Transcript: Episode #272: Hello from the Other Side
Below is the complete transcript for this podcast episode. This transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and has not been reviewed by a human editor. As a result, certain words in the text may not accurately reflect the speaker's actual words. This is especially noticeable when speakers have strong accents, as AI transcription may introduce more errors in interpreting and transcribing their speech. Therefore, it is advisable not to reference this transcript in any article or document without cross-referencing the timestamp to ensure the accuracy of the guest's precise words.
Host 0:19
We all know how serious and dreadful the current situation in Myanmar is. For those of us outside the country, it can be difficult to know how to help. Of course, there are significant ongoing needs across all segments of Burmese society. For those who are able to get financially any donations given to our nonprofit mission better Burma, will immediately be put towards helping those being impacted by the coup, just go to insight myanmar.org/donation to contribute today, or stay tuned to the end of the episode to hear more options. Thank you for your consideration. And now let's get into the interview that follows.
Brad 2:02
Welcome back, my guest today is Michael and we'll be taking a bit of a departure from the more academic side of things to focus on a really fascinating personal journey both, I think in terms of, of knowledge and, and personal growth, but also in the very real physical sense, a journey into Myanmar, at the height of the ongoing conflict. So, Michael, I'd like to thank you very much for coming on and agreeing to share your your story with us with with all of our listeners. And I'd like to give you the chance to just introduce yourself and your background, where you're from, and all these sorts of things.
Michael Sladnick 2:41
Yeah, thank you. I'm very happy to have the opportunity today to talk to Insight Myanmar. And I've been involved in the spring revolution since shortly after the coup. I had no real involvement with Myanmar. Before that I never been there. I knew a little bit about like the 1988 Revolution 2007. But I was an activist in the US. And I was very focused on struggles for democracy, human rights, revolutions against dictatorships around the world. And in the 2010s, you had the disaster of the Arab Spring in Syria, and a lot of people, including myself, who were involved in that were very depressed. So when the spring revolution started, I just felt looking at the images coming from there that this movement was really powerful. And that this was a struggle that was not going to give up. And I wanted to use what I had learned as an activist from trying to support those movements to do better this time. So I threw myself fully into Myanmar, and it was still during COVID. So I had lots of free time. And as an activist before, we had done, you know, articles and speeches and discussing and debating what's happening in these other countries, but we never really did that much to directly help the people there. I never really got that many opportunities to build direct connections with the people in Egypt or Syria, those type of places I was involved in before. And once I started getting involved in Myanmar, I immediately was meeting so many people directly from the ground there. And they were so eager to have the opportunity to talk to me and tell me their stories. So I was really impressed by what I heard from them, and their clear dedication and determination. You know, I think it's common at the early stages of these type of movements, especially for young people to be really optimistic and feel like victories within reach. But when I talked to young people for Myanmar, they were saying, you know, this is going to be really difficult. It's going to take a long time to defeat the military. But we're going to do it, we have to do it. We're not going to give up so So, you know, that really made me feel like I needed to do whatever I had to help to support these people. In particular, because the initial wave of international attention about what was happening in Myanmar quickly died away, it fell out of the news. So I started learning Burmese a little bit. And once I could communicate in Burmese a little, just by chatting with people online, people from on the ground in Myanmar, I had even more opportunities to start meeting the activists who were, you know, through the course of 2021 into 2022, we're still involved in the revolution, so determined to keep things going in the armed struggle, in particular, in the ongoing protests, the areas where they're still able to do the above ground revolution. So I felt really honored to have the opportunity to directly communicate with those type of people, really, really impressive young people, people from all walks of life. So I did my best to learn Burmese to speak with them, because most of them don't really speak English. And I did my best to fundraise for them. And when I had difficulty raising enough funds, just donating my own money. And through that getting more and more involved by mid 2023, I felt like my Burmese was at a good enough level, that I wanted to try to come to the ground to do more to directly work with people from here. So I moved to the Thai Myanmar border area. And I've been, when I got here, I could read and write Burmese pretty well, but I couldn't speak it very well, I couldn't actually understand very much at all of people's conversations. But I've been speaking at the entire time these past eight months. So I've improved a lot. And as I've been improving with that spending more and more time trying to work directly with activists from the ground here. And in current state. And through that I recently had an opportunity to bring a Dutch journalist into Karenni, to a lot of the battle fronts there. And the recently liberated territories that we don't hear much about in the news. So my main reason for reaching out to Insight Myanmar, was to talk about that trip and those what I saw on the ground, but I'm happy to you know, talk about the spring revolution in general.
Brad 7:37
I mean, there's, there's so much there. And I mean, obviously we want to talk about this trip and and just the incredible boots on the ground insight that you're you're able to bring. But even before then just you're talking about being what seems like effectively a university student activist in the United States. And I think for a lot of people who who might be listening, who either were in that situation at one point in their lives, or might now be in that situation in their lives, trying to engage more with Myanmar. And and, you know, being young and becoming educated and being surrounded, as, as we often are, that time of our lives, with other people who are very passionate about bringing about change, and advocating for those people who are fighting for change. It's something that that you said about it really resonated with me and this this concept of Well, you talk about things and you advocate for things and you, you can try to raise awareness for things, but there's a there's an enormous leap from that, to finding a way to actually make an impact on the ground finding a way to actually help the people who are doing the thing or who are facing those, those difficulties. So I want to focus a little bit on that, on that transformation on that and that transition. So going back to when you were that activist focusing on all these different things, whether it's Egypt, Syria, Arab Spring, what have you. What were you really doing, like, what was your activism? Like? What What were your activities at that, at that time period?
Michael Sladnick 9:21
You know, early in the Arab Spring we did. Myself and people I knew were more actively involved with what was happening in the ground having some discussions with people from like Egypt, they're more academic discussions, but we had some connection, and even one of the prominent street activist leaders from Alexandria, he had to run away he came to New York City where I was at the time, and we help to support him there. But the big divide in activist circles as the 2010s went along was an increasing part of Like leftists, and activists in the US, the West in general, were turning against the idea of supporting these movements in general. And we're just posing it as a zero sum geopolitical game. And if the US is even theoretically, rhetorically on the side of these movements, then we should be supporting the dictators, or at least staying out of it. So it increasingly just got to the point where as an activist, all we were doing was debating, and trying to push back against these people who were supporting Assad and dictators like that. And, you know, I think we were on the right side of that debate. But in the end, it just wore people out and came out of that feeling like we didn't really accomplish anything.
Brad 10:50
And so you say, like, your transition to focusing on Myanmar came during COVID. Effectively, the the lock downs that many of us experience, obviously, the coup happens, very beginning of 2021, at a time when Myanmar itself is reeling with trying to to keep COVID under control, which, under the NLD government, they actually had had some not insignificant success with. So it comes at this time, when presumably you're spending a lot of time at home, you have a lot of ability to consume media. But also, one would presume this is a time when you're not really able to engage in those more traditional types of activism, you're not really going to go to rallies or townhall meetings or protests or, or panel discussions and things like this, because they're not being staged where you were you generally experiencing this shift in the things that activists are doing at this time, just because you can't go out into the public spaces and do the more traditional types of activism. Yeah,
Michael Sladnick 11:56
that was definitely a big part of it. You know, on the one hand, I didn't want to just do the same thing I've been doing for 10 years, I wanted to try to do better do something different. But early on, I was thinking like, you know, how can I do outreach for Myanmar, like what town halls meetings, protests, can I go to and try to advocate for Myanmar there, but 20, early 2021, it was still COVID, as you said, so there wasn't a lot going on. So I met the local Burmese community in Chicago. And at the beginning of the coup, they were very active. There are mostly recent immigrant working class community, very dispersed throughout the very large Chicago area. So they really gave it their all early in the coup. And I was involved in their activism to some degree. But as that type of immigrant community, they weren't able to sustain that type of public activism for the long term. So as things died down with that a bit, and there wasn't a lot going on, in general, I had to decide if I'm committed to staying involved in Myanmar and doing as much as possible, what's the involvement going to look like?
Brad 13:10
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. So then you start this transition, and this is something that just, you know, you drop it so casually. And and I think this is genuinely incredible that the transition from being a student activist, you know, not not to sort of disparage your work, but what we might consider to be reasonably run of the mill student activist as as many in the West are to someone who has gone to the extent of learning to speak the language. And Burmese is not a language that has a lot of support for it. It's not, it's not like you can go down to the library and just grab some really well written you know, Burmese grammar guides, and, you know, Teach Yourself guides and, and find Burmese classes on every street corner. It's, it's not that accessible and well supported a language. And you've you seem to have done this highly accelerated Crash Course, on Myanmar, the language, the culture, the people the ongoing situation, as complicated as it he is. That I mean, that to me, is is phenomenal, even like in a three year period of time. That's a lot. That's genuinely very, very, very impressive to me and very surprising to me, when when when I heard it from you, how much you you have managed to sort of take in and absorb and understand and then and then go in and apply. Did you have any any methodology to this? Was there any secret to your to your ability or was it just something switched inside of you and you just obsessively pursued this knowledge and this understanding? Yeah, yeah.
Michael Sladnick 14:59
It's It's definitely felt like something switched inside of me, you know, when the crackdown happened in mid March 2021, the big crackdown in the cities, and it felt like a repeat of, you know, this brutal repression from the Middle East, I'd been watching. And I was didn't know any Myanmar people directly, but was just crying every day about that. And I hadn't cried about that before, when I saw it happening in Syria and places like that, but I just felt like I could not, I did not want to watch that happen. Again, I didn't want to be in a world where we just have to live, keep watching people struggling for freedom getting suppressed like that, you know, getting their dreams crushed. And then the hope of after, when that urban crackdown happened, the rural areas rose up even greater numbers. And it was mostly women and girls who were participating in the protests even more than men. So I just prayed at that time for some way to help to get the power to help. And I'm not religious, but I just, you know, wished and prayed for some way to help. And from that point on, after that period of those very emotional few weeks, I really felt like a change person. And that I did have the power to help, and that I could make a difference. And going forward from there. As I said, it was really the opportunity to meet and talk to these incredible people every day who motivated, who motivated me to keep trying, because it was so difficult to learn Burmese, I did get what textbooks and stuff are available. And they may be useful at the very beginning. But it's a very difficult language with not a lot of resources. But and you know, as an American, I never successfully learned a foreign language before. I just feel looking back like they the key to success is just using that language every day, and the motivation to keep trying. And I had that every single day with the opportunity to meet and support these incredible people. So just, you know, it was it was exciting every day to be working with them and talking to them. And that really motivated me to get through the language difficulties and to try my best.
Brad 17:28
I mean, I'm speaking as a professional language teacher and as a qualified linguist. So it's still fascinating to me how someone with self directed study in in such a relatively short time could acquire such a language, which are higher barriers to entry. But that, that aside, I think what you're saying contains something that's that's very fundamentally beautifully human. When you talk about your very visceral response to these crackdowns, and I'm not, I'm not 100%, which crackdowns you're talking to because they were just a series of them. There was a crackdown at the end of February 2021. Those are crackdown on the third of March 2021. There was a crackdown on the 15th of March 2020.
Michael Sladnick 18:18
On 14th. March 14, it was the one that to me, yeah.
Brad 18:22
When the when the factories were burned in Yangon. Right? Yeah. If I remember correctly, I think the military shot like 70 protesters, just in hindsight, in one day, and then they impose martial martial law. I remember that. Well, it was, um, yeah, it was a very impactful day for me as well. But I think what you're saying has this this undertone, that without necessarily saying it, of basically realizing that, you know, suffering, is always suffering, it doesn't matter whose it is. And I think we have a very strong ability, as humans to compartmentalize and say, Well, no, this is not my suffering. I don't understand this suffering. It has nothing to do with me. I don't have a context for this. I've never been to this country. I don't know these people. I don't understand that struggle. And when you're talking, it just feels to me. Like you're coming from a place of sort of going through that and saying, Well, no, it doesn't matter whether or not I know who these people are. It's incumbent on me to get to know who these people are. But first and foremost, I have to recognize that they are suffering, they're suffering a terrible injustice. And they have been suffering a terrible injustice for so so long. And it is, is it imperative on me to find a way that I can help and I love that it's not even when you're talking about it. It's not even this question of can I help? I think you phrase it as how can I help? It's a foregone conclusion that you're going to find a way to help. It's just a matter of identifying that, that, that modal that medium or that modality. And, and I think that there is just something very, very beautiful to that very simple, very fundamentally human in, in your approach, and that's taken you pretty far, it's taken you most of the way around the globe. As it as it turns out, so let's jump forward a little bit, you get contacted by this Dutch journalist, I believe that the journalist reached out to you first.
Michael Sladnick 20:36
Yes, he was someone who had also been involved in the support of Arab Spring and international democracy movements online. During the 2010s, he got popular when he was still a high school student, I believe, for making maps for those conflicts. So he had been following Myanmar since the beginning. And I kind of knew him from on Twitter and stuff. A lot of people from the west to pay attention to Myanmar follow his feeds and his articles.
Brad 21:06
It's a small sphere, I find the international community who focus on Myanmar, it's not a it's not a big community, which probably does not say good things about the international political establishment NGO establishment, but it is what it is. So okay, so let's let's get into like nuts and bolts here. So the decision is made. You and this journalist want to enter Myanmar, a country that is actively engaged in civil war? First and foremost, did you did you tell your friends and family about this?
Michael Sladnick 21:46
Yes. They they knew about this? Yeah, well, I mean, they know I'm here and that I've made trips similar to this before. So you know, whenever I go into Myanmar, because you can be out of contact when I'm planning to go in, I always let them know.
Brad 22:00
Like, I'm just, I'm just wondering, because I don't know, from my perspective, if I told my, my family, oh, yeah, I'm going to be I'm going to be slipping into Myanmar, temporarily, I may not be in contact. I'm reasonably confident they would call the government and say like, if you stop him at the airport, and don't let him go. So while you're with your family and friends, just okay with you doing this? What did they try to convince you to not go? How did that conversation go down?
Michael Sladnick 22:29
You know, when I was first, like the first year of getting involved in Myanmar, I think by like, late 2021, some of my friends were kind of pulling me aside and saying, like, you know, you should take a break from this, your internet crusade is getting out of hand and stuff. But eventually, they understood like, they could see that I was really making a difference and had real connections with the people on the ground. And so by the time that I had moved halfway around the world, in mid 23, I was surprised that most people I knew, I think, had accepted it by that point, and thought it was a worthwhile cause. They might still be worried. But I mean, even in the border areas. So you know, when I was working online, I was more focusing on sets, again, in the center of the country, and initially had some idea of eventually going there, which was like, would have been a suicide mission. So maybe coming to the border, you know, it was a little bit more sober. And they could accept that.
Brad 23:36
So let's, let's sort of contextualize this, most of our audience, I think, will know what we're talking about and where we're talking about, but just for for the benefit of those people who might not so your target was Karenni. State previously known as chaos state, very small state on the Thai border. Can you can you explain sort of why that's where you wanted to go? The logistics side of things and the security side of things?
Michael Sladnick 24:04
Yeah, well, this journalist, he really focuses on the Civil War conflict aspect of it and mapping the conflict. Because even if people in the West know that something is still happening in Myanmar, they tend to have an idea that it's really small scale resistance. So when this journalist and online community he's part of produces national maps of what's happening in Myanmar, and you know, which groups control which areas, how much land the regime has lost, that really makes people understand just by looking at that map, that there's something really serious happening, there is a real struggle going on in Myanmar. So, he and others like him track the day to day battles from afar, and he was interested to go talk to PDF and other resistance fighters on the ground, see the battle fronts so he could do more to report about the situation and the people involved to his audience. So I had not been to karate before, I have been to cooperate in other areas in current state. So he was interested in going to Karenni because that is the area that's closest to being liberated. There's been a number of towns and townships within Karenni, within the past few months that had been liberated. And there's big battles going on for major cities like loiacono, Neff, like how it falls to the resistance, that'd be the first state capitol, the first real town that they control. So I asked people here that I know if it's possible to go to karate, and they said, it might be possible, and it might cost a lot of money, I was skeptical, if we were gonna be able to go there. Honestly, I didn't think what happened. So we waited until the journalists got to Thailand, to the to the area, to talk to people with him, and plan exactly where we're going to go. And at that time, in mid March, people were saying that actually, the situation in Calgary in current state was worse, because the regime is quired, high flying Russian drones, that the resistance is enabled to shoot down, they're bombing a lot more, the battle front is a lot less stable than it was a few months ago and cooperate. So groups on the ground and current state be a lot more apprehensive about taking responsibility for the security of a foreign journalist than they used to be, it's a lot more messy of a battlefield. Whereas in Karenni, the situation has somewhat stabilized. The battle fronts are more clear. So people were saying that, you know, it actually might be a better place to go. So yeah, we I just started talking to activists I know, who had been fighting and working from the ground and karate, and started to make contacts through them to plan the trip.
Brad 27:27
As just as a curiosity, like, Do you Do you speak any currently language? No. Wow. So okay, so you're heading into this region, where you've never been before? Where you don't speak any of the local languages, then, of course, Burmese itself? What like what was going through your mind? As you're, as you're preparing to make that cross over the border? Were you? Were you doubting this decision at all? Or were you just headlong? This is the thing, this is what I'm going to do. You know, no matter what comes.
Michael Sladnick 28:03
And I didn't really know what to expect. So I wasn't worrying about too much in my head beforehand. I was just prepared to, with whatever faced us. And we were setting it up through activists we knew through activist I know, so they had people on there and who were going to take responsibility for us. So I expected that once we got there, we would link up with those people. And they would guide us around, like what happened when I made previous trips to current state, so I wasn't too worried about it. But when we actually got there to near the border, it didn't quite work out like that.
Brad 28:44
Okay, so what, what actually transpired?
Michael Sladnick 28:48
Well, when we got to the area of Thailand, near the Caroni, border, the day before the regime had launched airstrikes within five kilometers of the border. So on the Thai side, the authorities were understandably, very alarmed and on high alert. And on the currency side, everything was kind of thrown into chaos. And they don't have regular communications, their internet and phone lines have been cut off. And currently, they have Starlink sets, but those are expensive, so they don't have a lot of them. So we had trouble actually getting in touch with the people that we had thought we had plans with when we got there. And then when we eventually found someone to come meet us and discuss with us outside, they basically told us that there's no way we're getting in, you know the situation at this type of time. We're not going to let you in you can't come into karate while so that you actually get in I We decided to go to Chiang Mai for a few days to meet with other activists there rather than waiting around and planning everything on the phone. So I, when there was still protests in Mandalay, I had supported a lot of the young protesters there. And in particular, Mandalay, LGBT, very brave young people activist for Mandalay, LGBT Hepcat, protesting, even after their comrades are getting arrested, you know, week by week, so I had close connections with them. And through them I knew another LGBT activists, a Trans activist from Mandalay, who has been living and working from the ground and Lloyd cow, and she was in Chiang Mai. So we went and met with her and spend a couple of days reworking all their plans, re establishing connection with the ground and cranny for like, we felt like we had everything set up properly. And we went back and met the driver, who's been involved in the struggle on the border area since 1988. And he took us in his car, up and up into the mountains into these remote valleys, where you can't believe people actually live up there, and that you're still in Thailand. And eventually, we got across the border. And to the first the town, and the house where we had planned for the driver to drop us off. But the commander, who we had been coordinating with, and whose house we got dropped off with, it got dropped off at, he was away on a mission up to like out in the north. And he took the Starlink set that is normally at that house with them. So when we got there, we didn't have contact, we didn't have way to communicate with the people that we had planned with before. So we did our best to put word out that we had arrived. Somehow things got scrambled and the people who were supposed to be meeting us went to a totally different area. And were waiting for us not knowing where we were the people in the town where we wound up didn't know what to do with us. So we were there. We had made it after three days into Karenni. But it still seemed like our plans were going to fall apart.
Brad 32:44
So then, did you did you ultimately manage to link up with the people who are meant to be your your points of contact? Or did you just make a new plan?
Michael Sladnick 32:53
Yeah, basically, that we just, we narrowly missed contact with them by the time we got in. And Starlink it was too late. So that first evening and currently, we just call the meeting with local PDFs and comrades and people in the town where we were. And we just talked to them. And we told them about ourselves and why we come there, and how we're trying to support the spring revolution and Karani and get more word about word more word out to the world about what was happening there. And after listening to us, they decided that they wanted to support us and help us to do the reporting that we wanted to do. And so they agreed the next morning to take us around and on their own. Show us around Karani.
Brad 33:49
Wow. I mean, that's pretty incredible. So sort of zooming out then like let's let's focus on the trip in its entirety. Let's focus on what you saw. Let's focus on on the sort of realities on the ground in Karachi that you can you can shed light on for us because we don't get to, to understand these things. You know, we have a lot of academics come on, they talk about, you know, satellite imagery, they talk about the movements of troops and the changing lines of control, but the realities on the ground. Can you can you talk us like in simple terms, what was it that you experienced? And currently, what do you see is going on?
Michael Sladnick 34:29
Yeah, we're our original plan, like I said was we wanted to go to Lloyd cow to demo so these big cities in the north where big battles are going on to to liberate those towns. Those are the battles that are already in the news where I think we want to take pictures for like local university and see for ourselves those battles. And after waiting three days and taking a day in currently before people agreed to take us around The journalist I was with did not have time to go all the way up there. So we had to settle with seeing other parts of Kearney, Southern Karenni, Eastern quarantine, the central part of the state. But by the end of the trip, in retrospect, we were really glad that we had gone and saw had the opportunity to see those areas instead of loi cow and demo. So because everyone already knows about those battles happening, there's even been other international journalists who have reported from the ground there. But the rest of the currency, you know, it's the state that was the center of the popular uprising in 2021. It was the first real Battlefront of the war that broke out in May in June 2021. It's been the most devastated state since the coup with over half the population is refugees. And there's so little reporting even in Burmese about what's going on in these other areas. So we were really surprised by what we saw there. First of all, how close the bulk of the state is to liberation, south of that northern area between locale improve, so south of there, there's only four regime bases left. And the resistance has them all besieged. So we got to go up to those battle fronts, talk to the PDFs there, talk to PDS involved in bases that were recently liberated, and to all the support network and different groups behind the scenes, away from the front supporting them. And then, in recent months, on the other hand, lots of the state in the East and the north, the Northeast, the South has been liberated, men say you are shut down and seeing how in these liberated areas, the state of the civilian population, that they are still under attack by the regime, they're still not able to return home, they're living in extremely dire conditions. And yet, they are continuing to support the resistance, you know, the local PDFs that brought us around, they are under the energy ministry of defense chain of command, but they get very little support either from the N ug or from anyone else outside, they are almost completely dependent on this local population, which itself is suffering and a sacrifice greatly for the revolution. So it was, you know, not really unlike anything I had seen in current state, or what I could have experienced online to have the actual opportunity to talk to these fighters on the front and to see and speak with the civilians.
Brad 38:15
So So I want to start investigating different elements of what you're talking about. The the first component of that is when you're talking about liberated areas. Now, we had the chance a while back to speak to a representative from the special Advisory Council for Myanmar. They released I think, in 2022, a reasonably famous document a report focused on the nature of control in Myanmar, like the actual realities of control and how complex it is. And there should be a supplementary also rather a follow up report, soon to be released on on that topic. So when you say liberated, I want to just understand a little bit better. What does that actually translate to on the ground as far as these people are concerned? If the If an area is liberated, are the civilians they're no longer living in, in fear of the military? Or do liberated areas still have that ongoing risk?
Michael Sladnick 39:21
You know, they still have that ongoing risk. So I'll take the example of yard dead which is a major town in eastern central Karenni. It was liberated in December, I believe. And when it was liberated, and then I say it's liberated because at that time, the Thai government and the outside world decided that it was liberated and forced 10s of 1000s of refugees from these huge camps, these huge refugee camps on the Thai side of the border back into Myanmar. So the regime has been defeated. In these areas, the last remaining bases there, have been conquered by the PA, PDF and the Ayios. But situation on the ground is still totally unsafe and far from normal. So, in new art in itself, there's PDFs, and a small number of men there. But this town, most of the civilians have still not been able to return back. Because on the one hand, when the regime was there, they planted mines in people's houses. So when people do try to go home, they're often blown up by these mines. And it takes a long time for the PDF to clear them out. They're actively trying to do that, but they just need time. But then on the other hand, yeah,
Brad 40:51
so just need to clarify this, because that's, so these are, these are homes, that you're told these are civilian homes that you're talking about, that the military has deliberately placed, to be trapped into is what you're saying. Right? Yeah, so that I mean, that's a war crime, just to clarify like that, that's a war crime where we're casually discussing kill. And yeah, is this like, one or two instances? Or are you saying this is a widespread practice?
Michael Sladnick 41:19
They we, you know, we didn't actually see any booby traps. But that's what they told us in UART, that, that people had been blown up when they tried to return homes. And we heard that other times in the trip to that houses, our minds. And that's why even you know, every every single village in Karachi has been bombed, many have been completely burned down, others are bombed out or partially standing. And we saw that anywhere we went around Karenni. But the most of them do not have a civilian population. And they said, it's partially because of the mines, that they wind their houses.
Brad 41:59
So it's it. I mean, this is just particularly insidious, because it's not even destroying the homes, but it's still making the homes uninhabitable just to make life that much harder for civilian population, it it almost seems like senseless in in its cruelty. But then again, with this military, I mean, that's, that's kind of par for the course. But I'm still I'm still quite shocked that they would go to the extent of laying traps, in civilian homes, with clearly the intention of just killing civilians, and no possible military application whatsoever. It's quite horrific.
Michael Sladnick 42:42
Yeah, you know, they just want to terrorize civilians and punish them for protesting and supporting the revolution. So, you know, the same with many of the villages that had been burned down that we saw, we asked, why did why was this village targeted? And they said, you know, there's no reason that's a, they just purposely target civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Brad 43:08
I mean, as one of the sort of harken back to an interview that I that I did one on one of the the earlier interviews that I conducted on insight Myanmar with with Komodo, who was the he's the leader of the 20 nationalities defense forces, the KND F. And a lot of what he was saying was that their operations in Karachi were pretty out in the open, they knew exactly where the military is in the military knew exactly where the K and df is. And the K and the F would almost try to bait the military into engaging with them. And consistently, the military would not engage with the k and d f, they would go out and deliberately target civilian areas that the candy F had evacuated, in the hopes of providing the civilians, you know, basic Geneva protections by by saying that there is no legitimate military target here, we've completely withdrawn from the civilian area. So there is no reason to conduct military operations. And yet the military would deliberately conduct operations, bombing artillery strikes and things like that. And that, and that would have probably been back in, you know, late 2021, early 2022 when we when we conducted that interview. So it's, it's just very disheartening to see that this general pattern of of terrorizing the civilian population is just so consistent and so long, losting incrementing and also in other parts of Yeah, ama, like
Michael Sladnick 44:38
you said, they're afraid to fight the actual PDF and resistance. So we went past song, which is warming the two towns remaining in southern currently, where there's still some regime bases holding out and a song is largely destroyed. The regime just has one hilltop base overlooking the town and a small presence in part of the southern part of the town. But we were able to walk far into the town directly into the line of fire, even within view of the regime's hilltop lookouts, because they're afraid to open fire during the day, because the PDF is watching them. And if they start shooting, it'll show you know, it will reveal to the PDF where the regimes positions are and the PDF will fight back. And they try to avoid conflict as much as possible there. You know, everyone that we talked to said that the forces there, most of the regime forces fight to the death, but they're demoralized, they're afraid to go on the defensive. And instead, they lash out and civilians. So for pasong. The night before we went into the city, we stayed on in a small village outside the city, which is one of the three locations of the intelli ethnic group. It's the smallest of the Caroni ethnic groups with only about 1000 members. And this village is like entirely in Chile. So we stayed in their village that nights and the villages all bombed out from artillery strikes from the same base in pesonic City, which is afraid to open fire during the day. And that night, as we were going to sleep, there was huge artillery opening up the door aren't directly targeting the village that night. But you know, at night, they're shooting and huge explosions and heavy gunfire sounds all night long. But for your for you aren't there too. So these fully liberated areas far from the front. It's not just the mines that they have to spend time clearing out. But because the regime still has four bases in the southern part of Karani, they continue to launch drone strikes, and long range artillery strikes from those bases targeting you aren't there and other civilian areas. So it's a big priority for the resistance the PDFs to try to take these last bases, because that will allow the civilians to return home.
Brad 47:22
So I'm just I'm just curious at this point, because I, I just have difficulty imagining in my head, the scene, can you can you describe what it's like in a village that has been bombed? Like what? What does that look like? What does that feel like? It's it's just something that I can't really conjure in my head.
Michael Sladnick 47:51
It's just eerie, because there's very few people around. It's these very beautiful, picturesque villages, at least when there's something left to them. And there's lots of animals running around everywhere, goats, pigs, chickens, some cows, but no one's taking care of them. No one's picking up after them. And you don't see a lot of people it's mostly Ghost Town is a handful of men who are living there. And then a number of houses used actively by the resistance where they're living together, cooking together, you know, resting from the front and preparing to support people from the front and a miss and miss the all this in this, you know, beautiful, picturesque village in these beautiful picturesque towns, more or less great number of burned down houses, houses with, you know, parts of the roofs blown off by artillery strikes, lots of shrapnel damage. I mean, the until a village that we stayed at outside pass song, you know, almost every house had a little bit of damage the house that we were staying in, had not been directly bombed, but there was shrapnel damage all over the wall. You know, no electricity anywhere, except for solar panels, which they use sparingly. And then very limited food resources. There was enough rice everywhere we went but, you know, other foods that are ubiquitous in Burmese cuisine, like cooking oil, even onions and such, we saw very little of that outside of messy in the south, which is near the Thai border. People were you know, just cooking with water and making do with what they had. And when you're driving around the state, most of the land is fallow you see very little agriculture and you know after a couple of years of that, you know to are three years of people not being able to plant it's hard to even see where fields were. So it really feels like a wilderness. And you know, it's inners interspersed by burnt down villages and a few bombed out ghost towns.
Brad 50:15
So I'm, I'm almost morbidly curious to know the people who, who were in these villages, presumably, everyone flees the village at the time that the village is being bombed. And you say that there are some people in the villages, but not many. Those who returned, if you spoke to any of those people, did they express why they returned to that village, and, and what their, what their hopes were for, for their, their village, their homes, like where they were they expressing an idea of? Well, we'll give it a little bit of time, and we'll just rally around and we'll rebuild, or is the sense more like this, this village is done. And I'm just going to stay here and then eventually pack up my things and move on.
Michael Sladnick 51:14
Yeah, we had opportunities to speak to people, including people who had returned or who had chosen to stay even when most fled. So like, when we were leaving pass song, we passed through one village, and there was just one woman, there is one shop that was still open, and people would come and eat there. Because she was the only, you know, only person. So going. So we stopped there and stayed there for a while and talk to her. And she said, you know, people told me I should run away and that I could go to Thailand even or go to a refugee camp. But I chose to stay because I felt like it was my duty. I felt like I had to be here to support the PDFs in this time. And I wanted to do what I could to help them. I mean, that's incredible. Well, we, we talked to another old woman in MSA from a nearby village, which had been totally burned out. And we asked her that question, you asked me just now, do you think this village should be rebuilt? And she said, You know, I fully believe the revolution will win. But what do we rebuild with? You know, I can say we're going to rebuild, but with what we have nothing? We're not getting any support. So how are we going to do that? You know, and we will be went to the, to some of the refugee camps to like the refugee camp where the civilians from you are dead are. And they all believe that they're going to return home. There everyone is confident in the revolution. When when we would ask the PDFs, who were traveling with and meeting on the front and behind the lines, when we'd ask them about their families. Almost all of them said that their families were living in refugee camps. So you know, they're, they are they're directly connected to the fighting that's happening. They're the same people who are in these camps are the ones whose sons and daughters and husbands fathers are fighting on the frontlines. So the refugee camp from you are dead. It's those are people as I said, who they had been on the Thai side, and had been forced back in December, when it was decided that the area was liberated, but they're not able to return home yet. So the PDFs, the local PDFs, and the colada Karenni. EO, which was previously a regime border guard force, which joined the revolution last June. They're doing the best to support this refugee camp and other refugee camps. And they can provide all the rice they need, but they're not getting any very little support from the outside. They try to make contact with the UN and NGOs to try to find more support. But whatever options are there, they're very limited by the total lack of communications that people on the ground and currently have with the outside. So in this camp full of women and children and elderly, you know we showed up it was one child's birthday, and all they had to serve at the birthday was boiled rice because they had nothing else and they gave they gave that boiled rice to us. So this camp and they had no cooking oil no on ins like we saw almost everywhere, but they didn't even have rain covers, you know, the monsoon season is arriving in two or three months. And all these hundreds or 1000s of people hiding in these ravines from you are dead, waiting for these last bases to be liberated and minds to be cleared before they can go home. With this rainy season bearing down on them, they have no rain covers, they have no malaria medicine or other medicine, they have nothing set up for education for the children. And it's not because they don't want to, and they're not trying to do something, but their resources are just so limited. That you know, most of the population in this state is living in these type of conditions, and they're not getting the support, they need to be able to properly support that type of refugee population. Now, we talked to the parish priest in you aren't that the Catholic priests there. He's the only person on the entire trip that we met who spoke decent English, although he was disappointed, we couldn't speak Italian, because he can speak better than that. And he can't He can't stay in the church, because he's worried about drone strikes targeting him, he's gotten threats from the regime's side. So even though the tower is liberated, again, it's still not safe for him there. He was saying to us, he has even been looking for help from the International Catholic organizations on the outside and not been able to find any. And he asked us to try to help them and to communicate, if we found any organizations that could help that even after people are able to return back to your that they're going to need eight months of support, which is the time that it will take to reestablish their crops and to get the economy going. So you know, not only do they need the support during the desperate conditions, they are now at this time, but they will continue to need eight months of support after these battles are finished. So this is going to be a huge humanitarian problem for quite a while to come.
Brad 57:15
I mean, just still thinking about what you said like so these people, so they're saying they've got no emotion, nothing. They've got the most basic essentials of food. And even that is not an in boiled rice is only going to get you so far. It's not. It's not getting you a lot of the nutrients that you need. They've got no electricity, they've got no communications to I mean, not even the outside world, just to one another. You said that even the solar panels when they did have them, they were using them sparingly. I mean, it what you're describing is to us living in the first world, it's it's almost unimaginable, like I mean, you know, we go with the you know, there was a power cut in my house, you know, a few months ago, it was quite a lengthy power cut. It lasted about eight hours. And during that entire time, you know, I was watching TV shows on my tablet, which which had been charged, I was checking the internet on my phone, we had battery powered lamps, we have a gas stove, we were able to cook food. Like we had all of these amenities, even though we didn't have electricity, we had all these amenities, like understanding a world in which you you don't have battery powered anything because you have no way to recharge those batteries and you know, new batteries to buy, like you turn on the tap, but the water doesn't magically flow. Because water pressure is built by electric pumps like it's it's almost an unimaginable hardship for for many of us to imagine. And yet, I'm still thinking of that that woman that you quoted, who wasn't saying that she's not trying to flee to Thailand because she can't, or because she's not going to get a visa because she doesn't speak Thai or because she has nowhere to go. She has no work opportunities. It wasn't even about the difficulties with with regards to fleeing. It was about a sense of moral duty to continue withstanding these hardships. In the interest of serving those who are qualified in the revolution, I think that's just that's just an incredible mentality and resilience. And I think if anything, it just it really should highlight to anyone. Like if you're willing to do that. How badly have the military been treating these people for the last, you know, 6070 years? Is to engender that kind of steadfastness. And dedication, it's, it's, it's almost mind boggling to think that someone would voluntarily continue putting up with those conditions in order to, to help contribute to a victory over the military.
Michael Sladnick 1:00:18
But here we are, you know, it was hard for us just to be out of contact, not be able to go on the internet and surf, Facebook and social media for a couple days, these people have been cut off for years. But the thing is it they weren't hopeless. It wasn't this depressed atmosphere. However bad the conditions were whoever we talked to, you know, refugees, PDF fighters on the front, whoever we talked to, they all were totally committed to this revolution. And they said, This revolution is to win democracy, to win our rights to get our rights back. We're going to fight for that for as long as it takes. And we do not regret. You know, what we've had sacrifice for that, that over and over again, that's what we heard, that was what this revolution meant to guarantee that this is the people who are dedicated to democracy and democratic values.
Brad 1:01:28
I mean, I think it's also a good moment to sort of remember. Like, we're calling it Karenni. Now, and that's sort of the, the Revolution era name, and hopefully the the name going forward, because it's more accurate a descriptor used to be called the chaos state and the KR one ethnic group, that the largest ethnic group, but they're by no means representative of the entire state. But back when it was called Chaos state, it was effectively just under perpetual military dictatorship, like chin, I believe, like, didn't have an airport at all Chin State, like eventually they they built one, but Karenni had an airport, but it was just a military airbase, like that, that whole place has been under military lockdown for for very, very, very long periods of time. So I think the experiences of the people in Karenni Ah, I don't necessarily want to say unique within the Myanmar scope, because as we know, many different people in Myanmar have suffered in many horrific ways. But I think that there truly is a special level of, of hatred towards the military and what the military have done in in current state in particular, and very, justifiably so. So I think it's harrowing what you're saying. But it's, it's also at the same time very, very inspirational,
Michael Sladnick 1:02:57
I think, yeah, it was really inspirational. How Karenni, which is such a diverse state has come together and to see the today on the ground, how they're cooperating and working together, going into Karenni. I thought that correnti was mainly kn DF, you know, this one big resistance group, and then some Ayios. And that might be the case up north, where we were the areas we saw in the other parts of the state, were extremely diverse in the number of groups, we have many, many different local PDFs. And in a color, a lot of this former border guard forces join the revolution. We stayed one night at a CDM regime base. That was that was going into there the time, the one time in the trip that I was really worried before we got there. But the former regime soldiers, they're the guy who led us into the big gate bit, the gate base, the base gate at night, his three sons are all fighting on the side of the revolution. So all these different groups from CB and soldiers to Aeos, many, many different local PDFs, but they're all working together. Like any type of checkpoint, we pass would have three four different groups stationed there. Any little village or collection of houses camp would have different groups staying together. We saw the kitchen, the cooking camp that cooks for the soldiers in the front lines, the Jerome camp, the communications command center hidden in the woods. These are all shared by all these different groups. And any car that we were traveling in any boat we were traveling in, had any Battlefront we visited any group of soldiers we saw recovering from a battle, all different groups working together all different ethnic groups living together. And, you know, ethnically to it was even more diverse. And I realized, like a lot of Eastern correnti, the people there are Shawn ethnicity, actually, which I never seen on any ethno linguistic map or anything like that. Lots of Korean people, Bomar people, and then all the different coordinate groups. So, you know, at a time when I think people abroad, when they see this map of the conflict, and Myanmar, and all these different ethnic armies, all these different factions. A lot of people cynically think that these groups are potential opponents, and that after they're done fighting the regime, they're just going to go to fighting each other. But seeing the actual situation on the ground, and how people were living and fighting together there makes that totally absurd. Because although groups have their autonomy, and their own ethnic and linguistic and cultural identity, they were all in the struggle together and working together every step along the way every day. So that was really inspiring.
Brad 1:06:26
And that's incredible. And I think that's that's probably one of the most important points that we can discuss here. Because you are completely correct. A lot of the discourse that we see, is very cynical. And I think there are, there is justification. To an extent, you know, you yourself, had a focus on the Arab Spring, you know, looking at a country like Syria, looking at the deep fractionalization of the conflict, and just how, sort of like so, so, so many different factions with their political ideologies, their religious ideologies, their identities, were either actively at each other's throats, or were suspicious of one another, or were maybe allied, but oftentimes, you know, very, very loosely allied and unreliably. So it's something that we've seen in the past, it's, it seems to be across conflicts, the exception rather than the rule that you have lots of factions that genuinely are cooperative, collaborative, and are truly working towards a single shared objective. And you seem to be saying that that is what is happening in Myanmar, that there is no conflict that you perceived between the different groups, does that extend to any conflict between PDF, which is, you know, armed organizations that are directly under the command structure of the national unity government itself? And EA OHS? So long term established ethnic armed organizations that are not organized under the the national unity government? Are they playing along nicely as well? Or is there a bit of a distrust?
Michael Sladnick 1:08:22
You know, I can't say what's going on behind the scenes, but from what the we saw, again, the PDS and the CEOs, sharing the same bases, fighting together on the same fronts, working together to support the same refugee camps. So the one Inkling any disagreement we got on the trip was, when we were in yard that they said that there's no pork available, because the Chinese buy up all the pork every morning. So we asked what Chinese and the PDF said that there is a logging camp, run by Chinese in the woods near there, in the Colorado EEO territory. And they explained to us, you know, we don't like that there's this type of unregulated logging going on in this habitat that we should protect. But this is an important income stream for the EEO and we have no alternative for them, you know, all of our finances are extremely pressed. And if we tell the CEO that they should stop this logging, there's nowhere there for them to make up that lost income. There's no way for us to help them. So ultimately, later on, we want to address this problem of logging and regulate it and put a stop to that. But for right now, we have to tolerate it and accept the CEOs right to do that in their territory. So, you know that there was that table understanding that we there might be disagreements between us. And, you know, things we don't like about others doing. But we have to temporarily put those aside to work together for democracy. And that's kind of the overall lesson I think we can learn from currently and from Myanmar as a whole. So you know, this is an increasingly diverse world. And people around the world are anxious about how we're going to protect democratic rights and human values, humanitarian values, and how can we work together in that with people who are so different, who we don't understand who we have all these disagreements with, and can see from Myanmar from Karani. This important real world example of how people are doing just that how all these different groups with different languages, different backgrounds and values are working together in the struggle.
Brad 1:11:01
So, so very much what you're, what you're saying, seems to be that other than this minor squabble over income source, and during this time, it seems that income is pretty important. If you're saying it's actually the PDF and the iOS that are supporting the refugees, which is, is actually quite impressive, because when you think about militaries, we oftentimes see military forces Armed Forces basically saying, well, we don't have arms to support civilians. And it's not our job to support the civilians, it's our job to win the war. But rather, you seem to be saying that in the Myanmar context, it is very much those same people who are going out there and fighting the fights, who are also supporting those civilians, supporting those refugee camps, and trying to sort of do two things at once fight off the military and also keep keep the victims of the military alive. Which is just seems almost like an impossible task. Like how, how are they managing that? Like, do you? Do you have any insights on that?
Michael Sladnick 1:12:12
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as I said, it's their family members who are living in these camps. So they're going to do everything possible to support them. But it's extremely difficult, given their limited resources and lack of support. People's hopeful the outlook is positive, these are still in high spirits. But that is despite really terrible circumstances they're in. And they're really extreme challenges at the PDF and the iOS have to give them even the most basic level of support, which might be sufficient for right now. You know, after a lot of these camps have only been set up for a few months, since a lot of refugees had to leave Thailand at the end of last year, but it's gonna be another story come the rainy season if they don't have rain covers no malaria medicine.
Brad 1:13:15
And so, absolutely. So then, I'm curious, how close did you get to to the fighting? I know that you? You said that at night, you could hear the bombardments? Did you did you at any point sort of embed with an armed group and get to see them during any of their operations? Or were you staying sort of further back from from the front lines, and that,
Michael Sladnick 1:13:40
you know, we didn't see any active operations. Because those don't happen. The today in this part of karate, for reasons which I'll get to in a second, we went on the south side of paths on to the bridge, which the PDF just captured two and a half weeks before we arrived. And we saw the soldiers who had been involved in that battle. And you know, how they're recovering from it and regrouping after that battle. Later on, we came back to pass on from the north, and went directly into the city to the current outpost where the PDFs actively battling in the city who's fighting we could hear the night before our station, and we talked to them, but at that time, there was no active fighting going on. And then we also went to the one we went to a camp, a regime camp, which was liberated in February in the central region mountains in Karenni. State to 12 mile camp. After that, there's only one more camp a few miles further on nine mile Hill camp. So we went to 12 mile camp that battle was recent enough that there was still the cadavers of regime regimes soldiers lying on the ground there. And we talked to them about the military situation there. As I said, we toured a lot of the support camps away from the front lines, but there was no active big battles happening when we were there. And the reason for that is again, because the PDFs, resources are so limited, and particular, their ammunition is so limited. So they explained to us, you know, like, we saw talking to the soldiers who had taken that bridge, a few weeks before we arrived, the bridge into paths. They had one heavy weapon, one mortar launcher, and they only had five mortars left for it. That's all they had. They had a combination of an assortment of light arms, some that they had purchased themselves, some captured from the regime. But they have this serious shortage of ammunition. So there's only four regime bases left in the whole area, there's pasong, the 12 mile Hill for do we get close to. And then there's one other town bola K and one base near bola king. But all those all those bases are surrounded, they're all besieged by PDF, the PDF controls all the roads around them. And they're telling us if they had enough ammunition, if they got just a little bit of outside support to buy more ammunition, they could take these bases within a matter of days, they had all planned out, you know, they've they've completed the in certain circle men and all the strategic operations. And we saw bases that they had taken, you know, two different bases they taken within a few weeks. But every time after they fight one of those battles and take a base, they then have to go through this long process of carefully saving up ammunition, collecting arms, distributing arms to the other areas that need them, and planning before they can take the risk of wasting what little ammunition they have to try to assault and take the next position. So that, you know, this area is a really important part of the spring revolution battle fronts as a whole. You know, Karenni is very close to liberation. It has a population which has fully participate in uprising in the beginning. And it's strategically located close to the regime strongholds and Napi doubt. And everyone we add we talked to in the ground said we're not just fighting for Karani, after Crimea is finished, we're going to go on to the battle for Navy Dow and we're going to fight until all of Myanmar is liberated. But they have a serious difficulty completing these last few battles taking this last step. And they really need this outside to support to be able to do that. Because things being drawn out this way, when they have to take all this time after every battle to collect ammunition and, you know, make sure they have enough guns and everything. Meanwhile, every day while they're waiting, they have to feed everyone on the front, they have to feed all these refugees. And that just takes a far greater number of resources, which they don't have. So, you know, it's, you know, for international support, international humanitarian support, it's a choice if if they're not going to support the PDFs now, when they have the opportunity to take these last few bases and totally liberate Karenni, then they're going to have this much greater humanitarian crisis and much greater needs of support continuing for a long time.
Brad 1:19:19
And I think it's wasn't worth noting, like just if if you look at the map, currently is not a big state. It is. Obviously these days tiny I think it's actually the smallest state in Myanmar. But when you look at it, it's very importantly located it's it's sort of right there above current. Current State is a hotbed of activity. It's right there by Thailand. It's just liberating currently and like eliminating The military's ability to operate and currently, it could potentially go so far as I think to open up the the humanitarian corridor that people have been talking about and people have been dreaming of. Since the early days of of the fighting, at least on the eastern border on the west, we still don't have the humanitarian corridor that we've been asking for in Qin. But Karani could potentially become that it could fundamentally change. The prospects of refugees coming from Shan refugees coming from from Korean refugees coming from from from other areas around Myanmar, you could fundamentally change the life of people in Myanmar with regards to being able to supply them and bring things in over the border from Thailand's just food and medicine and construction equipment if nothing else, tents, clothing, it. It's an a massive, massive shift in the simple military and strategic and humanitarian realities of Myanmar. So I think we cannot understate or we should not understate the significance of the prospect of the breeding colony, and maintaining it as a zone where the military can operate because they can they mean they can ask strike. But that's costing them a lot of fuel and, and munitions that they can't easily replenish. And if they have to send helicopters in if they can't operate out of the airbase in local, they would have to send helicopters in effectively from out of state. And that would burn a lot of fuel, it would limit operational range, it would it would fundamentally change the reality. So I think the prospect of liberating currently is a very, very, very, very, very significant prospect, and it's one that has to be treated with the appropriate gravitas.
Michael Sladnick 1:21:56
Yeah, that's a great point. And I think you're absolutely right. In MSA, the town in the township, it's been liberated in the South Colonie. That was the one area we went that had a major civilian population. And the population in that town surrounding villages is actually larger now than it was before the revolution. Because this is the one real safe zone that people from a lot of different parts of Karani have been fleeing to, to seek refuge. And now, things are difficult and messy, because it's still near pasong. So like the day when we were first trying to come in and there was this airstrike. Because of that, there's still not a lot of support coming in from the outside. And therefore prices are very high in the USA. They're like two or three times the prices for for consumer goods in Thailand. But if you had this type of situation, this type of refuge, extending throughout Karani with more of a buffer zone, safe from most attacks, and you know, like you were saying, the regime can do airstrikes, but they're limited in what they how much they can actually use their planes. They're already kind of using them to their capacity, trying to fight and bomb people all over the country. So we the last day we were there, we met someone from pecan PDF, which is in southern Sun shot in southern Shan State, but it's a correnti area where key MDF and different correnti groups and many ethnicities live. And he told us that up there, people, a new wave of refugees was starting to arrive of people avoiding the military conscription law. So if we are able to finish help the PDF on the ground, finish these last battles and Karenni to become a real liberated area, a real safe zone and refuge for Caroni people and for people across Myanmar. Yes, I absolutely think that would be a game changer and a huge help to Myanmar people who are suffering for three years already through this conflict.
Brad 1:24:17
And so the big question obviously becomes, what do they need? You've already expressed the, you know, the frustrations that the people have with the lack of ammunition. It's evident that they they desperately need food, or at the very least money with which they can buy food so that they can support the civilian population. I mean, no doubt. This is part of the military's I hesitate to use the word strategy because that's giving them a little bit too much credit. But you know, the cold hard calculations of war, if you burden a fighting force, with wounded and with civilians, then you you cripple them, you cripple them logistically you cripple them financially Li, you, you force them to redirect resources. And, and that's probably a very calculated, although, obviously barbaric move on the part of the military. But is there anything else that that the people need and currently in order to achieve this goal?
Michael Sladnick 1:25:22
You know, the thing I've felt being involved in Myanmar these last few years is that this is a situation where we really can help. You know, if if Myanmar was getting even a little bit of international support from governments and major organizations, it would be enough to turn the tides and make all the difference. And coming off this trip from Kenny, myself, and my one comrade, who went with us who is formally in a spokesperson for a PDFs active and Corinne region, we came off this trip feeling like, these people need a lot of help, but there's clearly a way to help them. And we want to try to organize support for them. So we're trying to start a campaign, we're working on a campaign right now, final step correnti, to naipo, to try to bring awareness amongst Burmese people in particular and international community people abroad who are following this conflict and aware of what's happening in Myanmar, that, you know, this is a Battlefront of the revolution, that is very active and very close to victory, and just needs a little bit of outside support, to take that last step to liberation. And, you know, we believe that if we can get funds, do some fundraising for the PDFs and Aeos there, and we have a way to send them support directly, that this would take a lot of pressure off them. So, you know, even even if we're just giving support, so that they can have the resources to buy rain cover, and cooking oil and malaria medicine for these refugees, head of the rainy season that would allow the PDFs and Ayios who are responsible for the civilian population, to focus on these battles that are remaining to finish the encirclement and see each of these last regime strongholds to fully liberate the state. So yeah, you know, these are our people who deserve support. And I've, that's what I've been trying to do for the last three years of my support work for Myanmar is find help for this revolution, and these really inspiring ordinary people doing incredible things. And, you know, I'm really optimistic that if people hear this story, they will want to help and that we can get currently the support they need to improve the situation for civilians there and to achieve the victory that they're already so close to through their own efforts.
Brad 1:28:28
So I want to make sure that that audience has the chance to to engage with this. So what was the name of the initiative again, final step for me to knead the dough. Final step credit to Naypyidaw. And so if if we do have anyone in the audience who who is interested in in contributing in some way, what what is the best way for them to go about that?
Michael Sladnick 1:28:51
Yeah, so for anyone who's interested in support, you can check out the Facebook page Myanmar solidarity. We're planning this campaign for Karenina, which is mainly targeting Burmese audience, because even amongst Burmese people in Thailand and the diaspora, they want to support to people on the front lines, who they can trust, they're really active, but they might not necessarily have information about who is best, how they can get their money there. So we want to target that audience but also international audience. So on the Myanmar solidarity Facebook page as part of this campaign, we will have media and information both in Burmese and English. And, you know, I've I came here, looking for some way working with people from the ground to do more than I could from America to support the spring revolution. And when I was working from America, I I never really had a plan about what I I was doing, I was just meeting people online, doing my best each day to give Myanmar my attention and my efforts and in the course working together with the people I was meeting and doing my best to support them. And I had the same outlook, come coming to this part of the world moving across the world to work from the ground that I will need time to become more fluent in the language and make connections with people here and build relationships together with them. And I want to use my, the work I've done to help people abroad, connect with these people who are directly involved in the fighting and humanitarian support and civil activism as part of the spring revolution. So bringing this journalist into Karani was a great experience, which I hope will get more word about to the world about what's happening in Myanmar. And I hope I have more opportunities to invite other news agencies and other journalists to come see what's happening. Because I fully believe there's enough happening in Myanmar, like even this, you know, region outside of like counting demo. So we had no idea anything was going on. And we're shocked by, you know, all these battles and liberated areas we knew nothing about, you know, if there could be teams of journalists all over different areas of Myanmar right now doing that same thing we were doing. And there could be reports coming out in the news every night about what's happening in Myanmar, and encouraging people around the world to support this revolution. So I'm hoping the opportunity arises to get help build more awareness like that. And then we're also hoping that this campaign for Karenni can be part of a sustained effort to campaign for other areas across Myanmar, which needs support. So here, near Kern state, where I'm located most of the time where, you know, there's active battles going on also trying to finish the liberation of this area. And then, in the center of Myanmar, the area in Sekine, in Maguey, that I was focused on as part of my online activism before, where I was supporting the above ground protests, which have continued every day since the coup up until the present. While we were in currently, the military occupied a lot of the villages in Yemen and salinity, which have been a stronghold for those continued daily protests. So the leaders of those protests committees, and the participants have lost everything, their homes are being occupied by soldiers. And this has happened for a day or two before, but now for the first time, it's been like two weeks now. So these, you know, I firmly believe that the above ground revolution, and public activism is just as important as the PDFs, especially for building international support. So, you know, we want to use this campaign, to build something sustained to support those type of people as well to support, you know, humanitarian needs of refugees and all other parts of Myanmar. And we're hoping that this is just the first step of that.
Brad 1:33:51
You know, I completely concur with what you're saying, Look, one thing that we have spoken about a lot of times he'll behind the scenes that insight Myanmar, and without sort of network is, is the idea of the information war, and how important it is that the facts be reported. Both because things happening that are not being reported on is a hindrance, and things being reported on that aren't actually happening, is is a major problem, because it drives people to wrong conclusions. And it can it can dissuade people from supporting the revolution. And so we're very conscious of that. And, you know, we do try behind the scenes through through various sorts of networks and ways to try and link people up. So I'm just thinking, Do you think that there is an interest in Karenni to but among different, you know, PDF groups to actually have embedded journalists because I do know that there are a lot of journalists who are trying to get into Myanmar, and are beating their heads against the wall because they're not finding a way in. And I also know that there are a lot of people mm who want their stories told? And can't find anyone who wants to tell that story? So do you? Do you think there's a possibility of of establishing some sort of conduit between these journalists who are passionate and interested in, in telling the stories that need to be told and and the people in Kearney, who are who are fighting in the revolution? Who, who could potentially open that door? And, and and bring those journalists in and show them the realities so that they in turn can show the world the realities?
Michael Sladnick 1:35:32
Yes, absolutely. You know, we talk to the PDS we were with and they said, they want us to bring more journalists. And then if we ever come back, they will, you know, bring us around again, to show them whatever we want to see. And we could have, they were perfectly willing to, to keep showing us more this time, we were just limited by our own time constraints, but they would have brought us up to the most so and PiCon and all the way to the nape Edo front. And even they said, you know, it's possible from Ronny to go to sky. And so he for really want outside journalists to come and see what's happening there. And, you know, like, journalists, you said on the other side, they want to go, but just because they want journalists to come in, journalists want to go, you know, for us going in, we had this comedy of errors where it took three days to get there. And even once we were in Currently, our, we didn't have contact with the people we thought and because other foreigners hadn't come there, at first, they didn't know what to do with us. So you know, it's important to have these connections to make that type of trip and those type of reporting possible. So now that we have that, that's something that I hope I can do to help you know, when this information more get in more information out there about this very important and inspiring global struggle. I
Brad 1:37:10
mean, that's, that's amazing. And hopefully, we can help to link those people. I'm just, you know, even as we're speaking, I'm already reaching out to some people because I know that there is a backlog of, of European journalists well who are trying to get into Myanmar trying to find opportunities to do that. So I think I think this could be this could be incredible. But to sort of move our conversation very suddenly and jarringly into something a little bit more philosophical. You you, as we discussed at the beginning, you have this background as an activist, and you had a focus on activism outside of Myanmar, you you were looking at conflicts revolutions, in fact, in, you know, in the Middle East, and you seem to have a reasonably solid understanding of recent political events, recent sort of popular uprisings around the world. And that gives you the ability to put the Myanmar revolution in a context. And I want to sort of ask you, I know that this can be a difficult question to answer, because it's very open ended. But if if you were to have to look at the Myanmar revolution as a Popular Movement, a struggle for freedom against an oppressive regime, and compare it to other such popular movements against oppression in other countries around the world. Do you find the Myanmar revolution to be particularly different or unusual from the ones that you've seen elsewhere in the world? Does it in your mind? Does it look different? Does it feel different? Is there something about it that that separates it from things that we've seen in in, for example, you know, Egypt and Syria, that those being the two examples we had at the beginning of our discussion? Or do you see that these these movements for freedom and these these popular uprisings, all sorts of hit the same notes and share the same themes?
Michael Sladnick 1:39:22
Yeah, I think the big difference with Myanmar, the spring revolution is that it's built on this decades long democracy movement, which survived this unbroken tradition of resistance through decades under the military dictatorship, even when Myanmar was cut off from the rest of the world. So you know, from starting at the very beginning of the dictatorship, the 1962 uprising, and 1000s of people were killed in the suppression of that, but then the student unions and others always in the know ever gave off, they always continued underground, organizing this current of resistance and preparation for the next struggle. And every decade from 1974 90, Ada 1996 2007, you had these uprisings. And then on the other hand, in the border regions, ethnic minority regions, especially Korean Shan State, kitchen state, you know, the ethnic armed organizations fighting insurgencies for their freedom and self determination. And so the big difference in Myanmar is how it's built off those decades of struggle, those legacies. And when you're on the ground, you can really see up close in a personal way, how big of a difference that makes, you know, when, you know, for example, the driver that brought us past the border, you know, into Karenni, knew the roads had the relationships with the Thai authorities to get there. He's been there active in the border since 1988. He's a veteran of the 1988 revolution. When you had the crackdown happen in the cities, and 2021, and 10s, of 1000s of young people who wanted to fight back and continue participating in the revolution, they were able to run away to areas like current state to fight alongside that, can you or the kitchen fight alongside the Ka. And that's because A, those ethnic groups have fought and defended their liberated areas for decades, and be because of the relationship that democratic activists has built with those groups in the past. And even if, you know, past governments have failed to support those struggles for self determination, going back to ADA to when those students went in, you know, fought alongside the can you those, you know, small beginnings, what was happening on a small scale, then pave the way for this mass participation, to do it on a much larger scale now. And the biggest thing with that strong democratic tradition and, you know, legacy, which is something that you can't, you can't make up for, I mean, that on the practical side, you can't make up for that like, and I ran, I ran as another country in recent years, every few years, there's a big democratic uprising. But when it gets suppressed, it gets smashed, the urban protests are crushed, they don't have these type of safe areas to run away to. And then even more than that, I think the big thing is because of that tradition, people understand what this fight is going to take. So like I was saying, at the beginning, when I first started meeting people from Myanmar online, young people were telling me, this revolution is going to take a long time, it's not going to be easy. But we know what we have to do, and we know that we have to do it. So that type of lesson is something that was gained through all that past struggle and sacrifice. I think that's the big difference with me.
Brad 1:43:43
I mean, that's, that's incredible. And I think that, you know, I've been doing these interviews for I mean, two and a half years now something like that. And I think one of just the most consistent themes that comes up and and that also in the the interviews that I'm not conducting, have come up there as well is this how, how the Myanmar crisis and subsequently revolution are just so special, there's there's no other way to put it, it's just what's going on now. It seems to be that once in a generation event that we're going to be talking about for the rest of our lives, and that the next generation is going to have to study in textbooks because it's just so so different, it breaks the mold. And it's it's, it is going to have reverberations definitely throughout the region, but possibly throughout the world, possibly throughout our understanding of, of politics and society in general. So it's, it's it's always wonderful for me to have the opportunity to hear about it different people's perspectives on on the Myanmar crisis Myanmar conflict like, what? What makes it tick? How does it work? Why does it work? Why do we need to pay attention to that. And your story I think is just you, it absolutely took me by surprise when you when you sent us the sort of resume of what you've been doing. You know, I read through it, I almost couldn't believe what I'm reading it's just it's it's such an incredible accelerated path from from, quote unquote activist, your student activist to actual boots on the ground, let's try to do something, let's make a difference. And let's dedicate ourselves mind, body and soul to, to becoming the person that we need to be in order to achieve that outcome. It's it's it's a story that is inspirational, masked only by the inspiration that that I take from the actual people of Karenni that you've met and that you've spoken to and that you've, you've quoted here, today. So I really want to thank you for coming on, I really want to thank you for sharing your story and for sharing the stories of the people of Karenni. And what they're going through and, and more importantly, than all of that, for actually trying to make a way in which we on the outside are able to meaningfully contribute and, and help to bring about the end of this ongoing crisis.
Michael Sladnick 1:46:36
Yeah, thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak here in Insight Myanmar today, I think I was lucky to be at the right time at the right place, right had this background of activism, and I was looking for something new and during COVID. And it was really, the people I started to meet from Myanmar, who drew me in and encouraged me to participate and their positive example rubbed off on me. So I think there's tons of other people, tons of other activists and people who want to make difference in the world around the world, who if they knew that it was possible to participate and support struggles for democracy and social justice going around, going on around the world like this would be eager to do what I have done. Like this is a new potential with social media to directly communicate with people on the other side of the world involved in this revolution. And to directly support them directly send money to them go through every day, this revolution together with them. I'm I agree with you it, this feels like a really special movement. And I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to meet these incredible people, I can't believe that I you know, have the chance to do that. And I really want to share that and enable and encourage other people to participate like that. So as a closing, you know, just as something I want other people out there to be aware of and thinking about, as I mentioned before, these protests that have been going on, like the you know, the spring revolution is mostly ignored in the international media. When they do focus on it, it's usually about the regime's oppression and atrocities and a minority of the time, if they go beyond that, it's about the fighting. But they're still in the center of the country and other areas like long blonde near Dawei. Near the way, these ongoing mass protests, which are equally brave of people who despite, you know, repeated repression and the risk every time they go out, that they're going to be arrested and shot out and the leaders being actively hunted by the regime continue to protest. So right now, after the truce in northern Shan State, the regime trying to appease China, they are working on reopening the Lepad on copper mines where the workers have been on strike since the coup on the border between Yemen and some Ng and the villages around that mine have really been the strongest centers of this public protests. And they're at a really critical time now with the regime occupying those villages to try to reopen the mind and get business started up again with China. And I think they might also be really worried about the protests focusing Reese mainly on opposition to the conscription law. Because that conscription law is obviously something which has people in the cities, you know, urban youths who fully supported the revolution of the beginning, for through no fault of their own, were in a situation when they felt like they couldn't participate anymore, and did their best to try to get back to normal life. Now with this conscription law, that's all blown up, and they feel like they have no choice but to find some way once again, to participate in some in the in and support the revolution, or else to be forced to fight for the regime. So the fear that these few remaining centers of protests could spread again, even to reignite protests of the cities, you know, the Yemma bin Salman G strike committee and others, public democratic strike committees, which have been leading these protests have now have to take care of refugees from those villages of the populations who are protesting, similar to what we were just talking about, and Karenni with the PDS also having to support refugees there. And at the same time, they are determined to find a way to continue doing political activity and to keep this above ground revolution, public participation, and peaceful demonstrations activism, and finding a way especially for young people and girls, to play a leading role in the revolution for advocate for LGBT rights for the rights of oppressed religious and ethnic groups. So there have been major themes in their protests throughout. This is a really important time, I believe, to support those strike committees, and to get the word out about them. And try now to write articles for the international press to bring awareness to this unknown and important aspect of the spring revolution. So our campaign and Myanmar solidarity page is also doing as much as possible to support the above ground revolution and the protests in Yemen bin Salman Ji and across Myanmar. So I, as a final word, I really encourage people to pay attention to those protests and do whatever you can to get the word out about them and to support them. And I thank you so much again for the opportunity to share my experiences and this message to try to work together to build support for Myanmar.
Host 1:52:51
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode in full. And if you've gotten this far, then you've heard much of what this important guest has to say. And if you found their story of value, please consider taking a further step beyond just being a listener and becoming an active supporter. Any donation you provide is now going to support the democracy movement in Myanmar to help those being impacted by the current crisis. 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 a form currency or transfer method. Your donation will go on to support a wide range of humanitarian and media 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 our nonprofit mission that are Burma. And your donation you give on our insight Myanmar website is directed towards this fun. Alternatively, you can also visit the Better Burma website betterburma.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/betterburma. 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@betterburma.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 alokacrafts.com Any purchase will not only support these artists and communities, but also our nonprofits wider mission. That's aloka crafts spilled A L O K A C R A F T S one word alokacrafts.com Thank you so much for your kind consideration and support.