Transcript: Episode #181: Scot Marciel
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Myanmar Nangang lava
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I'd like to say how happy I am to receive President Obama in my country and in my house. The friendship between our two countries is of long standing. The United States has been started its support for democracy movement in Burma.
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Its parliamentary speaker throw you in schwimmen Myanmar watches for the views and now as leader in waiting for automation is very own Glenda Chung caught up with Sri minor recently to find out more about it when Austin didn't express it.
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The new moon, the lunar American society. I grew up in my society
Host 00:58
if this is your first time listening to our podcast welcome. Our programming brings a diversity of voices connected to me and Mark to share their perspectives thoughts and reflections about what has been happening there since the military coup in 2021. All of our guests share one thing in common, a deep personal stake in the ongoing crisis. And it is an honor for us to be able to bring their voices into your earbuds. But however difficult it may be to hear some of their stories. We hope that you will come away with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of what is happening.
01:57
HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha day.
Host 02:33
Today, we have the honor of being joined by Scott Moscow distinguished diplomat whose career spans several decades. Scott Marcia has a diplomatic journey commenced in 1985 as a as a vice counsel at the US embassy in the Philippines and went on to touch upon many other countries in the Southeast Asian region following this. For the purposes of this discussion, we're primarily going to focus on his time as US ambassador to Myanmar, a position that he held from 2016 to 2020. So Scott, thanks so much for taking the time to join us to talk about this very important time that you were in Myanmar with us today. This covers very significant years in Myanmar's recent history.
Scot Marciel 03:15
Well, thank you, it's really a pleasure to be on with you.
Host 03:19
So we're also talking about this recent book that you published imperfect partners, which I definitely encourage listeners to check out it's really a wonderful read. And in this book, you provide insights into policy issues over your decades in Southeast Asia. But you also reveal your own thoughts and feelings impressions on the job making yourself a relatable figure to the readers. So what motivated you to want to include this personal perspective? And what impact do you hope it will have on readers understanding of diplomacy and partnerships?
Scot Marciel 03:52
Well, I would say it's a really good question. And it's one of those things that as I was working on the book and writing the book, it sort of evolved and how I thought about it. And I wanted to write something because frankly, there's been relatively little written on in the United States, at least on Southeast Asia as a whole, certainly on US relations with Southeast Asia. So I wanted to make it a book that I thought would be useful for people who maybe were beginning to or early in their careers working in Southeast Asia, and also offer some some thoughts on on US policy and the thinking that went behind it, but also the realities on the ground, particularly when we're serving in embassies. And I, you know, writing just about pure policy can be very dry. And so I wanted to, if you will humanize it or make it seem a little bit more real by including anecdotes that just like just like reading a good book, that tell a little bit more of the story that you can't get out of this sort of dry policy stuff.
Host 04:59
And it really did that. And I also appreciated how by being vulnerable and open that way, not only are you exposing yourself as a real person apart from the policy, but you're also describing a dynamic where rather than a book where it says, Well, this is what we did. And this is why it was the right move. And this is what people aren't understanding. It's not just this pure defense of different decisions, but it's taking the reader into a very complex situation where there sometimes aren't really good options and exposing what you have to work with. And that certainly, if any country's a testimony of that it's Myanmar where sometimes there aren't great certainly aren't perfect options, but just exposing the context of how you deal with a very difficult situation. And maybe you don't make the best choice, but this is the context that you're understanding as you're having to make those decisions.
Scot Marciel 05:47
Right. Exactly. Exactly. That was, you know, as you said, it was really highlighted particularly in the Myanmar chapter.
Host 05:56
Right, so you in compass, your experiences and insights gained during your diplomatic career in countries spanning Southeast Asia, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, of course, also having chapters on ASEAN and China. But to begin the book, you quote Patrick, when the author of Hello Shadowlands who I should mention as a guest next week with us, and he opened his own book by saying a statement which you open your own book by quoting him that Southeast Asia is, quote, a heaven for the compulsively curious and quote, that's just a great phrase, Can you unpack what that means for you personally?
Scot Marciel 06:33
Well, for me, I joined the Foreign Service back in 1985, without really much of a background in in Asia, or certainly in Southeast Asia. And I had the opportunity to serve first in the Philippines. And then as you said, in a number of other places, and I just find the region endlessly fascinating, whether it's from a cultural point of view, or history, or the politics or the economics and, and just visually, because part of what we get to do as diplomats is travel around these countries and just experience them. And, you know, sometimes the best parts are getting away from the capital cities and just dealing with government and, and being out in in more rural areas, more remote areas sometimes and just actually seeing how people live. So it's, it's Southeast Asia, because it's so diverse. You know, people tend to lump Southeast Asia together. And, and, and I do too, sometimes, but, you know, the Philippines, Myanmar, Indonesia, Cambodia, they have some things in common, but they're remarkably different in many respects.
Host 07:51
Yeah, yeah, definitely, certainly. And then even when you get into individual countries, especially again, going back to the case of Myanmar, you find even greater diversity within that. And speaking about Myanmar, getting more into that reflecting on your journey, I'm curious to know when Myanmar itself first came on your radar, personally speaking, maybe even before your diplomatic career, what was it that initially attracted you to Myanmar, put it on your radar, sparked your interest in history, culture, religion, political landscape,
Scot Marciel 08:22
I think the first time I remember paying a lot of attention to it was actually after I had started my diplomatic career, I think in the late, late 80s, I was working back in Washington on the what we then called the old Indo China desk, when, just after the 1988 uprising, and just then I began to read and learn about the country, and particularly about 1988, and the uprising, and this harsh suppression of it. And so I began to follow it, to some extent after that, and then, but I didn't visit until I think 2005 When I went out when I was the head of what we call the mainland Southeast Asia Office of the State Department. And that was my first visit. And after that, I spent much of my time, even before I was assigned to Myanmar, working on the country,
Host 09:23
comparing Myanmar to some of the other Southeast Asian countries that you experienced and that are in the region. You begin the chapter by drawing this comparison between Indonesia and Myanmar. There's similarities, you know, like the presence of a strong religion, the history of dictatorship and powerful military, and then attempts at some kind of transition. But you highlighted that a key difference between the countries you reference them you lose perspective that Myanmar lacked a sense of nationhood, he called it quote an unfinished, unfinished nation. Could you elaborate on this notion of what the different what differentiates Myanmar in terms of its national identity as well as the challenges this poses in the context of political transition and stability compared to those other countries in Southeast Asia you spend time at as a diplomat.
Scot Marciel 10:09
Right? Well, you know, certainly, as I mentioned, as you mentioned, Indonesia has, there's some similarities, you have to be careful not to take the comparison too far. But in the sense of both Indonesia and Myanmar being pretty large countries, ethnically, quite diverse, with a history of dictatorship or a powerful military and, and even in Indonesia, like an Myanmar, some separatist movements. But in general terms, Indonesia, from early on, had had an effort led by Sukarno, really the founder of Indonesian, the first President, to try to create a sense of a whole nation, both politically and in the broader community as well. And in Myanmar, you just really haven't had that? You, you know, going back, obviously, even before independence, the pre colonial period during the colonial period, but even after independence, it seems to me that one of the missing things has been this, even an effort to create a sense of we're all part of one nation, even if we are have different backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, etc. And, to me, that has been the fundamental problem. And people would rightly say, well, the military, to me, they're inseparable, because the military has exacerbated this problem, certainly done nothing. To address it. It's really hard to have a nation when different component parts of it don't feel like they're part of that nation. And that's pretty fundamental, and I think, is reflected in the history of conflict and disappointment that we see in the end.
Host 12:05
Yeah, certainly, I think that continues to be some of the issue going forward today of the it's been the eternal struggle really, since independence. Going back to your own personal experiences with Myanmar, you reference how 2005 was your first visit you describe that also in the book, you you describe the experience as being reminiscent of a grim Green novel? Can you elaborate on what aspects of the country or the situation evoked that particular particular imagery for you during that visit?
Scot Marciel 12:35
Yeah, I remember very well, just driving in from the airport. I think that visit I was only Yang gone, I it was a short visit of maybe a couple of days. Or keep in mind at that point, we had really minimal relations with the government and military government at the time, so we didn't do a lot of engagement with it. But just driving in from the airport in Yangon gone. And seeing that it looked like it could have been out of the 1950s, there had seemingly been almost no building, there was very little old cars on the street. Just a complete lack of development, it seemed, was stunning. And, you know, I lived in places like Hanoi in the early 90s That was still relatively poor, and just the reforms were just beginning. But even then, Hanoi had a different energy to it. And Yangon at the time seemed, I hate to use the term sleepy, but it just seemed like it hadn't moved for a long time.
Host 13:40
That's interesting. I first arrived in 2003 was my first visit. And so I'm trying to put myself back in my initial impressions and experiences and then as it changed so dramatically over time, and when I think of the word sleepy i that that rings a bell for me, in terms of what I experienced, I would maybe amend that in my own visit and feel like it was it was lightly sleeping and wanted to wake up. And just the energy I felt was that the conversations I had at the time felt like it was there was there was a desire to want to awake and to explore more, but that it was caught in that state. And I'm thinking specifically of during my first visit, I met a couple of monks at the pagoda and spent a day just walking around with them. And this was before the internet. Well, internet was in the world but the internet hadn't come to Myanmar yet. And there wasn't a lot of access to like encyclopedias or television or something. And I just remember their curiosity was so beautiful to me in that visit, I still remember vividly as we're about to cross the street and the monk grabs my forearm and looks me earnestly in the eye and says Brother Brother, tell me what are the streets like in your country? What are the streets look like in America? And I was just it was like a television show. You know, he was looking at me like I was this access to in information that couldn't come from anywhere else. And I felt that energy as I was talking to him. So I really tried to, you know, genuinely, in as much imagery as I can and simple language, tell him what the streets look like in America, because he was so curious about this and had no other means of finding this out. And this was this was just one anecdote, but it kind of seems to other memories I have, from that time kind of fit into this, the same kind of vibe of, of just this immense curiosity, insatiable desire to want to know more about the world, and such limited ways to do that. And those interactions, I recognize myself as something of a vehicle or medium for being able to teach them something or tell them something that they wouldn't have access to otherwise.
Scot Marciel 15:43
Yeah, you're right, I remember, I don't think it was my first visit. But in subsequent visits, you know, 2006 789, I would often go to the American Center, which at the time was one of the few places that people could go to, to get information, books, and what have you taken English language classes, but also interact with each other in a pretty safe environment. And I remember, I don't remember the year may have been 2007, or 2008. At one time going to the American Center, and the embassy had organized discussion with a number of former political prisoners. And maybe a dozen people came in and I was standing greeting them all as they came in, and each one introduced himself or herself with their name, and then how long they had been imprisoned. And they all looked pretty young, but many of them had been in prison 10 or 12 years. And I just remember being overwhelmed with this, the tragedy of what had happened to them and so many others, but also at the courage and resilience of people who had paid dearly for, for things that shouldn't have been crimes. And yet, we're still come into the American senator because they wanted to organize and find ways to a learn that be contribute to the country.
Host 17:16
Yeah, and I was an American senator, teacher. And in my educational career, I've never had students with that kind of burning desire for wisdom and knowledge as I had there that were just the teachers all worked overtime, because the the sense of desire on the part of the students was so great, it just pushed you to want to do more and to give more. And I think also, it's, it's really powerful talking about this panel of political prisoners that are describing their time incarcerated, because this, this is not something that an average visitor gets for those people listening who have been tourists to the country or come on meditation retreats, you you're left with a rather simplistic, superficial view of just a somewhat happy people that are, you know, that are kind and generous. And it's terrible what's happening now, but you don't get this. For many reasons, cultural and fears of oppression and such, you don't get this public sharing in quite the same way. And that's, I think that's changing with this current with jumping ahead to the coup and the resistance movement. I think there, there has been step forward to talk about taboo subjects and to, to share in ways that that one might be hesitant or modest or fearful of before, but I think it's very valuable when you get a chance on a panel like that having a private conversation or podcast conversations like these where you do have that greater access or insight into the real lived reality that that you don't get if you're just a foreign visitor, looking at things on the surface level.
Scot Marciel 18:51
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's great for people to visit, maybe not right now. But in general, it's great for people to visit and learn and get a sense of appreciation of all the wonderful things. And in Myanmar, I mean, just the cultural richness and diversity is just unbelievable, for example, but as you know, but so I don't want to discourage people from that at all. But it is, as you said, hard to get in behind that into the experience that so many people have had.
Host 19:27
Yeah, right. So going turning back over some of your most recent history that you were involved in, during the Saffron Revolution. He doesn't seven you weren't there physically. Perhaps he might have visited on some occasions, but I don't think you were working out of there. But you you mentioned that your office that you were in at the time was dedicating approximately 70% of its time to the country during that period, which isn't surprising given how big that event was, as far as you can remember what exactly were you engaged with during that time of the Saffron Revolution?
Scot Marciel 19:58
Right I will As I think at the time of the Saffron Revolution, I had maybe just become the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the East Asia bureau. And basically what that means is, I was kind of the point person at the State Department for Southeast Asia as a whole. And this was a second revolution took place at the end of the last year of the second last year of the Bush, George W. Bush administration, and President Bush and particularly his wife, Laura Bush had a had a quite strong interest in in Myanmar. And so that plus the horror of what happened in Saffron Revolution, some of which we could, we witnessed on on video led to tremendous effort by on the part of the administration and Congress to find ways to try to pressure the military into change. So there were regular meetings at the White House, interagency meetings, we call them deputies meetings, because it's chaired by the deputy national security adviser to talk about what we call Burma, we still called it Burma. Burma strategy. What else can we do about sanctioning this? How about that? Can we get our allies to do this or that? So as you as I said, I spent a huge amount of my time doing that, and also traveling around the region, trying to drum up support for more pressure on the generals.
Host 21:32
Yeah, boy, that seems like it's been the story of the last many decades. What terrible thing have they done? And what can we possibly do to respond to this, and that's what most of your book is about. But then so then a little bit after suffering revolution, the Cyclone Nargis, I was there at the time as well, I was fully caught up and that my, my place I was living in was destroyed almost with me in it. There was in with Cyclone Nargis, there was this notable growth in civil society that was going on. Again, for me being on the ground at that time, it was incredibly exciting to see, well, exciting is probably the wrong word. Looking back at it. Now it was it was exciting at the time, it was kind of an all hands on deck, approach to to what needed to be done living through that terrible travesty. But looking, extending the outlook from that period, several years down the line, it really was a critical moment for the growth of civil society. And you talk about the new book, you describe how naugus and the the impact of it looking at your months and years down the line that it prompted us policy to reassess the support and funding because at that time, so much of the from my I don't I don't know if you actually say this in the book, from my memory of being there at the time, there was a feeling that I was hearing of US policy that it was uncertain what it could be doing on the ground in Myanmar, in terms of funding. And so a lot of the funding that was taking place was were the diaspora community, exiles a lot of stuff across the border. And this, what Nargis did with opening up civil society cause a shift and a reflection in terms of how it might now be possible to expand and support the growth of civil society within Myanmar.
Scot Marciel 23:21
Yeah, right. You're you make a lot of good points that up until nardus, we were providing aid, humanitarian aid, health, educational aid, almost all cross border from Thailand, which was a value but but obviously limited in geographic scope and reach with. And by the time of Nagas, I personally had begun to question our approach. Just because I just didn't see the sanctions been sufficient to cause any cracks. And so trying to think of other ways that we might encourage the beginnings of change in in the country, when nervous happened, you know, we went in offered aid, etc. But as you said, civil, we saw civil society springing up. And we were able to start providing some funding for that civil society. And I remember very vividly discussion, I can't remember how long after an August but some months after an Argus where some people were saying, okay, the relief efforts, basically, that we've done what we can on that, so let's let's cut off the assistance. And I and some others argued strongly that No, we got to keep it going. Because we see this nascent civil society, and we found some channels through which we can provide funding to them. And it doesn't matter whether they're overtly political or not just but but helping to Support at this nascent civil society was probably one of the best things we could do. So without too much debate, we were able to continue funding that of civil society. It's a you can debate how much that led to what happened later. But I certainly believe that it contributed to some extent. At least once there was opening, you had some some organizations that were already in place and experience that could could build on it. So I think that was very important.
Host 25:31
Yeah, I think it was, too, from being on the ground at the time, more so than then removed. In terms of policy, as you describe. Seeing this out this, these groups and formally start to form and networks start to connect on what they can do, to support relief in the Delta, quickly led to like, Hey, we're already here. We're talking to each other. We have networks, like, what else can we do? What can we do next? And it was amazing, I see this kind of agency taking place that, you know, wasn't really politically driven. I mean, I don't know really how you define that in a in a concise way, like what is political and not because the way it was taking shape on the ground was just what else can we do. And there was a sense of agency and a belief that they, they could do better for their community. And as one Burmese friend explained to me, very tragically, but I think very aptly, as well, we don't really look for a government that's actually going to help us and provide for us, we look for a government that's not going to harm us, we look for a government that's going to just have their hands off. And let us take care of ourselves without, you know, really making our lives terrible. You're basically outlining a contrast between a more like formal and traditional and rigid way of looking at what's happening in the country. And out and going outside of that to be more flexible, and the approach out of the box, to look at informal ways of expression, and what the context is actually telling you. And I think this is an important thing to highlight, because I think this is what's often missed in understanding Myanmar and developing policy towards Myanmar even, and especially today, after the coup, is that there, there are ways of looking at it, where you're trying to fit the understanding into, you know, formal international ways of development, or actors or, or whatnot. And that's missing the shape of how things are taking in their own way in their own form on the ground. And it sounds like that was a bit of the dynamic in the argument that you were facing at that moment after Nargis
Scot Marciel 27:33
right. And some of its just related to the way Washington works. Which is and you know, if you have a regime that's deeply problematic, as the Tom choice regime was the tendency in Washington and, you know, I don't want to separate myself, I was part of that machine. So, you know, involved in that is to pressure squeeze sanction. And it, you know, fine and morally, it's, it's satisfying, but it always isn't always effective. And by that time, we could see that sanctions alone weren't going to be effective. And so you have to try to find other ways we didn't want to start, you know, openly engaging with the generals. They haven't shown any signs of change yet that would have warranted that. But the other point is this. Sometimes excessive optimism in Washington that that ADOS can sort of make things happen in other countries. And often we're accused of making things happen that we had nothing to do with. But whether it was Indonesia to go back to Indonesia example and and its democratic transition or what happened in Myanmar. It has to start at, you know, in the country, and in this case, Myanmar, and organically. In civil society, the development of civil society is one of the best ways, I think, to encourage change and to cause change to happen or at least to be prepared if there's an opening for change.
Host 29:11
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's pushing us up on the timeline to when you really became involved in Myanmar in a major way. So let's go there. Now. That was 2016. And you assume the role of ambassador to Myanmar, this was a critical juncture in the country's history. Just what we're talking about civil society is starting to be able to open and it's coinciding with some political reforms also taking place at the time. Could you provide us with an overview of what the landscape of the country look like, during that time? What country were you walking into when you assume that post?
Scot Marciel 29:48
Well, we were I was walking into a country that was in the middle of what seemed to be what was not seem to be what what was significant change Ha. And, you know, there's there's lots of debate about how real was the change under the 10. Same government, I continue to believe, to this day that the change was very significant, very real, in terms of the amount of openness, in terms of people's ability to get access to information to travel to, to, to interact with each other to form political parties, or media or civil society, significant economic reforms. So, you know, that was all we thought, quite positive. And then I arrived in Myanmar a week before the inauguration of the NLD. Government in in March, end of March, early April of 2016. And that may have been the high point in turn in terms of euphoria expectations. And this is where it gets intellectually really interesting, because you have a country that for so long, was just in bad shape in almost every respect because of the military role. And then you have by 2016, you've had, let's say, four or five years of change. And so but it's a very incomplete picture, right? Because you could, as I tell people, you can look at it and say, This is a country that spent 50 years digging itself, I mean, really, the military, digging the country, into a very deep hole for 50 years, it's begun to climb out of that hole. And you can look down and say, Wow, look how far we've climbed. Or you can look up and say, Oh, my God, look how much more we have to do. And that's exactly where Myanmar was. So there had been these positive changes and reforms and opening etcetera. On the other hand, you still had the 2008 constitution, you still had this very powerful military, you still had open conflict with lots of human rights violations. And, you know, you didn't have any institutions, you hadn't had the development of any kind of real rule of law, or independent court system, etc. So it was all, you know, it was a place where you felt like it was moving in the right direction, but with a long way to go. And but overall, my sense from talking to people in Myanmar, when I arrived, and my own sense was, people were hopeful, that look like things could get better and likely would get better.
Host 32:36
Yeah, absolutely. And you also talk about going into that role as ambassador mentioning that you initially perceive the issue of Myanmar and the simplistic dichotomy between democracy and dictatorship. This is a common reductionist view that we often see framed international media. And you note how, after you had been there some time you discovered the situation was far more nuanced and multifaceted than the simple reduction? Can you shed a light on what you learned? And what aspects emerged as crucial beyond this initial binary understanding? And how did this expanded understanding start to shape your approach the challenges and opportunities that you encountered during your time in Myanmar?
Scot Marciel 33:21
Right? Well, by the time I got to Myanmar, I had spent some time working on it. And obviously, from the Washington perspective, and for a lot of people in the international community, it was kind of, you know, Aung San su chi and pro democracy movement against the generals, of course, we were very aware of the ethnic minority communities. I think armed organizations and their struggle for to have their grievances addressed. It's not that we were unaware of that. I think, what I learned by being there was a how, how some mindsets, had had been, you know, it wasn't as simple as there's the military mindset versus the pro democracy mindset. It was much more complicated than that. It was, you know, how people look at what governance should look like, how centralized it should be, what does democracy really mean in terms of freedoms and opportunities, but also really critically, the whole issue of identity, ethnic and religious identity being so complex, that that I didn't fully it took me a while, for example, to understand why people and so many people in the market reacted so viscerally to the mention of the word Rohingya. Right. And, and understanding that, that that, in a lot of people's mind is deeply embedded as this fear of their ethnic community being wiped out, whether by migrants or or other ethnic groups or what have you, and this sort of pervasive fear, maybe not in the front of people's minds, but in the back of their minds, and and how much people really identified with their ethnicity and their religion and how it had been used, unfortunately, to divide the country. And also just the fact that there was so much work to do to the lack of trust. Certainly among ethnicities, but but much deeper than that toward the military. I don't know that I fully appreciated just how much the military mindset was not open to different views. So just over time, as true anytime you live in another country, for the first time, you astound yourself, if you're paying any attention at all, well, how much you learn and how much you say, Oh, my God, this layer after layer that you have to unpack and, and even after living there for four years, you've only you've only gone partway through the journey of understanding it?
Host 36:09
Yeah, yeah, that's really something to think about, especially as your people like you in the capacity of being in a diplomatic role. You're, you're not there just to learn something for your own amusement, but you're having to go through this fast paced, rapid learning process as you're also meeting important people and having to make policy decisions at the same time. So that's quite a handful.
Scot Marciel 36:35
Yeah, it is. And it is what we do it, it highlights how important it is to be out. Not only talking to government counterparts, etc, but out in society talking to people throughout the whole country. And so any, any conscientious good diplomat will spend all it will be my rule was always I mean, you can't avoid making some decisions in your first six months, but to try to, you know, spend the first six months just going around and learning as much as you can, and just talking to people. I mean, perhaps some people have the mindset that, you know, a diplomat shows up with a certain body of knowledge, and it stays static. That that is far from the case, that you that you, but it does mean, making sure that you're getting out and talking to a wide range of people, including people who you might strongly disagree with. But just to get the perspectives and understand why. Why are you approaching it this way? Some things that don't make sense to you as a foreigner like, Well, okay, why, where does this come from? Help me understand it. Because, again, we're guests in the country. It's not our country. And so it's up to us to understand why not only what's happening, but why.
Host 38:00
Certainly, yeah. And as you're meeting and talking to all these people inside the country, there's also these important influences outside the country you referenced in your book, how after the 1988, democracy movement, Burma became an issue that many people picked up in the West, many people cared about, especially through the figure of Aung San su chi, which we'll talk about later. But you reference how this grew into becoming a real cause. The cause was strong emotion behind it, and led to the development of of the Burma lobby. This is not one group, this is a collective name capitalized, I think you have it in the book, that refers to the influence wielded by by by those outside of Myanmar, particularly in America that are that that have strong feelings and and a growing influence in terms of policy and what should be done and a lot of emotion behind it justifiably given the real violations that have gone on.
Scot Marciel 38:57
Well, as you said, it's a it's a group of disparate, I shouldn't even call it a group. But it's a it's a lot of different people with different backgrounds and different kinds of jobs, ranging from Mitch McConnell, you know, who was the Senate Majority Leader at the time and had had a great interest in, in Myanmar to a lot of people working for nonprofits or media who for one reason or the other had taken a personal interest in, in Myanmar, particularly after 1988. And I, you know, almost uniformly were wanted US policy to be on the side of the democracy movement, but also the rights of ethnic minority communities. And many of these people are very, very well informed. So I don't want to sort of suggest that these are people who are interested that didn't know anything about the country. There may be a few people like that, but most of the ones I engaged with and I engage with them a lot He had traveled with the countries, a lot spent a lot of time to do a lot had pretty extensive connections. And constantly were talking to people. So they had a pretty good sense of what was happening, and in many cases, much more knowledge than many of us in government. So they were really valuable as sources of information and perspective and also history, so that we wouldn't stumble into, you know, make mistakes just by through ignorance. And, you know, they from various pressure points would would push hard for the administration to take a tough line toward the generals to do everything possible to support reform efforts. So they were quite influential in policy through the 90s 2000s. And to the 2000 intense and I'm still in touch with a number of them, and have learned a lot from them.
Host 41:00
Right? Yeah, I think when it comes to US policy, and Burma, one thing I've constantly heard and talking to people that were involved in shaping it, is this role that emotion is playing in emotion and sanctions and in relations and different policy aspects. Is this something you find kind of as a sub makes Burma something of an outlier? And in terms of how strong a role a motion can can play in how one feels about the policy that's taking shape? Or the outside influences? Or is this a pretty common and current occurrence in in other countries where these were policy matters are being taken in shape?
Scot Marciel 41:40
I think it's it's common to have it to some extent, I think Myanmar may be an outlier in how much of a factor it was, and it hasn't been, and I think I write in the book in late 2000s. Our policy was really driven by anger, and anger that I shared that, that the military was just hurting people, and killing people and driving the continuingly driving the debt. And you it's frustrating. And, you know, maybe it's an American thing, or maybe it's a universal thing, you just feel like this is so wrong. And you want so much for things to get better. Which is, which is not a bad feeling to have. The trouble is sometimes it gets in the way of thinking about analytically about what actually might be helpful. So when the front anger and frustration just says Now let's just keep punishing with sanctions, for example. After a while when you realize that that's not really working, it becomes harder to offer a different approach or to convince other people to take a different approach.
Host 42:56
Sure, sure. And I want to get more into that sanctions discussion in a moment. But first, just going back into the history of transition and opening and recent events in Myanmar. We have President Obama who visited in 2012, this was quite a significant milestone in the relationship between the US and Myanmar. Could you discuss the impact that his visit had on the country's development and how how it shaped diplomatic relations, public perception, the overall trajectory of the political and economic reforms that would go on to take shape?
Scot Marciel 43:30
Right, I think what you saw with the beginnings of opening and reform undertaking saying that the US initially was skeptical, but like a lot of people is this is, you know, is this going to be early lead somewhere and over time? I think we saw enough specific change and reform and opening, you know, release of political prisoners and what have you, that it began to look like an opportunity for real progress for the country. And that led to a number of things starting, of course, with President sending Secretary of State Clinton for her visit, first visit and then later for for the President to go. I was I was actually ambassador to Indonesia at the time. And President Obama was there in Bali, when President Obama announced that he was sending Secretary Clinton to to Myanmar. And I think the idea was to show that we see the change. We want to respond to it and encourage more change. And I think his visit was was similar that it was, you know, for the President to go is hey, we recognize that something's happening here. And you go to recognize that and show appreciation for it, but also to encourage more and to send signals that you know, we started in country aid program, we appointed an ambassador, all those things. A President's trip, I think has to be looked at in conjunction with everything else, it was part of this fairly significant shift in approach that, in my view mirrored the significant shifts that were happening at the time, and I think, got the US to, you know, fully committed to try to see what we could do to support this effort. And, you know, people now with 2020 hindsight, are happy to go back and, and complain about it even at the time, some people thought that the US was moving too fast. But But I think, as I wrote in the book, you know, when a country hasn't moved in a positive way for so long. And then you see real, tangible, significant positive change on a variety of fronts, in my view, and some disagree with this, in my view, you can't wait until it's Norway or Switzerland to act, you've got to, you know, come in, and try to do what you can to support and encourage more change. And so I think it was the right move. And because, again, if you want to have influence at all, you've got to be
Host 46:25
there. I think it was after Obama's visit, when you were realizing that those in American government that were were shaping policy on on Burma and involved in the country, that there really wasn't much information or understanding of the different military leaders at the time in the country, their their personalities, their characters, their aspirations. And so there just became a simple desire to want to get to know the individuals and who they were because it was more of just this monolithic, evil empire that wasn't being dealt with after their many years of oppression. So how did this knowledge gap up to this time before the federal officials got to meet different leaders on a personal level? How did this not this knowledge gap impact the United States approach to engaging with Myanmar at this point of time going forward?
Scot Marciel 47:20
Yeah, well, I would, I would go back to 2007 to 2010, period, when, as you said, we were spending so much time on the country. And, you know, we knew Tom tre and Monet, his deputy, and we knew the name shame on and pain, Seine, and others. But to us, they were just names we had never met any of them, maybe our Sharjah fair and, and gone might have briefly met one or two of them at events, but fundamentally, we didn't know them. And part of the impetus when the Obama administration came in, and Secretary Clinton came in, we sent up a paper template we called Transition paper on Myanmar, where we suggested trying to begin some modest engagement. If, if nothing else, just to find out a little bit who these people were, and so that if there were an opening, we would be better placed to, to take advantage of it. And so I think over the once you saw the two insane era, changes and openness and reforms, begin, we gradually got to know some of these people attain saying himself as shame on certainly, and saw that they weren't exactly carbon copies of each other. And, and that that's useful, because if you see everybody is the same, you you struggle to really understand what's what's going on in the country.
Host 48:57
So how were they distinctive, as you met, and others met these distinctive leaders? And what ways did they stand out from each other?
Scot Marciel 49:04
Well, I mean, I never really engaged with Ken saying, because he was president before I went out there and then and kind of had had, you know, retired quietly. By the time I got there. I met him I think once or twice. And he was, you know, kind of quiet and and, you know, pretty open to discussion, but I didn't have a strong impression. Choi Aman, I got to know better. He came to Washington a few times. And then I saw him many times when I was ambassador and he always struck me as somebody who was quite quite a different type of thinker. Some people like him, some people don't, but that's fine. But he, he was I found him very thoughtful. And one of the few people who, for example, asked a lot of questions and he was paying attention to the he remember he asked me, so help me understand what's happening in Venezuela right now. So there was that curiosity and and, and so on that was quite different. You know, you had someone at a lower level like Admiral than minister. So Tang, who I first met when we went to Yangon in 2008, after an anarchist to offer assistance, he was the one who greeted us and talk with us. But then, of course, I met him when I visited, when he was working for attain sane, and he was very much seem to be one of the people who was who was most open to engaging and promoting reforms. And so, and I talked to him many times after that when I became ambassador. So you just see that people are different. And they're not all, they might come from the same culture and the same institution, but not all identical.
Host 51:05
Sure, yeah. And then you have Aung San su chi, who is really, really broke the mold in terms of the kind of figures there and before delving into any issue of policy or her administration in general, just staying on this topic of who these people were through personal interactions, and what you glean from just being in a room with them. I'm curious if you could share any personal impressions from your interactions with Aung San su chi? And because especially when thinking about so much of diplomacy is based on these personal relations? What did you learn from the time that you spent with her on a personal level?
Scot Marciel 51:40
Well, she's a fascinating figure and, and, you know, obviously very intelligent, very charismatic. She could be, she had a tendency to be a little bit firm or tough. I mean, one of the first times I met her in my official role as ambassador, I had met her a few times. Before I went out as Ambassador when she was in Parliament. One of the first calls I made on her as ambassador, she said, Okay, shall we first you know, greets me and sit down and says, Okay, let's start with this tough stuff. First, boom, boom, boom. So, but in a very, in a direct way, but not in a bad way at all. And if she's like, Okay, now, we got this out of the way, how about this, and that, that's so she can be very direct. And she could be, you know, really good sense of humor. And she could be alternately steely, tough and, you know, funny, charming. So, you know, a full personality. And she, you know, she made it clear early on, I found her to be quite open and direct Shimon and clear early on that even if people in the West might consider her a democracy icon, she doesn't want to be thought of as an icon. She said, I think, you know, an icon, isn't that something you put up on a wall? And she says, I'm a politician. So in those early engagements with heron, when she traveled to Washington, very engaging, later on things, you know, after the Rohingya crisis, things became tougher. But that was my, my fundamental sense of her.
Host 53:33
Just a small thing, you mentioned that she had a sense of humor. That's, that's something I've heard and all the conversations I've had about her that her her her sense of humor coming out. So I'm just curious if any examples come to mind. I've had to try to understand her better and her personality. what ways did her humor manifest? Or what type of humor was it?
Scot Marciel 53:52
I'm trying to remember. Now, I don't know that I can think of any specific examples that would just make little comments like, Well, you wouldn't want me to do something like that, would you? That sort of thing? Not, not really, not really sarcastic humor at all, but just kind of little quips about? Well, yeah, that'll just get me in trouble if I do that, or something like that.
Host 54:17
Great. Right. And I believe you also had at least one meeting with mineral mining. Is that correct?
Scot Marciel 54:23
I had several meetings with Ben online. Yeah. I don't remember how many.
Host 54:27
Sure. What What were your impressions of him?
Scot Marciel 54:29
Um, at first, you know, superficially smooth and and reasonably polished. But over time, didn't take very long. It. I saw that. A he, you know, I couldn't trust what he was saying. And be He, you know, he had a pretty strong racist views that that most clearly manifested itself visa vie the Rohingya and, and uncompromising. So again, superficially kind of smooth. And and I think the first meeting or two were pretty decent. But after a while it got, you know, when things got tougher. It was we had, you know, we had pretty, as they say in diplomacy, pretty frank conversations.
Host 55:30
Did you have any inclinations as this as someone who could be a future tyrant that tries to bring down the whole democratic experiment of Myanmar? You know, it's hard
Scot Marciel 55:41
to say. I mean, it became our I think our hope, I'll just say my hope, initially, was that having seen that reform, and releasing political prisoners, allowing political competition, all these sorts of things, created some opportunities for the what was then what then people call the tatmadaw. To become less of a pariah institution, I think there was, at least for me, initially, some hope that he would be wise enough to see that not standing in the way of allowing further reform, further progress, movement toward peace, all these sorts of things would be in the interest of the institution. And over time, it became clear that that wasn't how he saw things, and they kind of wanted all the benefits without having to change their behavior. I don't want to, I won't say that I predicted this coup. I like to think a lot of people thought that a coup didn't make sense, because the military already had a very favorable political position. And a coup wouldn't really help and would, would hurt them, which I think is the reality that we see now. So I it became clear that he was, you know, he was not going to support much in the way of further reform or certainly significant progress toward peace and, and what we were hoping for in terms of a federal system and full democracy.
Host 57:29
Right. And so that was we're getting deeper into this transition period, We've danced around this issue, but just to, to take it on directly this issue of sanctions that this is playing this conversation is playing a very direct role in shaping how the country is going to open up or not and US policy towards it. There were debates and discussions regarding whether to release sanctions all at once or to adapt a gradual approach or a selective approach. Can you provide some insight into the shape that this argument took from different sides and how different stakeholders both within Myanmar as well as the international community, how they presented their perspectives on the matter, as well as going back also to these the different groups that make up this strong Burma lobby in the US as well? Right.
Scot Marciel 58:17
Sure. I think, with the beginnings of reform undertaken saying, you know, you had this heavy sanctions approach before that, and I think the and I wasn't involved in this part of the policymaking because I was in Jakarta. But 2011 1213, you started to see some relaxation, some easing of the sanctions in response to progress. And I think there was general agreement on that, certainly within the administration. I wasn't close enough at the time to know what everyone on the in the sort of Burma lobby thought I think there was hesitation to move forward with is in sanctions, then, you know, when I'm at the time I got there, in 2016, we had eased sanctions, but kept a number in place. And what we what I saw was that the purpose of easing the sanctions is to send a signal that if you keep moving in the right direction, there'll be progress. But what we were seeing on the ground was that this sort of salami slice, removing sanctions approach wasn't really having much impact in terms of willingness to invest, certainly about us, and I think by a lot of other companies, and what I was what I heard regularly from the business community was, you know, the sanctions are really complex. And the penalties if you violate them even unknowingly are extremely high. And this market small, and so are our compliance people. just not going to support anything. Until it's clear that there's no sanctions problem. So we saw that the kind of gradual easing of sanctions wasn't resulting in the economic benefit that we had hoped. And that in theory would get by gradually easing sanctions. Then some of the some of the economic advisors around Aung San su chi started coming to us in 2016. And saying the sanctions are really hurting us. And can you can you really look at at lifting them. And at that point, Aung San su chi was, when it would come up with in conversation with her, she would be rather agnostic. Well, that's up to you whether to lift him or not. And, you know, there was no way we were going to lift the sanctions. If Aung San su chi wasn't on board, that just wasn't going to happen. So after a while, people in Washington began to see that, for us to really help the cause of reform, you know, that the NLD government needed to be able to deliver economically. And that would be helped the one area we could affect that would be with with sanctions relief. So I and a few others began to argue that maybe we should consider lifting sanctions. And that led to discussions with Aung San su chi, where we presented the options to her. And she decided that lifting the sanctions would made sense, and she didn't do it lightly. I don't want to speak for her. But, you know, she, she knew there were you know, there were pros and cons of doing it. And we all knew that. But in the end, she decided that the risks, the benefits outweigh the risks. And based on that, there was agreement in the White House to lift sanctions, a lot of the business community, of course, supported it, but they didn't drive it. And a lot of people in the Burma lobby have posted. And inside Myanmar, it was they were mixed views. Some people were strongly supported it. Others opposed. And because they thought it would remove leverage, but in the end, President Obama agreed to lift the sanctions. And this is the important point that I think some people are still not getting the lift decision to lift the sanctions wasn't okay, you've done enough sanctions are gone. Right? It was, what policy decision action can we take that can most support the Reform Movement, realizing that there's an ongoing struggle? And that was the basis for lifting sanctions? Not okay, everything's done. We all knew there was a lot of work to do. And a lot more than that had to happen. But the argument, and I believe it to this day, the argument was that the NLD needs to succeed, and part of succeeding failed, the government, excuse me needs to succeed, and part of succeeding means delivering economically. And if we've got sanctions in place that are inhibiting that, then we should lift those sanctions to give them the best chance. And that was the basis for the decision.
Host 1:03:44
Right. Last year, we had Erin Murphy on the podcast about her book, Burmese haze, she referenced how the thought going on at the time was okay, this is an imperfect situation. But what is going to have a better chance of success is exactly is the is letting the sanctions go and hoping that the force of the free market and civil society and the openness brings it down the line far enough that that natural order of things does more than we could ever hope to do with policy and it starts to take shape on its own and has its own natural momentum. Or do you do more buy into the argument that that things are so corrupt and so bad, and the potential for harm is so great that you need to have very carefully shaped policy that prevent freedoms and access of movement and investment in some way. But that you're you're still keeping a hand on because it's not quite ready to remove it from the way that she frame this is just the role that emotions play into the sanctions argument and that sometimes you're doing something more because it feels good and especially in the situation where you can the US isn't as not a big player in Myanmar and has, you know, doesn't have a lot of leverage. And so when you don't have a lot of leverage you do the things that feel good Even if they might not be as effective, and so and so in describing the sanctions argument, and whether or not to release all of them, or some of them, or none of them, the this was the different rationale that she explained. And so with this rationale in mind that the reason for lifting them was that the the momentum would carry its own force beyond what any policy could do. And that would bring it beyond past the point of no return where where the society would would take its own democratic shape on its own and move in that direction. That was the intention of it. It was an it's an imperfect context and an imperfect solution, but it's going along with your your books, name and perfect partners. Nothing is perfect here. But that's the intention of why the sanctions are looked at being removed. What was the result? What did you see in terms of the impact of that decision?
Scot Marciel 1:05:54
Yeah, I mean, just to follow up on what your comments about Aaron, who whose book is great, and And Aaron's terrific. Yeah, I mean, it again, there's no guarantees and stuff. You're all you're weighing things and and people who argued against lifting sanctions, as you said, they have a legit, they had a legitimate argument. I disagree with it. But that's that's normal. But I think for me, people tend to greatly exaggerate the influence that the sanctions give you. It's not like the fact that our our sanctions even before 2010, before we began eating them. It's not like our sanctions were keeping the generals from, you know, carrying out horrific crimes, and Shawn and Qur'an and Kachin State are holding 2000 political prisoners. And the notion that if we had just kept the sanctions on the military would have behaved is just not supported by any evidence. So I think people ascribe to sanctions, much greater leverage and influence than that. And the reality is, I think the lifting of sanctions gave us an immediate boost, it did not produce the flood of US investment that I think someone Myanmar were hoping for, because the investment environment still wasn't that great. But it did greatly ease financial flows and financial transactions, which had been probably the biggest negative impact that sanctions had on the overall economy. I mean, people can transfer money and and, and sort of carry out normal international business. So I think they had, it had a positive impact on the economy. And it kind of helped sort of people see Myanmar as a, quote, normal country, as opposed to still a pariah. Because if you've got sanctions against you, you're still a pariah. Yeah. And so it's hard to measure. But just like sanctions aren't a perfect tool, lifting sanctions doesn't solve all your problems, either.
Host 1:07:57
And I was talking to Jack mean about this just recently on a podcast that from the US ASEAN Business Council, and asking his views on it, and he pointed out, like, look, how long were sanctions removed? I mean, the minute they were taken away, the Rohingya crisis comes up and they're back in place that not literally the minute but in terms of as far as investment goes, and how much stability you have. It was I don't know how many months it was 14 or something year and a half, something like that. He pointed out that it was kind of an insufficient period of time to judge the experiment because the Rohingya crisis and the regional crisis was, I mean, Jack talked about the impact that it had on putting sanctions right back on in your book, you talk about the Rohingya crisis, the role that played in terms of tarnishing the reputation and kind of derailing all of this messy, complicated stuff moving forward that that the rain got just just sucked all the oxygen and swallowed everything up and took on a new prism. So. So I think it's probably probably appropriate to transition to looking at this Rohingya crisis. And this really kicked off right when you arrived. I mean, October 2016, Arsa, led this attack on the police post in Rakhine State. And then there was a disproportionate response by the state. And you describe a two day visit, you were shepherded to the affected region. So can you describe your experiences and observations during this visit? And how this initial experience coming right at the start of your tenure there, how it started to shape your understanding of what was going on in Myanmar and the way forward?
Scot Marciel 1:09:36
Sure. I mean, you know, we all were acutely aware of the of the mistreatment and the institutionalized discrimination against the Rohingya going back a long time, and that had not improved. That was, you know, Myanmar had made a lot of progress in a lot of areas, but not in terms of its treatment of the Rohingya. So as you said, In early October of 2016, you had that Arsa initial Arsa raid slash attack. And then the military was its wildly disproportionate response. And what was at the time was just as horrific, unimaginable crisis that was later dwarfed, you know, the following year by an even bigger one. And we were, you know, we were clamoring for access, because you've got all these second hand reports about what's happening. And you know, you might have an opinion, but you'd like to be able to see yourself so we were clamoring for access we the diplomatic community. So finally the government slash military took us up to Rakhine, and it's far from that's not really an ideal way to see things because you've got the military with you. But we've had literally no other way of getting out there. And we were taken to some villages. First village we went to was completely burned down. Second village, I mean, it was the same village. And now I'm forgetting. And we were there. And suddenly out of some a nearby forest area, group of people started walking toward as turned out to be the Rohingya community from that village. And one of the guys in the village she for who it was self appointed spokesman began to tell us about what had happened. And I'm, you know, we're there with the Minister of border affairs in uniform and a bunch of soldiers and place with guns, of course. And in the middle of the conversation, they, the police, five soldiers grabbed the guy, and I said, What, what's going on? And ministers said, Well, we got to arrest him, he was involved in the attacks. And I was just shocked. And I said, Minister, if you arrest this guy, that's the end of the trip. We're not I'm not going to continue on with this, if you're going to arrest the people who talked to us. And he said, but he was involved in tax, I said, you If you arrest the people we talk to, then the only, you know, the only conclusion we can draw is that you don't want anyone to talk to us. And that's how it's going to look. And so they they let him go, and then later, they'd look for him. But I think he got away. I have no idea. You know who this guy was whether he was involved in the attacks, but the government was quite angry with me, not just the military, but the civilian government was quite angry basically said I had, you know, hater said that. I had, you know, forced them to release a terrorist. And I like, Are you kidding me? I mean, you send, you bring up a bunch of diplomats to assess what's happened. And then the first person they talk to is arrested while you're talking to them? You can't you just can't do that. So it kind of highlighted to me, that vast chasm in thinking about these things, between between us and them.
Host 1:13:02
How do you explain that logic on their part?
Scot Marciel 1:13:09
I don't know. But there were a number of times where you know, we'd go up to Rakhine was people from the government, and they would show us something and then say, now see, you see, we were telling the truth. Now, can you go tell the press that we were telling the truth? And it's like, what, what world are you living in? I mean, now, to go back to that first visit, because it's important. When we went back to Sydney Airport, there was a lot of press there. And many of them were demanding for us to assert that all the allegations against the military were true. And we said, look, we go up and we visit, we see some burned out villages, we go to some other villages, some of which are burned out, some of which are not touched. It's and of course, we can't be confident of what anybody's telling us because there's military all around, people are going to be careful. So there's, we're, you know, we're not some investigative body, but we're just trying to get a sense of what happened. And there was a lot there were a lot of particularly the Western press, there were some very angry people. So the military was angry with us because we wouldn't just go repeat their argument. And some of the press were are angry with us because we said look, we we can't say this happened. We can say a village was burned down. Yeah, that's about it. So we were, you know, hot for the first time kind of caught between these these forces.
Host 1:14:39
Yeah, and that's, to me, that's really one of the most vulnerable and, and, and touching parts of your book, but one of the most honest parts where you you break down and describe on an emotional and personal level on the behalf of yourself and other embassy workers. How you were feeling be been involved in this while also having to do your job. I wonder if you could read that passage,
Scot Marciel 1:15:05
right. And this I'm talking about the period in late, let's say late 2017, when you had the the even larger conflict and violence and mass exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh in an operation that we initially called Ethnic cleansing and later decided was determined to be genocide. So, by this point, it was pretty clear what had happened even if we didn't know every detail, that was pretty clear that the military had carried out this horrific operation against the Rohingya community, and that a lot of people outside of the military in Myanmar, either didn't believe it, or didn't seem to be troubled by it. So the passage is, the subtitle is, how do you respond to horror. By that time, and frankly, even earlier, the magnitude and horror of what had happened was weighing heavily on our minds at the embassy and within the broader diplomatic community. Some of my embassy colleagues were saying aloud that they had not signed up for this, they'd come to Myanmar to try to help the country move forward down the democratic path, not to watch it carry out ethnic cleansing against the vulnerable community. Others asked pointedly, why are we still helping these people, some were depressed, feel the slept much as we would lie awake at night, wondering what we could or should have done differently. In Washington, our colleagues, colleagues on the Burma desk had become virtual prize themselves guilty by association.
Host 1:16:43
And I think what really stands out with this passage is you're opening the door on the more formal proceedings and way you have to engage that we all see from the outside, you know, and, and that, and the real personality behind the emotion that you feel, but you can't show because you have a job to do. It's what a four or 500 page book, you talk about 35 years across many countries, there's no two paragraphs that spoke to me in that same way of really bringing out that strong personal emotion of what the job entailed at that time. Yeah,
Scot Marciel 1:17:20
it was. It was a certainly, by far the most difficult period of my career just emotionally and, and as you know, as head of the embassy trying to deal with some very strong emotions that that people felt now, I want to hasten to add the the discomfort that we were feeling pales in comparison to what the Rohingya community was going through at the time. So I don't want to suggest at all that I'm comparing the two. But yeah, I mean, when you're on the ground in a place where something horrific is happening, and it's I think it's even worse than if it's a natural disaster, because this is a man made thing. And wham, frankly, and this, you know, this won't be very popular in Myanmar right now, but it's a reality. Very few people in the society shared our views or, or, you know, offered any support for the Rohingya community. It's, it's very difficult to fathom and to deal with.
Host 1:18:34
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know. And for someone speaking for myself, someone living in Myanmar during that time, it was just baffling. I mean, I lived in Myanmar, 10 years. By that point, I had many deep connections and friendships, but particularly with Bomar Buddhists, because that was after the American Center. I was very much involved in the monastic culture and meditation side of things, and was very inspired by that. And it was also very confusing for me to encounter a number of people that I really inspired and looked up to as far as meditative wisdom went, that we're not exactly on the right side of this and, and I it's something I still kind of grapple with trying to understand and how that could come to pass. And, you know, I think a large part of it that has come out more lately is this propaganda machine, you know, the military propaganda exploding on social media 111 memory comes to mind as we're talking about this that I think you might appreciate where I was with my neighbor was this beautiful Bomar Buddhist man, just pure heart and selfless and so helpful. I couldn't have survived without him. So many difficulties that we went through in trying to live there are things we didn't understand. And just anytime a meditator, a foreign monk would come visit us he'd just help out in any way and just be so joyous and how how he was able to give and help People and at one point he came over I was with a friend of mine who was a monk from the Netherlands in my house. And he came over really excited and said, You know, I just had this really great meditation several hours, I just had these insights that there's no the difference between I and you, it breaks down. And, you know, there's, there's me and there's this, this animal, I'm Burmese and you're American, and man and woman, and old and young, these are these are all just, they all just dissolve and the sense of the ego, you know, and just describing this Buddhist philosophy, but basically, he's very excited because it wasn't intellectual understanding. And it was this profound meditative experience. He just had have seen how the identifications of who people were all broke down, and letting go of this ego, and my friend and I kind of looked at each other, we're talking to him and Burmese and so I kind of said, my neighbor didn't speak English. So I talked to my, I kind of whispered to my friend, like, you know, this kind of feels like an opening, I think we can follow my lead, let's go in this direction. So I started asking him, you know, oh, so there's no difference in in in human or animal or man or woman or Burmese or American, blah, blah, you know, kind of going slowly hesitantly and I say, Oh, how about Ranga? Like, what about Rohingya? And Bomar? Like? What do you you know, is there a difference in that, and immediately, he looks at me with this kind of shock, because I knew I was doing this, I love this guy. I'm doing it very carefully, very delicately. I'm a trainer by profession. So I have the skill. And you know how you navigate these difficult conversations. I'm not trying to set them up, I'm really trying to like, expose them to two ways of thinking. And you can see that in that moment. He's torn between this profound Buddhist insight that is the ultimate truth of the world that he he, he has faith in as a Buddhist, and he's just experienced as a meditator juxtaposed next to the propaganda he's been fed about the dangers the Rohingya pose to a Muslim invasion of Burma. And he's, he's juxtaposing these two things. And it's kind of like, what do you believe in more do you believe more in in the underlying Buddhist reality of nature and of self? Or do you believe more in the danger of the Rohingya? And you could just see that that kind of clock or that that the inner workings of like, what, you know, how do I navigate this, but he's such a saintly man, and so, so honest, and, you know, but also affected by this propaganda? So he just delicately starts to kind of pick this apart. And he's like, you know, you're, you're right. Like, he kind of says it, you know, hesitating and checking himself. But he's like, you know, you're right. Like, there, it doesn't make any sense to say, to have this profound Buddhist realization from my meditation, and then to say, but the Rohingya are somehow outside of this, this whole paradigm of, you know, the sense of self and identity in the world. And yeah, so he acknowledged like, you know, you're right, there's also no difference there. And we're also we're the same beans were the same core, the same human nature. And, but that memory stands out, because it was really that whole period, it was the only time I had any success at trying to very carefully engage this conversation, because so often, the rhetoric coming back was so extreme. And this gets into what you said earlier in the conversation, this idea that when I asked how you started to break down Myanmar and understand it, beyond the reductionist terms of democracy and dictatorship, your answer was basically ethnic identity and the complexity of that, and, and so in this moment, you know, this was one moment where I was able to break down ethnic identity through, you know, Buddhist lens of the ultimate reality, no sense of self. But for the most part, I, I just, I just had to stay quiet. And just, I mean, not not out of lack of trying, but once it became clear how severe this was, and how little little wiggle room there was, for these conversations, it was just very confusing to have such respect and inspiration from certain people that then just had views I couldn't reconcile with.
Scot Marciel 1:23:54
Right, right. I agree. I had similar experiences and people who I knew well, and we're big human rights defenders, and, and, you know, very smart, well informed people still had still believed that the Rohingya were a threat to the sort of Buddhist soul of of Myanmar. And, as an outsider, it's baffling, to use your word, but obviously, a lot of people felt it a fair amount, you know, subjected to, you know, years of propaganda. I mean, we've got our own race issues in this country. So, you know, we know how, I mean, I found myself thinking, you know, at one point, I would if I were a, you know, Scandinavian diplomat in the deep south in the 1950s. And, you know, I've just had this wonderful dinner party with these wonderful people. And then the issue of, you know, blacks or African Americans comes up and I guess completely and it's like, Oh, my God. And so you end up having these sort of philosophical All debates in your own mind is like, is everybody just an awful person? Or is it the environment they're in? And you have to believe it's the environment that they're in and the information on the propaganda, but it was bad.
Host 1:25:13
Yeah, and that's where you, you have to find some angle. I mean, in that moment I was religion is such a powerful angle. And as that had come up naturally, we already had that connection of Buddhist meditation, it was able to use that angle to, to navigate that. And, you know, I think your example in the deep south is, that's a great one. And I would, in that theoretical example, I would wonder about the Scandinavian diplomat, falling back on some form of, of Christianity to, to question and to, to navigate. I mean, one of the topics I'm always interested in on this platform, is when monks or Burmese Buddhists Come on, and asking them in their own words to describe how they see the Buddhist teachings aligning with a democratic and inclusive society. Yeah, and because this can't be seen as a threat, and this is something historical and Myanmar, I mean, they, you know, in various times, in Myanmar, they've seen going back to the colonial days, they've seen science or English language or, or different aspects of modernity as a threat to their traditional way of life and their religion that continues to this day, people like the Bible, say it today who's openly talking about how improvement in society and more opportunities are a threat to Buddhism. But then you have other leading monks, like a contemporary example would be June pin Sado who was a guest on here, or historic example would be lady say, of the 19th century, that were able to, to greet these these different aspects, whether it was you know, science, or economy or English language or other things and and realize these were not threats. And in this case, you know, the Rohingya people in an inclusive society and democracy, these are not threats to, to your faith and your way of living. There are ways to incorporate these things into these beliefs so that you have a richer life. But you know, these fears are there. Yeah, for sure. Going back to this, the role that you found yourself in as a diplomat, you you mentioned in the book there instances where you had to address the charge that the US was, quote, giving up on Myanmar and claims that they're even some claims that you refute very strongly in the book that the international community actually bore some responsibility for the ringgit crisis. And but at the same time, you have to approach you mean in the embassy and leading the embassy have to approach the situation cautiously, because you don't have a complete understanding of the whole picture. You know, I think that that example of coming back from the airport or going going to the airport after the visit in Rakhine illustrates that, and this caution, seems hesitation was viewed really negatively by others that you weren't doing enough. And you weren't even saying the right things you had to say. Whereas from your side, you know, you're you're exploding with all these emotions, and everyone working in the embassy as of the time, but you also have to be pretty careful with what you say and do based on the information you have. So can you elaborate on this dilemma that you're facing and formulating the right response and navigating these really heightened emotions and very difficult and complicated situation with very high stakes?
Scot Marciel 1:28:23
Right? Sure. Well, if you go back to the sort of height of the crisis, if you will, starting in August of 2017. And for the next few months, the immediate thing was to try to get accurate information. And then once it became clear that you had this massively disproportionate force being used by the military driving out hundreds of 1000s of Rohingya, it was a lot of violence, and including sexual violence, well documented, then it's, you know, focusing on I mean, there were plenty of people around the world, including Washington, New York, screaming at Myanmar, about it. What we were focused on was, what can we do to change the situation to improve the situation first, convincing them to stop the military operation. And then second, once it had stopped, you still had large numbers of people fleeing because even once the violence on a large scale stop is still the conditions for the Rohingya were were horrific, and so many, many more people fled to Bangladesh even after that. And so what we focused on was trying to going back to the Kofi anon report, which had come out that they have those that big second set of arson attacks in August 2017, with very practical recommendations on how to address the broader Rohingya crisis in the right time. in crisis, so we were going back to that we would go whenever we could get access, we'd go to Rakhine talk to people talk to ro Hanga, kind of get a, you know, on the ground view of what was happening, and then go to naypyitaw and talk to the ministers and sort of say, here's what we see, here's what we think might be possible. Have you thought about this? Could you do this trying to get them to take even baby steps to improve the conditions in the rights of the Rohingya community? And really, most of the rest of my time, and Myanmar was spent on that effort, which, you know, resulted in maybe very limited progress, if any, but that was the focus, what can we do in practical terms, to make things better? Or at least start down the path of making them better?
Host 1:30:50
Yeah, right. And that's getting into a lesson in international relations, as you mentioned, that, during this time, the country is making progress in certain areas, while facing really serious challenges and others. And as the ring of crisis explodes, none more than this. And so, as a diplomat, this situation is presenting this unique set of complexities. So were there any case studies or policies or previous protocols that were able to guide you in navigating how you handled progress in one area and extreme backsliding in another and how to approach the task of prioritizing and addressing these areas of progress while concurrently also facing these challenges? And areas that that require improvement?
Scot Marciel 1:31:36
Yeah, it's I don't know that there were protocols or even case studies that we use so much, but we did a lot of a lot of sitting down and brainstorming and thinking about how should we approach this whole country? Right now I'm talking about at the embassy. And, and it was, obviously, we've got priority number one has got to be to keep pushing any way we can for progress visa vie, the Rohingya community. But on top of that, there's still a lot of other problems. There's a lot of other vulnerable communities that have suffered as well, you know, ethnic minority communities, but just people who have desperately poor lives. And, you know, there was a kind of a debate about well, there's some people included, particularly in Washington were like, basically, hey, they're all supporting the move against the genesis of that Rohingya. So why why bother? But our view was not, you know, our view was that you know, what's happened has is awful. And we're not going to hide from that, and we're going to focus, our top priority is addressing it. But there's a lot that still can be done to try to support others who are trying to make the country and their own communities better places. And so we would try to, you know, continue, you know, assistance programs and the like, that would try to help local communities around the country, move forward economic reforms that would that would create more job opportunities, and so on. And I think my our sense was that it's gonna take time, and it may not succeed. But this is the best hope for the country and investment for the country. It's probably also the best hope for the Rohingya community over time, not to give people a pass for what's happened, but to try to help the country move forward in a way that hopefully over time, it can begin to address the Rohingya community. So that was the thinking, I remember taught me and who I think wrote at some point that you can't fix Rakhine if you don't fix me. And I took that to heart. And so that's what we tried to do. But it was a struggle. It was a lot of anguish, and and not everybody agreed. And it was, you know, again, it was, as you said earlier on, there weren't any great options. But it was trying to be as much as possible focus on what we could do to make things better.
Host 1:34:29
Right, and mentioning the criticism that was received from some of those policies, especially after the coup, I think after the coup took place, a lot of the people that were in the I told you so category saw the coup as a a real justification that these policies were wrong, that the transition was an illusion that this was all just temporary and that they accused the US as being driven by an eagerness to want to open the country up for business and pointing out perceived euphoria. That's a word used in the book that there is a criticizing a euphoria feeling among US officials, pointing to the exploding crisis in Rakhine State along with the land grabs that were happening at the time, you expressed feelings in the book that you thought these criticisms were unfounded and unfair. Can you expand on why you think so? Yeah.
Scot Marciel 1:35:22
I mean, first of all, given what's happened, the Rohingya crisis and the cool, I think all of us who are involved in policy need to be very, very humble, and open to criticism. You know, I'm sure there were things that I and others could have done, or should have done differently. But first, I don't think that the change underway that we saw from 2011 12 onward until the coup, I don't think that was an illusion. I think that was real. It didn't go far enough. But I mean, you can't tell me you live there. You can't tell me that things didn't change, mostly for the better. For the vast majority of people in Myanmar. That doesn't mean that obviously not for the Rohingya, not for the kitchen, and not for some others, but overall things. You know, we're, we're definitely better for a lot of people in the country. Euphoria. I think that there was certainly excitement that finally this country, after decades of not moving seem to be moving in a positive direction and a lot of hope. But sometimes it was like that, you know, there was euphoria toward the military and science, I think I ever saw euphoria toward the military, there was certainly some hope that they would see it in their interest not to get in the way of further reform. And you can criticize that is naive. But I can promise you, I never felt euphoria, walking into talk to the military leadership. So that was just a litmus place to as long with this sort of notion that somehow it was the international community's failure that caused all this to happen. And that's just I just think that's nonsense. It's one thing to say the international community made some mistakes. Fair enough. Again, we should be open to criticism. But it was BMR that carried out this horrific operation against the Rohingya and led by the military. Of course, it wasn't, it wasn't the international community. So I think people get a little carried away on that front. And yeah, I feel strongly about that.
Host 1:37:36
So I'd like to close by looking at post coup, Myanmar. But just before we jump there, I just want to go back to something you mentioned in your last answer you you mentioned how things got better for many people in Myanmar, not the Rohingya as well as the kitchen. So just want to have a focus on some of the hardships that was going on with the kitchens at the time. And with the ongoing battles of the K IA, the kitchen, Independence army and the military and the involvement that the that the American mission had at the time.
Scot Marciel 1:38:09
Yeah, well, as you said, the world's attention immediate attention certainly was focused on the Rohingya and ours was to a large extent, but certainly we are continuing to engage with and travel to the chin and other areas on a regular basis. I went to kitchen. I don't know how many times. And because they had had a ceasefire with the military for many years that had been broken in I think, 2011. And the entire time I was there, there was heavy conflict between the military and the Ka pail, and a lot of concern. People suffered visiting IDP camps and, and kitchen and, you know, people who for years now had been stuck in these IDP camps couldn't move on with our lives. And trying to talk to both Kayo but particularly the military generals, so in a number of times, trying to get them to, to have a ceasefire, and, you know, getting the frustration that, you know, it's not a very compromising mentality in the military on much of anything, and certainly not on that. So yeah, I mean, the fact that the Rohingya were suffering in a very short period of time, I mean, obviously, they'd suffered from discrimination for years, but in terms of the violence, an incredible amount of people affected directly by violence in a very short time that in numbers terms dwarfed what happened, but yeah, I mean, could Shan Shan, Corinne, others have all had periods where they've been the victims of of these sorts of atrocities, maybe not on quite the scale, at least in such a short period, but equally horrific stuff. And so, yeah, it's all part of the fundamental you know, one of the fundamental Problems of Myanmar, which is the mindset and behavior of the military.
Host 1:40:07
Right, I'm moving now to post coup Myanmar. And looking at the developments in the past couple of years. Do you feel that your current positions and perspectives about the country and what needs to happen there are a continuation of your pre coup work? Or has the coop prompted you to reevaluate certain aspects? In other words, have recent events in the past couple of years since the coup caused any shifts in your approach or priorities or the way that you perceive the direction of the country?
Scot Marciel 1:40:40
That's a good question. I think, obviously, there have been significant changes in the country since then. And, but But overall, I, I believed when I left, that the country needed to obviously address the huge problem with the military. Second, it needed to address the problem of sort of identity and the grievances of ethnic minority communities in a way that wasn't really addressed even during the NLD. Government. And third, I thought, I thought there needed to be generational change in thinking. And I think all those views are sort of reinforced by what we've seen with the coup. I mean, obviously, if anyone had any hopes for the military, before the coup, they hopefully they no longer do. I mean, this is an institution that's just so rotten and so brutal, and has has enjoyed impunity for so long. I just don't see any way forward for the country, as long as it exists in its present form. I think, you know, there have been some hopeful signs in terms of increased awareness on the part of at least some people in the country about that they had been fed a steady diet of propaganda, not only about the Rohingya, but about other communities. And and it's hard for me to know from afar how far that's gone, but it's at least a start. And you see it reflected even in some of the comments and stuff from the N, ug, and so on. And third, I mean, who knows how this is going to play out. But you are seeing, in many ways, a significant generational change in terms of that in the resistance and who's who's doing what. So it has also reinforced my, my, it's also reinforced my belief that there was real change in the country, between 2010 to 2020. Because I think one of the reasons the resistance is so strong is so many people had a taste during those 10 years of not only greater liberty and democracy, but also opportunity. Yeah. And they saw that rightly saw the military coup is taking away all of those things. Yeah. And all that ending their hope for a better future. And I saw I think that the military wasn't prepared for that, obviously. And, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's it's horrific to see the coup, the violence afterwards, the suffering the day to day suffering of so many people who were displaced or lost their jobs or victims of violence. And, you know, it makes me feel even more strongly. It both admire the courage and resilience of people in Myanmar and just hope and wish that somehow they can find a way to move forward,
Host 1:43:50
I realized there was a question I neglected to ask as we are on the Rohingya and moving ahead, I just wanted to go back to it now. We talked about your relations with Aung San su chi and her what you gleaned of her personally as you were having different conversations and interactions. I wanted to ask specifically about when the Rohingya crisis came to the forefront. We we know her public statements, and we know the actions that her administration decided on that's all public record. But as far as your conversations and interactions with her behind closed doors, when this issue came up, I'm not asking to reveal anything that that's private and and meant to stay that way, but more just the general feeling of, of how these conversations and interactions would would go when you would broach the Rohingya crisis.
Scot Marciel 1:44:44
Yeah, well, early on in it, I and a few others were able to talk to her, you know, in a small group setting a handful of times with one or two of her close advisers and, and have I think pretty good conversations and you I don't want to pretend to know what was going on inside her head. But she certainly didn't say or do anything that suggested any hatred or condoning of violence toward the Rohingya. But I think she was skeptical of some of the reports and allegations about what was happening. Over time as the crisis continued, as you know, 2018 into 2019, it became harder to have those conversations. She was kind of what would would sort of move off the subject pretty quickly. And, again, I speculating, but I did speculate in the book about this. So I can repeat that. I don't know. But I, my sense is that that she and some of the people, maybe many of the people around her, you know, just had convinced themselves that a lot of these allegations of human rights abuses and violence, and so Hanga were just not true. And I think had sort of bought into some of these conspiracy theories, that we're just not true. There was a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, I guess, I want to say that is didn't want to address. So it was it was difficult to have those conversations with her. And I ended up talking a lot more to the ministers who are handling the issue. Yeah, and it's, I mean, I was, you know, there was all the debate about should she have her Nobel Prize taken away, and all that sort of thing, you know, not not fair for me to expand on my personal view was at the time was, she earned that Nobel Prize by doing remarkable, courageous things, and with enormous sacrifice, that doesn't mean that she should be free of criticism. Now, I don't. Again, I don't have any reason to believe that she condoned violence against report hatred toward the Rohingya. But I think I wish she would have used her enormous popularity and influence in the country to offer up a different vision during the crisis of how what kind of country Myanmar wanted to be, and how that meant treating everybody with respect and dignity. Whether you thought they were, quote, citizens or not. I think that was a huge missed opportunity, that that, you know, added to the tarnishing of her reputation.
Host 1:47:44
Yeah, I agree. And I can't help but think back on what you said earlier in the conversation about her pointedly saying to you that she did not want to be a democracy icon. And one way you can take it is, well, I don't, I don't want to be an icon that people can think of as they want. I want to engage in the hard messy matters of this country and have to make hard decisions and lead in a way that's right. That's, that's apart from this kind of idealized icon. But another way to take it, which is quite disturbing, and I hadn't thought about until we were having this conversation is that I guess the first way is in looking at democracy icon that she doesn't want to be the icon part. The second way to look at it is she doesn't want to be the democracy part. And I'm not suggesting that's, you know, that's what she's saying. But at the democracy is a big word. But it's also not, it's a nuanced word. It's not a black or white thing. As we've seen in our own country. We've had Democracy in America, for certain people at certain times, and not for everyone until different reforms were made. And so as I'm repeating those words, in my mind that she did not want to be a democracy icon. She's telling you explicitly, I do not want to be a democracy icon. Part of it is not just that she doesn't want to be an icon, and she wants to engage in the messy work of leadership. But part of it could also be I don't know, it makes me question makes me wonder that's I don't know what the answer is. But it makes me wonder what her views on on democracy and nuanced understanding of federal democracy would be and that she doesn't want to be pigeonholed in a western understanding of our our understanding of free and fair elections and human rights and inclusivity and all these others, that, that she might have different feelings and conditionings than those people labeling her a democracy icon would like to see.
Scot Marciel 1:49:41
Yeah, and that's, again, it's it's pure speculation. It would be pure speculation on my part, I think. I certainly believe that she believes wholeheartedly in democracy in the sense of free and fair elections, civilian control of the military, those sorts of things. Based on particularly after the Rohingya crisis hit, where you saw sort of a lack of effort to move forward on some other, you know, political liberalization fronts. I don't know how much of that was because they were feeling so much under pressure because of the Rohingya crisis, or that was just the way she thought of things. But certainly you didn't see you saw some backsliding on press freedoms and those sorts of things. Yeah. And, you know, so again, we'll we'll never know, what would have happened if there hadn't been this Rohingya crisis. But you know, on the other hand, she and the, and her party won an overwhelming landslide victory in the 2020 elections. So the people of Myanmar still very much viewed her in a positive way. And they're the ones who get to vote.
Host 1:50:59
Yeah, yeah. And it also makes me think we don't know what would have happened if she would have stayed in charge, we don't know what would happen if funk song had been assassinated. There's a lot of different theories about what he would have developed. But speaking about communication and conversation interactions, which is one of the core duties of a diplomat is, is being able to talk to everyone, I understand that you're now doubtful about what progress engagement with the military in Myanmar can do in terms of leading to meaningful outcomes, given their track record of to be unreliable partners to say the least, is first just asking if this is an accurate understanding of your feelings on the matter. And if they are, it's really quite devastating for a diplomat to suggests that communication isn't going to be very effective taking place considering that, again, at its core diplomacy involves fostering dialogues and engagement with anyone as the top priorities. And so what implications would this have and the way forward in Myanmar, and how to how to even think right now about pursuing any kind of positive change or progress in the absence of any kind of effective engagement or dialogue with the military?
Scot Marciel 1:52:17
Yeah, now, you you've, you've expressed my views on this. I mean, generally, and I say this explicitly in the book, I mean, generally, I believe in engagement. In the vast majority of circumstances, in with, with a hunter right now, though, a, lots of people have tried to engage them. And what, you know, un envoys, visitors, visiting leaders of governments in the neighborhood bomb Ki, Moon, etc, with no results at all to speak up. Second there, they're there. They're waging war against their own population in the most brutal way imaginable. And, and so I, I don't see anything in their behavior that leads me to believe that they can be reasoned with. Yeah, and if, you know, and I don't say that lightly. So to me, I mean, look, it's up to the medium heart people. If, if people in the resistance and others want to engage them, that's, that's it's their country, they do whatever they think, but from an outside perspective, in terms of what the US and others might do, I think having a line or two of communication open, so that there can be conversations, if appropriate, is not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't necessarily have to be by the US, it could be by others. Because you want to have a line or two of communication open in case, things begin to change. And there's an opportunity you don't want to miss it. But I'm talking about you know, flying in the Navy, DOD going to see men online and in, you know, that that sort of thing, I think that I see no value in that at all, to me, the military, or the or started this problem with the coup and the violence. They're the aggressors. They're the ones who ostensibly at least hold the levers of power, and they have more firepower than the resistance. So if they want to start if if they get to the point that they want to look for a way out of this, and I hope that happens, then that's the time I think, for dialog, but they need to be the ones to show that this is what they want. Otherwise, it's in my view, a waste of time. And all you do by going and seeing them in AP TOS legitimize them. Again, I think there are ways whether it's the UN or neighboring countries or others, to have lines of communication open to them at various levels so that if they say, Hey, look, we're we're looking for a way out Look, you know, you can you can follow up on that. But otherwise, I, sadly, I don't see any any reason to be talking to these people it should be rather, what can we do to put more pressure on them most of the pressures coming in from internal forces, but put more pressure on them so that at some point, they look for an exit strategy. Otherwise, I can't imagine, as again, as an outsider, I can't imagine what kind of deal could be struck between the military of the resistance, I can't even imagine it. And again, if Myanmar people think differently, that it's their country, they can certainly pursue that. Absolutely. But just from my perspective, so the only hope I see is for the military to be sufficiently weakened that key elements of it, look for a way out, and then there's an opportunity for engagement and dialogue.
Host 1:56:00
Yeah, yeah, that's a devastating picture. And I thank you so much for your time and being so generous with this conversation. I have just one more question. It's probably the, the hardest question of these two hours. So I apologize and throwing it at the end, but it's a it's it's a very important, yet also controversial part of this current conflict that is, I think, is not really being properly understood in the debates that I've seen, and I hope, at least on this platform, that we're able to have more conversations about this issue directly, because it's, um, it's, it takes on just a very strong feelings on either side. And that's the question of what kind of material support including lethal support weaponry to PDF and ug era was, etc, that the international community and specifically the US might consider so what? What are your thoughts on on that possibility?
Scot Marciel 1:57:00
Yeah, that's a really tough question that I've wrestled with, and I'm not sure I have 100% certainty, in my own mind about what's the right thing to do. I do think that there should be more international assistance to the various elements that are opposing the military assistance in the form of financing for, for on the humanitarian side, and training and support on local governance in those areas where and public services in those areas where where ethnic groups, or N ug or PDFs are attempting to build local governance, I think there's a lot of opportunity there, maybe on communications, lethal weapons, I mean, one, you have the very practical and how do you even get them into the country, given that the neighbors are not really on to I mean, it there is a certain concern, particularly as it seems that some in Beijing are increasingly seeing this, as you know, the US versus China us support for the resistance, this is against China, there's a risk that if the US in particular starts sending weapons into the resistance that this might, you know, magnify this US China angle, that that wouldn't be a good thing. And that could lead China to redouble its support, and its arms for the junta? So I think there's a lot of factors, I think, the maybe it's this the more cautious way, but I think there's a lot of room for other support financial, and other to the various elements of the, of the of the pillars that are working against against the military junta, but also important discussions, that perhaps can be facilitated about what it because because you have not only the resistance against the military, that and unnecessary need to push the military out of political power, but also the whole rebuilding of sort of a new Myanmar nation at the same time, and there's a lot of tough questions to be addressed. Like, if and when the resistance, quote succeeds and pushing the military out of power. What happens to those civil servants who continued to work? How, what, what is your police force? All of these sorts of things, I don't have the answers to those. It's not for a foreigner to say, but there's a lot of work that can be done to sort of encourage and facilitate this, you know, honest discussion about really tough issues, not to mention rebuilding the economy. And and, you know, getting people back in their homes and all those sorts of things. So I think there's a lot of work to be done. short of the lethal side, the lethal side I'm, I'm still grappling with that.
Host 2:00:09
Great, thank you. Thank you for that honest answer. And for all the time that you took with us today, before we close, is there anything we haven't talked about or that you wanted to expand on and address before we we finish here?
Scot Marciel 2:00:22
I don't think so I think we've, we've covered it, I think, you know, it's easy as an outsider to say, you know, long term patience, persistence, but if you're in the country suffering and victim of violence, that doesn't really work. But I think for the international community, it's really important to stop with the notion that it's just a matter of the right envoy going in and talking sense to the generals, and starting a political dialogue. And that's just just far that's just divorced from the reality of Myanmar right now. And I think people need to understand that the military junta has no ability to govern, or to bring stability to the country. And nor is there some easy compromise deal to be struck through, you know, a couple of weeks in negotiation, and that there should be an effort to support all these elements that are trying to build a new Myanmar. And some of that is, you know, building trust among communities and overcoming the decades of friction and distrust. So a little bit of more realism on the part of of some, some governments that may have good intentions, but seem to have a kind of, in my view, a distorted view of the real situation there.
Host 2:01:38
Yeah, just to follow up with that, if one extreme, I guess the lighter extreme would be sending a magical envoy who has some big breakthrough, and the heavier extreme is send lethal assistance. What is in between those, especially in the context of a fractured country that's in, in violent conflict up and down right now, lacking stability, lacking clear direction, and leadership? Given the reality of the conflict taking shape right now, and the instability and looking between those two extremes? Do you have a sense of what could be done right now by the international community?
Scot Marciel 2:02:19
Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, I think 80 to 90%, of whatever happens is going to be decided within the country by people of Myanmar. And that's just a reality. I'm not sure that the international community has some, some, you know, can offer much that will be decisive. But I think a lot more could be done on pushing for him humanitarian access channels. And that's where Thailand Could, could really help. And we'll see what happens with Thai politics. And whether that creates an opportunity to is more engagement with not only the N ug, but the various elements of that are opposed to the military junta to try to understand their views. And as much as possible, encourage cooperation. And as I said, overcoming building building trust among different communities. More more thinking about what can be done, you know, longer term planning, about economic rebuilding, and so on. Support for, as I said, local governance, all of these things, more support for people who are displaced educational opportunities, because you had a poor education system, then you had COVID. And then you have the massive disruption from the cool and aftermath and more money and creative approaches to help provide education to people in Myanmar or people who had to flee Myanmar. Otherwise, you have a whole generation that's lost.
Host 2:03:51
Thank you for that. Thank you for all the time you took today again, the book that you published on your diplomatic career in Southeast Asia as imperfect partners and suggest for any listeners to check that out. It's really a great read and the chapters on Myanmar are especially fascinating. And thank you again for taking the time to be with us and share these thoughts.
Scot Marciel 2:04:09
Thank you My pleasure.
Host 2:04:25
For whatever reason, even as the conflict and Myanmar continues to worsen, it somehow continues to be shut out of the Western media news cycle. And even when the foreign media does report on the conflict, it's often presented as a reductionist, simplistic caricature that inhibits a more thorough understanding of the situation. In contrast, our podcast platform endeavors to portray a much more authentic, detailed and dynamic reality of the country and its people, one that nurtures deeper understanding and nuanced appreciation. Not only do we ensure that a broad cross section of ideas and perspectives from Burmese guests regularly appear on our platform. But we also try to bring in foreign experts, scholars and allies who can share from their experience as well. But we can't continue to produce this consistency and at the level of quality we aim for without your help. 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 in any form, currency or transfer method. Your donation will go on to support a wide range of humanitarian immediate 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, refugee camps, monasteries and nunneries education initiatives, the purchasing of protective equipment and medical supplies COVID relief and more. We also make sure that our donation Fund supports a diverse range of religious and ethnic groups across the country. 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 to a specific activity or project you would like to support, perhaps even something you heard about in this very episode. All of this humanitarian work is carried out by a 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 and donate directly there. In either case, your donation goes to the same cause in both websites except credit card. You can also give via PayPal by going to paypal.me/better Burma. Additionally, we can 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 website for specific links to these respective accounts or email us at info at better burma.org. That's better Burma. One word, spelled b e t t e r b u r m a.org. If you'd like to give it another way, please contact us. We also invite you to check out our range of handicrafts that are sourced from vulnerable artists and communities across Myanmar. Available at a local crafts.com. Any purchase will not only support these artists and communities, but also our nonprofits wider mission. That's a local crafts spelled a LOKCR a ft s one word a local crafts.com Thank you so much for your kind consideration and support.