Transcript: Episode #267: Navigating A Mine Field

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0:12

Anti junta forces say retreating soldiers from Myanmar's ruling Military Council planted landmines in both military and civilian areas.

0:23

You know is the recognize that landmine issues are a national problem, and not just an issue that ethnic minorities are dealing with. But that is also by definition, an issue for the nations.

0:37

The father of two daughters was searching for firewood near his home in western Myanmar's Rakhine State. When he stepped on a landmine, the device severed his right leg.

0:49

Our investigation clearly shows how the Myanmar military is committing war crimes by systematically laying landmines on a massive scale.

Host 1:09

Thank you for taking the time to listen to today's episode. As you know, the current crisis in EMR is extremely concerning. And we appreciate that you're taking the time to stay informed. There is even value in just becoming more aware and helping to inform others. So please consider sharing this episode so that more people may learn about what is happening in the country. It's critical to ensure that this issue remains present and public discourse. But for now, let's get on to the interview itself.

2:10

Sitting in my way that I I absolutely hate and it is.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 2:48

My name is Yeshua Moser, plunk Suwon. And I'm currently residing here in Thailand where I've resided for about 30 years. I'm a citizen of Canada, and I worked for the international campaign to ban landmines, which got the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1997. For its work to end the suffering caused by anti personnel landmines, and conflict countries around the planet. I think I first became aware of Burma or Myanmar through my meditation practice, which I was doing at that time at the Insight Meditation Society in barre Massachusetts, I did their three month meditation retreat there and learned about teachers in the Mahasi tradition. And shortly after that, this is the early 80s, I made a trip to to Burma to visit the Mahasi center. And I've regularly carried on a Buddhist meditation practice. Since that time, I spend about a month or more when I can do it in intensive meditation practice every year, and for doing work related to suffering on the planet, I think it's one of the most important types of self care and activists can do. Because the suffering gets to you, I mean, you can't help but absorb it if you get close to it. And in the intensive meditation practice, helps you balance that by by seeing what needs to be seen within that suffering and not absorbing what doesn't need to be absorbed. I've been in situations of actual armed conflict, and where were weapons were fired at me. And fortunately, none of them hit me. They were bad shots. But from that I had an excuse. ants have traumatic stress from the use of explosive weapons. And I gained a deep understanding through my meditation practice of what it was that I did. The stuff that comes up with that you will have bad dreams, you'll have negative emotions that seem to come out of nowhere. And I don't need to identify with them because I know it's a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. And so my meditation practice helps me from taking on unnecessary suffering.

Host 5:36

Yeah, that's quite powerful. So we're looking now at this intersection between being an activist and and a meditation practice. And as we were, again, as we were talking before this interview, I had referenced how I, for some reason that I don't quite understand these seem to be somewhat separate communities when it's involved in Myanmar. I know many people in the activist field and political and human rights and I know many people that are deeply committed to meditation in Burma and the Dhamma. But I don't know many people that are in both. And so what are your experiences, firstly, combining them and having a life that's dedicated to both of them, very much so. And then secondly, in interacting with those communities, and, and, and if you have found that, you're able to glide somewhat seamlessly between those two activities, or if it's can be more of a transition at times.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 6:37

Oh, I clearly glide between them. And it's seamless part of my life. Now, because I've been doing it for so many years, I was an activist long before I learned about meditation. And the benefits of it were just very apparent to me. And so those because of those benefits, I've integrated that into my life. And my practice of social activism, my practice of, of meditation, are a part of a whole, as far as I'm concerned. I have seen that some other people don't seem to see that. Frequently, activist friends don't see the value of meditation practice, I don't try to convince them to go meditate, I think they would benefit from it. I mean, kind of like Gandhi, my life is my message. I don't try to convince anybody about it. And mostly, if people ask me about it, I give simple answers. Because people are really asking, how are you doing? They don't want a long discourse on meditative practices. If someone has a real genuine interest, then I will spend the time with them. But otherwise, I don't go there.

Host 7:55

Right? Well, this is definitely a time for one of those long answers as a genuine question and interest that's there because it's also hitting upon my own life. And you know, I think I came I came into this the opposite of you, I you, you sounds like you came activism, human rights, political first. And the meditation followed. For me, it was the other way around. It was a deep interest in meditation, that meditation was a Burmese lineage. To better understand the meditation, I wanted to understand Burma, there was no way to understand Burma without understanding the history and the more recent human rights and such and how that impacted meditation. And so where I sit now, it's I'm equally involved in both fields, even though it started it's just a way to better understand my meditation and how it came to me so. So then, with your, you, you reference how you did come into an interest in Burma first through activism and meditation came later, let's get to that activism part. What was the what was going on in Burma that started to draw your attention and concern?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 9:06

Oh, no. It was meant more or less the same way as you it was because of my meditation practice that I became in Burma. My activism was all dealing with other things at a time I was still a US citizen. And the Vietnam War had been my first activism because I refused to do my military service. And that immediately is a political education for a young man at those times. And then later, I was engaged in counter foreign policy work in Central America, and a variety of other types of activism in the United States until I left the country. And I first moved to Germany became a part of a disarmament community there, and eventually, later on, became engaged in a meditative practice and then went to Burma. And of course, from my activist mind, I immediately saw the political landscape there. Because activists tend to do a fairly thorough political analysis.

Host 10:13

So when when was that, that you started to become involved about what was happening in Burma? And what was it that in Burma that sparked your opening of engagement.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 10:25

He had been working as a human rights monitor in Sri Lanka and a member of our Board was the Thai activists who could sue Lok Sabha Roxa. And he invited me to become a worker at his Non Governmental Organization, this Sunday project on my institute, after my term of service in Sri Lanka was finished, which I did and together with a a colleague's city on K Leone, we were the CO directors of a educational program in the then liberated territory so called of Myanmar called metaplot. And we ran a educational institution under the National Democratic France educational committee to to provide a possible alternative future for young people from a variety of the ethnic groups whose leadership was engaged in an armed struggle with the central Burmese military regime at that time.

Host 11:40

Right that's, that's quite interesting. So that was the the activity that sparked your beginning interest and engagement in Burma, can you tell us more about a story tell us where it went to.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 11:55

The Federal University was name of an under the National Democratic Front lasted for two years at that point, the fall of man deplore occurred, and all of our buildings were burned to the ground, and most of the former students were scattered to various parts of Burma where they had come from. And I looked for another way to engage in the Myanmar situation, and in 1995, became engaged with the international campaign to ban landmines. This was before we had a treaty before we had the Nobel Prize. And in Thailand, here, we set up a Thailand national campaign to ban landmines. And the campaign put together a research and monitoring wing, which is called the landmine monitor. And I applied to be a researcher on Myanmar because I could see that landmines were causing an enormous amount of suffering around the country, a soldier or a combatant uses a mind for a certain military purpose on a certain day, and it gets left behind. And by and large, it's going to be stepped on by a civilian later on. And this is something that is essentially a suicidal policy. This is something the groups are doing to themselves, whether it's one of the ethnic armed groups or the the military, of Myanmar. And it's unnecessary suffering. From a humanitarian point of view, that's a violation of international humanitarian law use these things because they're indiscriminant. They cannot distinguish between a civilian and a combatant. And so it seems to be a good entry way, because it's a clear form of violence is clearly senseless. It can stop today, if anyone wants to do it. They're not they don't need us landmines today. And that would be an act of peace if they did so. And so it wasn't a gateway to engage all sides equally. I couldn't be seen as supporting one side and being against another side to do this, because it affected all sides equally. And so as a way to reengage with the conflict and say bring up Hey, think about this. This is not something you have to do. You're creating suffering for your own people. If I was talking to a group like say the Karen National Liberation Army, I'd say who's your enemy Berman's you laying your minds on Berman land? No. You're laying them in Karen state.

Host 15:01

Who are the victims of this going to be suicidal policy, and how would they respond?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 15:04

Um, I developed relationships with many of these people through my time in menopause. And I could push some of them very, very hard in our conversations, it's not a conversation you would start off having with somebody. I remember one military commander, I asked him, How many of your landlines kill your own people? And he was, you know, not very happy with me asking the question a little pissed off, and he was quiet for a while, and he looked at me, he said, have him kill the enemy. He was quiet for a little while longer. And he says, the other half, they kill our soldiers, they kill our people, they kill the animals. And he said, landmine warfare for us really doesn't make any sense. But we keep doing it. And it's kind of like an addiction. I mean, it's a good lens to look at this through every junkie kind of knows somewhere in their mind that what they're doing is not good for them. But they keep doing it. And to a certain extent, that's what's happening in Myanmar today. They know what they're doing is not good for them, but they keep doing it.

Host 16:12

It also I'm connecting this back to what you said earlier, that's you, when you were fired at the trauma, that that that that you had to to manage, in the months and years after that minute how meditation helped you to understand the response to an abnormal situation. And yeah, that's an extreme, intense, awful situation for anyone to have gone through even once. But then you look at these people that have had these generations of conflict of 50% of their own landmines, killing their own people, let alone what the Roman army is doing to them, let alone the lack of, of opportunities that for advancement in life that happened, given the context of these regions, and what they've gone through over the years, and the level of generational trauma across communities is just unimaginable.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 17:10

Well, this trauma is extraordinary. And it's going to play out over a very, very long period of time, as it has, as you've noted, through three generations potentially, a place to look at the impact of war on a society is Cambodia. And it's been out of war for a very long time now, and you can still see how impacted the people are there. And this is a blindness that is caused by active armed conflict, the ability to see beyond this very moment in time. And that's conditioned to a certain amount by you don't know if you're going to be alive tomorrow. So why do you care about what will happen two years from now because of your actions, you're not going to? I talked to one unit, I won't say which ethnic armed group it was with. But they tended to float between different sides, whoever paid them more money, that's the site. And they were laying mines around a logging concession. Now, they laid the mines around the logging concession so that another arm group couldn't claim that area and come in and use those resources which they wanted the money from. And they also didn't want the concessionaire who was cutting the timber in that area to cut outside of it for things they hadn't paid for it. So they use a weapon of war to that, that is landmine militarization. It's where a weapon of war has become so ingrained within their behavior that they're using it for non warfare purposes, in this case, monetary ones. And I asked him, you know, have you ever thought about the consequences of laying these mines and he said, When it leaves my hands, I don't consider myself with it any further. And this is where a democratic government which has control over its armed forces is really important, because the military have a hard time seeing outside of the box due to their conditioning. They need a civil authority to order them to do this or that that's the only way countries join the Mine Ban Treaty is when their government orders the military. You're not going to use this anymore, and we're going to join this treaty. When the military is in the preeminent position, as is the case with Myanmar, or I would argue with almost any ethnic group in the country. You can't speak at this level. I mean, to a great degree, the civil authorities and medical authorities and most ethnic areas are with us on the landmine band but they're not calling the shots. Yeah, they're their area.

Host 20:04

Yeah. I also want to ask so you your involvement in Myanmar came through this university you were trying to set up, you did set up a manner PLA. And that's where you, you were active, you made many ethnic contacts, which then led to the work you did later. But this university, which you had, you had set up with all this hope of the kind of opportunity it can provide the after they graduated, there were connections with a Thai university, they can then attend, it was this glimmer of hope that in a region that is seeing such darkness and devastation you were bringing in professors to lead these classes. And then this university was literally burned to the ground after two years. And as you reference before we started recording, most of the students that were involved in those initiatives, they're also not alive today. So not just the destruction of the buildings, but the devastation and a ratio of lives as well, you can at least hope that the lives and the learning continues. But even that wasn't the case. And so, when this happens, I can't imagine that's another moment of trauma that I imagine and I can't begin to know how it would feel to put this hope into an institution that was building for something and then to have it really destroyed at every level. And so for you personally, when that happened, was there a sense of did you respond with a feeling of resistance and iron? Well, to even be, you know, to to push even harder and wanting to see the change you were looking for? Was there a period of of collapse? And of, of a failure or loss of hope? How did that how did you transition from one to the other?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 21:49

Well, the destruction of the university had nothing to do with me, I mean, I was putting energy into building the institution and running it the best we possibly could and do the things that people wanted us to do through it. So there was no sense of failure or loss on my part. And many of the students who we kind of tried to track through the years, the ones that we know about perished from one thing or another later on, also, my co director is no longer alive. So these are things that have happened over a period of time, I mean, the destruction of the institution itself, the buildings was very rapid. The loss of the other people was a slower process over time. I mean, we can't be too attached to results, and we do the best that we can. And and we can't really know the results in advance that we will have, I've been involved in so many activists projects in my life. And in many of them, I had no idea the impact I was having on other people until 20 years later, somebody comes by and says, you know, that workshop with me, that changed my life, I went on to do this, and that the other thing. And so I've got that background of all these incredible affirmations that I have received over time, because I'm a little older than you. And, and so that with that age, if I've gotten any wisdom at all, it is that I can't know the results of my actions. But in many cases, very good results will occur that are totally unforeseen. There will also be results that were less than desirable. But I know I did my best to make it a desirable result. And it was usually out of my hands.

Host 23:59

Yeah, right. Yeah, that's some that's definitely less than I've learned from meditation. Personally, I was a bit more results oriented before that. But the profound learning I had through meditation was that you can't create the results of transformation and inner work that you want to see in yourself, you can you can just do the cultivation and, and then let go with the results that come and that was a very powerful thing for me to also implement real world settings. So then going back to the landmine issue, you talked about how you got into it and the genesis of your early work with wanting to be involved and why this was a logical next step for you. You had again you had the contacts from your time and those ethnic areas and and then, for the ensuing 30 years since you've started that work, you've become one of the most well known and well regarded experts on landmines in Myanmar, comprehensively dealing with that issue and having people We'll have all manners coming to you for advice, and as well as, as well as the lay of the land. So walk us through those intervening years and the work you tried to do the results that came and, and how the land mind crisis we can say has has progressed and developed over those three decades.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 25:23

Well, over 30 years, I've can say that the situation has gotten much worse. So maybe I should just quit and it will get better. When I started the work, the situation was not very well known. I mean, the situation in Burma was not very well known either. But certainly the the situation with landmine use within the country was not well known. I have to state here that I am a research coordinator for the landmine monitor, and I cover Asia, the Pacific Middle East and North Africa, so I don't just capture Myanmar. However, Myanmar is one of our biggest problem countries to get a global ban, while 80% of the world's governments have joined this convention. And landmines are becoming less of a problem in the world today. That is not the case in Myanmar. So it's a key problem country, and it does take up quite a bit of my time. And when we started this process, I felt it was important to be as balanced as possible. And I believe that our report was the first one that used two names. Because we use Burma one side hated you if you use me on my side and hated you. And I used Burma, Myanmar. And some other organizations followed suit, but I believe we were the first ones to do that. Also, I felt it was important that our report be in Burmese language. So from the very first issue, it was translated into Burmese every year and distributed as widely as we could distribute it, both within the country and in its border areas. And the first time I did it, we had to coin a number of words into Burmese that didn't exist before. So we worked with some university professors to coined those words and do it responsibly. And if you look at our report, it's heavily sourced, this is what we do for every country, people have to have absolute confidence in what we report, we have to be able to stand in front of governments and say, This is why we know this is the case. And so there are lots of footnotes on the bottom of every page and the latest report. I don't remember how many it is, but I think it's like 180 footnotes in 30 pages. And the first time a Burmese saw that they looked at the report, they were flipping through it, they were going up and down the page, looking at the bottom looking at the top. And they said this looks like an official document. But I know from the subject matter it's not. But when I read it, I can see where it comes from. And so I have confidence in what you've written. It was the first time they'd ever seen a footnoted publication. And so I thought about that a lot. And I realized I had never ever seen a footnote in publication in Burmese prior to that. I'm sure there must have been some. But I think we were one of the first international organizations regularly produced reports on the country in Burmese language with footnotes. A lot of the reports even today that come out have zero footnotes. There's a general fear in releasing information. And that is something that does need to be acknowledged we should never ever put other people at risk for our own activities. But I believe transparency is a power and it's a power for good in most cases. So our report is as transparent as we possibly can make it. If there is a person who I feel would be endangered in the report, I discussed with them on how we can footnote it. And I generally try to show within the footnote without revealing who they are why they would have access to the information that I've stated Sure. Which which allows the confidence to be maintained So it's transparency with confidentiality that that we do in the report. And that's important in a country with ongoing armed conflict and human rights atrocities. We used clever means to circulate it directly into the military regime, which I will reveal now on this recording for the first time in public. The Thai postal system has an agreement with the Myanmar postal system, and they have a thing that's a card that gets stapled to anything that's sent and the return postage is already paid, and somebody has to sign for it. So we would send directly into the punch way, the head of the SBDC, and others and we would get back the card that showed that supposedly it reached where it was supposed to go. And we had a record of that. Well, I did find out later that the military had read this. And many years later, like, I didn't know this must have been 20 years after our first report, I got an understanding of what the military thought about the report, a officer looked at me and he said, your report is fair. I'll take that. Although, for a genocidal regime to have an idea of fairness. But anyway, I felt that that was a result of our constant. Reaching out, we did send in a request for comments on our report to we never gotten any I never expected any. And I think that Well, I was going in and out of the country, and a lot of activists in Thailand were blacklisted. And they couldn't go to Myanmar. And I was never ever blacklisted. And yet, I was interviewed on Burmese BBC, when our reports would come out by my name, my real name. My real name was on our reports, as the researcher I was not a hidden. And I always went to the Myanmar embassy here in Bangkok to get my visa, the same place every time. If they wanted to blacklist me it was easy. And they never did. And a lot of people wonder why. And I don't have any answer for them. But I'd like to believe that because we put out the report in Burmese because we reached out to them. And we didn't just release it in London in English, only that this may have had some effect on them. But I'll never know.

Host 33:02

Right? Yeah. So in your report, when you're, you're investigating the the presence of landmines, the contamination, I want to ask it and approximation this might be very, very difficult to answer over the many years you've done this. So feel free to break this down in any way necessary. But I'm curious of the the landmines that are placed the percentage that has been placed by military and soldiers and percentage that are being placed by yo Yos and others.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 33:34

Yeah, you're not the first person to ask that. That's a common media question. And it's not really one that matters. To us. What matters is how much land is being contaminated. And how many people are being killed or injured? So this is this is our primary question. In the answering of that question, we find in many cases we can attribute use nowhere on the planet where the landmine monitor has made reports. You and we attribute use in those situations, as a soldier come up and say, Yeah, I laid that lamb knife. Never happened, never happened. So attribution is a difficult thing to do. And it's not the primary focus of our report. But when we can attribute use we do so. And we have no percentage because the attributions we have our drop in the bucket. So we might have might have had more attributions towards military one year more attributions towards ethnic armed groups and another year. Can we draw a conclusion from that? No, no. We can't. The ethnic armed groups have had a capacity to manufacture loads of improvised antipersonnel mines, and are doing so today. The Myanmar military has its own manufacturing capacity for factory made mines. They've copied Chinese and US mind designs for the mines that they manufacture. They certainly have a capacity to manufacture massive numbers. We have no idea how many their minds are a little bit more robust than the improvised mines, that ethnic armed groups in Myanmar deploy. The ethnic groups use a variety of battery made mines. And they tend to like to say in public, well, they last for a few months and they go dead, which is utter rubbish. We know of mines that they've made in that way that have lasted eight years. It depends on a lot of factors. Is there moisture in the soil? Is there not? Was it well sealed by the engineer or not? Did they use cheap batteries or not? All of these things would affect the life of a battery operated, improvised antipersonnel mines. But the ethnic armed groups will capture or lift as many of the Myanmar Army made mines as they can get their hands on, and they reuse them. So if you see a victim who was and there's remains of a factory made mine there, you don't really know who made it. It could have been the Myanmar military or it could have been one that the ethnic armed groups got their hands on. And within the past few months, well, the past many months now, they have gotten their hands on many through over running a number of military outposts in Myanmar military, we have the pictures of the mines that they've seized. None had been reported destroyed. So that's not something you can attribute that most ways in which we attribute something is, for example, the young man was killed by a landmine on his way home from his pasture. He walked in the pasture every day, we know that it was recently laid mine. The people in the village said, well, there were two ethnic armed groups who clashed there the other day, one of them must have laid it. So we don't know which one it was. But we attributed to those two ethnic armed groups who were clashing in that area. And another case, people said, well, we always went to this mountain to look for mushrooms. This time we went up, we stepped on Mines, the Myanmar army camp there a month ago, they must have laid it. So we report it just as the villagers Senate. That's as close as we can get to Asher attribution.

Host 38:10

Another thing I'd like to ask you to break down for us is and you you've referenced this a little bit anecdotally. But if you could lay it out a bit more systematically, as you understand it, is the rationale for laying the minds both on the military side and the ethnic side. What obviously, if you put a mind you're trying to protect something or cause harm to someone you consider an enemy or adversary. But there probably are other reasons as well. So what are the reasons that these different actors would lay mines around what areas?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 38:41

An antipersonnel mine is an area denial weapon for any combatant, so they're trying to keep one combatant out of an area the primary stated usage by most of the combatants so they will be laid around military camps. And for the Myanmar armed forces, they will lay them around infrastructure that they feel may be attacked like power pylons. The lat Peter dam in Karenni state is well known for having landmines around it. Bridges like there was a bridge on the road to pawn from Central Myanmar. It used to have minefields on all four corners of the bridge. When you crossed whichever river that is there to get to on very close to Bond. You could see the the minefields they were fenced appropriately around all sides on on every bridge abutment to to to keep the bridge from being destroyed. And so that is the the main usage of it. Also, they will be led on powers that military fields may be used by a combatant from the other side to attack them. And sometimes they will be laid to prevent pursuit, let's say you're running away from another one, you'll figure it to Li throw a few minds over your shoulders, because that might slow them down if they step on. The ladder two types are very problematic, because it's not a purpose laid minefield anywhere, those are just out there. And in the future, they're going to be removed an arm and a leg at a time. The ones that were laid around camps are going to be a little bit easier to demine later on. Even if you don't have an original map, as far as I know, only the Myanmar military keeps maps of that kind. I've known no ethnic armed group that kept any maps. So those are the primary rationales around this. There is a lot of blame that I read in the press of the Myanmar army laying landmines around a church, let's say, as though they were attacking it as a church. Well look at it from the soldiers point of view, they've walked into a village, it's already empty, because people know armed conflict is coming between the local militia, whoever they are, and the Myanmar enforcers, everybody's gone. So they walk into an empty village, where they're going to camp. What's the highest building in the village, place of prominence that everybody can look up to? What is the most well built, building in a village, it's going to be the temple, the mosque, the church. And it's probably even going to have a spire on which you can put a, you know, look out over your surroundings, it's well built, you're gonna lay some mines around the perimeter, so you can sleep at night. They didn't necessarily mine it because it was a church, we might have, you know, you're only going to know it if you ask those soldiers. But the reality is that once these are laid, nobody picks them up. The conflict moves on to another area, they're left behind. Once conflict goes out of an area, civilians fled into it. They don't like living in the jungle or wherever they fled to, nobody wants to live away from their home. So when the conflict moves on, they go back to their homes. And they step on landmines left by either side that were laid during the armed conflict that were never picked up.

Host 43:07

Right, so you started working on this issue in 1995. And I want to talk about postcode developments. But before we get there, because I think that's a new phase we've entered into, if you can take us through the looking at this issue, and you reference how it's, you feel that it's only gotten worse. And so through those Do you feel that in those intervening years and decades, there were signs of hope? Or there were some some positive moments where it felt like you were making progress? Or was it just a, a real steady decline year by year, decade by decade, no matter what was really happening politically and you know, including the transition era, where it was, it is, despite your work and involvement and how much your organization does that somehow it has it continued to just get worse and these times year by year.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 44:04

Well, the conflict is, you know, has ebbed and flowed in different areas of the country. There was the nationwide ceasefire agreement that meant that armed conflict wound down in a number of areas for a long period of time. And so, the conflict has moved to different areas of the country. What we can say as a constant is whenever the armed conflict becomes hot in any area of the country, more minds are laid in that area. Sure. So, Rakhine State outside of the border, very border with Bangladesh, had pretty much been off of our radars until 2018. I think it was when the Archon army started to press the Myanmar armed forces. And then you started seeing landmine use throughout Rakhine State and it's steadily gotten worse as the conflict was about On hotter Christian state which had not had armed conflict for a very long time from whenever they had signed their ceasefire back in 1990. Something to, to the point in time, shortly after the Constitution was the military's constitution was implemented. And they were asked to become a border guard force. There was no activity of mines being laid up there. So it's wherever armed conflict is the hottest. One place where it's been constant is Shan State. Shan State just has had continual landmine usage from the beginning up until now. It is the most heavily affected state from landmines in Myanmar. It has the most casualties. So it all depends on where the conflict is. And so you can say for some areas, mines were a problem for 1015 years, then became rather.

Host 46:15

And so then how about post coup? Obviously, you mentioned that if in an hotspots the you get the mind usage goes up. That's obvious. And we've seen since the pool, the whole country is really hot all the way around. It's a battle on every front. And so what have we seen with mind usage in the last three years? Well,

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 46:40

like I said, and when armed conflict raises in a certain place, you see more mind use has conflict raised since the coup? Yes, it has, as my news raised Yes, it has. UNICEF just came out with a report that was three times more mind casualties in the previous year. So we see that as an accurate depiction of the problem. There are more mind victims. Interestingly, what we're seeing in 2024 is less reports of mine victims. And we don't believe that less reports is an accurate reflection of reality. We think that the internet shutdowns the lack of electricity, and less reporters in the field, are the reason why we're getting less reports. Now. Like for March, in our own casualty counting, we had three, a three times reduction over 2023 March. I don't think that's at all accurate. If anything, I think there are more casualties now. But for some reason, which we haven't been able to determine what it is, we're getting less reports. And it's not just about mines. Everybody I know in the Human Rights field says we're getting less reports. So it's universal. That less information is coming out I'm not entirely sure why at this point in time.

Host 48:12

And so for those very unfortunate noncombatants, that step on a mine. Firstly, I'm wondering if you know anything about the rough percentages of those who are killed or wounded and those who are wounded? What? What services are there for them? What help is there? What, how do they go on to live a meaningful life after that?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 48:40

Well, for anyone who becomes disabled for any reason. In throughout Southeast Asia, they're treated as people who've lost the lottery in life. Myanmar has no exception there, you just have to lay a war on top of that. There are within there are many religions in Myanmar, within the Buddhist realm, there's a popular understanding of karma that something they did in their last lifetime was responsible for this so you shouldn't get to near them, because obviously, they're very bad people. I think it's an inappropriate understanding of karma. I mean, we're being presented with a situation to be compassionate. And if we're not compassionate in that situation, that means we're not going to read compassion in the future. Sure. There should be some enlightened self interest in in in the way we respond to disability. But this is culturally something that we also see here in Thailand you see in Cambodia, and Laos. A lot of our information comes from medical assistance agencies and the dead get no assistance, right. So Trouble. A lot of the people who died just simply go unrecorded by anyone, so we can come up with no meaningful idea of the percentages. No armed group gives any figures on how many of their combatants are killed or injured by mines. It's a military secret. They won't tell you. We know that it's very high anecdotal evidence and occasional slips of the tongue. Tell us how high it is? What's the ratio between combatants and civilians? Again, we've got no idea. And even for our counting, it's the number we could catch. Do we believe it's higher? Absolutely. Is it double? Sure, triple could be. But we can say this many for sure. The majority are seen within the medical system of Myanmar. Very few can actually cross the border and it's not safe, or they don't have the money to get it in the surrounding countries. So they're seen within the country. The Burmese medical system is rated by the World Health Organization near the bottom of the barrel. I've had the bad fortune of having been in a Burmese hospital. And I must say I do not wish that experience on anybody. In many cases, the the the medical help is competent, but they don't have the materials they need to work with. The family usually has to buy things on the market for the hospital to use, especially in the way of medicines, probably don't have them within their hospital, they have to buy them and bring them to the hospital for the patient. But the vast majority are seeing within the medical system in Myanmar. That's all that is there available to them. We now have many reports of people who bled out while they were waiting to get any kind of help from their village like people to carry them to a place or roads were blocked, and they couldn't get through, or whatever. Certainly more civilians die from a landmine injury than the military. Because civilians are often out on their own and the forests, the military always travel in groups. And usually one person in that group is going to have a rather than tearing emergency medical skills. And so the chance of survival for a person who is a soldier is much higher than it is for civilian.

Host 53:01

Yeah. Know how that brings to the question of how do civilians possibly live any semblance of a normal life in these contaminated areas? I know it might be a silly question. The minute you ask that, because they have no choice. This is this is simply the devastating reality that of why land mines are so terribly awful. But just the two anecdotes you gave recently of someone going to forage for mushrooms and the trails they always use and someone else walking, I think it was the cattle for grazing that the day before was he was able to walk on today. He's not I can't imagine the psychology of how you simply live your life not knowing if what was safe yesterday is going to be safe tomorrow. And yet you have to go out in the world and do these things.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 54:01

Have you ever lived in a war zone?

Host 54:02

I have not.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 54:05

Unfortunately, I have. And it's amazing how much we get used to it. It's part of the coping mechanism that human beings have. You can't live with the idea that you might cease to exist in the next hour. So there are a variety of mental coping mechanisms that you create, to continue to function in those environments. And that's how it's done. I mean, it's they don't have a choice, but in that environment.

Host 54:55

Do you feel comfortable sharing flushing out what some of those coping mechanisms what form they might take?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 55:02

Oh, they can be extreme. I remember being in a village that was shelled. And some of the people I saw had ghosts in their eyes.

Host 55:13

This is in Burma?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 55:18

This was in Cambodia kind of war. They'd mentally checked out. They just weren't there. That's not the case for most people. Most people are at least functional. I think it depends on the individual. How they do it. I mean, for me, the future was just darkness. And I've never experienced that in my life before. Future being darkness.

Host 55:43

How long were you in this environment?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 55:46

Two weeks. Yeah, I can come and go. They could.

Host 55:54

But psychologically, for those two weeks, you felt yourself adapting to those those those extreme coping mechanisms?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 56:03

Yeah, the other one is the people around you. That's the big one. You depend on the people around you. If they still look like they're animate your animate. They're running and screaming, you're running and screaming. And what were they doing? Everybody around me was animate. So that helped you? Yes. I never thought about that till now.

Host 56:27

I wonder what it also must be like, psychologically, where you're in these villages, you know, the danger around you. And, you know, obviously, over a period of time, you know, today to land mines tomorrow, next day, nothing day after that one next three days, safe next day. For people, you know, and you know, these people, you know, of these people, they're being lost, their lives are being forever changed. And yet, you just have to keep living your life, even through this unimaginable terror.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 57:05

Well, much of it would be an assessment of the danger from armed conflict. I'm sure that most of them know danger goes up when there's armed conflict, and danger goes down when it recedes. And so if there hasn't been armed conflict in an area for a while people will feel safer. Doesn't necessarily mean they are safe, because landmines can lay there for very long period of time. And you can have eight people. In one case, I interviewed a person who was stepped on a mine and he was in the ICRC center, and it's getting an artificial them. And he was in line of people walking to the waterhole that they usually fished at. He was in the middle of the line, right people he stomped on the mind, nobody else stepped on it.

It does have an impact on an area, I interviewed another person who had stepped on a mine, also the center. And the mind she stepped on was on a path that she used to go to the market every day. So we know that it was probably a newly laid mind. But there had been no armed conflict in that area ever. And no known militant group operated there. Nobody knows where the mind came from. But everybody in the village now used another path to go to the market, which took them an hour longer. There was an orchard next to where she stepped on the mind. And all the workers decided not to go work in the orchard any longer. So it was one mind on one path. And you can see the circles getting larger and larger, the impact is just going out. You have a farmer who steps on a mine in one field on farmer's fields around him going to think twice about going to their fields. So the land that gets taken out of usage, whether it's land that you traverse or land that you use to grow food or land where you forage less and less of that is available within the country. So even if the armed conflict stopped tomorrow somehow that impact is still there.

Host 59:52

You say that you are your organization has not just focused on Myanmar but you're looking at landmine usage the world over so tell less, today 2024 Where the contamination that we're seeing in Myanmar, where it ranks with all of these other countries and problems that you're looking at elsewhere.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:00:15

The other high casualty countries are Syria and Ukraine. Landmines are not being used in Gaza conflict, Yemen, they're being used in the Yemen conflict. In Sudan, which is a huge high conflict country, not much in the way mine us. Sudan joined the Mine Ban Treaty long ago, and all their stockpiles were destroyed as far as we know. So that may be the reason why they're not being laid in the newly ignited conflict, they're somewhat newly ignited. In Ukraine, the use is pretty much one side, it's Russia laying them Ukraine join the Mine Ban Treaty.

We can say that Myanmar is in the top ranks, the place in the top ranks will change year by year. Because as armed conflict heats up, and more minds get used in it, mostly that's happening in countries that are not party to the mind Ban Treaty, with the exception of Sudan and Ukraine. Afghanistan has had continually had more casualties than any other country in Asia. And that, as far as we know, continues right up to this day. Myanmar, certainly in the top five, by the number that UNICEF just reported, they might go to number one for 2023. Not sure we'll have to see our reports not going to be out for another couple of months, there's been a steady increase in the number of casualties we have seen in the country, since the military clue because of an increase in armed conflict throughout the country and an increase in use of antipersonnel mines and those conflicts. However, since January of 2024, we've seen a decrease month by month. And we don't leave that that decrease reflects reality. We don't know why we're seeing a decrease in the first three months of this year. It could be because of the internet blockages in the country, it could be because of a lack of electricity. It could be because there are less reporters and information providers surviving still in the conflict spaces. We're not sure why. But in March in our own record keeping, it's three times lower than it was in March of 2023. And we don't know why it's that much lower. But that's across the board. Everybody in other fields of human rights and conflict reporting are telling me that for the first three months, they're not seeing what they expected to see. So it's all kinds of information around the conflict that seems to be decreasing, and we don't quite know why.

Host 1:03:28

Okay, thanks for that. I also want to ask about the areas of geography of Myanmar that are being impacted by landmines. We know that and they've obviously been in Korean for some time, you've mentioned kitchen you mentioned in 2018 Rakhine started to see them since the coup, are we seeing more regions that are opening up the landmine contamination and and a follow up to that question is have Have there been any indications that urban areas have been or could begin to be infected as well?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:04:02

Yes, we are seeing conflict spread to areas of the country that previously there had been no armed conflicts and because mostly they are the Berman, I'm just pointing it out for you. They're mostly in the area where the Berman ethnicity is, is dominant. So guy in particular, but also the other provinces like Maguey bucho, parts of Boggo. So, those areas never previously had armed conflict and also had no known casualties due to antipersonnel landmines. What we're seeing in the urban areas are explosive bombs. These are frequently in black plastic bags and most of the victims are trash collectors or people who are scared budging through the garbage or something that they can sell or eat or whatever. And most of them, I assume were laid as part of a attack on some type of government building. And I don't know whether they were meant to explode when they were moved, or whether they just had fragile components within them that made them explode when they removed. But these are the types of victim activated, urban, explosive devices that we're seeing. And that fits the definition of an antipersonnel mine under the 1897 Mine Ban Treaty. The other thing we're seeing is explosive remnants of war or ER W. This is a more expansive term than uso, which many people may know. Because mortars, rocket propelled grenades, rifle grenades, these types of things, when they're used, a certain percentage of them never explode. And there remain a potentially lethal explosive hazard in the environment. And that's a new phenomena in many areas that people have never had to deal with before. And so we're seeing an increase in the number of people injured and killed by explosive remnants of war. We also track that we report on it separately. But the types of medical services that a person who encounters er who encounters and antipersonnel, landmine going about their daily business is the same. The impact on them and their livelihood and their family is the same.

Host 1:07:02

I see. Let's see, I want to move on to another issue. Having looked at these landmines in some detail, because the other landmines is obviously what you're most well known in your background and your expertise. But you've also waded into given your your background of early your early entry into this whole area was, as you put it, avoiding the conscription of the Vietnam War, and then that leading you that opening up all of these other in all other parts of the world, and forced military service, which of course, is a hot topic now in Myanmar. And you've also promoted the ideals of nonviolent resistance, which is quite challenging to think through and quite sensitive to talk about in the Myanmar context today, where you have such a tyrannical force that's in power now. So can you tell us your thinking behind force conscription in whatever form it takes, and then we can get into the possibilities of nonviolent resistance?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:08:12

Well, first, you should never talk about it as forced conscription. I mean, yes, obviously, they're forced to do it. But technically, legally, you shouldn't because there is forced labor. And the forced labor convention specifically allows conscription. It's not considered forced labor under the 1930 ILO Convention, prohibiting forced labor. So basically, all governments have a right to conscript their citizenry. They have the legal ability to do it, let's put it that way. And it's no surprise that the 1930 Convention was written by governments. They wanted to keep that ability to do that. So any government has legal ability to do it without violating the International Convention on forced labor.

But I believe and generally war resistors around the planet believe that we should have a right to refuse to kill. There are a variety of reasons but you can say basically, every religion on the planet considers life to be sacred. And there's certainly enough supports for that in the major religions that are in Myanmar today. And so we should have a right to be able to say no, we're not going to play this game. We don't believe that violence comes to positive conclusion. And that was certainly a something that I had to examine closely as a young man, because I was questioned on that by the Selective Service Board and the United States. And so I had to examine what I felt the use of violence was justified for personally, I don't feel that it is justified in almost every circumstance. The people who want to defeat that argument usually throw out hypothetical arguments Well, if this and that, and hypothetical arguments can never be defeated. But there's always context. And the context never exists in arguments. There is always space to do something. There was an extraordinary amount of creative, nonviolent resistance to the coup when it first occurred. And the one thing about nonviolent resistance is powerful is everybody can contribute whether you're a child and elderly person, men or women, doesn't matter. There's no barrier to participation in the game. And you can still see that as the dominant form of resistance, look at what happened on the commemoration day of the coup in Myanmar with a silent strike. I mean, massive numbers of people weigh more than are doing militant activities on both sides combined, participated in that act of resistance. But if you speak against the armed struggle, currently in Myanmar, the people who have committed themselves to that feel offended. And in some cases, they'll feel offended enough to say, Oh, you're supporting the military, oh, you're against us.

And it's quite possible to be against something, but also against the use of violence, as it should be space for people who want to make that choice. That's a personal choice people are going to make I wouldn't counsel anybody on what their personal decision would be. But I would argue for the space for people to make that decision, and I do. So that's why I felt strongly to to speak with others about it, actually, I was invited into a conversation by others. And my voluntary activity and responses that that group was strategizing about was to do an article for the international community. The article is called Is there a right to refuse to kill in Myanmar. And it was published by war resisters league about a week and a half ago. And it basically, is for an international audience. People in Myanmar know the story there. But states how many people have been combatants have been killed in conflict. So if you're going to become a combatant, this is something to think about way more combatants have been registered has killed than civilians at this point. And, and people being forced or coerced or encouraged by one side or the other to join them in killing the other side. And many people feeling caught, like how can we get out of the situation? So we quoted a number of young people who were interviewed by Radio Free Asia and others within the article, who were planning to flee the country go underground, whatever, but not engage in, in conflict. And we felt that they should have that right. And I felt that the response by the national unity government was particularly unhelpful because it essentially could be read as condoning attacking civilian parts of the current governance structure, whatever we want to call it, who have to carry out the conscription activities as a part of their job. I mean, many of those people who knows why they're keeping their job they may have, they may hate the military as much as anybody else. But they have 20 family members depending on their job and they have to keep But so assassinating those people. Those, those are extrajudicial executions, there's no other way around it. I mean, people in Myanmar should reflect that what's happening with the people in the dock at the International Court of Justice from Kosovo, who were accused of killing collaborators? What's that term mean? It's very vague. Are you a collaborator, my collaborator, could be it's big enough to kick capture anybody. And if you're going to punish someone, it should be under criminal sanction. And it should be straightforward. There should be lawyers, they should have their day in court. If you can't provide that you shouldn't be telling them. It's my opinion.

Host 1:15:56

Right? To push back against that just a little that the day in court presupposes a working rule of law. And obviously, Myanmar, its is far from having a working rule of law. Obviously, the military courts, we've done episodes and looking at how these military courts are operated. And I know you're not suggesting that the military courts can can reasonably carry this out. We know that's a joke. And the N ug is they are they they are not a functioning normal government with land and institutions of their own control of the people that I've spoken to the anecdotes that I've heard anecdotally about how some of these what you're terming, these extra judicial killings are taking place. The stories that have been told to me are definitely not following proper legal procedures, because there are no proper legal procedures or institutions with which I think anyone can follow. But they've been described as, to me is the closest thing too, that that I've heard several anecdotes that have been similar in form in the sense that there was an informant who was living in a neighborhood and they collected evidence on that informant and, and his or her activities, and carrying this out and collected this for some time and feel very confident in the material that they had, that this truly was an informant, and then went to the informant to say, we know that you're doing this, and you would better stop, or you'd better leave the area, that did not happen. They went repeatedly asking to stop or leave the area, the person felt very secure and what they were doing and the military protection that they had, and were even sometimes boasting on social media about even who they were and what they were doing and how they were untouchable, they then took a next step of of, of more serious threats, you know, brick through the window or shots fired around the home and still try to just make this stop because this is an informant who is putting everyone the neighborhood at risk, no matter who they are, what their activities are, anyone could be disappeared in any moment. And when it got to this point, and there was nothing left to do, they then took out the execution. And I and as the stories were told, to me, there was not a any kind of self congratulatory, or pride in anything in this, if anything, there was a a, it was the opposite of that it was it was a real sadness and devastation, and even telling the story that happened there, there was not anything that was that was happy about this event occurring. And as I think through that story, and I put myself in that situation, I don't, I can't think of too many other things that they could have done that they didn't already do. I'm not justifying it. I'm not trying to argue their case. But as it was told to me, and I was I couldn't really think in the moment of well, why did you try this? Or why didn't you just do this? It's an awful situation to be in. I don't know if I would have done the same thing. And again, I'm not justifying why what they did was the right course of action. But I do have to say that given the context of the absence of rule of law and of the situation and the context that they're operating under, I don't know what else they could have done to keep themselves safe. So I wonder what you think in situations like that.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:19:32

Okay, well, when I talked about it, I was specifically referencing the new GE making a statement that could have lethal consequences if it was carried out in the field and there's, they have no possibility of doing anything judicial. So they should be very careful with their language when they make such a statement, because they don't have the possibility of creating a judicial system right now. So are they just creating a system that will only and allow for one option in punishment. So I think that the statement was a bit reckless. There are other things they could have said in condemning the conscription law. And as the case that you just put out, I actually read that article in the exile press, I think, a year and a half ago, almost verbatim to these the story that you just told. And we just have that person telling that story. I can't say anything more than that that person told that story. That may have been their real experience, I don't have a clue. The end result was. And this is conditioned by armed conflict. It conditions a situation in which it's okay for you to kill somebody you have political disagreements with. That's what armed conflict does, conditions. And that was the situation at the end of World War Two. I mean, every political party had its own armed wings. That's why Aung Sonnen his cabinet were assassinated afterwards, because the period of war had created a country in which it was okay to kill people that you politically disagreed with. And that's going to be the long tail of the current conflict. Let's say the military regime collapses tomorrow. We're still going to be left with the conditions that have been created. Have it's been okay to kill people that you politically disagree with?

Host 1:21:59

I want to move to a follow up question before I do I just want to clarify the anecdote I was giving. They weren't stories I read, it might have been something similar. You read there actually.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:22:10

It's almost verbatim when I read. Well, I have heard.

Host 1:22:12

This story from three different people over the last three years describing three separate incidences and they do each of those three anecdotes have followed that that same for whatever reason, they've they followed that same kind of progression. So they weren't they were just off the record conversations with friends and contacts that meditation practice.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:22:31

Have you noticed that the mind has an incredible capacity for delusion? Of course. Can you think that armed conflict with do something that delusional capacity?

Host 1:22:44

I do I absolutely do I also, but I balance that with questioning when you find yourself in these extreme situations. And this actually segues exactly into my next question, because you would talk about, you often get these hypothetical scenarios which are not playing out in the real world. And so it's a bit hard to argue them. But I wanted to bring a real world example and this is I'm sure you've heard this this is always the example that's given when you're talking about when when this topic comes up, and that's Nazi Germany. And that how when you're when you're facing a foe that demonic and hell bent on that kind of devastation and genocide of a people? Well, there there were nonviolent resist. There were German nonviolent, resistors, Austrian, probably nonviolent resistance was the sort of stuff that that monument that you reference, those were they were they were wiped out. They historically not not in a hypothetical context, but in reality it that did not work. And it is hard to imagine I would put forward the argument I'm not a let me reference this by saying, I come from a family very proudly, where my grandfather, my Jewish grandfather, was a conscientious objector in World War Two almost unheard of almost unheard of to have a conscientious objector in World War Two he learned Esperanto he wanted to he was caught in that idealistic generation that wanted to go to Spain and help overthrow Franco but he he went to World War Two refusing to touch a weapon. And so that was the ethos that I was personally brought up. And so I so these are very difficult things for me personally, to reference with the family pride of even a just war wiping out the Jewish race that my grandfather refused to touch a weapon and, and has told stories of actually helping a one of the hardest things he had to do was to help a German woman give birth because they are giving birth to another German in the world of where these Nazis are now trying to right wipe out his people. So personally, that's that's where I'm, that's when I referenced this example. It's very personal for me because because this was is a just fight that my family did not fight that they took part of enrich their life of my grandfather my blood but did not did not cause aggression in doing so. But still looking at it historically. It's if if the entire allied effort was made up of people like my grandfather, I can't very well imagine Hitler being overthrown. So in that real life example, which I'm sure you've received many times that that was one example, that just war is how it's often described, that without the armed part of that Hitler's not going away. So and, obviously, Mussolini, and and Hirohito with that. So how do you usually respond to that?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:25:39

Tyrants always fall, Hitler doesn't live forever. It's a matter of fact, the thing that outlived him was not see as Nazism had to be destroyed for the German people to survive. And I think Zionism needs to be destroyed for Jewish people to survive today. Because Zionism is doing a horrible thing in the Middle East right now. So the ideas lasts much longer. The military regime in Myanmar, it's not going to last. But the ideas that they have of Berman supremacy, it's going to weigh out last military. So there's always this idea of, we've got to do something now, without the long term view. In some cases, the situation has become so violent, that the only option is for it to burn itself out. There are usually many things that we could have done to have prevented it. And we are unfortunately very good at not doing those things.

The anecdote that I frequently give is, you're in a car with somebody, and they're driving towards the cliff and you say, slow down, you know, don't, don't, don't drive at the speed. And they keep driving at the speed. And finally, the front wheels are starting to leave the pavement and go towards the cliff and they pull the steering wheel off the car and hand it to you and say do something.

Host 1:27:44

And that's where we are now.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:27:55

And if peace depends on killing 500,000 People who what kind of piece do you have at the end of it, you have something else you have a process and people are only seeing a limited part of the picture. It's just horrible. It's it's heart wrenching.

And in my opinion, and what I've done all my life is resist evil. I do what I can resisting evil. I don't create new evil while I'm resisting it because I know the situation won't last. And if we want to have a society that's based on truth and respect, we don't get there by lies and violence. His statement tyrants always All right.

Is a very powerful one to keep in mind. This military regime is going to fall they are I don't know in what way I can think of several ways that aren't really going to change situation a whole lot.

I will continue doing what I can to make the situation as best as it possibly could be.

Host 1:29:43

So for those listeners who aren't familiar with that references my understanding paraphrasing pulling from memory that Gandhi had made some reference encouraging Jews to passively accept their own slaughter at the hand of the Nazis as a tool for awakening their humanity. which we are, we are definitely not calling up to reference in this situation. I, but that historical reference reminds me of when I was speaking to the beggar Bodie on previous podcast. And as a non violent suggestion on that podcast, he suggested that monks may congregate and come together in front of some government institution and sit and meditate and in a silent nonviolent resistance, and I said, well, there was some version of this in the Saffron Revolution, and those monks were, were arrested, tortured, killed. disrobed any number of things. And if that would happen today, then surely there would, there would be some strong, violent response to that, to that action, there was a noted silence a heavy silence, at that point of, on the part of Bhikkhu Bodhi in, in just the sadness and the devastation and realizing this very good idea, this very beautiful concept would not be something that can work in this present situation. And so, I want to ask you, because you have been working with a number of Burmese actors on the ground who have and again, I want to highlight you sharing that you are not going to to them to try to educate or encourage them, they are they have chosen this path, this is something they believe, and they are coming to you with questions and guidance for a path that they are already on, they believe in. And so in those conversations you've had with them as far as it's safe to share, I wonder if you can tell us some of the ways in this terrible situation where the choices are being limited by the day in terms of what you can even do to live in this situation? What types of nonviolent activities they are able to engage in.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:32:08

Probably one of the key ones is documentation. I mean, the work of AAA ppb is is critical importance there. Helping people escape is another one, the Underground Railroad. The general strike committees, which are bringing about the the silent strikes within the country, the general strike committees, which were organizing the people to do that type of general strike activity, as we saw around the commemoration of the coup, political action by people like a jumbo tune at the UN, a whole variety of actors outside of the country doing humanitarian assistance into the country to mitigate some of the suffering caused by the armed conflict there. These are all activities that are responding to the conflict are not or are direct by their constructive engagement, a resistance to the regime in power and IP. So these are things that they are doing that are pretty evident for everyone to see. When the tape shuts off, I'll tell you about one I suggested.

Host 1:33:42

You referenced in Yugi, as well, and their statement, they this specific statement in which you were concerned that it could lead to extra judicial killings, they did declare that and in a conflict with the military and a stated goal to bring the military down by any means possible, the end ug And so before I get to the next part of the question that certainly they have set the stage for their intentions on, on how they wish to move on and choosing at this time, as opposed to previous iterations of Burmese conflict that they are, in contrast, very striking leader Aung San su chi, that they are ready to commit to a path by any means necessary of being able to take down this military.

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:34:39

The international campaign to ban landmines wrote a very clear message from its headquarters in Geneva to the Anuj asking for a policy statement around landmines just what is your policy never risk You've done a response, not even we received your letter we'll discuss nothing. Yeah. I know that they're struggling under difficult circumstances. That was disappointing.

The regional activists had put together a sort of activist solidarity structure under which was called the milk tea Alliance amongst several groups that were struggling for democratic futures in their countries. These, these were activists supporting nonviolent means. And one of the key countries of that is Taiwan. And China, if you're listening, yes, I did call them a country. And in the and ug Foreign Minister's statement on China, she said, We subscribe to the One China policy, which essentially threw Taiwan under the bus.

I found again, I was very disappointed. But those are personal reactions. And they were just some of the things that had come up for me, I don't have any other I don't have any regular activity with the N UG. And governments in exile are difficult to operate. I took a delegation from the previous iteration, the NCG, up to meet the Tibetan government in exile in India, to see how they operate. And we had an audience with the head of the Tibetan government in exile, as well as many of the ministers I mean, as folk to her of what they were doing. And the Dalai Lama said to them, when we went into exile, the first thing we did was see to the welfare of our people by setting up an educational system, how have you done on that, and all the Burmese looked at their shoes?

Consistently, I have found that pyramid is a land of missed opportunities. And so it's no surprise that those go around at every level, in every place. So I wish them well, but my own personal experiences with them has been less than positive. Burma is such a dichotomy. It's a country that I first visited with a meditation visa, and I think it was the only country in the world that was offering meditation visas in those days. And you would think with that level of understanding of Buddhism, they would have been able to avoid the violence they're in now.

But I will continue doing what I can to help bring a positive change if I have the capacity to do so and invite invited in.

Host 1:38:57

This is the quintessential question that I've asked so many Burmese speakers whose lives have intersected these two. These two areas is activists and Democratic leaders who are also very serious meditators. Asking them, how do you make sense of the fact and I should reference this as someone that's myself who's been in Burma for so long and also been in these fields. This is from incoming people that just have a vague understanding of the context and situation this is the number one question I get, which I then pass on and I've gotten many answers from, which is the question being, how can a country which planted the seeds seeds with which literally launched the worldwide meditation and mindfulness movement that we're seeing today? That is, has given such refined wisdom and compassion teachings throughout the world that spiritual seekers for generations have come to learn from the most revered masters who've reached the highest and most refined states of wisdom? How could a a country that has produced this level of, of goodness for the world also be the place that has been shrouded in such devastation and conflict and darkness for so long? How do these two operate in the same place? What's your take on that?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:40:19

Maybe this is how you get the balance. Because it had that it has to balance out on the other side. That's that's rather glib. I haven't a clue, I haven't claimed.

Host 1:40:39

And as we to ask a final question, as we bring this full circle, because you did start this off by referencing your meditation practice and Mahasi, your new Pandita your, your extended time, minimum one month, every year that you give yourself to this practice, as you move into a practice space. And you've referenced this before, but I want to want to come back to this, how you reference how your meditation practice has helped you in dealing with trauma and in your own personal trauma. But how was it helped to affirm or guide or inform your activism, when you're outside of those retreats?

Yèshua Moser-Puangsuwan 1:41:24

By the focus on compassion, I mean, compassion is such a key value in the meditative practice. And it's a benefit that comes from the practice. And the development of compassion by seeing deeply into your own experience, which is the human experience leads to very deep compassion for the suffering of others. And for any real social change to occur, I think it has to come out of that space of acknowledging our shared human predicament of suffering and compassion for that. And so that's what gives me the strength to continue doing what I do is just the compassion that's developed. During my practice. If I couldn't have done if I didn't do the meditation practice, I probably would have burned out as an activist a long time ago. And also, I don't use anger as my motivation. Anger burns up its own supports, and a lot of activists run on anger and they can only run for so long. Most of the people who were activists when I first became an activist are no longer activists. They burned out long time ago. Compassion is what keeps me doing my activism.

Host 1:42:47

Great, thanks, fellas. Lovely, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you.

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