Episode #50: Operation Defection
His country on fire, the future uncertain, his friends arrested and in hiding himself, Ven Detta is seeking inspiration from Vladmir Lenin. While his colleagues have been organizing defensive tactics, encouraging CDM, providing food and medical supplies, and performing other important tasks, Ven has spent the last several months studying the history of how soldiers are coaxed to defect during insurrections. Of particular interest has been the American Civil War and the last few decades of struggle in Afghanistan, but he always finds himself returning to the lessons of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
In his estimation, Lenin is the is the “king” in this regard. As Ven notes, “The [Russian] military just stopped following orders.” Ven hopes to model his own campaign after Lenin’s success in winning over “the hearts and minds of the military.”
Being intimately familiar with Burmese military culture, Ven is far from naïve concerning the challenges of this work. For example, he is well acquainted with the Tatmadaw’s insular culture, the ways in which brutality and cruelty are celebrated as virtues, the emphasis placed on following orders without question, and the propaganda that only the military is able to provide the stability necessary to unify the country. Moreover, he acknowledges that military families live in military compounds, and since the coup have not been able to leave for any reason, effectively making them hostages should any soldiers desert.
Ven also admits the personal risk that comes with this work, as anyone caught with anti-military literature or is found to even be in the possession of a printer faces extreme consequences. And as for outside activities, he notes, “If they find us at night doing something, especially during curfew time, they have the license to shoot and kill immediately. They don't even have to get down from their cars and ask questions. They can shoot us right away.”
And yet for Ven, this threat of an excessive response on the military’s part only points out just how vulnerable they believe they are, having launched what many have come to call “the world’s worst planned coup.” In Ven’s estimation, “The military is very scared. And they are tightly controlling the information access of its own soldiers. And I do think that that will backfire.”
While his only “training” for this work was being an avid watcher of spy thrillers, now Ven finds himself thrust into a real world of intrigue, where one wrong move could jeopardize everything. But defections remain the best option for curtailing violence, and he is dedicated to this task. He puts it simply: “So many people have also given up their lives to express their thoughts and conscience. And I think this is a risk that we all must take, if we are to avoid the cost of having to live under a dictatorship.”
Ven feels that a key part of this campaign is the notion of strength in numbers. Although there are isolated cases of soldiers deserting, it is not happening yet in large enough numbers to compel the military leadership to reconsider their actions overall and/or engage in retribution against the deserters’ families; however, the more soldiers defect or desert, the less the military can respond to individuals. So the challenge is to encourage the defections of a large numbers of soldiers, which is easier said than done. He also feels that having some military structure that soldiers could join upon their defection would be a critical component of a successful strategy, and towards this end he is eagerly awaiting the formation of the planned Federal Army.
The final piece of the puzzle is how the Buddhist monkhood fits in. Ven minces no words in commenting that “without a doubt, monks can play a huge, tremendous role. Many people in Myanmar are religious, and will no doubt listen to what a monk will have to say. And there are several dozen monks who have immense sway over public opinion. And I think they need to stand up. They need to stand up, they need to be on the right side of history. They need to speak from a religious perspective.”
At the end of the day, the cause of defection will be the result of the battle between two very different forms of ideology. Will the popular movement’s humanistic ethics that value each individual life and guarantees inherent freedoms overcome the Tatmadaw’s emphasis on discipline, along with distrust of critical, independent thinking? Ven believes in the righteousness of his side, but also knows this is a story still being written.
“It is not a given that they will lose. It is not a given that we will win or we will lose. It is not a given that they are this mighty Goliath that will be very hard to beat. So, I think at this point, we should not take any assumptions for granted.”
How do you ensure the public will not kill soldiers who defect from the Tatmadaw? This is the question that keeps one activist up at night, and he reflects on how the people can see past their hatred to welcome soldiers joining the people.