Episode #441: Against Injustice
“It’s complex. It’s confusing. It’s not black and white. Never! And everyone wants black and white.” With this reflection, longtime humanitarian worker Paul Greening sets the tone for a wide-ranging conversation that brings listeners inside his long engagement with Myanmar and its borderlands. He reflects on his early and continuing involvement with the Rohingya, his years working in Rakhine State, his continued contact with communities across the country, and his current work alongside displaced activists and fighters in Mae Sot and support for Rohingya and Rakhine in Arakan State.
Paul explains that he first became involved in activism because, as he puts it, he has always fought against any and all forms of injustice. He traces this back to his time working in Indonesia under President Suharto, an experience that pushed him toward human-rights work. This eventually led him to join an international NGO monitoring human rights and providing protection accompaniment for Timor Leste in early 2020, after he fled Indonesian West Timor for angering the authorities there. He notes that he has never gotten along well with authority figures, which is why he still finds it surprising that he was ever recruited into the UN. From there, Paul describes a career spanning various UN agencies and INGOs across multiple countries during, or just after, periods of conflict. And throughout all of it, he notes that he has continued to operate as an activist—something that, by his own account, landed him in trouble more than once and even got him fired a couple of times.
Paul’s Myanmar story began in 2008, when he was serving as a program manager with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Aceh. He spoke Indonesian, so was alerted by a local when Rohingya boats arrived and were taken to a naval camp. His immediate goal, he recalls, was simply to be seen by the people who had just arrived: “My first objective was the Rohingya to see me, to know that internationals knew.” Although intelligence officers quickly removed him from the camp, he remained engaged—helping coordinate food and basic supplies, and building networks with people who quietly tracked boat departures from Cox’s Bazar. “I’ve been involved ever since,” he notes.
Paul had long hoped to work inside Myanmar, and that opportunity only came in 2014, when he joined Merlin (later absorbed into Save the Children) as a humanitarian coordinator. His deeper connection to Rakhine State began in August 2017, when he arrived in Sittwe on the 8th—just 12 days before the attacks and military operations that would lead to genocide and send 740,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh. As IOM figures and field reports came in, he recalls feeling a deep sense of alarm. He had anticipated further violence after the October 2016 exodus of some 87,000 Rohingya, but says he did not foresee the full scale of what followed.
Throughout this period, information was hard to verify and often distorted. Paul recalls trying to share details through UN channels and to publicly challenge what he saw as common misconceptions. As one example, he points to attacks carried out by residents of so-called “natalah villages”—communities resettled from other parts of Myanmar—rather than generally by local Rakhine villagers, which he feels was often misunderstood. More broadly, he stresses that “people tend to like the black and white,” whereas the reality in Arakan (Rakhine) is “very nuanced.”
At the same time, Paul was working in central Rakhine townships such as Myebon, Minbya, Mrauk U, Pauktaw and Kyauktaw, where dynamics differed from those in the far north. He notes that these central areas historically had limited interaction with Maungdaw and Buthidaung, due to language differences, movement restrictions, and the nature of rural livelihoods. While the northern area descended into crisis in 2017, the central zone where he worked “wasn’t really affected” in the same way, and his focus remained on community-led village projects and women-only initiatives designed to offset patriarchal dynamics in local decision-making.
Paul also recalls a clash with UN procedural culture when he bypassed normal reporting lines to send urgent information directly to Myanmar’s Resident Coordinator. Although he says the information later turned out to be accurate, his decision to ignore protocol caused backlash within IOM and likely affected future hiring prospects. “In the UN you have to follow procedure,” he reflects, “and I’ve never been particularly good at that.”
After his contract ended, Paul remained in Sittwe for about a year without a formal post, as his visa was never cancelled. During that time, he supported local CSOs, helped link them with UN agencies, and backed symbolic initiatives such as solidarity T-shirts bearing a white rose and handshake motif—an echo of Yangon’s 2019 White Rose movement against anti-Muslim intimidation. He went to Bangkok on 8th March 2020 for a new visa but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so he remained in Bangkok where he continued collecting and sharing news on Myanmar and supporting contacts from afar. On the day of the 1 February 2021 coup, he woke to messages urging him to “wake up” and has been closely engaged with Myanmar’s unfolding crisis ever since, spending long days processing information and helping friends, activists, and civil society leaders flee or find safety.
By late 2021, Paul traveled to Mae Sot expecting to stay a couple of weeks. Instead, he got involved and he has remained since then. He describes Mae Sot as a classic border town shaped by overlapping histories of migration: long-settled families of mixed heritage, migrant laborers in factories and construction, refugees briefly crossing during offensives, and—since the coup—a significant influx of educated youth, doctors, journalists, and CSO leaders fleeing persecution. In this environment, he says, it is normal to be “having a beer with a PDF member, talking to someone with PTSD, or someone who’s had their leg blown off.”
Paul shares several encounters with injured resistance fighters recovering in clinics and safe houses around Mae Sot: commanders missing limbs, young people with spinal injuries, and others severely wounded in protests or battles. What stands out to him is their resilience and commitment. Many, he notes, remain determined to continue contributing to the revolution, whether by returning to the front or supporting it in other ways. He also highlights the caregivers and medical volunteers working around the clock to assist them.
When asked how he copes with long-term exposure to trauma across conflicts—from East Timor to Afghanistan to Sri Lanka and now Myanmar—Paul pushes back against framing his own experience as central. “I feel guilty about that,” he says. “The victims are coping.” For himself, he describes anger, occasional tears, and a daily routine of going to the gym, which has served as both stress release and a way to connect with local communities outside the international “bubble.”
Nuance remains a recurring theme, especially when Paul speaks about Rakhine State and armed actors there. He argues that while some units of the Arakan Army (AA) have committed serious abuses, especially in northern townships often as a reaction to many Rohingya joining the junta and Rohingya terrorist groups such as ARSA and RSO. He does not believe this is a centrally directed policy of genocide, and he calls for independent investigations by credible mechanisms rather than assessments driven solely by advocacy groups. At the same time, he insists that AA leadership should investigate and hold their own forces accountable where crimes occurred, and criticizes them for not yet doing this sufficiently. His concern is less to defend any particular side than to resist simplistic narratives: “It’s not black and white. It’s nuanced.” He sees the contradiction in shouting genocide at the AA and then calling for repatriation and the lack of strategy by many Rohingya diaspora activists.
He also speaks about changes he has observed since the coup, including greater cooperation among ethnic groups and Bamar activists. Paul notes that many CSOs and activists who once repeated hostile stereotypes about the Rohingya have substantially shifted their views, especially as they’ve seen shared suffering under the junta. He describes, for example, a Rohingya doctor and a Bamar doctor working side by side in an IDP clinic, “like brothers,” and sees this as one of the most hopeful developments to emerge from the current struggle.
The conversation touches on gender and identity within the resistance as well. Paul mentions women serving in combat roles, as well as prominent LGBTQ and trans activists, including a trans woman he knew who was active in Yangon’s post-coup underground. Among younger generations, he says, open prejudice toward LGBTQ people is markedly less evident, and many of these activists are fully integrated in the broader movement.
Paul also comments on the presence of foreign volunteers, including a small number of former Western military personnel who pass through Mae Sot on their way to support armed groups or humanitarian efforts. He describes Mae Sot as an unusually “known” environment where most newcomers are quickly placed within existing networks, which he views as both a source of community and a protective factor against infiltration or reckless behavior.
Later, the conversation turns to the scam centers operating across the border in areas such as Myawaddy. Here, again, Paul emphasizes complexity. He acknowledges that some people are clearly trafficked and abused, and shares the story of a deeply traumatized Russian woman he helped support after her release. At the same time, he notes that many others go to scam compounds voluntarily because they can earn far more than in their home countries, even if the work itself is fraudulent and exploitative. He describes one Russian man who openly admitted to repeatedly seeking employment in such centers. According to Paul, these operations intertwine with the junta ,local militias, business interests, and Chinese and regional politics in ways that make them highly resilient, despite periodic crackdowns.
Finally, Paul speaks about Rohingya trafficking routes that he has followed and tried to disrupt for years. He explains how recruiters target boys (some as young as 13 years old) and young men in villages, move them through areas around Sittwe and Mon State, and eventually funnel them toward Mae Sot and on to Malaysia. He recounts working with local contacts to identify traffickers, relaying information that sometimes led to arrests, and wrestling with difficult ethical questions when communities captured traffickers they believed would otherwise be quickly released and return to their trade. Despite some successes, he stresses that these trafficking patterns are ongoing and continue to devastate families.
Looking ahead, Paul highlights one development he sees as particularly positive: stronger connections and cooperation across ethnic, generational, and political lines. From long-time activists and former political prisoners to newly radicalized youth and children growing up in exile, he sees an emerging sense of shared struggle. In his view, the challenge now is to translate this into clear structures, representative bodies, and a coherent political vision that can offer a credible alternative to the junta’s sham electoral plans. Unity, he suggests, will be crucial—not only for eventual victory, but for building a more inclusive Myanmar afterwards.