CZM Rewind: Printing the Revolution

I wanted to share this because it's been a couple of years since we first made it, and I think at a time when the whole world is worried about the way politics are going and the way that states are behaving, we can learn a lot from the people of Meanma. I don't think it matters where you are.

There's something that you can take from this, from the way that these people stayed in the street and the way that they were willing to work together to learn from one another and to become better people as they struggled to make their world better. It's a long series, spoken to many of the people who are in it this week, most of them are fine, they're doing well, but you will hear about somewhat dying at the end

of this. This is war like, this is a thing that happens in war, but I wanted to give a content warning for that such if anybody was upset by it, they could turn off. It just comes at the end of the final episode. If you've not heard this before, I hope you'll take the time to listen. We worked very very hard on it and it's very important to me.

rest on a monopoly on violence. State to the entities that imposed laws on a given area, and if you break those laws, state can beat you up, lock you up, or shoot you up. When the state loses the monopoly on violence, it ceases to be able to enforce its laws, charges taxes, and enforce its will on the people at rules. We've seen this all over the world, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to briefly downtown Seattle. Our state in

the USA speaks a language of rights and liberties. When we want to appeal to the state, we tend to use that language, even though our state, as we saw in twenty twenty, is backed by plenty of violence, as much as any other, goes a long way to camouflage that violence. Some states are a bit more mask off. They speak to their citizens more or less exclusively through violence, and when citizens need to respond to that state, they respond to the language it uses to speak to them.

That's how a teenager from yangon Meh and Mar ended up on Reddit in summer of twenty twenty one asking strangers have to use a three D printer and computer to make a rifle. Me and Ma isn't a country that is on the radar for most of the US. If it is at all, it's probably because of State Councilor and Foreign Minister ensign Suchi. She managed perhaps the history's fastest pivot from Nobel Peace Prize winner to head

of a government accused of genocide. But Tsuki is in jail now, and the Rahingia, the Muslim ethnic group that the military attempted to eliminate from the east of the country under her rule, are just one of many ethnic and political groups. They're in open armed conflict with the military who now hold control of the government of me and Ma, known locally as a tatmodor the military's whose power. In early twenty twenty one, you might have seen a video of a woman doing an aerobics workout as the

vehicles rolled in behind her to seize power. Ever since that day, they've been committing crimes against humanity all over the country. Mia Mah has a longer history of dictatorship than democracy. The British East India Company occupied the area that now represents the country in the nineteenth century. As always, they talked about civilizing missions and freedoms, but in practice the occupation was extractive and only benefited the Anglo Burmese

and a few Indian civil servants. They bought with them often, but this month led to resistance that manifested itself in hunger strikes and everyday acts of disobedience, small ways of saying no. In a few instances, it became open an unbrest build into the streets. The country became a major battleground during the Second World War, with Japan evading and seizing the country before Allied forces took it back in a fierce campaign in nineteen forty four. As many as

one hundred and fifty thousand Japanese troops died. Burmese people fought on both sides. Ag San Agsan Suchi's father demanded that Britain grant him and his fellow Burmese people independence if they fought for the Allies. The British refused. Ansan then went first to China and eventually Japan for support, and eventually he fought against the British with his Burmer Independence Army, but after two years of occupation, Agsian and his comrade changed sides under a broad alliance called the

Anti Fascist Organization. They turned on the Japanese and they once again took up arms to liberate their country. On the fourth of January nineteen forty seven, Burma became an independent republic. The new republic's territory combined three British territories and over one hundred distinct ethnic groups. For the next fourteen years, these groups struggled to find a democratic Burma and an identity for themselves within it. Mostly they failed.

The period was characterized by the Chinese Civil War, spilling it to Burma ethnic armed insurgencies and repeated to Ma for a federal republic with a weak central government. In nineteen sixty two, the military a rate at new demands for a federal republic stage to coup. Burmer spent the next twenty two years under the military rule of a council, pursuing what they called the Burmese Way to socialism. Burmer's planned economy left it largely isolated from the rest of

the world. At home, the press was censored, and a type of nationalism that combined nominal socialism and Burmer ethnic identity became the official state ideology. During this period, Burmer became one of the world's poorest countries. Sporadic protests were met with overwhelming force, and the eighth of August nineteen eighty eight, an uprising began. It started among his students

in Yangon, it took real quickly around the country. The so called eight eight eight eight Uprising because of the date, began with the general strike and huge non violent protests. These were met with gunfire. Protesters fought back with molotov cocktails and rocks. The military fired into hospitals, and by September eighteenth they'd launched a coup to take the country from a one party state back to a military dictatorship.

Through in these protests, Angsan Suki, the daughter of independence here at Anksan, emerged as a national figurehead, especially in the west. Amitov Ghusch, the Indian writer, wrote the following about a eight eight eight across Burma. People poured out in thousands to join the protests, not just students, but also teachers, monks, children, professionals, and trade unionists of every shape. It was on this day, too, that the Hunter made

its first determined attempt at repression. Soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators and hundreds of unarmed marchers were killed. The killings continued for a week, but still the demonstrators continued to flood the streets. After the uprising had been suppressed, multi party elections were later held, while the new National League for Democracy party of Angsang shu Ki won the

most votes. The Hunter refused to see power. Protests continued off and on for decades, with the two thousand and seven Saffron Revolution, which the government violently cracked down on monks,

resulting in the most international condemnation. Following the Saffron Revolution, the government's isolationism hindering aid After extensive cyclone damage in two thousand and eight, the military government finally implemented the Roadmap to discipline flourishing democracy that had developed in nineteen ninety three. If you're wondering about the name of the country, this officially changed in nineteen eighty nine as well, but like much of the nation's history, a grand proclamation from

the government didn't mean much on the ground. Both words derived from Buranma, a name that the majority ethnic group who we're calling Berman here used for themselves. Many opposition groups still use Burma instead of Mienma. It's another small way of saying no to the military's attempt to control every aspect of their lives.

Democracy won an absolute majority. While she was barred from holding the presidential office, she took on the role of State councilor, and Mienmar entered a period of liberalization, which, although never the federal democracy promised when the country gained its independence in nineteen forty seven, allowed for significant freedoms of communication and speech, especially for the Burman majority ethnic group.

Not everyone was reconciled to the change. Many of Myanmars one hundred and thirty five ethnic groups feel marginalized by the state, which tends to be dominated by the Burman ethnicity. Some of these groups have armed insurgeon wings, often more than one per ethnic group, as they disagree on politics or religion. These groups have fought various Burmese governments since the nineteen forties, but many of them reached a ceasefire with the government as the country passed from military to

civilian rule. One group, however, saw a huge uptick in violence. The Rohingya ethnic group have been persecuted by Buddhist nationals since the nineteen seventies, but the campaign against them increased in violence and scale in twenty sixteen, when the Tatmadab began a huge crackdown against Rohinga people in Rakin's State.

The persecution began in response to attacks by the Arkan Rohinga Salvation Army on Burmese border outposts, but the campaign that followed had nothing to do with a small insurgent group and a lot to do with the desire of the Totmadaw to destroy or drive out all Rohinka people, who they claim are undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and not

citizens of Myanmar. While the world praised Suki her government looked the other way as the military carried out a genocide that displaced over a million people and killed tens of thousands. It was in the context of growing international condemnation of the genocide that Mianmar went to the polls in November of twenty twenty. The November twenty twenty election was only the nation's second since the official end of military rule. On Sansuchi's National League for Democracy won a

resounding victory. The military backed Union Solidarity and Development Party holds twenty five percent of seats under a constitution that SUCHI wanted to change. It didn't take defeat well. The election was neither perfectly free nor fair. The Rohinga have been almost wholly disenfranchised. The government claims they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and thus unable to vote. Areas with ethnic armed organ as if which opposed the government often

had poles canceled and internet cut off. According to Human Rights Watch, The Carter Center estimates that one point four million citizens couldn't vote. The one opposition party that was certainly not short changed was the military's. However, it was the Union Solidarity and Development Party USDP, which had been calling for election delays due to COVID before poles opened. Once the elections concluded, they immediately began questioning the results.

They continued to attempt to undermine the vote for months before they resorted to force on the first to February twenty twenty one, the day before the newly elected legislators were due to be sworn in. The world largely ignored the situation, apart from the one viral video where a masked fitness instructor dances in the foreground as APC's roll through a roadblock and into the parliament complex behind her.

Ensang su Chi was arrested, charged with breaching COVID nineteen restrictions and illegally importing a walkie talkie, and General min Angkhlang was installed at the head of a military hojna to If this sounds a little like a stop to Steel fantasy, that's because it is eerily similar to one. Meanmar's democracy is not what academics call a consolidated one, which is to say that democracy has never been the only game in town there, but the United States seems

to be rapidly deconsolidating its own democracy. The allegations of election fraud in Meanmar were no more credible than those in Arizona. However, the military's tradition of political engagement there removed many of the barriers in between electoral defeat and the death of a short lived democracy. Within twenty four hours of the coup, the people of Myanmar had fought back. Healthcare workers and civil servants were on strike by February third,

and a boycott of junta owned businesses had begun. Protests began with a handful of people. The memories of massacres of pro democracy protesters in the nineteen eighties kept many away, but a younger generation who had grown up with relative liberty, internet access and basic freedoms had not seen blood in the streets like their parents. They had seen activists in Hong Kong, the USA, and Ukraine on violent state APPARATUSUS, and they'd often seen them win.

to show imagury to their struggle. One sign read I've messed with the wrong generation. Now we'll never be allowed to ruin our own lives. The Tatmador showed its cards pretty quickly. Police began the suppression with sling shots and clubs, then tear gas and flashbrang and quickly they moved to rifles and rocket the pel grenades. By the ninth of February, maya thway thway, heine, a twenty year old woman have been shot in the street.

the start. In a text message, he told me I did not miss a single day as a member of the Caya State National Strike Committee. I later became more involved in anti authoritarian protests. In the early protests, you see him in photos walking at the front of the group carrying flags and banners with his student ID card on a lanyard around his neck. But by March he's

wearing a black shirt, goggles and a hard construction hat. Meanwhile, the National League for Democracy politicians who had escaped attention joined other parties and set up a National Unity Government

in April. The National Unity Government contained members of the National League for Democracy, but significantly, a Rahindio activist was appointed an advisor in the Ministry of Human Rights, and the National Unity Government has announced it would for the first time accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court with respect to all international crimes committed in me and Mah since two thousand and two. This would include the

Rhinga genocide. By May, both the National Unity Government and Zwelin had realized that no amount of non violent protests was going to this lodge regime that was happy to gun down kids in the street. So on the fifth of May, he left for the jungle. That same day, the National Unity government announced the formation of the People's Defense Force or PDF. Within a month, eight hundred soldiers has it affected to these pro democracy guerrilla units. Many

bought their guns with them, but Twa didn't join the PDF. Instead, he joined one of ME and R's many ethnic armed organizations groups opposed to a central state and its domination by the Burman ethnicity. To understand these groups, you need to understand that ME andm R is composed of dozens, not hundreds, of ethnic groups, but that the Burman, who make up about two thirds of the population, have always controlled the state and used it as a tool in

furthering their interest. Some of these groups, like the Kurrent National Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army, have been fighting for decades since the country emerged from British colonial rule at the end of World War Two. All of these groups drew on a combination of ethnic and political grievances. Many of them administer semi autonomous territories like the Kurrent State.

EAOs and the government continued. Since the coup began, EO membership has skyrocketed, and in October, the National Unity government announced alliances with several groups under a central chain of command. Some political organizations who played a part in the nineteen eighty eight uprising, like the Al Burma Students Democratic Front, have been revived as armed groups. The ABSDF recently attacked top Madaw ships using an RPG. Attacks on military bases

have also stepped up. PDF units have ambushed and killed policemen and raided police and military outposts. Each time they do, they steal valuable weapons and ammunition. The top Madaw has responded with shellings and airstrikes against residential areas, executions, mass physical retribution, and the murdering of civilians and aid workers

and burning of their bodies. As a result of all this, ethnic armed organizations have joined forces with anti authoritarian Burman people under the auspices of the People's Defense Forces, which are under the command of the exiled National Unity Government.

the junta. Many Berman kids join these groups. These organizations of young fighters received training from the experienced guerrillas hiding in the jungle, but they tended to adopt a less top down military structure and armed themselves by scavenging whatever weapons they could find, often twenty two caliber rifles better suited to shooting squirrels than soldiers. It was these kids who grew up online and knew that there was nothing you couldn't learn about on Reddit who tipped the balance

of force away from the state. Unlike the ethnic armed organizations and other more experienced guerrillas than menmar these kids have little military experience. Their organizations have few rules and regulations.

They're made up entirely of young people. As a result, there are certain things that they're less proficient at, but they're much better at things like grasping the use of new technologies, which has led to me and Maar being the first country in the world where three D printed weapons have taken part in a revolution against the government. To hear more about that and many other things as this series continues. Hey, everybody, I'm Robert Evans, and this

is me and mar printing the Revolution Part two. Since the dawn of firearms, regular people all over the world have had the same basic idea, maybe if I made myself a gun, the government wouldn't be able to be such a dick to me. Historically, this has had little impact on the willingness of governments to be dicks to people. In the beginning, all gun manufacturing was done by individual artisans, and thus making a gun in your home was really no different from making it in a shop, as long

as you had the proper tools. Guns in this period weren't super useful on their own and were best fired in a volley by a shitload of dudes at once. Since individual firearms were extremely inaccurate and cumbersome to use, the fact that some poor or blacksmith could make himself one wasn't much of a threat to anybody in power. It did mean that battlefield prowess came from large blocks of trained soldiers, not fuel lords on horseback rallying untrained peasants.

This change in technology led to a change in warfare and helped to change society. As firearms evolved and became these central weapons of battle. They required more intense tooling and more expensive manufacturing capacity. Nations and peoples without the know how our infrastructure were at a tremendous disadvantage. As soon as this situation came into being, these unfortunate communities set to work finding ways to gain the advantages of

firearms without the manufacturing capacity their foes enjoyed. Indigenous cannons and regions resisting imperialism often consisted of composite materials less sturdy than brods or iron. In the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, Indigenous Americans in South America used wooden cannons to fight against Spanish and Portuguese conquerors. The Vietnamese used wooden cannons to resist the French during the coachin China

Campaigane of eighteen sixty two. American Indians used wooden artillery to blast settler fortifications in the seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds. In the months that led up to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the men who fought to create the United States busied themselves building rifles and cannons in their homes and communities to resist the English. This trend has

never really stopped in warfare. The day before we recorded this, James, my partner in this series, sent me a screen grab from a live stream of someone in Ukraine printing pieces for AK forty sevens on a three D printer. Firearms manufactured outside the arms industry have played a role in every conflict of the modern era, but as you've probably guessed, they have had the greatest influence in the little wars of colonialism.

along with modern firearms pilfered by deserting local soldiers. Where domestic productive capacity existed, European colonizing nations went out of their way to relocate it, along with the profit it generated, to the metropol All were reflected on this in his novel Burmese Dates, saying in the eighteenth century, the Indians cast guns that are at any rate up to the European standard. Now after we've been in India one hundred and fifty years. You can't make so much as a

brass cartridge case in the whole continent. Meanwhile, among the colonizers, being armed became almost a synonym for being a man. This was particularly true for the colonial police forces and militaries, but it was also true domestically. Most people are broadly familiar with the u s. Second Amendment the robust gun culture that it's spawned, but during the higher colonialism, English

citizens are also free to arm themselves. In nineteen hundred, Prime Minister Robert gascoyne Cecil Marquis of Salisbury, gave a speech in which he claimed he would lud the day when there was a rifle in every cottage in England. Firearms were utterly and restricted at this point. The first chains to this came in nineteen oh three with the first Law that required a permit to carry a handgun

and restricted children from buying guns. Still, firearms were widely available until a red panic gripped the nation in nineteen nineteen following the Bolshek Revolution in Russia. Across the ocean in Spain, where firearms ownership was less strictly restricted, where Orwell himself would learn what it was to fire a rifle at someone who shot back. Armed unions and working people served as the only bullwalk to a military coup.

In nineteen thirty six, in Madrid, one officer opened his armory to the union militias, but another refused to hand over for the bolts for the guns they had been issued. In Barcelona, where the anarchist left had a long tradition of armed political violence, the coup was repelled by workers with guns, and a general leading troops there was imprisoned and executed. The same pattern played out all across the country in July nineteen thirty six, when the military rose

up to topple the elected government. In the cities where the government opened the armories to the people, the coup was repelled. In the cities where the government did not, the coup succeeded. Reflecting on this in nineteen forty one, or Wit, the totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do. They cannot give factory worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat

is a symbol of democracy. It's a job to see that it's stays there.

were not military grade firearms. The barrels were unrifled, which made them terribly inaccurate, but every piece could be crafted from widely available things like sheet metal, washers and screws. The person assembling a looty gun would need to be a skilled craftsman, but they would not need access to welding rigs forges, rather expensive industrial equipment. Loody published a book Expedient Homemade Firearms, The nine millimeters Submachine Gun in

nineteen ninety eight through Paladin Press. In the late nineteen nineties, Paladin was one of the places you could go to mail order fringe political literature and guides for stuff like trapping human beings or disabling the drive system of an Abrams tank in the United States. Nothing about Loudy's book was or is illegal, but Phil didn't live in the United States. He was arrested several times, starting in the late nineteen nineties when a pair of illegal home built

guns were found on his property. Ludy spent the rest of his life, which ended in twenty eleven, operating a website where he raged against gun control. His main argument was that England was headed for totalitarianism, and like Orwell, he believed only public ownership of arms could prevent this.

Unlike Orwell, Ludy was firmly on the right wing. He traced society's problems to quote a combination of political correctness and anti freedom of speech laws legislation governing how we speak about such subjects as religion or a person's race

being just two examples. Words and phrases that have been used for centuries without malice are now insipid in people's mouths and said to cause offence by those very same speech police, who, on the other hand, turned a blind eye to the violence, foul language, and sexual references blasted daily through our TV sets, a phenomenon that really does

cause a fence to many people. Luty never succeeded in sparking a renaissance and civilian arms ownership in the UK, but his ideas were adopted by organized criminal groups all around the world. In Brazil, looty guns can go for as much as twenty five hundred dollars. From twenty eleven to twenty twelve, nearly half of the submachine guns seized

by police in sal Polo were homemade. Most of these arms were certainly used as tools by drug dealers or other gangsters, but some of them were surely also the tools of citizens who simply sought a way to defend themselves in a place with no real rule of law. Looty guns have long been popular among motorcycle gangs in Australia, and in October of twenty nineteen, a fascist terrorist carried out the last of that year's eight Chan shootings in Hulla,

Germany with a looty gun. His weapons, thankfully did not work well. As a general rule, looty guns were never going to be of much use to anyone besides organized criminals. They aren't great in a gunfight, but you can use them to spray bullets into a room or a vehicle at close range pretty well. The year after Phil Loudy died twenty twelve, a fellow named Cody Wilson decided to

carry on his work. Cody felt three D printing carried the possibility of eventually manufacturing arms of a quality that might rival traditionally produced guns. He started simple with a single shot three eighty handgun based around the old Liberator pistol from World War II. The Liberator had been a single shot forty five caliber handgun meant to be dropped into Nazi occupied territories and used by insurgents to stealthily

kill single German soldiers and take their guns. Cody Wilson described himself as a crypto anarchist, and when his ideas began to draw attention, he dropped out of law school to create Defense Distributed. This organization was dedicated to the development and distribution of plans to craft three D printed weapons. It used a platform called death Cad to allow users to develop and share blueprints. In twenty thirteen, the first

CAD gun file became available online to everyone. It was downloaded more than one hundred thousand times in two days. I'd like to quote now from an article on the website three D Natives. This prompted the US government to demand that Defense Distributed remove the file from their site. What followed is a legal battle between Cody Wilson and the US government, consisting of back and forth lawsuits. It lasted five years until in twenty eighteen, the Trump administration

legalized three D printed guns. The same year, Wilson was charged with sexual assault of an underage girl and had to step down from Defense Distributed. Nonetheless, the organization did not cease to exist without Cody. Today for a yearly fee of fifty dollars. Users of the DEAFCAD website can access the files containing different designs of three D printed guns.

And I should note here that it's probably more accurate to say the Trump administration legalized sharing the plans and printing the files and whatnot of three D printed guns, not legalized three D printed guns. Homemade firearms have been federally legal in the United States since forever. The fighting in the courts over all this has continued ever since, and in twenty nineteen, a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked DEAFCAD. This sparked the creation of a new group,

de Terence Dispensed, which was even less centralized. The basic idea was that this would make them harder to take down via lawsuits or police action. Not stated was that this might also protect their reputation from a Cody Wilson's situation. The debate over the legality of three D printed firearm plans continues on to the present day, but the development of these arms has continued at an ever faster pace. The best modern three D printed arms can even rival

conventional guns. It's worth emphasizing that these are not purely plastic tools. The Liberator pistol used a metal nail, and the better three D arms have metal barrels rifled using other craft methods that require some nohow but arguably less than it took to manufacture a looty gun. Three D printed arms have been confiscated by police around the world, but in recent months they've begun to crop up somewhere new in the arms of revolutionaries fighting against a military coup.

eight failed Pro democracy uprising. The only civilians who were permitted to own arms through the Chin, the nation's poorous ethnic group who rely on guns to hunt for food. In many cases, these guns were flintlocks that would not have looked that out of place on a battle till two centuries before. In practice, though, things are very different. The current conflict is best seen as a flare up in violence, so it has been ongoing since Britain left

the country in nineteen forty seven. The Tatmador has consistently used violence against marginalized ethnic groups in the country, and they have consistently taken up arms in response. But unlike civil wars in the Middle East, wealthy nations in the West have not been flooding me and Mihle with weapons for decades, and the various eos or ethnic armed organizations have had to turn to much more unorthodox roots to

arm and equip selves against the government. To get a better idea of what things are like on the ground, we spoke to Pierre. He's French, but he's a serial volunteer with national liberation struggles around the world. A fought with the Korrenn people in the early two thousands.

the situation now. That was in the nineties. That was it was a bit of the Albania of sosieties at this time, right.

fired marbles and bicycle wheel bearings. The rifles all used the same design and the same components. They were based on a video someone found on YouTube, but they weren't lethal. They helped protesters defend their space, albeit at a great cost, and at first clash, four protesters and four soldiers were killed. The protesters in Calais were able to hold out a few days using old hunting rifles and air guns the ambush military patrols and they took four police hostage. Then

they exchanged them for nine incarcerated protesters. But in early April, the Tapmador returned to the protest camp in Calay with rocket propelled grenades and machine guns and killed eleven people. We must fight back against them. If not, our generation will face a worse situation than us. They have no laws, a neighborhood villager who battled the regime's forces told the Irrawoody, a local paper. The air guns spread around the country quickly.

To avoid surveillance, protesters talked about cooking up berryani on telegram channels, and what they meant was desperately scouring the internet for a way to fight back and finding a way to make an air rifle out of a buttane canister, a pipe and a cigarette lighter, combined with fireworks and smoke bombs made of potassium nitrate. The air rifle gave protests just enough cupboard to escape police charges, but they also gave the junta an excuse to further escalate the violence.

to find sixty homes burned to the ground. Now all they can do is pick through the ashes, trying to save anything from the military's policy of scorched earth.

War Two. After the failed eight eight eight eight uprisings in nineteen eighty eight, the military offered concessions to China in return for more advanced weapons. They got them, but it didn't stop China from also supplying ethnic armed organizations. EAOs don't have access to the same munitions factories that the government does. But there is a long tradition of

homemade weapons in Myanmar. In more remote parts of the country, homemade air rifles and shotguns seem to have been relatively common place before the start of the conflict, and they were mostly used for hunting. The country is also covered with land mines, which the EAOs used a great effect against the top at all. We spoke to Pierre, a former combatant with the KRIN who no longer lives in

me and Maar. His experience is not that recent, but it helps us to understand the way this conflict has been fought for decades.

to go up and down a lot of hills. It was two days of walking get there, going up and down the hills and back down, up and down until we got to the training plan.

for today's episode. We're twenty two years old. At the time. He spend his days working as a delivery driver, hang out with his girlfriend playing video games. On the day the coup started, he was playing pubg after a long shift. Soon he and his girlfriend took to the streets with thousands of other gen z Burmese kids. The state responded with massacres, often firing automatic weapons into the crowds. Saw

Helen been particularly politically active before this moment. In fact, he felt pretty poorly towards revolutionary supposing the government in the jungle, seeing them as rebellious trouble makers.

And then they're going to tell us terrorists, and however must they call us. We know that we're finding for human rights, and we know that each person deserves these basic things, you know, So so even when we capture a soldier, we don't kill them immediately that they're unarmed. You know, when they capture a PDF, they torture and kill them very very horrifically or horrendously, and they kill

and do hurt all the citizens and ordinary bystanders. So for us, what they're calling as rebels before, we're not rebels. They're the ones that are rebels, so we have to call them rebels. They're the terrorists.

started entering training school. So the downtoy is what the word we use, and it's something like this corner part so one corner part one to do so talking. What that means is that in the huntings huntings that we were doing, hunting rifles that we were using for that. So we kind of start started, and we fought first and demoso, if we can ask the military nicely, then

there's no reason for us to be using guns. But since they don't listen to our demands or our requests at all, then and since that all we can do, all they are saying, all they're doing is using the guns and being terrorists trying to shoot us. So the only thing that we can do to get what we need and what we want is to take the guns for ourselves.

two was one of the smallest widely available bullets. Like any bullet, it can kill, but as a caliber it's better suited for shooting rabbits than soldiers. Two rifles were handmade locally and only fired one shot at a time, but it was those rifles that Zaw, his girlfriend, and their friends carried into their first gunfight with the Tautmadaw. After battling like that for about three weeks, the shooting stopped,

he said in an interview we conducted over signal. After the shooting stopped, we grouped together money to buy arms by asking for donations. They were massively outgunned, but determined to fight on with the weapons they could make and buy on the black market until they could find something better, even if that meant taking guns from dead soldiers. The military's guns are extremely good, of course, compared to point

two two's, he said. We fight with the mindset that we must win our minds are always prepared to take their guns when a soldier falls. It's a mindset to want the enemy's arms to beat your own arms. You need to want to resist injustice. Because we are fighting for what is right. We do not get sad even if we die. We are happy, even when wounded. We no longer care if our arms are matched. Unevenly their enthusiasm, PDF units all over the country were finding themselves in

the same desperate situation. When thousands of young people in Menmar decided to take up arms against the government, they're just warn enough guns to go around. Ak pattern rifles sell for three thousand dollars on the black market, and

ar's sell for up to seven thousand dollars. The GDP per capita in twenty twenty was just twelve hundred and eighteen dollars and thirty five cents per person, and unlike militias in Syria and Iraq, the pro democracy EAOs and Myanmar don't have the benefit questionable benefit of the US flooding the region with its fire hose of guns and money. Undeterred, Zaw and his squad took to YouTube, where they found videos explaining how to make two two three caliber bolt

action rifles. Again, if you're not a gun person, two two three may not sound very different than twenty two, But whereas twenty two is commonly used to shoot squirrels, two two three is the standard rifle round more or less for the US military. These new bolt action two two threes Zaw and his friends were making could not match the rate of fire of a modern rifle, but they could at least match those rifles in stopping power.

Once these gen z insurgeons had the technique down, they created a detailed album on Facebook showing how everything from the stalk to the barrel could be made with pipes, lumber, and hours and hours of detailed hard work. Unlike their guerrilla warfare instructors, these kids had grown up on the Internet rather than the jungle, so they knew that if it exists, there's a subreddit for it. It was the

Internet that came to their rescue. Three D printed guns have been around for a decade, but the early models didn't work well and suffered from a pretty bad reputation due in part to Cody Wilson, the pedophile libertarian activists we discussed last episode. Jake Hanrahan of Popular Front has covered the printed gun movement extensively.

anything on that sense. He liked the gun laws. He liked the freedom of speech lords, which I do as well. You know, like personally I in this country. You know, if you tweet the wrong thing, even in jest, like police will literally come to your house in Britain like it's happened, it's fucking mental. So yeah, he liked that kind of thing, and I think I think for him it was he was very tonal vision. You know, he

was a very tonal vision. It was just freedom, freedom of freedom, and if you said, well what about this, what about that? He was like, I don't care about that until the freedom is there, there's no point looking at anything else, and so his brain was always on people that are living under tyranny, you know, and it genuinely was. I know, there's a lot of people, even leftists, particularly leftists, that tried to completely smear him as a

white supremacist. They were saying, oh, everything he said in that doc that I made was really he was secret anti Jewish white supremacy. And then it came out that he wasn't even white.

any hardware store. In September of twenty twenty one, a post popped up on the foss cads subreddit, which is dedicated to the manufacturing of three D printed guns. Stark is a hero there. The post said, wanted to say thanks to this community, the creators of FGC nine and the various mods when we could, you guys are literally empowering the armed revolution against dictators in one of the

most underdeveloped countries. We are now equipped with FGC nine and starting the armed revolution to the coup leader dictator. As one poster comments, the account quote went from posting about mobile games to how to three D print SMGs to desperately asking people to pay attention what was happening in me and mar Then after the FGC nine post it was deleted entirely. Never lived to see this.

Mark two pistol five rounds of nine millimeters ammunition. They were arrested along with their drone. The military alleged they were in an urban unit from the same generation z E Freedom ARMI that Zor was a part of. That same month, the military posted pictures of three more captured FGC nines, suggesting that at least five have been captured

by late September. Then two months later, a new post popped up and the foscad subreddit, Hey I'm back, and the guy who posted a thank you note back in September here Now that the FGC nines are ready known by the dictator, I can proudly announce that we're from me and marh. Yes, we are mass producing FGC nines to fight back against the Dictator. More info about our production will be published later this time, the user u slash daddy UMCD hung around to answer questions. Those basters

didn't know we had the tech back then. Now that everything is in public, we can proudly say we're from me and Mar. We are mostly responsible for production and R and D, even though we also involved in other ground missions. We distribute the FDC nine to a lot of different urban guerrillas in urban and rural areas. Some of the units got arrested a few weeks ago, which you might have already seen on the subreddit. Apart from the FGC nine, there are other equipments and weapons that

are being produced with three D printers, he wrote. He said his team we're residing in ethnic armed organization areas, mainly the Koren National Union and the Kachin Independence Army controlled zones. He posted that they'd tried other three D printer designs, such as the PLASTICOV, which is a printed AK forty seven receiver, but getting the other parts made it impractical. By contrast, the FGC nine could be made entirely using a three D printer and some hardware store parts.

According to another source, ME and Mars small motorcycle repair shops made quick work at the metal barrels and bolts. Electrochemical machining was used to make more barrels. They also had the chance to buy a few clock barrels from Thailand, Daddy UMCD said, but those cost a lot more than the FGC nine barrels. While his account continued to post, the military continued to share photos of captured FGC nines. Three workshops that have been using lathes to make the

barrels for raided. A photos of three more captured guns popped up in November, alongside bolt action rifles. It still had stickers on their stocks from what looked like US gun shops. Production and decentralized locations continued despite the raids, while other groups fought on with homemade revolving rifles, crewde homemade wooden stocks, and other improvised weapons. A telegram channel with instructions in Burmese on how to make the guns made sure that even when one shop or gunsmith was

taken out of the fight. The knowledge wasn't lost. Although filament for their three D printers were becoming harder to get, they'd stockpiled a lot in advance. Daddy UMCD tried to manufacture automatic FGC nines and another printable model called Professor Parabellum Square tubes are machine gun, but nothing else seemed as easier as reliable as the FGC nun Of course read it. Being read it, people questioned the veracity and

utility of his posts. He responded, FDC nines are just part of the game because they could be produced with what we have are the lowest cost available rifles of four thousand to seven thousand US dollars at our border. Fgcs are under one hundred dollars. Rifle parts are ten times more expensive than parts. To all those who are saying that these photos of sus we don't want to blame your suspicion. If an if you remember the thread I posted in September, you will remember that we are

mass producing FGC knights. The ones in the photos you've seen were supplied by us. There are many groups like this now we do the main production, just like I explained in September. Then Daddy UMCD went on to thank the other members of the subreddit, claiming their active help was your only reason he and other revolutionaries have been able to overcome certain technical issues. We wouldn't be here without you, guys, especially with someone who shared with me.

The buffer spring and fire control groups bring the measurements, he said. By late November, photos of FGC nineis in the hands of fighters emerged and they shared sites. This time they had longer barrels and homemade suppressors too. The FDC nines were apparently used by urban units for close up fighting and for the training of new fighters, since they have essentially the same controls as an AR fifteen or M sixteen rifle, both of which are common in

ME and r's rebel units. We have successfully streamlined a variety of techniques to produce FGC nine one thousand plus efficiently. Our primary forces arequipped with proper rifles. FDC nines are for guerrilla warfare. We started using those in hit and run and Special Task Force missions too. We don't share much about the missions to the public yet, it will definitely come, and when it does, are updated here. If I'm still alive haha, wrote daddly Umcd on the foscat subreddit.

Even with production and full swing, ammunition remained a problem. Although some regions can produce twenty two and nine millimeter a home. According to daddy Umcd, five five six can be purchased in large quantities at the border with Thailand, but it isn't cheap. Instead, the PDF relied on raiding police and military outposts in the same way the EEOS had for years. Nine millimeter is the most common center fire pistol around in the world. That's why Deterrent's Dispense

picked it for the FGC nine. Seized weapons often only have a handful of rounds, but that's enough to kill a soldier and take his weapon. Jay Stark might not have been around to see his invention used to fight tyranny, but Hanrahan thinks he would have been happy with the results.

comrades is a surreal experience. They look not just young soldiers mostly look young, but they look like students kids from some weirdly militarized university. Photos on Facebook show them sprawled out together in the grass and camo fatigues bearing rifles, but each glued to their phones as they cuddle in together. Zaw and his girlfriend, who he described to us as the girl I love, fought alongside each other until January seventh of this year.

might look like. Either he's still fighting, his girlfriend is healing, and they're both committed to staying out in the jungle until they are in their freedom back or die a trying. I'm Robert Evans and this is part four of me and mar printing the revolution.

the people. And that's why we were we have this morale and the ability to get through the training and be able to wield weapons.

So as generation are among the first to embrace global connectivity and now after having it taken away, they're refusing to give it up.

the world. I think one thing that was big was that in two thousand and eight, it just took one video leaking out of the country for there to be big international repercussions.

we founded this group. There were only really eight people from when we group, so those eight people kind of discussed on the bigger strategy. You know, we don't really vote there, he says, he wants to do it. He thinks it is good. We are there's the seven of us we think is good, or we support him, or someone says, well, we don't really like that idea, then we don't do it.

in terms of mentality, we can't. We never take the women out really far into very dangerous fights. So often they're in the back as backup or to supplies or things like that. But as you know, the military government, the military terrorists are very very very unethical. They don't follow the rules, so you know they're going to shoot whoever they see. So even if they're hanging back and they're sending medical supplies. They can still get hit.

So while so that the fact that I am there trying to fight against the military, is very happy, but he tells me to be careful about my own life. They're supportive and they really want to come fight themselves, but they can't because of my sisters and my mother. So and seeing that I can do it, it's really wonderful for them. So his father, his father, brother, and other people three of them below him. They have all usually just lived together with his grandfather and stuff in

the military from pounds or near the military. So he really wants to call all the people that are still there, but they can't leave.

It has its own schools and its own culture. But ethnic armed organizations have not been close to urban populations either, and so whole new identities have been forged by Generation Z while their families often struggle to abandon all certainties.

the terrain. EAOs and the PDF are able to deny the military access to large portions of the countryside. Without a serious change in the conflict, it might stay like this for years. A report published this month detailed the attacks in the Karini state by the tot Madaw on churches, residential homes, camps for displaced people, which killed sixty one in the months since Saw left the city on Christmas Eve. In Upruso's township, they killed at least forty civilians. Autopsies

show some were gagged and burned alive. In recent months, the tot Mada has increased its use of air strikes against targets that it deems legitimate. Ming An Hlang, the junta's leader, flew to Russia twice. In twenty twenty one. He was proclaimed an honorary professor of the Military University

of the Russian Armed Forces. Quote. We are determined to continue our efforts to strengthen bilateral ties based on the mutual understanding, respect and trust that have been established between our two countries, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with the coup leader on June twenty second. We pay special attention to this meeting as we see Mianmar as a time tested strategic partner and a reliable ally in Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific region. He

went on. Min Onnhlang was equally lavish with his praise, saying that he saw Russia as a friend forever. Mianmar relies heavily on Russian hind Mi I thirty five helicopter gunships, transport helicopters Mid twenty nine and SU thirty fighter jets and Yak one thirty ground attack aircraft to carry out bombing raids and straight civilians. All of these weapons systems have been seen more recently in the fighting in Ukraine.

One prominent Ermese Irish family, the kiah Tongs, has helped the junta avoid an international arms embargo using their global connections and a network of shady shadow companies. They have purchased helicopters under the pretense of using them for tourism and the oil and gas industry and handed them over to the top MADA. They've also helped shuttle coastal radar to Myanmar, which the Top Medal used to track Rohinga

refugees and provide cover for several aircraft purchases. To fund these armed purchases, the top Mada has found willing markets for luxury goods abroad. According to Justice for Meanmar, since the coup in February twenty twenty one, the United States has imported fifteen hundred and sixty five metric tons of

teak from Myanmar, using intermediaries to avoid sanctions. In the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen financial year, the last year for which data is available, the government received one hundred million US dollars in revenue from taxes and royalties applied to the timber trade. In twenty twenty one, there were more shipments than twenty eighteen, offering the top Madal the chance to make enough money to continue purchasing weapons to use

against their population. The conflict in the NMAR remains complicated. It's easy to reduce the alphabet super of revel groups, the EOS and the PDF, but these groups and their motivations are diverse. Pierre explained to us that even within the Korean there are deep divisions.

blown response. The EAOs, meanwhile, have been aiding and training the PDF and still maintaining enough deniability that the top Meda has not been forced into a confrontation EAO PDF. Alliances look different in different regions, and often realities on the ground bear little relationship to the back door diplomacy and official stances embraced by leadership and public The.

of Kareni State has fled. Humanitarian access is hard. Much of the relief effort for displaced people occurs within local communities. Thousands of refugees a camp along the border with Thailand, which is defined by rivers. Initially, many people fled into Thailand, but terrible conditions in refugee camps led some of them

to return to Me and Ma. Now they weighed across the river for international aid donations of food and water, but they can't bring themselves to stay in the crowded camps overnight, so they waded back to sleep on the

Burmese side of the bank. The UNHCR, the High Commission on Refugees, it's been unable to access camps in Thailand or Me and Mah to check on the conditions, but it has urged a Thai government which has been credibly accused of forcing people back across the border, to move people to better conditions further into Thailand instead of keeping them in camps near the border. And here we find the unfortunate, unavoidable reality of the civil war in me

and Mah. For all the uniqueness of aspects of the conflict, the innovative ways gen Z militias have interfaced with older ethnic military forces, the three D printed arms, etc. At the end of the day, this is another brutal, horrific conflict between large numbers of people who want to be free and a small number of people who want to control them.

It's not but one that we'd been intending to record, because it's not news that we'd ever hoped to have.

It's young men and sometimes young women, young non binary folks, I imagine too, dying when they had no quarrel with anyone, when they just wanted to live their lives. Two years ago, a year and a half ago, even he was just loving the people, he loved, having fun, being a kid riding his motorcycle, speaking to his girlfriend on his phone, living a happy life. And then someone who had power decided that they wanted to have more power, and they decided that it didn't matter how many kids had to

die so they could have what they want. And he decided to say no to that, And that's brave, and I think all of us would agree that what he did was right and morally courageous, and that we would hope to be brave enough to do the same if the same thing happened to us. This once hit me quite hard.

He died fighting the thing that we all have to fight, right, fascism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, militarization, And yeah, will grieve his loss. Both Robert and I we've just spoken on the phone, and we found out because the contact of mine on the ground sent me a Reddit message with a link to a Facebook post and it's very clearly zorin no doubt about that it

names him, and unfortunately it also shows him dead. So we're not in any doubt that it was him who died, and we're not in any doubt we will gravely miss him either. We both hoped to go over and record with him, to speak with him, to meet him. I'd spoken to him several times on video, sometimes just to chat, not even to record anything, just just to chat, just to catch up and look at what each of us was doing that day. So it's a hard loss for me and for Robert till as I said, we'd just spoken.

So yeah, that's the news that we hadn't hoped to end on. Obviously, though, this is the reality of war, and as the world is looking at the conflict in Ukraine now, I'd urge you to look at the conflict in Myanmar to another Russian bomb killed, another nice kid who never had any quarrel with anyone, who just wanted to live his life and didn't want to live the rest of his life with a boot on his neck,

so he decided to stand up against it. As you can probably hear in my voice, I'm quite upset by his loss and will be probably for a few days. So I'm sorry to have to end this podcast on such a sad note. I'm sorry for his family, who are now caught between the loss of their son and trying to protect their daughters. I'm sorry for his girlfriend, who's dealing with shrapnel in her own leg and now the loss of the person she loved. And I'm sorry

for his comrades. And they've said they'll go on fighting, and I hope they do, and I don't think there's any point really pretending to be objective at this stage in the games, and I hope they win, but I mostly just hope that.

stood for. So yeah, thanks. It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.