information. We were yeah, we were looking through and I think that these are the same thing that like people in Hong Kong used, I think, but Hong Kong didn't have sniper shooting kids in the head or cops faring rifles blindly into crowds. But then later on, like by the time we got too young and people were sitting down, they were little protests. What the military does is they would come in and

they would just start shooting everyone. There was no there's no negotiation, there was no hey, guys, can you move and then you know any any of that stuff. They were coming and they would treat this as a battlefield. And it didn't take a while, and didn't well, it did take a while. I think it's it took about like a month and a half for us to finally say, fuck the peaceful protests, the international community, they're not coming.

If they would have come, they would have come a long time ago, you know, and we started fighting back. But when we say we fight back, it's like molt to cut tails slingshots. Dr Wondon exactly when and how police were killing people. He would spend his days charging people who would survive from those who might not make it. Soon, the worst nightmares of his medical team are coming true and the police began seizing his colleagues the alleged crime

of saving lives. I remember before the military Melify police, a military man totally totally intruded our hospital one day. I think at the middle of their may. Okay, they totally intruded our hospital because the they have hearts our city and doctors are doing operation at that hospital because we have no more another police like that. Roum Trauma said that we we could give good treat man for that Trauma division because we have to take a risk.

That's what we're gonna take a rest soon. One of our concenter was arrested at and Majesty Unity because he took he took also his race. But if he wasn't here, his junior can't handle that situation. You know. You know, so many tense hand dress injury endure patient on that day, mostly are can't you our pasion? You know, some are open at domen open limbs. Okay, so we have so many prices on that not things only got worse. Yeah. Yeah.

There was a pregnant woman who got shot and obviously with the kids, and she died because she accepted like twenty protesters in her house and when they came, they shot and she wasn't like five weeks. Oh it's it's you can see that she was pregnant. Molty used straight up real bullets, like they don't give a ship, They don't give a ship. That the way the military control people is fear right, So then they want people to see that if you go against me, you'll die horribly,

and they shoot hat. We saw so many faces with holes, you know, so many people with holes in their face, and it was fucked up, and it was scary because every time you go out, you're saying, that could be me, that could be my brothers, that could be you know. Very quickly the revolution organized itself, not with hierarchies, officers

or vanguard parties. The people who existed in those roles had already been arrested or fled, so instead the revolution started with people giving whatever they could to the struggle and taking whatever they needed to get by. The revolutionaries reinterviewed. All initially thought that the struggle would be sure, that the world would come to their aid, but even when it became clear that this was not the case, they continue to fight under the logic that's better to die

than live with a bluet on your neck. They took all the leaders from the opposition side, so there was no one to tell us what to do. There was no instructions, right, so there was like two days of Okay,

what the funk do we do? You know? And then people started protesting, but small, like very small, and then I think after like five days, then there was like two d people everywhere, Like now that I remember the first day we arrived, I mean, we haven't seen each other since COVID started, so it was like rather, you know, back again and together. And then yeah, it was quite fun for like one night and then we're all hanging out and trying to plan what we're gonna do the

next day. So basically we kind of planned that, like each of us had a rule, and our plan was to go out and kind of be like a media crew. Right, So we're filming, we're writing news, we're posting on the internet so that everywhere else people can see it. Um. So yeah, two of us are like the camera people,

and then this too. They look out for the roads and streets, like because these places we've never been, right Danuel in these areas, So whenever we go to a protest, we'll sit down or we'll walk around and take photos while these twos goes around and look for the fastest escapes. You know, if the military come in, what would be the best way to go? Would you know? Escape? And then him another one. They kind of look after us.

They look at the news to see what's happening around us, so that if there's an post on Facebook saying, oh there's a military truck heading towards you, we kind of be prepared, you know. But yeah, that was yeah, so we had a lot of energy at that time. It was like constant. We were going out out and you can see like it's always following me, like that's me and leaving him and he's always following me everywhere I go, so that's something happening and just grab me around. Well,

the boys and Andy were reporting. Amira found her call on the front lines. It's almost impossible to stress how incredible she is. Before we recorded, she casually dropped into conversation that she also trained in knife fighting sometimes. We met her at a shooting range near my soft and blasted a few paper targets together with a twelve gage shotgun we've been using for a bit of target practice.

When it jammed, and it always jammed, she cleared the chamber and got it back into action with a practiced efficiency that any formally trained soldier would have recognized. In the revolution, it didn't take long for her to find her way to the front lines, and she's got the scars to prove it, including some from hucking a tear gas grenade bare handed back at the cops. Others adopted roles to Some picked up shields and took on the police toe to toe. Other supported protesters with medical aid

and food and water. So you can see the shield two three, four or five two Yeah, to make it and then you can see like they have these wet plus did bad too, like watch people's faces when they are two or like um two killed the smokes with the have what towels too, and then there's someone always watering it like you see here. Yeah, and this is all from the neighborhood like they provided to us. They built barricades and even developed a system of communications for

when things were getting violent. This allowed folks who were not comfortable to get away, or at least that was the goal. So the white flag means like we have this place, like this is our But then the black flag means will suck you up back, like if you've done so much that we're gonna suck you up. You know, um, I have a video of it. Wanted changed to from white to black. Their tactics improved over time. When one group got kettled, another group would pop up nearby and

draw soldiers away. Oh yeah, sure way. And then there was one time when one of one part of the city was enter attacked by the military. A lot of protesters were trapped in there, and so we decided to go out. So every other part of the city came out at nighttime to protest, so that they soldiers have to connect. Yeah, a mirror too, came face to face

with state violence. Oh yeah, che yeah, Ballodi and d she read thrown in and she wants she wants to take the action path because they are all protesting peace folly and at that time she wants to have a superpower. M m yeah, maybe she does. What what did she what did she decided to do? What wouldn't they do at that time? And she feels like she's going until the act and then she would keep moving and then she was participate in every role that she can and

then she would do as much as she can. That's that's what she decided to We saw that picture of her in front of the car. It was burnie. Yeah, we're happened there with a throwing molotov cocktails. Yeah okay, so like smoke bombs and then something like that, and then she's trying to tow them back the picture. Yeah yeah, yeah, so she picked it out and then she told them back, hurt your hand, Yeah you have a scar fucking well yeah yeah. Then uh she got hit by the smoke

bone like a twice. And then at the time she lost everything. She lost her bags, she lost her phones, and someone have her to hold and took her back. That's how she escaped. They helped you. You know who helped you with it? A friend or just a stranger. Her friends is with her and I went to to your guess hit down, and then the other strangers had them, and then she got hit by that your guess, and then and then she almost faint and a black out. Our doctor who goes by wonder face a difficult choice.

Returning to the hospital meant risking arrest. The military could come in any time to arrest injured protesters, and the doctors helping them, but not going back then letting his comrades die. State violence increased. He decided he needed to help.

They killed so many paceful protester on that day, I think around about nearly round about hand or more might be more than that, Yes, on that day, you know, or because we have already we have already started see that this Orvidian movement on that on that time, because we didn't go the hospital there that was room by that generate Okay, okay, so we dear outside the hospital, you know, we we managed temporary camp like that because for emergency in Joel patient. At that time, I was

involved one of the term side. Yeah, because but actually we can't do uh, some of the injury of pelet that may need for emergency operations like that bullet go through, Yeah, go to break the bombs and open wound. So but we have to take the risk because we have to operate that patient. We go to hospital trauma emergency department. We did our operation. I remember that night one of the patients was shot down by police and they chased,

they followed that patient. We kept that patient in our hospital in our war We emergency or we did emergency operation on that at that night, on that night, and we imagining move him out on their not because we can't keep him on that hospital because ah soon he just left our hospital. The police just came and sat for him. But it is one of our ice creams. Uh. They just quite there again. Yeah, what is that guy?

T K got on telegram? Lots of people couldn't be underground fighting, but they still wanted to be part of the struggle. He developed good connections with people on the ground, but first that was just him desperately try and stay informed. But soon he realized that he was well placed to

be doing the informing. With internet access cut off and VPN is slowing down, only someone outside the country with blazing fast Bay Area WiFi could collect all the info coming in and turn it into useful, actionable advice for protesters on the ground at that time, we know nothing about it. No one's no one's teaching us what to do. So we have to do it, do it, you know, like we we we met. We like I said, we have a seventy people. So we have a meeting every day,

every night. So we're trying to you know, brainstorm me what we're gonna do. And then so we're making we're making the plans and then we're making like, Okay, we're gonna get the informations from you know, everything of details that we can get, and that that's we're going to share to the people. That's what we're gonna share to

the underground teams and other people. Within a few weeks, it become clear that a diverse range of people, tactics, and tools are going to be needed in the fight for freedom and Mianda, next time, we'll talk about how that fight took shape and tell you what it's like today. Sitting at a pool bar and Mason listening to covers of Cretan songs by the house band and losing a pool against Andy and the boys. It's hard to think of them hold up behind a barricade, clutching molotovs, but

not so long ago. The choices the boys face were pretty stark. Every day every time they went out from their little apartment, they knew they might not come back. But I think the most fucked up thing that we had to plan was what if someone get shot one of us and the other person have to go carry um who do you go? Who gets hits? You know?

And we had to kind of like what we did this now, but like, okay, if I get hit, you know, two of you this, this, and this person will come out and you know, do this to me because it's it's um, I don't know. I think we were planning because it just it's just good to have that, you know, because if someone gets shot and if all of five of us go run in there, there's more targets, you

know what I mean. So then like if someone would weight last weight get shots and you know this person go, if someone heavier get shot, this two person go something like that. When Andy says like we did earlier, he's talking about a small stop the bleed type course that we had given the boys. Most journalist operating in war zones will take at minimum a week long hostile environment and first aid training or heath at course many of

us will take extra courses. James and I both refreshed our wilderness first Responder certificates once we had this trip planned. Andy and his brothers didn't have access to any of this. They learned what they could off the internet and tried to protect themselves as best as they were able with gear they purchased from an air soft store. The afternoon we spent practicing skills. Wasn't nearly enough, but until they can travel safely more than a few miles from the border,

it was better than nothing. Their little apartment had one way in and one way out. If the cops came, there was no escape. They had a plan for that too. Yeah, so our plan was literally just to burn that fucking door down so then it would be difficult for them to come in. Then you know, we'll do I don't know, whatever we can with the weapon we had um, but we weren't going to make it out, you know, And having to plan all that with these kids, like it's

like funked up. There were times that like they wake up by night screaming like they you know they I think now it's better, right, It's been a year and a half and we are like we're better at coping with it. But at that time it was very, very scary, so that they'd be prepared to burn their door and the rest of their apartment down around themselves. The boys kept a stockpile of molotovs mixed and ready by the

front door at all times. They lived in a state of permanent readiness to commit revolutionary suicide for weeks on end. Eventually they decided they had to flee. We should probably talk history here for just a little bit. Me and Mar is a new name for a very old land. Over the centuries, it's been ruled by a series of empires and dynasties. The Mongols took over for a while in the twelve hundreds and thirteen hundreds, and when they left Lower Burma had a warring states period of its own.

The modern nation of Burma didn't start to come together until the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, and things didn't really congeal into a state until the reign of the last two Burmese kings, who industrialized the country and reformed its military enough to win a series of wars against neighboring groups like the Irakan. This is what brought them into conflict with the British Raj right at the turn

of the nineteenth century. Their wars were sending refugees into India, and the Burmese King's designs on Thailand and British controlled Bangladesh led to a policy wherein the Bridge supported insurgent fighters who struck out at Burmese positions. A series of near clashes between British and Burmese forces followed, and in January of eighteen twenty four, the Burmese King Bagadah gave

his generals the order to attack. A pair of brutal jungle wars followed, and despite winning several victories early on, Burmese true were crushed comprehensively whenever they engaged British forces in conventional battles. In January of eighteen eighty six, British forces entered the capital, Mandalay and brought an end to Burmese independence for almost sixty years. These are the broad strokes of the story, as you'll find them summed up

in almost any history book. As with most colonial history, the reality is somewhat messier than that. The Burmese Empire the British destroyed was dominated heavily by the Bumah people, who gave the colony its name, But there were other peoples in the territory. They claimed the Shin, the karin Urakan, the Rohinga, and dozens. More Like most empires dominated by

a single ethnicity, they were brutal. Father San Germano, who lived in pre raj Burma, wrote of the king, he is considered by himself and others absolute lord of the lives, properties, and personal services of his subjects. He exalts into presses, confers, and takes away honor and rank, and without any process of law, can put to death not only criminals guilty of capital offenses, but any individual who happens to incur

his displeasure. It is here a perilous thing for a person to become distinguished for wealth and possessions, for the day may easily come when he will be charged with some supposed crime and so put to death in order that his property may be confiscated. Every subject is the Emperor's born slave, and when he calls anyone his slave,

he thinks thereby to do him honor. Hence, also he considers himself entitled to employ his subjects in any work of service without salary or pay, and if he makes them any recompense, it is done not from a sense of justice but as an act of bounty. And while Bagudah was a fairly modern king, brutality like this went back hundreds of years in the region. Most of the kings and princes and other people who ruled the land we now call me Anmar did so with brutal force

and an awful lot of conscription. This is broadly true of much of Southeast Asia. Western histories of this region tend to flatten life into kingdoms and empires and assume life in their region coincidedtically with the lines drawn on maps. This was never the case. Much of mainland Southeast Asia, from the central highlands of Vietnam through Myanmar, northeast India and several southern Chinese provinces, is filled with terrifying mountains

and brutal hills covered with the densest jungle imaginable. Standing in Masot and staring across the border into Myanmar, all you see is a vast expanse of jagged, deep green peaks rolling endlessly on James and I are both experienced backpackers, and neither of us would have wanted to take on that terrain without quality gear and weeks of endurance training. In an era before planes, helicopters, or satellite communications, this

area was practically ungovernable. People were aware of this at the time, and for roughly the last two thousand years, this chunk of highland Southeast Asia, known to political scientists as Zonia, has been a refuge for people pushed out and put down by the great state powers of the area. Empires and kings would stick to the coasts and the

flat lines, perfect for cultivating rice. When they taxed their subjects too hard or conscripted too many of them into the military, some would flee to the hills to take their freedom. As James C. Scott, a Yale policy professor, writes, the frontier operated as a rough and ready homeostatic device. The more estate pressed its subjects, the fewer subjects it had. The Frontier under wrote freedom. He calls the people who

chose to inhabit this stateless zone barbarians by choice. While many of these ethnic groups were mocked for their lack of so called civilized values like widespread literacy, Scott argues that this lack was actually a conscious rejection. The refusal to educate themselves in a manner acceptable to the powers of the day was a rebellion against the legitimacy of

those powers and their standards. Human history and our modern globe is filled with places like this, muddied areas at the borders of great powers, where the detritus of war, refugees and beaten soldiers can congregate without fear of the state. The term for these places is shatter zones. Rojava, the radical feminist enclave in northeast Syria, would be one example of a shatter zone and the unique political potential such

places have. Myanmar is, by land mass, mostly shatter zones, and since nineteen forty nine, different ethnic armed organizations have existed in a more or less constant conflict with the state. This includes the Karin people, whose territory borders Thailand. When the young millennial and zoomer protesters in the cities realized they were going to have to flee their homes to continue the fight, Karin territory was a natural place to retreat to. People had been making versions of the same

decision for two thousand years. The current situation between the Kuran and Myanmar's military junta actually owes a lot to the British Empire. When they took over in Myanmar, they had to figure out how to govern it, and they went with the tactic that had served them well all across India and Africa. They picked a minority ethnic group to act as their colonial shock troops. In Uganda, their preferred warrior race were the Kaqwa people, from whom future

dictator Idi Amine descended. For their colonial troops. In India, the Brits used Sikhs and Gurkhas, and in colonial Burma they used the Karin. Ever since the British left, the Karin have wanted as little as possible to do with the central government and Napoda. Instead, they fought to maintain Cadule, a land without darkness, as they were promised in Burma's nineteen forty eight constitution. Today they might not be recognized by the UN or the US, but the Karin have

their own schools, hospitals, and army. They have been at war since nineteen forty nine. Andy, whose father is Karin, only really found out about the struggle for Quadule, a home for the Karin language peoples when he became a refugee he moved into the camps along the border after

the Saffron Revolution. He was only eight years old. The border is dotted with camps, some of them more like towns, but they're always temporary, and while the Thai government tolerates the Karin presence, people there are seen as temporarily displaced. They can't build solid homes and don't have the identity documents they need to travel even internally in Thailand, despite

not growing up there. Andy's identity cards, says Karin, it doesn't take a pH d in history to know that ethnic identity cards issued by imperial and formerly post colonial governments are bad news. But if you need more information about that, maybe google i D cards Comma Rwanda. Like most people in most places, the young people from Mima we talked to you had thought relatively little about the injustices on the edge of their world. They tend to think of the karen Is terrorists up in the hills

rather than freedom fighters. But once the top medor started unloading machine guns into crowds, people were confronted with the reality of a situation that they've been able to ignore before. Suddenly they saw that the karen and other marginalized ethnic groups were victims of the same government violence that they now faced, and now that the scales had fallen from rise,

they were going to do something about it. The main majority of groups people they are current people, which is another ethnic groups from Nemore, and they they had a different view, right because obviously the military. While we were like because we were born in the city, we were more like you know, like we didn't suffer that much,

even though it wasn't that great, you know. But then for them, the military come to their states, the military come to their villages, they burned the villages, they kill the people, they read the people, you know, they do all these atrocities. Um. So then they have a very different view on the Miamar military and how the country is you know, working doing and um so that's when I started learning, oh, ship, like there is some other

stuff going on in the country. But you know, like you kind of just you kind of just live with your life. You know, you're your kid, You're trying to get by day to date, like so you didn't really think about it. Um And for me, that gold on that go that went on for a long time until the military will happen in the present revolution is not the only flaer up of inter ethnic violence in the country.

The Tatmodor, under ming A Klan, began a concerted campaign of genocidal ethnic cleansing against the Hina people, a largely Muslim ethnic group who live in the country's or a kind state. The Tatmodor, claiming the Rehinia were variously terrorists or illegal immigrants native to modern day Bangladesh and hence not native to myan Ma, spent months raping, killing, and

burning the villages of the Rehanga people. While the world, perhaps distracted by a neoliberal consensus which demoniedes both migrants and Muslims, did funk all to stop them. In Myanmar, nobody spoke about the genocide, at least not in those terms. Most people didn't even speak about the Hinda in those terms because Tatmodor propaganda was so effective that citizens in Yangon really believe that the Rahana were mike and terrorists

coming from Bangladesh. Government newspapers like The New Light of Myanmar published daily stories linking them to groups like Isis or Al Qaida, who, despite their best efforts, remain totally irrelevant in this story. BOS popped up on Facebook, which is basically synonymous with the Internet for many people living in Myanmar, and seared a steady diet of anti raheinga hate speech into political discourse, gradually shifting the Overton window

towards the endocide. And without better information, most people believe them, and these Western friends, probably weirdos like me who had crept into his d MS. At some point I started to ask him questions. So the rein thing happened into done seventeen. I was seventeen, and you know, we started hearing it. I started getting phone calls from my friends in the western countries, like Westerners. They would be like, Hey,

what's happening in your country? Why are you killing like all the Muslims, And I mean like mess out thaily and I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

I've never heard anything like that, right, um, and so yeah, and then I like, I try to learn a little bit more, but everyone has so intense opinions about it that at some time like funk, I don't I don't know anymore, you know, because the military was in control at that time still kind of so they control the news, they control the media, they control it's the same thing, you know, like they control who was saying what, and

so we never hear about it that much. If you only, if only you care so much and you're following everyone that is saying you know the truth, then you know. But otherwise you you didn't know. It was all very blurry, very so that that's another time when I'm like funk, like I don't know what to do. I'm just gonna

you know. And then one on in my life, um and yeah, I never I never realized how much, like how much they had to suffer, and they are still suffering right number of international protests to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Rainer. As they huddled hidden in their apartment, Andy and his brother began to embrace the need for deadly violence against Sarah Pressus. We never had any plans, actually, we were just like, no, I think I remember, it's

like that was not really planned. It was like they killed our people who were fucking hurt them back, you know. It wasn't too get their guns or shoot them back. Like we didn't even know how to use any of that, you know. And honestly, we didn't even want to kill them. We just want to be like, you can't do these things and not feel, not feel any any anything, you know,

not not feel any consequences of that. Like we're not fucking We're not animals, and you know, you can't just come in and killed one of our friends and think that we're not going to do anything back, you know, like if we let that happen, then they're never going to stop. You know. You they were trying to scare us, and we were trying to scare them back, but they actually kill people. We didn't. We never wanted to kill anyone,

you know. Indy's situation felt hopeless at this stage. Trapped at the capitol and watching his friends disappear one by one. It seemed like he was running out of options. Thousands of young people and me and Mark felt the same, and some of them decided to take an option they hadn't even known existed. A few weeks earlier, when we were in Massat, we conducted a phone interview with a former rebel fighter named Alex. Like everyone else we talked to, he woke up on the first of February to find

out that his phone didn't work and the internet was out. Yeah, I thought like it was just you know, like something wrong with my phone. And then like I started talking to my friends and all my friends are having the same problem. So we looked down and everybody is like watching down to the market because we live close to the market, and like they were like you know, like doing like like buying lots of rise and like full until I spoke, because no one knows what's gonna happen.

Like everyone else, he wasn't into politics, but he was absolutely not into having the military funk with every aspect of his life, so he got into the streets at first, like we are not like that into the politics and stuff, so we didn't know. But you know, like they can't even like shut down the Internet is kind of like controlling our life, right, so like if they can't even do that, like you know, like we cannot imagine like what other things they can do and which they did,

like killing the innosensibilians and stuff. So yeah, at first we're just like, oh, yeah, we need to do something about this, and then enjoy the protests. He and his friends later found a shop to buy gas masks, tasers, and goggles, but even with all their gear, they were powerless against soldiers with guns and tear gas. He said that the next few weeks were hard. Protests were less and less safe, but nobody dared to talk about their plans to take the fight to military. Everyone was worried

about informants and snitches. We didn't really like actually talk about those stuff, Like we're only like discussing about you know, like a protests and also like how to get attention from the like embassies and stuff, but for like fight fighting bag and you know, like going on the wars. Like I think, like almost everyone they just decided on their own unless they have super like trust their friends. By April, he says he's seen people die in the streets.

He decided the protesting wasn't working and he needed to pick up a gun. Then he probably was. He didn't have one, nor did his friends. He knew some people who had guns and hated the top of the door, but he had been raised his whole life to think of them as terrorists before this. We be you know, like brainwashed by the military like pretty much our whole life, so you know, we always think, oh, ethnic groups are like like you know, they were okay, like wherever they

see or and he didn't like it. Just terrorist terrorists, right, that's what like the military like make us believe our whole life. And I was kind of scared to like join them because like, yeah, I didn't know, like you know, how to live off there or like if they're gonna came in just because like I don't speak her, and so yeah, it was bizarrely his boss who hooked him up with the rebels in the hills, but he couldn't tell anyone he was going, okay, say got captured or

turned out to be a snitch. Instead, he packed his bag with some of his old clothes, didn't even say goodbye to his family, and took a bus. He got off that bus, waited until a man in the car picked him up. By that night, he was in the jungle. During the first night, they're like, you know, we have to go God like one or the leader from the Junger, like you know, like trainers by you like walking in the dark in the forest, So we have to walk

to like somewhere we don't even know. We have to sleep in there like deep gener He'd read about the PDF on Facebook, but suddenly found himself among them. Technically, they were distinct unit fighting for a return to democracy, but in practice they're trained and equipped by the current National Liberation Army who have been fighting for aeral democracy for decades. Pretty soon his opinion of the Kurrent had changed.

But like during my time, I did some observation about them. Yeah, it was like obviously, like the government is not the current people fighting the cup the military. The military has been like you know, like invading the Karrent villagers like Karen Land. H Yeah, they were like banning down. They're like villagers like waving the woomas You're like killing the people for like many years. So they cannot do anything but to fight back, you know, they have to fight

back to prove that their land. Just like the now deceased rebel soldier who interviewed for our last series, I like received rudimentary training. He never fired a gun before, and supplies are very limited, but he's still got a kick out of sending a few rounds down range. Like not even in my dream, Like I never thought like I will be like houlding it again or I shouldn't should in it. So if be pretty good? Yeah, do you what kind of gun was it? Was it a point to too or was it? Yes, the first one

was a point to two. Was it hand homemade, handmade or was it you know, no, it's not made, but it's kind of really old. Even in the jungle, they were worried about males. It took a while to make friends, he says, but eventually he fell in with a cop who had defected, a photographer, and a construction worker. Their plan, he says, was a train up in the jungle and then go home and find the cities. Like our idea was like we went there and praying for a few

miles and then go back to the city. Like we thought, like it's gonna be like a huge wars in the city is like in Yango or mentally and also like everywhere Yama. But yeah, it did. It turns out like that. But instead he found himself pulling sentry duty in the jungle. For a city kid, it was scary alone out there in the night with a gun, surrounded by potential threats.

I feel like, you know, like okay, like it's gonna happen tonight, Like they're gonna come to our base tonight, so we I'm gonna have to shoot that, I have to product my people find. But it didn't happen. Yeah, I'll expend eight months in the field putting sentry duty and learning the skills of a soldier. But without arms and ammunition, there wasn't much you could do. And his whole time training, he says, he only fired five shots I've kind of used because we don't have like enough ghans,

you know. Like so by the time that there was a like a straight happen if uh like a goo, I thought like, oh, we're gonna have to like go and you know, like fight them now. But instead, like we have to pack our staff and move to a deeper jenko. So we were like kind of like reputees with uniforms. But yeah, you know, if I just keep staying there like we if we're just going to keep running away like this, Like I don't want to stay there. I want to do something about the needs, like the

main needs in our candles, the weapons gainst. So I want to like come here and like work for that. The transition was hard for eight months in a light bulb or flashing toilet. Now he crossed the river and everything seemed normal, every kind of weird, like you know from the jungle and metal. It's just a small river across and they're like the life. Yeah, it's totally different.

Like peoples are living their normal life and now having to like worry for like any things or like it was like the whole time I wasn't younger, you know, like we have to worry about our country and like we don't want to live a normal life. And I'll take them mad, like the military's gold so like, but they're like here, everyone is living in normal life and it's just only one river across. Now that he's across the river, we won't say, well, he's still part of

the revolution. He's raising money and doing interviews like this, trying to organize medical supplies and hoping that one day he can return to his country not as a refugee with a uniform, but practiced a soldier liberating his people, or better yet, as a citizen in a free democracy. Miyak wasn't ready to be a refugee quite yet. He quickly found a role for himself on the militant side of what had become a full fledged civil war. Before

the coup. He'd been studying engineering at university, and he liked to understand how things worked. Although Alex and his comrades had a critical shortage of weapons. Miyak didn't only make guns at first, he made bombs too, using knowledge that he had gained after traveling into the jungle and getting training from Karin experts and explosives and as he told us, they were very effective. Do you think the explosives took out any soldiers? Of course is bosies are

for the biddings for the base. Some o the trouble. So you know they came and pick the ball and trying to cut off the bowl and just a slow so they die. So my truf cut off the wire bone wire, yes, but they die anyway. So it's like, oh, my best memory is that we are using and the very first E T N E T N in and in thank angel. Now this revolutionary thing is the whole things that arrest there or just arrest. It's very sad

when they made May made the idian bowl. Uh we we had that the ambulas ambulus ambulus abus umblessed land. It's like five fine ambular track is coming here. Okay, this is I think this is my best memory. Yes, okay, wow, So the bomb goes off, they have to send in five ambulances, yes, yes, yes, was it soldiers or police soldiers. Yes, that the soldier whole who checked the role. Yeah, it

was just bombs that the young rebels learned about. They also shattered many of their misconceptions about the roles of men and women. Yeah yeah. As a woman like a mirror, stepped up to the front lines and fought alongside their male comrades, it became hard to ignore the sexism which underpinned much of traditional Burmese culture. The music you just heard from a yang On punk band called Rebel Riot.

They gave a submission to use it here. They have some great songs about the Spring Revolution, and this one focuses on the role of women. In the video, you see young women in the streets and then you see them in the jungles carrying him sixt Me and Mama might previously have had a woman leader, but gender equality had been far from universal. And he told us a story about this, and we recorded it. But it was

our last night in the country. We were on our way to another spectacular hangover, one that would see me vomiting with such ferocio of flight. But an elderly tie lady took pity on me and gave me her shopping bag once I filled up my sick bag in the second month of the revolution, and he said when they were in Yangon, the protesters would build giant barricades to keep the police back. We've seen videos of these. They're pretty impressive, huge amounts of palettes, boxes and burning tires.

We got some other audio of him describing them. No, we could never get close to the military. Um, it was never it was never attack, it was always defense. So later on, when we started seeing how military cracked down these protesters, we started building these gates and like sandbags in our every base in the in the young On, Melody, whatever across the country, we started building these barriers so

that the military trucks kind of just come in. And it's actually crazy because sometimes to build these things, you have to take over the road first, so like like a main road or a highway. So then what we do is all these little groups will gather, so one street, two street, through street, you know, and then we will go to the street, or we will walk down the street saying we're gonna try to take over the street,

please come join. People will come down, people will come down from the streets, from the buildings, and then we go to the next street, we say the same thing, and then people would join. Nothing they did could stand up to a tank, though, just as that shopping bag couldn't stand up to James's vomit. The military started using human shields to get through the barricades and the groups

of people throwing molotovs. Usually we would defend our places, right, we will use molotov sling shots, uh, and we will resist like we will attacked, like we will be in the behind the gate, but we will kind of make them cannot come too too far, you know. But when the military have someone that they're gun pointing, just a normal civilian and making him move, we can't do anything man like, we can't go through a moltav like, you know. So that's when the military clean out all of that.

In Yangon, I think there was a time when it was packed. It was every road had it, every street had it, and everyone was guarding that right. But then when the military started and then they said it in the statements, they were saying, if that's near your house, you're responsible. Then they came up with a better idea. In Burmese culture, men fear passing under women's clothing if it's hanging on a washing line, they'll go around rather than under it. It is as Andy told us, bullshit.

So they decided to turn that bullshit back on the troops and they grabbed as many women's launcheese a traditional garment went around the waist like a sarong as they could and hung them up above their barricade. It worked, he said, and just like that, a generation of Burmese kids realized that sexism hurts everyone who perpetuates it. Miak

told us an interesting story about this. He said, the first time he met his fiance, he thought that she was pretty sharp for a girl that he says now was his bad me and mar he says, has some gender hang ups, but he soon realized that she was the bravest person he knew. They went to protest together, and when something needed moving from one town to another, they took advantage of those gender hang ups and her bravery, and she risked her life carrying weapons in her bags

on inner city buses. We'll let him tell you how they met. It's like we we met on a meiden, like you know, we we started making maybe it's a very first. We first we all match making, very very very very respect their memories. The name of the media is braced to me. Okay, prased all me. The name of the media is she She is very you know, respected. She said the very thoughtful things. You know. Oh she is you know, it's so so thoughtful. I don't even think,

you know. In the memo, Carter is lays a Joanna. You know, so buy is always good like people, you know, something like this. So I thought she's really good, or that she is a kid. This is my bad some Janna I do die. But but later I met with her on the protest, so I saw she is so beautiful. I thought she has just twenty years agays. But we know that later. So we keep doing together other things and she she is my bad dad. I was grow like this and well, whatever I have I have in danger.

All the contact her. We asked him if you worried she got arrested while she was making trips into the mountains with guns and bombs, But he said no. Was it hard to leave her to go to the jungle because she could get arrested, you could get no. No, she is very clever, So I I never worry about her. I just boy about mindset because she is more, you know, secret, I see more play by than me. So she only teached me how to be clear about much. LETTONK and

Mirror was falling in love as well. Her relationship was a bit different though. At first we were in the group chat Yeah, but then did you make the private? Yeah? Private? He started the private chat? Did I did? I did, because at that time I feel like, oh, she is so young. At the time, she she's not even a team. She's seventeen years old and she's leading the one of

the food tast team. So I'm like, wow, this girl is like amazing, right, So that that's how I met her, and then that's how I, you know, try to hit her now. Admittedly t K, a security guy is translating here. He's also her boyfriend for now. He's here with her to make sure she's okay. When we met them both, it was just weeks after he'd arrived in Thailand and the two had met in person for the very first time. It's a kind of story you can't help but find touching.

Two people in opposite sides of the world, united by a fight for justice, the bonds of revolutionary care. At least, it's a nice counterweight to all the stories of death and violence, which will have more of you tomorrow on part four of this series. Through the time we're reporting this story, Robert and I walked miles and miles around the streets Mason baby, only two journalous in town and also both giant white guys. We kind of stood out, and taking a turn due to a sensitive interview isn't

always a smart choice. Even when it was, they frequently dropped us off in a wrong place and we end up walking anyway. Everyone in Mason rides scooters, but riding without a helmet can get you a fine. We figured that his relative noviceist to the world of scooting, we probably funded something up and we probably better off walking. When the time came to meet me out, though he offered us a ride That was very nice, but it

put us in an interesting position. What exactly do you say when a guy you've never met, who's a friend of a guy you dem on Reddit who you know he's engaged in the illegal production and smuggling of guns into a war zone, offers to pick you up at the cafe so you can go out for dinner. We decided to call our friend a long suffering guy we

go to or we have a security question. Paul his request, we're keeping him anonymous, but he works in security and has an extensive professional background dealing with situations just like this or maybe mostly like this. Yes, So basically, Paul were meeting with these people. Uh, we don't have an established human chain with them of trust. They're they're just averted account that James has been talking with but for

like six or seven months. Um, it doesn't really seem like there's much else we can do besides, uh, keep our eyes open and try to meet in a digital place. Yeah. I mean the big concern is that it would be the government, which is not um from what you guys have said. The government simply doesn't have the wherewithal to do operations like this, and I mean rebel groups like this, they're they're trying, they want to get everything out there

they can. UM. So, Yeah, it is there a concern about the fact that you don't have a chain of people that can vouch for each other. Yeah, but the situation there and everything's in their favor, they are, everything's in your favor. Even minor cultural faux pause shouldn't be an issue. With Paul's help, we came up with a watertight plan. I should note here that he was at least as concerned with our fate as he was with the fate of the pair of pants he'd loaned James

for the trip. And I mean, yeah, it's a story that needs to get out, so uh, being slightly lax on the rules while knowing that it's in everybody's favor that it goes well. I guess you gotta been the rules sometimes. Yeah, I guess we'll check in trying to approve of life. Yeah, we'll do a proof of life. I will. I will send you a picture of James holding a piece of paper that says big wife guy. And if if we are kidnapped, I'll send you a picture of me that says Elon Musk will be a

good custodian of Twitter. Ok, I'll know that that's the that's the sign, and you know I'll get a black Yeah, I'll figure out something. Yeah, me and me and a few friends will be on our way. That sounds awful. James has my favorite pants. Yeah, yeah, you gotta get those pants bag. Oh yeah, this is all about the pants. If I find hs dead body, I'm killing those pants off. Luckily, both I and Paul's trousers made it back that night. The only damage was to several delicious plates of food,

his fiancee and their godfather. We're the most gracious host, and we decided not to record that first night. Instead, we met up the next day. But there is one thing from that night but I want to share with you. Rather than explaining it, I let the song me out played for us, talk to you to the beautiful medium of punk music, bell A Chow. Of course it's an anti fascist anthem. Then. It's original version tells the story of a young partisan who says goodbye to his girlfriend

before he goes off to fight Italian fascists. If he dies, he says he wants to be buried under a flower in the mountains so people will see it and remember him. Yeah. Yeah. After a few months of revolution, all our characters found themselves mourning their friends, and many of them were in the mountains. Their struggle is one they see in the same vein as the Italian partisans who fought facists in their mountains and the anti fascists who came from around

the world to fight the Spanish Civil War. I first heard that song Belacho from a Spanish civil war vector. And it's a strange closing of the loop to be here sitting hearing it with young people who, just like the Spanish Republicans, are fighting a coup with next to no international support and a critical shortage of weapons. But me Out was trying his best to fix their shortage. A month into what would become the Spring Revolution, and the stakes have become clear when the first protester would

shot and they kept marching. When people decided to go back into the streets, they showed that the future of their country was worth dying for. A few weeks later, some of them decided it was also worth killing for. It was about then that me Out's buddy and Keen read it. User Daddy u m c D said he'd been online we reckon they could use their three D printers, a steel pipe and the expertise are some strains on

the internet to arm themselves. The promise of revolutionary technology would take quite some time to have any kind of battlefield impact in Myanmar, but the effects of a different kind of revolution would be felt immediately. But then they young activists took up our arms against the government. I was like I'm entrusted us in how West and three D printing especially my profession is a grand us and virtual reality and one to tell us three D printing

is my hobby. So I just do I just download some time from a thinking bust or other three D three D printing criminal D and just do it for my task, not specially especially like desk toys and stuff. Yeah, yeah, just or twice yes, what do you think of guns? Then I have never emerging a care because you know, we have been living and a military booth for a long time, so we're afraid or soldier especially not the

su especially the care that they hope. So we are so afraid of that, so we never imagine, like like we are the same as in North Korea. We're so afraid of that, so we never imagine of making game. But after that the story began at first Meal and his team felt safe despite the dangerous nature of their work. He felt the top medor was so behind the times

they wouldn't even know what a three D print. It was like adult side the military didn't didn't know or didn't give our funk about defriend So it is okay a dose that it's really okay, one one one, one day, can we need to hide the campus. If the three print that, that's okay, Because we were saying this is for our job or for some hobby that we can see I do with that, but but not just that. This time everyone the print that yes camp camp go the like yeah yeah. Soon that head shop became a

lot closer to being a possibility. It's like a song. As we we we finished the second second apt De nine, we're trying to test that in young and we send

it to our warehouse. But unfortunately this way how it exposed and ambushed by in the military and this gun is taken by the military, and they announced this on the new by picturer and this uh like like hammag games and the don give funk about this just a hammaga they just at the very first time, but later and later later and later one they one the second time they will arrest that. At this time they arrest

my revolutionary from my team. So I'm told him about the efficiency and how do you use and the history also the game at the time, maybe maybe he was investigator and he told the truth. At this time he says, like the FCC nine announced announced the name FCC nine like like this before before at the very first time team and now the game from the tagish Yeah if

you missed that, they thought the guns were turned. Is the reason we giggled at this is that whenever we see videos of combat in me and mar James and I send them to a group chat and try to work out what the weapons are and where they came from. Nearly every time we're stumped. The guns turned out to be some kind of niche Turkish shotgun made to look like an a R fifteen. It seems the military we're operating on the same assumption, only this time they were

very wrong. Like Alex Myak started this second more deadly phase of the Spring Revolution by taking a trip out to the jungle and he stayed for several months to learn some of the skills he was going to need to fight back against the top medal. I was going the Monday as a cuminating data so I'm not like the I'm not have a video training or something like that.

I just going as a cuminator guy. So I met with them Sundgain specially or some Freya and I said, I want to know how to shoot ga, how do amber the gag so to teach me, I said, uh say, I'm in acuminated. I can to the Traineer, but I want to lamb the folks out of being so they sent me some videos I did to lamb by myself. Yet later he went back to carry prototype printed guns to the E. A O S for testing. We asked if it was scary being an undercover gun runner in

a dictatorship. He says it was, but he found that he had a powerful ally in his fight homophobia. Yeah, oscar Of. We need to discloses, so you know, yeah, disguises though. I just that I have a long hair, so I act like a day so you know that the military has so Jianna and equality, so they hate game. That's why I just just our brand. The military, assuming me Of was gay and therefore incapable of fighting, let

him go. Miak kept his mouth shut and let their homophobia help him smuggle the guns with which he hopes to help topple the regime that places so much stock and values like these. Miak said he had to go to the jungle to prove that his guns worked because at first the ear didn't believe him about the gain. No one, no one believes I believed that. No one believed that, so we have to made made it fast and show them. So we made it first, uh we said,

we got again. It's it's a self fool. We lie, we need to lie, and we send this to the e O. Then they made it and it didn't walk out and the adjust and walk out. Okay, yeah, how do they feel made? Oh? Oh my my one of my revolutionary and it was they said, oh, they're really really happy. There's all that, all of the friend that and most progession. Let's do it right now. Yes that

Almost everyone we met spend time in the jungle. Rooney, that's a normed the gear not a given name, started off as a protester, and just like everyone else, he fled into the jungle to avoid being murdered by the government and to learn from the ethnic armed organizations how to fight back when when we try and make peace protesting and it's really break down. Then he decided, like he also we so we decided to choose to have

an ass and to make to make a revolution. So at this time he goes to the EO or stays and he lands the trainees, you know, even especially the explosive trainees, and he got back to the town and he's still making this explosive with the head of the teachings. After learning from the e a O S, he came back to Young Gone to put his knowledge to use.

Of course, just like MIAs gunmaking team and the street protesters who learned from Hong Konger's he took to YouTube and Google to try and find a better way to build killing machines. So it's like the EO teaches the very business explosives just came bound. You can produce and you guysn't like this, But after they land a very business then and they want to improve. So the landbine theirselfs just like d I Y the lambine yourself with Google, with YouTube, so later and later even they can make

TNT and et Y using YouTube. Of course, nearly everyone we met at some point googled something like how to make gun or how to make bomb. Now this is not ideal, op SEC, but it speaks to the desperation of the times. They used crowdfunding websites to raise money for ingredients, and Rooney soon started putting his knowledge into practice. What that meant was that people died he killed human

beings with the explosives that he made. Now, those people would have killed Rooney or anyone else we've spoken to in this series. He was defending himself and others by making killing machines. But still, if you're a decent person, it's not easy to watch your work result in a stranger being blown into a pink mist. He is not proud of that, but you know, you know, he is never trying to kick even a cat on any man. He is sad, but he had to do because of revolution.

Revolution was in Rooney's blood. The military had stolen his house as a kid, and he'd grown up with his uncle sharing men Marie's of the pro democracy uprising and it's violent repression. He'd seen his family, his cousin brothers and their parents harassed for his whole life. Now he had a chance to fight back. He carried out hundreds of missions before he eventually had to flee the city when an accident led to serious injury. Like in June Tones Saven, there's a nine mission, so he has to

made nine boom, Yeah, really big ball. So they did trying to assembly this bowl adult one of his brands smoking and this this family is called Campo. After the blast, he had to run away from his house before the police arrived. His friend was not so lucky, and he's in jail now. Rooney is mostly recovered, but it's not safe for him to go back, so he's hoping to make a new start in Mason. The fight didn't stay in Yangon, in Napod or even for villages living outside.

The coup was just as real, but so was a desire to fight back. People outside of town found themselves in the cross hairs at the Topmador as well. The military employs a strategy which they call four cuts. It's designed to alienate the rebels from local support. It doesn't work. It's kind of scorched earth. Stuff has never worked. Didn't work when the Nazis tried in Europe, didn't work when the US tried in the Middle East of Vietnam, doesn't work when it Rael keeps doing it, and it doesn't

work in Myanmar. What it does do is drive people who lose their families to pick up a gun and kill soldiers. And it's not hard to see why. I just want to play you our conversation watching one of Andy's videos about one of hundreds of mascarets that have happened since last February and as a warning that stuff we're going to talk about, it is about as horrible as stuff can be. But yeah, basically about I think twenty eight people were killed that day. They just came

into a village and show everyone. That's the handmade guns that these villagers had. But it was just they weren't shooting anyone though. It's that's all the everyone died. All these guys died. Look at that his hands tied. Yeah, yeah, looks like the love trying to tie their hands. Yeah, that's electrical, it looks like. And they burned the whole village. Now yeah they did, yeah twice, you guys are yeah yeah, And that's why we say massacre because it's fucking look

at all the brains out, you know. Yeah, yeah, all these kids, they weren't even eighteen. So all the villagers that run away, they took a photo of the village from afar and they burned the where the tith and then left. Yeah Jesus fucking Christ, Yeah, it was all he did. And he says. A nonprofit called Liberate Myanmar supports the families every month, keeping them fair and sheltered, because however hard the government tries to divide the people

from one another, it always seems to fail. Instead, it just pushes them closer and closer together. While we were in Thailand having a drink on a rooftop actually and talking about some kind of meditation retreat that a guy we met had gone on, we got to see some of the action for ourselves. That night was a fun one. We were hanging out with some nonprofit folks and we'd

acquired some pretty terrible whiskey. At various points in the evening we would ambush one of the boys and tell them they've been shot in the arm or the leg, and have the others rush into practice the stop the bleed skills well, and I demonstrated some improvised carrying techniques and how to effectively turn and drop to the floor when you're in the intimate presence of a grenade. Everyone else at the party probably thought we were pretty strange,

but we were having fun. Then in the distance we saw a huge yellow flash. It took a few seconds of us all wondering if that whiskey had sent us blind before the boom reached us. The first we thought it was one of the air strikes that have been happening in the border region. But it was close and it was just one huge boom, not the rockets and cluster bombs that tap the door like to drop on civilians. Within minutes, minutes of nervously waiting on the rooftop to

see what was coming next, Andy's phone started buzzing. It was a car bomb and it had gone off about a hundred yards from the border where we stood earlier that day. Camera or something, let me see, right, how did they fucking get it in there? Immediately we had questions, but very few answers. Car bombs hadn't been the thing thus far in the revolution. This was new. Car bombs

are also extremely scary. It's hard not to be around cars in the city, and when any one of those cars might kill you, it's hard to do anything feeling any semblance of safety. I want to know who did well? I mean, yeah, probably no car bombs. I've never heard of it. It hasn't yet. Is it somebody who driving it? Or kind of like I don't think it's someone driving it?

Is it like you don't see anything there? Like h no, I mean it could have is it by the because if if there was a person in here, there wouldn't be anything left. Yeah, you wouldn't se it. No, no, no. But the thing is, look, there's the fence like that that looks like it was there one at Yeah it was. It looks like right by the breach. But then I don't know why, what this, what happened. We still aren't sure who set off the car bomb or if anyone died.

In a conflict like the one in Myanmar, it's sometimes as confusing as it is scary. The military are more than capable of a false flag style attack, killing civilians and then blaming the PDF, and it has done this before. That's what totalitarianism does. It aims to control every aspect of every day life, even the truth. The jungle haunted us the whole time we were there, unattainable. But right next door, just a few miles away, and Locke Caw

the fight was raging. Lucky caused what's called a friendship town. It was built with Japanese money as a place for k and new fighters to live after they put down their arms. It was supposed to be a symbol of hope and a new, peaceful and democratic Mi'anmar. Now it's a battlefield. But while we couldn't get there, we could walk along the river bank and look at the jungle and imagine what it must be like up in those mountains, which we did almost every day. Myanmar itself looms like

a mountain over the town of Masot. It's a border town without a border, but the city is surrounded by refugee camps, nonprofit offices, and even museums for political prisoners that can't exist on the other side of the river. One day, we took a cab to see a monastery on a bluff overlooking the river down into My'anmar. We could see a casino still doing business with Chinese tourists,

despite the bombing nearby. On the walls of the mono sterry were a colorful but horrific scenes of rape and murder Buddhist stages of Hell, a reminder that, according to the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, all life is suffering and greed is the cause of suffering. The same thing could be said for the refugees and fighters forced to hide in the endless green of the jungle, driven away from their homes by the greed of men who worship power,

all demo, crazy dye wordering my doing. It's not easy to leave your home, even when people there are trying to kill you. Doctor Wonder, like everyone else, struggled with the choice. His hospital had next to no supplies. COVID's third wave was ravaging the population, and he couldn't even get oxygen to treat sick patients. All around him was death and fear, but he still wanted to stay. Actually, I don't want to live my country because if we just live like that, our country will be We'll go

back to yes before century. You know, you know, they control everything. We have to just cue to where we have to just make it cue to get a patrolium petroleum. We have faced in our young age. I don't I don't want to feel that feeling again, not for me, not just for me, enough of for our people, for our new generation. I've got two young accents. Yes, one is a five year one is an idea. So I just want to fight until my last friend. But I can't tolerate because they are trying, because you know, a

ground movement. I'm trying my best. The decision to go was made for him by the topal. We are making the meeting with him. He is anc control a control yes at those times. So we're making a meeting then asking him did he saved or not? You know adust And at the end of the meeting, he he told me that him he was going to the in saying oh, I say, oh shit, holy ship. He was arrested. So I was living the young ol and you know, the government sorry that. The military also announced that the remain

to arrest remaining arrested. I think all of my things that you have to go because you have all of the data, so you have to go. So I decided to go. Okay, Andy and the boys made the decision to abandon their apartment and head for current territory and eventually Thailand. Once one of their protest friends was arrested by the government, his phone was on him when he

got caught, potentially exposing all of them. After a harrowing drive into the jungle and several days among the Kuran, they succeeded in finding a people smuggler to get them across the border without getting stuck in one of the refugee camps operated by the Thai government. Three days later, we were trying to cross at night time, and these guys said, okay, you know you're going you cross, you get to Thailand the same night. And we thought, okay,

you know, and we we streamed across the river. It was very scary, but for me, I've done it like three times, so it was a little bit. I thought it was going to be better, but it was more stressful because I had them right, So I was like, if it was me alone, maybe I could, you know, whatever happened, I would find a way out. I'm not sure if I could do that with three other people, you know, so I was quite nervous. We paid what five thouting bodies, right, it's not cheap, It is not cheaping.

But because that's the thing, it's not just one person. Yeah, it's not just one person. He the person that crossed us from the river from Noality to this side is one and then from there to the Norman's line is another one. Right, So yeah, we saw the soldier were like Alex Dayton fought or attempted to fight with the correct but most of the time only did with stamp century,

we're about getting enough to eat. I wonder when he gets his hands or something better than a squirrel rifle I kind of use because we don't have like enough guns, you know. Like so by the time that there was a like straight having uh lik ago, I thought like, oh, we're gonna have to like go and you know, like fight them now. But uh if they like we have to pack our staff and move to a diepa Jenko

so were like kind of like reputees with uniforms. So yeah, you know, if I'm just keep staying there like we if we are just going to keep running away like this, like I don't want to stay there. I want to do something about the need, like you know, like the main needs in our kidis the weapons against So I want to like come here and like you know, like Wok Wok for that, he called his unit refugees with uniforms,

and that's about what they were. This is why rebels like me Ak and Daddy you m c d are so motivated to find a way to reliably print functional semi automatic weapons. The Korean are desperately under armed, and yet they've been able to hold off the military for decades. If the Koran and other ethnic organizations were able to build functional arms production infrastructure alongside the new rebels with

the PDF, they have a real chance at victory. If they succeed in building this, the repercussion around the world could be massive. That is, however, a story for another day. Seeing this kind of conflict isn't good for you. Nobody's supposed to live through this kind of stuff, and certainly not when they're just kids. Even in a rich country replete with therapists and VA clinics. Thousands of US veterans

live every day with PTFT. The difference for them is that they went to war in Myanma what comes to you? And then there's another one which is Sada this one and I did the first part and I'm too scared to do the second part. Yeah, I mean this is fucked up. Like every time I have to do it, I get my head get funned. That's one of the guy and so that's in Yangon in the protest. That's one of the night, where that's one of the day. But the Ajouana about a hundred people would kill over

a hundred people. You can see in the video they come in um and you will see that the military, how the military came in and how they were trying to I'm not sure if I have it any more, maybe here delop. They surrounded and they killed everybody. What they've seen is bonded the boys. They do anything for each other, and they've already done things that most of us can't imagine. When one of their mothers wanted to take him home, he felt helpless without them. When the

rest of them crossed. One of their moms came back to get him without them, and stuck in the country following apart, he didn't want to keep going. Every day he watched soldiers outside himself popping Yabba pills yabas, a meth based drug that soldiers are often given by the military. He worried they kill him. His brother in law was arrested and tortured just to having a lighter. Can you remember what it felt like when your mom came taking him.

He kept saying, he's gonna kill himself for a long time, for a long time. I will come through, okay, Yeah. Yeah. He wasn't in a good space. Yeah, that's very space. Yeah, and I didn't that. So he was saying that if he has to go back, he was telling us like, um, you know, now he's alone, Like he doesn't even have us anymore. And so he was saying, like he's going to go out to the protests and he's going to try to kill the cops, right, the soldiers, the police.

And it was very difficult like for us to like because we know his mom can't really like help him with that stuff. You know we can, but she really wanted to take him. So over time they chatted on the phone and he felt it. But now he's here with the boys. It's him playing his guitar and the music you heard. Um, he got a little better. Um coping with this in a good life, you know what

I mean. I mean, if you're young and you see people killing people like this terribly, you have some drug fucked up thoughts yourself too, write like well I could do this to someone too, and stuff like that. So he's struggled a lot with that for a long time. And um, I think the worst thing was being alone. He was alone. He couldn't talk to his mom about all these things, right. He was paranoid, he was scary, he was traumatized. So I mean you should see like

the first time he canalize. It's been five months since he was he's here, but the first few months it was very difficult. Yeah, I'm kind of like I talked to them all the time about this, because I know talking helps with these stuffs, like especially when you all feel in the same It's like, you know, and I think our ways of coping with this is like we talked about it about like kind of like a joking way,

like people hearing it. That's the best way to deal with it, Like to get through those hard days on his own looking down at men who wanted him dead. He picked up a cheap acoustic guitar. When he got back, he began teaching the others he hadn't picked it up. That's pretty good. When we went out to the pool bar at night, in between kicking herrasses, the boys would

look up at the stage. It was occupied by a pretty second rate cover band for whatever reason, probably not helped by the incredibly rough Tige, and we've been smashing back. I looked at them looking at the stage on our last night, and I wanted to cry. Teenage kids shouldn't be caught picking up guns to fight or picking up cameras to film their friends dying. They should be doing what I was doing when I was a teenager, which is making a complete prick of myself on a stage

with a guitar. One day, hopefully soon they'll be able to sing happy songs again and the war will just be a memory, my stuff. Then when you write it before, Yeah, I don't have from Paul. Yeah, I don't talk like stood. Their bond is so close now, they're barely ever apart. It's a lot of responsibility for Andy, who's just twenty two himself, but he wouldn't want it any other way, and neither would they. One night and you and Sarah have appointments, and so Robert and I take the boys

for dinner. It's a lot of fun and actually a lot of food. But when we talked to him about their options as refugees who might be able to come to the US, one thing is clear. They don't want to be a part. For me, it's like I'd rather fucking take bullet than any of them, because if they die or if something happened to them, I am in so much trouble, you know what I mean. But I

know that that's what they want to do. Like if the mom trud him and yangon and he doesn't do anything and the revolution is over, he's going to feel so much regret, you know, like for not being involved in this, and that's for me. It's like people if if people want to fight, like, you know, like we shouldn't keep them. We shouldn't just say yeah. It's been a few months since we got back from Masont. It's the rainy season there now, and that makes fighting and

reporting harder. Amira is still stuck in Mason. It it's not safe for her to go back to a country where her family wants her dead, but it's not possible for her to leave Masat either without travel documents, something the u N h c R would have to issue. She's stuck in a little room in a hotel. It's not a great place for a young woman, and it's even worse when she has to watch her friends continue

to struggle without her. We both wrote to the U N and the various embassies on her behalf, but months later we've heard nothing. This is typical of a lot of refugees. They're often presented as a faceless mass of humanity, bereft of hope, but each of them has a story, and those refugee camps along the border between Thailand and Myanmar are full of stories. Some of those are stories of fear, some of heroism, and some of tragedy, But until things change at the u N, all of those

stories aren't being told. The three D printed firearms Mawk and his colleagues are working on have made massive progress over the last few months. But even though three D printed guns cost a small fraction of the price of an M sixteen or an a K forty seven, the pro democracy forces are still desperately underfunded. They're at war with the state, but they don't have any of the apparatus of the state with which to fight back. Instead, the gen Z rebels have turned once again to the Internet.

Alongside crowdfunding campaigns that liberate, they've developed a more innovative fundraising method that allows for donations even from people who don't have any money. Instead of soliciting cash donations risking exposing their donors, they began using a method that they call click to Donate, where supporters could help the rebels by clicking on adverts on certain videos and websites in

order to generate advertising revenue. It's used to find everything from weapons purchases to shelter for the ten four thousand eternally displaced people in Myanmar. I spoke to several people in Myanmar who asked not to be named for their own safety, but are very familiar with the funding of the PDF. One of them told me click to donate started to support government staff who had decided to join a civil disobedience movement. Government staff are always low paid,

and so they were not very financially stable. In the beginning, the function click to tommy allow these workers to strike without pay. After a few weeks of being on strike, financial concerns were weakening the movement and people were being forced to work or starve. Younger protomocracy activists responded by setting up YouTube channels and then using the anti coup telegram channels to direct millions of views and a cliques to them from across the country and from supporters abroad.

The resulting advertising revenue allowed them to fund the civil disobedience movement and later to equip the PDF. By December, these clicks were yielding an income of about five hundred million kiyats about twenty eight thousand dollars every day. The military junta responded to this and international indignation at videos of protesters being massacred in the street by tripling data

prizes and throttling internet connection speeds. Pro democracy keyboard warriors responded with viral content that required less bandwidth, including writing personal finance blogs to attract the u S audience that was unknowingly supporting a revolution with its clicks. People in Myanmar also began to use VPNs to access the Internet. This helped them get around some of the junta's restrictions and also yielded a higher advertising payment per click on

a given advert. Websites like Digital Revolution allow users to find content that supports pro democracy rebels and click on it, lending their support with nothing more than a broadband connection and a few seconds of their time. Alongside their videos and websites, the gen Z rebels also launched games. At first, they were just simple, little online phone app games that would let you throw darts at the cool leader or something.

One source told us that these games didn't just support the rebels through funding, but also provided a little bit of mental health care. You know, at least people could virtually kill the folks in their city and their home who were ruining their lives. And at the same time, the games earned the money, and that money went to fund the PDF. The most impressive of these games is a recently launched War of Heroes, which you can buy for just a dollar on the Apple and Google app

stores if you want to check it out. In the game, which is available in Burmese or English, a player can fight as a man or a woman and take on government troops and even zombies. The money donated by these games and adverts doesn't just go into a black hole, according to the sources I spoke to. We have a click to donate Facebook page, they said, and regularly we release financial statements on a Facebook page saying like this

month we gave ten million caaps to that group. I spoke to Billy Ford, a program officer for the Burma team at US Institute of Peace. He says this kind of innovation is what's allowed the protomocracy movement to survive in Miama since it was last violently suppressed in ATPs, and resistance movements in Myanmar have historically been an example to the world of creative, strategic and resilient models of activism,

he said. This poste movement has taken that to a new level, enabling it to defy all historical precedent and sustain an anti coup movement for more than eighteen months, now actually gaining ground against a regime with an enormous structural advantage, rather than seeing their lack of weapons and funds of the fatal flaw. Ford says that the highly unlined rebels have looked for areas where they can outflank

the aging generals who stole their futures from them. The movement has leveraged comparative advantages large numbers of people with time and tech savvy to raise money. He says. This tactic, although unusual, has been a great success. According to Ford, the approach has grown enormously, with one of the video games, for example, rising to become a number two paid app

on the App Store at one point. However, all the cliques in the world might not be enough to sweep the rebels into Mandalay and return the country on its path towards democracy. Sources inside ME and MAR say that less and less revenue is generated by a ME and Mari ip address, and that they have had to encourage members of the People's Clique force to install vp ns to make their clicks appear to come from the U

S or Europe. Sometimes the traffic is so massive that YouTube's algorithm mistakes it for an artificial intelligence bot net. They're looking, they tell me, it pivoting towards affiliate links and the sort of content driven commerce that has swept the U S media thanks to the success of sites

like The wire Cutter. Meanwhile, on the ground, PDF forces are regularly getting the better of the toutmadaw and small arms conflict, but coming off worse when they can't defend themselves against the Russian jets, which the Hunter uses to bomb civilian and military targets. Without man portable anti aircraft systems, the rebels are sitting ducks. The world is sent thou of these to Ukraine and none to people in Myanmar fighting the same battle for democracy against the same Russian jets.

Despite this, they're not discouraged. PDF rebels tell me they have been scouring the Internet and they're working on a solution that doesn't need the apparatus of support of a state and instead relies on stable broadband and the increasing ingenuity they've shown in eighteen months of revolution. De crazy, I word oh do dying? YEA yeah? Oh my really young age boy nine? I know it. Hi everyone, it's

me again, James. Don't worry. I'm not coming to you at the end of the series to report something tragic like I did. And I'll last me. I'm a series and I'm just recording this little message at the end to say that we're very grateful to Daniel, Andy and for all their hard work on this, and we've gone through countless edits for this particular project, and they've done a lot of hard work to get it to you in the form that you listen to it today and

for the last week. We also want to say that although this appears to be a podcast written and recorded by Robert and I, that Andy is very much a co author and that none of this would have been possible without him. As we said, and he's not his real name, and we can't put his real name in the credits because we're worried for his safety, but his work has been invaluable and without him, none of what

you've heard would be possible. Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the Universe. It could happen. Here is 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.