Transcript: Episode #116: Have Pity on the Working Man (Bonus Short)
Following is the full transcript for the interview with Maung Maung, which appeared on August 9, 2022. This transcript was made possible by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and has not been checked by any human reader. Because of this, many of the words may not be accurate in this text. This is particularly true of speakers who have a stronger accent, as AI will make more mistakes interpreting and transcribing their words. For that reason, this transcript should not be cited in any article or document without checking the timestamp to confirm the exact words that the guest has really said.
Host 00:04
Hi there and thanks for listening. If you're enjoying our podcast and have a recommendation about someone you think we should have on to share their voice and journey with the world by all means, let us know it could be an aid worker, monastic author, journalist, scholar resistance leader, really anyone with some tie or another to the ongoing situation and Myanmar to offer up a name go to our website insight myanmar.org And let us know but for now just sit back and take a listen to today's episode.
Sai 00:35
It takes one rebel to start a revolution but it will take an army of revolutionaries to no one there is no it no I and freedom either none of us is free until all of us are free he really had a good day Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Brad 01:53
Today we are going to be discussing labor issues and in particular the interaction between international stakeholders and domestic factories and industries in Myanmar. I'm going to ask my guest today to introduce himself so that we have a better understanding of what he represents and the information that he can bring to bear. So please, if you can introduce yourself, for our guests, and for our listeners.
Maung Maung 02:19
Thank you very much. My name is Manuel, and I am at the moment the president of the Confederation of Trade Unions Rima. We established the trade unions Confederation in 2015, according to the Myanmar labor organization law, which was drawn up by the government and the ILO, so I would say we are the largest registered Confederation. And I have been involved in the trade union issues workers rights issue since 1988. So I've been a longtime working on these issues.
Brad 03:00
Okay, thank you. So we've discussed labor unions on this podcast before. And I want to hear your opinion on how How much control do the military and their families and their cronies have over the industries in Myanmar, whether it's textiles, or whether it's minerals, or whether it's oil, just in general major industries.
Maung Maung 03:29
I would say 95% is controlled by the military. Because almost everything that is exported, important. And all of those everything that is produced in the country, is owned directly by the military, or by its conglomerates, by invites families. And everybody that does any kind of business has to have a godfather. So I would say 95% is control and the rest 5% is low level agriculture products that they don't want to mess mess with.
Brad 04:11
So, in effect, you're saying that there is there is no real way for someone to invest in any industry of size in Myanmar, without doing business with the military or military families?
Maung Maung 04:27
Well, for instance, when you're flying in, let's say you better us whether this the issue that you brought a ticket or arrange with the hotels, had to do anything with military or with former drug lords. And I think you'll start to really understand how life is in your mind. And then when you start walking around to look at things, almost everything looks normal. But if you look further down under the surface, you will see that everything has to be bought and sold to the NEMA economy corporation or Myanmar holdings. So I would say these are the things that can be found only after you look under the first layer of the business facade in Burma.
Brad 05:19
And so that brings us to the coup following the coup of 2021. We saw a lot of Western industries, whether it's Americans, whether it's European Union, pulling out their investments, stopping the placement of fresh orders, to companies and industries in Myanmar. Some of them acted very quickly. Some of them like Chevron, and total took a very long time to implement an exit strategy. But we saw many companies leaving Myanmar over concerns of the coup, would you say? What would you say the effect of this has been on workers in Myanmar, or what has the effect been on the military?
Maung Maung 06:08
Let's say that people pull out investments because they cannot work properly. It's not because they love the people or Burma, or the hate the military. The only reason that they pull out is they can make money, they do make profit, and they can work properly. So that's why they move out. So I would say, This is what business thinks about. And this is what took place in Burma. At the same time, it has hurt the people, I can't say it doesn't hurt, it hurts people, financially, as well as on that, say the ethical issues. Because once a coup take took place, there is no freedom of association, there is no freedom of expression. And you can't do any politics, we were on the streets for a long time, but then the military crackdown, that's normal. And after that, you don't, you don't, you don't you are not able to move around on the streets or voice, any open letters to the militaries, or so forth, and things like that. So the first of all, there is this article, the closing down Ottoman business community, and it has gradually increase. And let's say within the last week, you the business people have also found that there is no way they can survive, because the military issued another order from the banking community that they will have to have to exchange all the remaining foreign reserves that are in the joint venture companies into the local church, then the funny thing is, central bank has ordered all the residents staying in Burma, whether they Burmese or whether they're expatriates, or whether they resettle that they have to reschedule their debt, and their loans giving back and the interest giving back to the international creditors. So the government itself is ordered all the business community to, let's say, default on their own. So this is the kind of environment that we are in. And this is what people who haven't left up to last week are finding out no, but let me tell you something, I have to give credit to toto for pulling up for people, young people who are involved in the movement just now. It may seem that one year and six months has been a longtime that total should have pulled out. But the last revolution where I was involved, after 14 years, we will not able to large total out of Burma. So I would say it has been very fast. It's very good. And it shows a military that you can fool the people in Burma but you can't fool the international community. And that will be my answer to your question.
Brad 09:25
Excellent. So on the whole view, you would say that foreign foreign industries are not motivated by ethical concerns. They're not genuinely worried about the people of Burma. It's just that the military coup has made the country economically unstable and industrially unreliable. Is that what you're saying?
Maung Maung 09:49
That is correct. People will argue that we're looking after those 300,000 people walking in the private garment sector. Okay, give me a break. We have 400,000 people who were dismissed because they joined the civil disobedience movement. Okay. And these are people at least 15 years of service with their families, and they lost their pensions, because we are in a fight for system change. Okay, there is talk about human direct assistance. We are a rich country. Okay, we have we were the world's, let's say, largest exporter of rice. Before the military started in 1962. We were the largest a suit or have taken the wall, we had the earliest train system in the country then led to Thailand. We were the regional hub for planes when we were young. So we were a rich country, and it is the military that has ruined everything. So I would say that if you're saying, well, international business can help you help us, come on, give me a break. We will we will, we were that early. And it is a regime, military cools, that has disrupted our economy. It's not that we don't understand the international standards we do. But at the same time, we have to change the system, that we will not allow any kind of regime to whether it's a military regime, or whether it's a political, super political party regime to flourish and or let's say, ruled the country. So we are saying that unless we can change the system, we would rather have the international community in especially the International Investment and Development Community stay away from the country.
Brad 11:51
And so there's an important question that is being asked by many sectors. And that is, is the boycott of Burmese industries, and therefore the boycott of the military in some way hurting average everyday Burmese people who who just want to feed their families, Is there truth to this argument? Of course,
Maung Maung 12:15
it is true. Because we are trying to stop out the regime, we cannot say it's hurting people, it is hurting the people, but it is hurting the regime more look at the way they are responding to the use of dollars or controlling of dollars. Look at the way they are running to the Russian regime to get involved in the Russian let's say currency based international dysfunction since these are the things that without firing a gunshot is forcing the regime to try to live to survive. And we need to do it further. But the bad thing is that yes, there are sanctions announced but there are not enough enforcement mechanisms kicking into place. Because if you if you try to look at let's say the shipping industry, for example, they are flawed today, there are four tankers coming into Yangon port delivering fuel. Okay, for whom it's for the military, okay, you can argue is for people okay. But then the millet that the all the fuel is sold by the guys who are under sanctions by the to service by Maori trading or by MEC and all these are not followed up or there are no enforcement sanctions. So I would say there is why cordset is announced. Some call it targeted sanctions, which looks very fleshy and sexy and attractive. But give me a break. If you are not following up. If you are not monitoring all these things, nothing is going to change. So just target US sanctions with no enforcement is hurting the people. We want to have quick action. Okay, there are sanctions announced. Then we enforce we cut off the dollars, we cut off all the revenue, we can live the people can live just on the streets, we can go and look for fish on in the water. Okay, we can just get vegetables the military cannot. They have to have escorts they have to have permission to move around. And that's how we will kill them regime because we need to change the system.
Brad 14:34
Understood. And so, the concern is that there is this phenomenon of fatigue, compassion, fatigue and political will economic will. These will conflict and the crisis in Myanmar has been going on for a year and a half. And there are many companies who are getting tired of waiting and They want to come back into the Myanmar market, they want to continue benefiting from the from the cheap labor and from the high profit margins. Have you experienced a a return of foreign companies and foreign investment into Burmese industries recently,
Maung Maung 15:19
we haven't seen big ones, we have seen the announcements of the Directorate of investment by the military regime. So we don't really know whether they are just things that are signed on paper and no investment has moved. But what I'm saying is look to those countries, let's say companies who say they are tied. The revolution has been going on since about 60 years, okay, I was involved in, let's say, first public moving at eight. But we were not successful. We went in halfway through, and it for this time around, like I said, It's been only one year and six months. For big companies, for example, like the big what you call this food companies, we understand that they have when they do investment, when they do the investment, they think in terms of investing bought a decade until they get the return. So I would say those who have Okay, call this company saying they're tight. I think I would say go away. Okay, this doesn't make sense in the political sense. And investment sense, was big companies, multinationals really look for long time long term investments. And both in human resources, technology and financial returns, I would say, dating more than two years. So it's less than two years. Give me a break. Don't come and give ourselves excuses that it's too long. We've been too long in the revolution. Now we can't afford another break down, we have to win this time. And we are we are asking you just to stay away.
Brad 17:11
Excellent. And so this brings me to the video, some of our audience may already have seen it. But for the others, we will probably link the video below. There was a video that was recently posted on Facebook by an actual European Union Facebook page, showing the harrowing story of a textile worker who had lost her job. And, and the terrible consequences of losing her job as a result of losing investment. And this European Union Facebook page was arguing that what is needed in Myanmar, is more international investment in order to prevent the Burmese people from from suffering in this way. Have you seen this video yourself?
Maung Maung 17:59
Well, well, I saw this. The same trend, maybe two years ago, when the COVID-19 started. It was reported about I think 2020 When they was talking about the COVID. Impact The first, the first impact, and between the first and the second how many people lots of jobs, especially in the private garment sector and that these women, but this, these young ladies become prostitutes. So we are very unhappy with that. And we condemn you for putting it up. Because this is first of all, insulting the the woman from Yama, especially. And because let's say what is a percentage of these woman getting into the sanctuary? Just don't go and pick up somebody and do that. Okay, you need to have a proper survey when you present this kind of information. And remember, you are representing the European Union, not just one country. It's it's it's a European, it's a combination of 27 countries. And if you are that stupid enough to do this on your own thing, and talking about investment with this kind of government, it means that this person who decided on posting today doesn't know anything about Burma. Look at what the regime has announced after this posting, and the call that investment should come in, does he or she believe that investment will come into this country where the central bank tells you not to give back your money to your creditors. Or that all your investment needs to be changed in the Burmese currency that nobody wants. All to a common country that is trying to run to run to the Russian system. That person and that office doesn't know the actual situation of Burma. The SU Was your culture Obama? And it's very insulting. Thank you.
Brad 20:06
So, So to clarify, do you believe that the regime would have seen that video? Do you believe that they're going to use that post as part of their propaganda?
Maung Maung 20:15
Well, they are already using it. And in some cases, it hasn't come up, because everybody's condemning it. But I would say that it is being used by the social media that is, let's say, sponsored by junta.
Brad 20:32
And so this, this leads on to a more complicated, but a very important question. The European Union itself now, as you say, this is, you know, 27 countries, and it's not just a collection of governments. It's also a very large collection of companies. And there are a lot of different pressures. So do you feel that there is conflict within the European Union, that different sides of the European Union think different things should happen in Burma? Or do you think that this video, and this post represents a desire on the part of the entire European Union to reinvest in Burma?
Maung Maung 21:13
You No, I do not think so. I why is that because the European Nazi parliament has passed resolutions that talk of the issues in Burma that talks about the complications, that talks about possible ways to to put pressure onto the regime, so that the changes can come to the country. So I would say this was just posted, I would say, in the European Parliament resolution of March 10. This year, it's a long resolution, and it calls about to take action on the issues, let's say condemn the use of violence for the junta. And that's it. I will read it to you strongly condenser supply of arms and equipment to the tomato by China, Russia and Serbia. So all these things are there. It's not just it's not a whole European Union. And I would say I would say this, this thing was very bad. It's a very bad image for the European Union, because all the MPs had gathered to get this partner this resolution pass. I think it's not just one European member of parliament doing that. It's a wide range of MEP is doing that from from the Nordics to to Eastern to the to the other parts of Europe. So I would say it is not a whole you can I will say on the point to anyone that stresses that local and multinational businesses operate, operating and Manemma must respect human rights and stop and abling perpetrators of abusers strongly urges EU based business and then sense to ensure that they have no ties to the Myanmar security forces, the individual members or entities owned or controlled by them, and that they are not contributing directly or indirectly to the mercies crackdown on democracy and human rights. So I would say this is something that is solid that is within the European Union. And what the office in Yangon posted I don't know they seem to be even not listening or not reading what was written in the European parliamentary resolution.
Brad 23:35
Interesting and so, the counterpoint then becomes or rather the follow up question becomes, in your opinion, what is the best way forward? What is it that European and generally international companies should be doing to best help the people of Myanmar?
Maung Maung 23:53
Well, I would say we have to look at revolution itself. There are now many, I would say many comments, articles interviews coming up talking that it seems that the Myanmar military is not able to let he put down the arm struggle within the country, which was different from the previous movement, where the regime killed off everybody and they had a good time after one year. So they are not able to put down the strikes and demonstrations in Yangon and in Mandalay. They are not able to let say stop the social media walking from within the country. I am not talking from within Burma's bound boundaries. They are not able to, let's say Finish off the ethnic revolution organizations. So I would say we are in a very good situation compared to the last revolution. movements. Then also within the United Nations system, and the General Assembly, we have an ambassador, that Ambassador used to walk with the regime, but he left. And now he represents Burma at the meetings in the UN GA, and he vote he has voted on behalf Obama, then let's see, within the osteon itself, there have been quite a lot of issue over the past, let's say 20 years. But it is very interesting now, that many countries in the ASEAN, Malaysia has been very outspoken, Indonesia has been very outspoken for change. Singapore has gone a very hard line. So I would say, and then Philippines has been very hard. So I will say compared to the past movements, where we were having a hard time trying to meet with those government officials, the Malaysian foreign minister met with one of our representatives, and put it on his own Facebook. So I would say if you put all these things together, the regime unable to stop everything in Burma, then all the military movement within the country, on the social media within the country, at the United Nations within the ASEAN assembly, and also, on the EU member countries, if we look at our resolutions, it's a big difference. So I would say that whatever has taken place, it's it's moving forward. And the regime is, I would say, try to go to the Russian group to survive. So I was all these things are in very different situation from what was in the last movement. So I would say we are in a very good situation.
Brad 26:51
Brilliant. And so Omar, I want to thank you very much for your time. And this has been very edifying. Before we leave, I just want to give you the opportunity, if there is anything that you want our audience to know or to better understand about what is going on in Myanmar, in order to help fight misinformation, I would like to invite you to just share whatever thoughts you may have for them.
Maung Maung 27:22
Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity, and also the listeners who are listening, I do hope that I was able to give a good picture within a very short period. I look forward to answering your questions if they have questions, or even if they are discussions on the pros and cons of let's say asking Western business gloves. We are we we we are representing the walkers. And I have been working in this movement. Since 1988, it's been some time what I would say just like I explained, we are winning. And we want people to not just think like well, the Will she is going to win again. No, it is not. And we have made the points like I explained. So if there are any more questions, anytime, let us know. Thank you very much.
Host 28:30
Thanks for joining us for today's episode. Being a small mostly volunteer team. Our production time for a single episode before the coup was sometimes as long as four months from start to finish. While we had worked at decreasing lead time, the fastest we were ever able to manage was just around three weeks get during this current crisis where even a single day's event can produce such shocking news and urgent needs. We simply don't have this luxury of time. So we've worked around the clock to substantially shorten the length of our production cycle. The turnaround for some episodes now has been just 36 hours. However, we can't accomplish this goal without your support. If you found value in today's episode and think that others may also benefit from this type of content. Please consider making a donation so that we can continue our mission. If you would like to join in our mission to support those in Myanmar who are being impacted by the military coup. We welcome your contribution, any form currency or transfer method. Your donation will go to support a wide range of humanitarian missions, aiding those local communities who need it most. Donations are directed to such causes as the Civil Disobedience movement CDM families of deceased victims, internally displaced person IDP camps, food for impoverished communities military defection campaigns, undercover journalists monasteries and nunneries education initiatives, the purchasing of protective equipment and medical supplies COVID relief and much more. We also make sure that our donation Fund supports a diverse range of religious and ethnic groups across the country. If we invite you to visit our website to learn more about past projects as well as upcoming needs, you can give a general donation or earmark your contribution for a specific activity or project you would like to support, perhaps even something you heard about in this very episode, all of this humanitarian aid work is carried out by our nonprofit mission that or Burma. Any donation you give on our insight Myanmar website is directed towards this fund. Alternatively, you can also visit the better Burma website better burma.org That's b e t t e r b urma.org and donate directly there. In either case, your donation goes to the same cause, and both websites accept credit cards. You can also give via PayPal by going to paypal.me/better Burma. Additionally, we take donations through Patreon Venmo GoFundMe and Cash App. Simply search better Burma on each platform and you'll find our account you can also visit either the Insight Myanmar better Burma websites for specific links to those respective accounts or email us at info at better burma.org If you'd like to give it another way, please contact us. Thank you so much for your kind consideration and support. I get a lot all the time.