Transcript: Episode #291: Rage Against the Dying Light
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Host 0:30
For any Burmese language speakers tuning in today, we wanted to let you know that our better Burma mission has launched three Burmese language podcasts, Myanmar, revolutionary tales, dark era of Burma and Myanmar, peace, women and security. These programs can be found on our website as well as on any of your preferred podcast platforms. We invite you to take a listen, but For now, let's get on with this episode.
Brad 2:08
All right, and welcome back. My guest today is a veteran of the United Nations with I believe, some 20 years experience shaspetri has recently published, well, he's published multiple articles, but has recently traveled inside Myanmar has traveled to Karenni, state, and has written about his experiences in an article which is entitled A journey into rebel held Myanmar published on noema, and we will be delving into both the realities on the ground in Myanmar as well as the broader international space and the United Nations more specifically. But before we get into that, Charles, I'd like to thank you very much for joining us and giving us your time and your insights. And I'd like to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself for our audience.
Charles Petrie 2:58
No thank thank you very much. So as you mentioned, my name is Charles Petrie. Yeah. I served 20 years with the UN. But then, before that, also worked with mid Saint frontier, MSF, and then after resigning from the UN in 2010 continued working in conflict and post conflict situations. As you said, I've, I've just come, well, I came out of Myanmar earlier this year, and I went in because I was very interested by sort of the new dynamics that we that are emerging in Myanmar, the new governance dynamics that we'll be discussing in terms of who I am, I think I have had sort of a traditional career within NGOs in the UN in terms of humanitarian aid, humanitarian action, humanitarian operations. But I've also, I've also, I was in Rwanda during the genocide. I was the deputy humanitarian coordinator for the UN and I also was confronted with this notion of evil, you know, an absolute form of, horror, if you want. I also spent two years in the Middle East, based in Gaza, and then, you know, three years as a senior UN official responsible for initiating and maintaining contacts with Congolese rebels. So, so, so my, let's say, the other dimension of my professional development has been trying to get a better sense of absolute horror and what, what brings people to do it, which then brings out the third dimension of my professional development, which is the attempt to get the UN to. Investigate one of its own alleged to have participated in the act of genocide. So I've, I've, and basically that's why I resigned from the UN in 2010 I was the Secretary General's representative in Burundi, and I resigned because this individual had basically that all efforts to try and get this individual to account for his actions, his alleged actions, failed, and the UN was a major cause of that failure. So I I could no longer, I felt I could no longer represent the organization. And I remember waking up one morning, at two in the morning, and realize, or thinking to myself, if I don't resign from the UN today, the day I die, I will resign from the UN. So I resigned from the UN. And then my my involvement in Myanmar. I was the UN representative in Myanmar from 2003 to 2007 got png kicked out of the country by the authorities for supporting the monks. And then, after I'd left the UN in 2010 in 2012 a number of these same authorities would kick me out. Asked me to come back to help facilitate the dialog between the armed groups and the military, which I did, between 2012 to 2015 with a number, I built a team the Myanmar support initiative, with a number of fantastic individuals, and then have and 2015 though, in my view, the whole ceasefire process collapsed and and then subsequently, have been Following Myanmar since the coup, and have been involved, engaged regularly with some of the CDM leaders, and which ultimately led me to spending those five weeks in in Myanmar.
Brad 6:53
I mean, just want to take a look at the slight step back there, because you, I think you're being quite modest when you, when you say you have a sort of regular, normal upbringing through the the NGO United Nations. Well, because, I mean, I'm reading off your Wikipedia page, because I don't know your your life story that closely, unfortunately, but from what I'm seeing, like you were, you were heading up the emergency unit in Sudan. You You were in Afghanistan as as a as a advisor to a pretty senior Afghan minister after, after the initiation of the war against by the United States. So it seems that you have a career that has taken you to some of the most extreme circumstance, like you mentioned Rhonda, you mentioned the Congo. It seems that your career has not been soft. You haven't been dealing with breakdowns in communication. You've been dealing with with genuine crises on an enormous scale. Do Was that intentional on your part? Did you seek out these postings? Did you seek out these situations and circumstances, or did they just sort of follow you somehow?
Charles Petrie 8:13
No, no, I was, I was definitely driven. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I'm, when I say regular. I think there are a number of us who have this sort of career. I think there are different motivations, of course, but no, no, I was after Rwanda. I was definitely driven. I was driven to try to, I mean, in a way for me, you know, I when I arrived in Rwanda in May 94 so just a month after the genocide started and lasted 100 days. I'd already, I'd been involved, as you said, in Sudan, and then I was also in Somalia. And I was in Somalia during that whole Black Hawk Down incident. So I was in Mogadishu for almost a year and a half, and but when I arrived in Myanmar, no, not Myanmar, when I arrived in Rwanda, it was, it was that the dynamics of violence were, were noticeably different, and, and, you know, and, and it was this sort of small political group known as the akazu that unleashed a level of violence that was, you know, unprecedented in a way, where you know where, where you know confrontation between Hutus and Tutsis. I mean, it's frequently seen in that light. I see it much more as a confrontation, as an attempt by a small group who happened to be Hutu majority, who wanted to retain and retain power in the country, and so they unleashed the violence where every Hutu killed was killed for a specific reason. There was some grievance against the individual that contributed to this individual's murder, whether it be. Be having been part of the opposition, being sort of being too soft on the Tutsis, or there could even be venal things like debts or jealousies and the rest. But every Hutu killed was killed for a specific reason, while the Tutsis were killed for just the simple reason that they were on Earth, that they had been born, and that that violence you really felt, you saw the fear you felt, the fear you you you saw the irrationality of the of the barriers, the checkpoints, with with the people manning the checkpoints. It was, you know, and that's that really shocked me, and it's and it drove me, it drove a number of my decisions and and also, you know, number of postings that I actually sought to try and really get a better sense, a better understanding of, you know, being in Rwanda was almost like, you know, violence is violence, and it's awful, and war is awful, and the rest and but, but in a way, there's almost a certain logic to it, you know, a horrible logic, but, but something like, you know, like, like, the violence that was unleashed in Rwanda sort of defied that logic. And so I almost felt like those of us who were in Rwanda at the time were privileged spectators to so we were looking at the bowels of a monster, and that when you stepped out of Rwanda, all of a sudden the veil came back down, and you almost forgot that it existed. So, so, yeah, so, so, Rwanda, yeah, Rwanda, definitely, you know, coming out of Rwanda, I was driven, I was driven by the desire to try and understand what it, what was it that allowed people to do, what, what was done in Rwanda?
Brad 11:59
And I think it's a very interesting and very important point that you raise because you're completely correct. We, those of us on the outside who are not particularly familiar with it. We learn it as the Rwanda genocide was a conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis. We learn it in these very simplistic terms that there are two different conflicting ethnic groups and they don't like each other, and so they're trying to exterminate each other. And we, you know, people who are outside of these conflicts would look, I think, in very simplistic binary terms at the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan would look in the same simplistic terms at conflicts that are happening right now across Congo, would look even at the conflict in the Balkans in very simplistic terms, where we like to simplify things down. We like to say, well, it's this ethnic group and that ethnic group, or it's religious violence and and I think history teaches us that a lot of the the lasting conflicts and instability in the post colonial countries comes from the fact that the British and the French colonial overlords had a tendency to view countries as easily divisible, either by language category or by ethnic category, by religious category, and they didn't actually look at The underlying structures and the underlying tensions and the self identification of different peoples. And, I mean, what you said that it was a predominantly Hutu group doing divine not that it was the Hutus, but it was a predominantly Hutu group. I mean, even that just reminded me of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which is not the same thing as the Pashtun people. They happen to be a majority Pashtun organization. But of course, it's not fair to characterize the conflict in Afghanistan as the Pashtuns don't like the Tajik, even though that is often what it is simplified down to, do you do you find that there is this tendency to to want to seek out some very simple overarching identifier and turn complicated conflicts into a simple binary of this group of people and that group of people. And if you do, why do you think it is that that people do not seem to look for the actual underlying causes and the actual underlying realities and motivations of the conflict. And like to go back to this group doesn't like that group, and that's the reason for the fighting.
Charles Petrie 14:32
Well, I mean, I Yeah, well, I mean, I just to start, I agree. I think there's, there's, there's frequent, you know, these, the tensions that exist in societies, are frequently seen as causes for the violence, rather than a favorable context in which violence can take hold. I And that's where. You know, like, like you other, other contexts. You know your your you know you have for me every ultimately, everything's about politics. And it's, it's you know, and it's political and a political act to to strike a match and like the fire, which actually, to be honest, we're seeing now in the UK with these violent anti immigrant protests, you know, and individuals that have been identified, some of them living in Cyprus, who are, you know, lighting the fire through social media. So, so I think there's, you know, there's a free frequently, the internet. You know, the those involved in these contexts confuse cause and and context. In these situations, cause and context, then, then your, your broader question. I well, I think, I think, I think there's, I didn't, well, there's sort of a number of different factors. I think there's the lack of intellectual rigor that a lot of policy makers bring to a situation simplification, and simplification makes it also a lot easier to write about. I think, you know, on the other hand, on the other side of the same coin, there's also a tendency to to believe in fairy tales. So so, you know, on the other side, and that will get to, I think when we look at Myanmar, I think Myanmar suffered from the fairy tale delusion of the West, but no. Otherwise, I think it's Yeah. It's just sort of a tendency to simplify. Simplify also because it makes it a lot easier to write the papers, the short papers for for, for senior officials who need to take decisions, and and, and also the fact that one, you know, one, one has it. It's, I'm sort of almost rambling to your your to as an answer to your question, because it's also, you know, that the tendency of good, bad, bad guy, good guy, bad guy, good, good group, bad group. So, I think there are a whole sort of, basically, I would say lazy. It's a lazy approach to analyzing a context and violence, you know, the violence.
Brad 17:34
But So you've been personally involved in a very large number of of, I mean, this is, if you ask me to write down a list of the most horrific conflicts of you know, the last 3040, years. I mean, you've, you've been at most of the conflicts at the top of the list, if not all of the conflicts at the top of the list. I mean, okay, maybe like you weren't in Tigray or something like that, but you you've been involved in these, in these really, really extreme situations, so you would have that inside view. And I think this is something that that we don't get to understand enough. We do occasionally see media being called out for oversimplifying, and we sometimes see parody media writing reports on Western political changes and Western political developments in the style that Western media use to talk about developments in non western countries to say, well, this is what it looks like, if you simplify the American election cycle down to a sectarian conflict between, you know, Republicans and Democrats, or something like this. But I'm wondering, would you be in a position to say that this type of reporting has actually contributed tangible harm, either in terms of inflaming tensions or even in terms of dissuading potential supporters, potential allies, from engaging with the crisis, because it paints the crisis in a light that does not make it appealing to those people who would otherwise be in a position to help.
Charles Petrie 19:19
Yeah. Well, I think Yeah. I think all of the points you make are correct. I think, you know, the media and media is sort of continues now. I mean, it's, it is, you know, there's sort of the conventional wisdom approach to a Western conventional wisdom approach to many situations that, and then, of course, you have interests. I mean, I don't know if it it, I think I'm, I'm, I don't know if it sort of does harm. I think it definitely complicates. And through complication, of course, introduces a level of harm, but, but I think the real harm is, is, is the nature of the violence and the suffering inflicted on. On, on populations, but, yeah, no, I think there. I mean, it's, it's basically, you know, the way I see it now. And it's not in a jaded, cynical way. I see it as a, you know, that's the way things are. That's, this is the real world, and it's a real world. And I guess the one thing we need to be willing to let go is the notion that Father Christmas exists, or that the Seventh Cavalry will always come in. So this notion that the press will always be independent and objective, that truth will always, will always triumph, and then ultimately there will be justice. These are all, I mean, fantastic concepts and fantastic beliefs to have. And I think, you know, we, many of us, have them, but, but I've come to the point in my life where, where I actually think they're they're not correct, or they it's not, they're not, they're not Givens that if you want them, you have to fight for them, and you have to stand up for them as an individual.
Brad 21:09
And it's not just the media, then, because let's sort of turn to your Myanmar experiences, as I'm sure we're about to get into the even the United Nations, as large an organization as it is, and as dedicated to, you know, truth and facts as it is, does sort of suffer from this, this problem as well. So you you refer to it as being PNG, and I love that there is a shorthand for this in in diplomatic circles. I'd never heard that before, but I'm presuming that's a that's a short name for persona non grata. So you were, you were expelled as a diplomat. You were expelled from Myanmar by the military regime in 2007 for supporting the monks during the Saffron Revolution. Can you just share with us that story.
Charles Petrie 22:02
Yeah, yeah. Actually, you know, in a way, of course, I know I, I was expelled. Basically, I was expelled from Young from Myanmar for positioning the UN with with the monks. But actually, I was expelled from Myanmar for supporting a younger generation of military in Myanmar. I mean, when, when, when, when I was so. So I was in Myanmar from 2003 to 2007 and, and it became clear that, you know, the Myanmar military, they, they operate in a very sort of systematic manner and, and at the time, they had what they called the seven step roadmap, and it became clear that a new generation of senior officers were being groomed to take over the country. That way, that the tan Shui and his group were looking at retirement they want, they needed. They needed to be assured that whomever took over would would protect their, their you know that their, their their old age, their their future, their gains, and so they, they were you. You really had a sense that there was a new generation of of officers that were being groomed to take over. And then, then and I tried to maintain contact with as many of the leadership as I could, try and explain to them that the situation in Myanmar, at least on a socio economic sense, was was dire. And of course, human rights sense was dire. And so when, when the revolt happened. And basically what triggered the monks revolt was the dramatic increase in fuel prices. And specific, so the specifically sort of the 500% increase in compressed natural gas, in the price of compressed natural gas, which was significant because all of the public transport in the urban centers were run, the busses were run on compressed natural gas, so overnight, the fares doubled, and the people just couldn't take the busses anymore. There, you know, they were so, so vulnerable economically, and so the monks went into the streets, and basically their message to the military is, stop insulting the people. You know, they can't take it anymore. And, and, and they said that, you know, they knew it because, on the one hand, their arms, the donations going to the monasteries were significantly decreasing. But secondly, all of a sudden, they were receiving a lot of kids in their monastic school, so, so, so, and for a while, and it shocked, it shocked the military, because one of the pillars of their legitimacy had always been their faith, their Buddhist faith, so that the monks would turn against the military, or would actually first go into the streets. Was was a shock. And. And, you know, it took a while because it was really complicated, but at one point, the military, the SBDC, at the time, find, and found an opening to attack the monks and and they did. And it was very, very violent repression. And and during that whole time, I would go see the the generals and the people I I, you know, the relationship, or the people I developed a relationship with, and I would tell them, you know, actually, listen to the monks. You know, what they're saying is not false. And we've been trying to tell you this for at least the last five years, that I've been in country and and, and, of course, the violence, the violence, and then, you know, it kept on progressing. And then I, at one point, I think it was towards the end of September, I realized that the violence wasn't going to stop anytime soon, and that I would be I would find myself on the 24th of October, which was UN Day, I would find myself reading a speech, the Secretary General, speech. So speech that would that had been would be given to me from New York that and I knew that the speech was about global warming. So I would be reading a speech on UN Day on global warming in the midst of some of some, some sort of, you know, in the midst of the word horrific, but I don't want to use the word horrific too many times, but, but in the midst of of, of an extremely tense and violent situation. And so I wrote to the Secretary General's office at the end of September, and I said, you know, very happy to read a speech, but would it be possible to place just a line for us on, you know, peaceful protests, or something on the vulnerability of populations, or something like that? And the response I got was no, because if we do it for you, whereas in if we do it for Myanmar, we'll have to do it for many other countries in the future. So they said no, but, but I still felt, you know, I felt that the 24th of October was going to be a critical moment and and as much as it was essential for the UN to be seen to stand on the right side of injustice. It was equally critical for the UN not to be silent, because my fear was, if we were to remain silent, we would be undercutting the, you know, the confidence of this younger generation of officers who I felt understood that what was happening was was was very it was not good. So we would be undermining, no not undercutting. We would be undermining the position of those military, senior military officers who are uncomfortable with what was happening. And so with a with a few, a few colleagues and friends, I we decided that we wrote a speech, and I presented the speech to the rest of the UN system in Myanmar. And I told the UN that I, you know, my colleagues, un country team. I told them that I plan to read the speech after the Secretary General speech and and I could do it two ways. I could if, if all of them stood by the speech, which was, you know, it was no, it was a sort of, already a collective effort, because I wrote it with a few colleagues, if, if all of the UN heads could, could stand by the speech were were with the speech. I would read it on behalf of the UN system. But if any of them were uncomfortable, or, you know, and and did not want to be associated, it wasn't a problem, I would you read it as the UN resident humanitarian coordinator. I also told them that I would clear the speech with headquarters. And so then I gave them a night to think it over, and the next morning, they came back, and the whole of the country team stood by the speech. So I read it. I read it on UN Day. I read the Secretary General speech, and then I read the that speech. And of course, I hadn't cleared it with New York, because it was so clear that New York would never accept it. So what I did at the time, which was very interesting, well, I think you can no longer do it. But at the time, there was a, you know, on the the the email, you could actually send a message to all UN staff throughout the world. There was a little function that you could tap into and do that. So I wrote to the Secretary General, telling him that I'd written, I'd, you know, of course, read. His speech, and then I'd read another one, and I I included a copy of the speech. I was pretty sure I was going to get fired for what I'd done. So so, so that's why I decided I might as well, you know, share the this moment with with everybody, and within half an hour, there was a response from one of the most senior UN officials, who wrote back and said, you know, this was the proudest moment of her life to be associated with an organization that was willing to stand up for, for, for, for what was correct and so and the Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon. Ban Ki Moon was a really interesting person. I mean, I think he had an intrinsic understanding of what the UN represented was, because he was South Korean. He had benefited from the UN's support when he was a young child during the Korean War. And he also, he also accepted and and congratulated me, actually, for for having read that speech. So there was, I mean, there were others within the UN who felt that I had, you know, I had committed the ultimate crime that this bureaucrat should not, you know, should not get involved in, in, in, you know, should not stand up in this way that it wasn't our role, that we were representatives of we were there to serve governments. And, you know, Pata tea, patata, but, but the but, the main point is that, yeah, the Secretary General stood by and stood by me and and I wasn't fired.
Brad 31:45
But so this, this thing, comes to the question that I posed to you in our previous discussion, that, how can it be that you have an organization where everyone all the way up to the Secretary General, himself, all of the important people in the organization from from what you're saying, not only did not punish you for what you have done, but actually said that they were proud that you did what you did. They were proud to be associated with it. They thought that it was the morally right thing to do, and they thought that it was in line with the ethos of the organization, and yet you were not able to secure permission ahead of time, because it feels like everyone that you're talking about wants your type of action, your objective, direct call out to dictatorial regimes, to repressive systems, to be a thing that happens. They want these leaders. They want these dictators, they want these military regimes to be called out by the United Nations publicly. But they don't seem to be comfortable when they're saying, if we have to do it for Myanmar, we would have to do it for these other countries. The obvious rejoinder to that is, then, why don't you, like if all of these countries, if you recognize that their situations are so dire that they should be called out publicly, why is the United Nations not doing that?
Charles Petrie 33:09
I think, I think they're, they're sort of, they're two. You know when, when you're in the UN there are two schools of thought as to what the UN represents and what the UN should do. So you have one school of thought, which is that the UN and the Secretary General is actually nothing more than the administrator of a world body, and that, you know, and that, and so. So the role of the Secretary General and the role of the UN is to serve states, because the states are coming together, and the UN is nothing more than the Secretariat to a state centric structure. And then you have another school of thought in the UN, which is that the UN actually is there to promote the charter that the role of the UN is very much the promoter, the protector, the projection of the UN charters. So they're very, very strong principles. I think, as an institution, the dominant philosophy is the first and so, you know, and that goes all the way up, you know, the whole realpolitik. It leads to many jaded UN officials, but when the second is done in, you know, but, but when the second is done, and it doesn't necessarily cause, you know, overwhelming damage to the institution, or there isn't overwhelming pushback from from, from, from the member states, and specifically the permanent five. Then all of a sudden, of course, it's welcomed, because it's it. It feeds this sense that the UN is more than just a secretariat. What I found in the. When, in terms of these, these two philosophies, I found, the higher you higher up you go in the system, the more you develop this sort of realpolitik approach to states and to, you know, to international world order, while at the middle level, you know, at the lower and middle level, that's where you have a dominant you have the greatest commitment to the second, which is this sense of the UN is actually the guarantor of the UN Charter and the promoter of the UN Charter. So that's, I think, in sort of a structured way. And then I think the second problem that confronts the UN today is, is in a very perverse way, it's, and of course, you know, I benefited from it, it's, it's the advantages that are given to UN stuff, the salaries, the you know, the education, free education for children into university. You know that all of those, the and there, you know, and and the fact that most people in the UN know that they would not be able to get the same level of remuneration and advantages outside of the UN. So then you and you know you have, if you take the first view that you know the UN is nothing more than the secretariat that is actually serving the member states, and that you you actually don't want to upset the member states. And then you take young people who, the higher they go, you know, the more, the better the remuneration and the advantages, you know, the more they realize that they're not going to get the same thing outside, the more they fall into basically the trap of the golden cage. And I think we're seeing that even more now, where, you know the UN as a multilateral organizations have lost a lot of influence in in the world order, the UN is is has a huge financial crisis. So these are all realities that are that are not incentivizing individuals to take risk within the UN because the cost of taking, the personal cost of taking risk, is real.
Brad 37:34
I mean, I suppose I just picked up on a thing like you. You mentioned the p5 that the permanent five members of the Security Council, and you were saying, like, the accolades come in after it turns out that you didn't ruffle any feathers. Are you? Are you suggesting that even though you got all these, these people from the United Nations all the way up to the Secretary General, saying, Oh, we're so happy. We're so proud that you did this. If, for example, Russia and China had come back and said, Well, we protest this, and we demand action. And you know, we think this is a perversion of the of the UN mission. Do you think that case, those same people would have turned around and said, yes, you're right. This person needs to be censured. This person needs to be removed from his position, and the United Nations needs to issue an apology on this issue. Do you think that reproach from those sort of heavy hitters within the United Nations would have changed the response that you received?
Charles Petrie 38:40
No, not Ban Ki Moon, not the Secretary General of the time, because I, you know, through other occasions also, I found that it was somebody, he was somebody who, really, you know, as I said, had a very strong sense of what the UN should be. But, but otherwise, yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, within, you know, there were very, very senior, senior officials in the UN who actually thought that the what I'd done was was, you know, was, was a crime of Les majeste, and that it shouldn't be done. I mean, the example also is, you know, I was kicked out, and then my replacement was brought back in, was brought in, and he started playing golf with the generals. And that a lot of the people that that had, that had worked with me, in in in Myanmar, who were very much sort of the backbone of our attempt, were actually sidelined. So, yeah, definitely. I think if, well, I think so the answer is no, in that context, because of Ban Ki Moon, I don't think he would have succumbed, but yes, generally.
Brad 39:54
Interesting, interesting. And so this, I think this brings up. The the fundamental question of the United Nations as an organization, because if we have this situation where you say, Well, okay, the United Nations exists not to represent the best interest of the 8 billion people who exist on Earth today. And there may be 10 billion people who are going to exist on earth within the next 50 years, in the next 100 years, and trying to leave the planet in a in a decent condition for them. But rather, the United Nations represents the 193 member states. What happens if you look around those member states and you realize, Dear God, the majority of these member states are actually either officially or unofficially dictatorial or pro dictatorial, or are trending towards taking away civil liberties. Are corrupt, are deeply problematic and are not the types of countries that are particularly interested in calling out military dictatorships. Are interested in calling out corruption. Are interested in calling out bad faith actors. It's not just that you have a very large number of countries that are relatively small, relatively obscure from the Western eye, where this type of behavior in government is, is, you know, standard. But also we have countries like Russia, countries like China, who seem to routinely skirt un attempts to hold certain countries to to a certain standard. You know, China very famously continued trading with Chad when everybody else agreed that we should not do that. And and of course, China used the opportunity to undercut the market value and make a make bank for themselves, but kept the regime in charge partially afloat. I'm hyper simplifying, but my point is, if you look at the members of the United Nations, and you say, if a very large number of the members, including powerful members of the United Nations, are themselves regimes which are either corrupt or dictatorial or overbearing and fundamentally opposed to democratization and progress and civil liberties, and the United Nations is then viewed by its own staff as an organization which should limit itself only to serving the interests of those member states. Do you get to this point where you look at the United Nations and you say, this, this entire enterprise is pointless. There is, there is no reason to continue with this, because it does not serve the fundamental goals that were originally there when the United Nations was was created in the wake of World War Two.
Charles Petrie 42:39
Yeah. Well, one I, I, I would say very strongly that, no, the United Nations is not pointless. I mean, and in a way, and specifically because of what you, you said at the end, I think one should never forget that the United Nations came out of two horrific World Wars. You know, the United Nations being sort of re, re transformation, in a way, of the League of Nations. So, so, so, I think, and it was, it was, it's a product of commitment by a number of enlightened leaders to try and, well, it's, it's, it's a, it's a product of an understanding of a number of leaders that allowing, you know, national interest, to define international agendas. You know, allowing a Darwinian form of national international world order was not, was not very good. Did not make, you know, was not very good for peace. Did not. Was not sort of the best recipe for stability, and that there needed to be somebody that brought together nations, that set standards and and that was the United Nations. To come back to what you're saying, I would frame the current situation slightly differently, I think, or I would pose the question differently. And the way I would pose it is, what happens when the majority of, well, the p5 and and sort of the powers, you know, the big powers on the world stage, what happens when they no longer consider multilateral, a multilateral approach, or a body like the United Nations is being relevant in the achievement of their own goals? You know what happens when, when you have the RE establishment of a Darwinian World Order, which is what we see now? Well, well, then what happens is that the UN is confronted with a huge challenge of relevance and really has to fight very, very hard to claim a space and its leadership needs to position the UN, you know, in the most aggressive manner in. Um needs to position the UN in the most aggressive manner on specific issues in order to be able to get some level of relevance for the UN. But what? What is the state of the UN today in this Darwinian world order, the UN's basically irrelevant.
Brad 45:21
Because it was just something that I wanted to follow on, that I think that it's it could potentially be a little bit worse, even than what you're describing, because it feels to me that certain countries have an approach where they look at the United Nations and you're talking about dialog, right? You're talking about this alternative to might makes right, which, which, I think is sort of what you're what you're hinting at with your your Darwinian politics. It seems to me that certain countries have this attitude that, well, I can just do things, and the United Nations will use dialog. And what dialog is wonderful for is stopping the people who are trying to control my actions from actually directly getting engaged, directly taking action and directly preventing what I'm doing. So I get the sense that certain big fish are in a position where, and again, I always come back to Russia and China. And I know it's not entirely fair, because they're p5 members and all that, but it feels to me that and the United Nation, the United States, is also very much, I think, in this category, and with regards to certain actions that it has taken, where they say like, well, the United Nations is going to sit and it's going to debate and it's going to talk and is going to talk about how wonderful it is that we have diplomatic avenues. And in the meantime, these countries are doing the things that they're doing, until they become a feta complete. And then by the time the United Nations is done talking, well, it's already too late to do any action, even if they do pass a resolution to take action on the issue, like I may be looking at it completely incorrectly. This may not be a situation that, in your experience, genuinely arises, but the feeling that I sometimes get is very much this, that for a lot of countries, they want the United Nations to not fail, because they see it as a valuable stalling tactic to prevent other countries from taking action, because they can say, oh, but go to the United Nations and file a formal complaint, and by the time that's time that's done, it's too late.
Charles Petrie 47:23
Yeah. I mean, you were, you were, you were sort of qualified that initial thought with I see the situation. I see a worse situation. I start my response by telling you, I wish what you were saying was true. I think that's a better situation than the one we're actually in. And one we're actually in is it's totally, I mean, who gives a who gives anything? I mean, the UN can talk as much as it was, I think what we've seen, especially, you know, between, you know, we've, we've seen, I mean, of course, you know, we've seen the emergence of, yeah, of might makes right and and this, and, you know, and this has been going on, maybe, maybe, you could say, a point, or maybe around 2016 you know, when some of the major countries, you Know, had not sort of populist type governments taking over, and, and, and so, yeah, mid, mid, 2000 you know, 2000 Yeah, 1415, but then I think since Ukraine, and since Gaza, I think there's, there's a complete, Yeah, there's a complete so, so, from 216, the rest, you know, then you're right, you know. Then the UN. People talked about the UN, basically trying to find ways of either manipulating or skirting the UN in terms of the embarrassment that it could cause. But, but since, since, well, since, since the seventh of October, I think we've, we've, you know that that's which, which comes on top of Ukraine and the war in Ukraine, this, this sense of double standards, The sense of the erosion of a rules based world order has meant that, you know, the UN, yes, no, I don't think anybody, anybody's too concerned by what's being discussed in the UN. I mean, these key, these key actors are, are not really concerned by by what the discussions are that are going on in the UN.
Brad 49:41
And so turning, turning a little bit more specifically to the Myanmar situation. I know that you it came up in an interview that you conducted with irawadi, specifically the RTP the responsibility to protect. And that was something that you yourself noted in. An interview, the people were protesting for there were a lot of protest signs early in 2021 asking specifically for RTP to be invoked. And and I think a very, very, very, very strong case can be made that Myanmar qualified, and that responsibility to protect should have been invoked, and as we know, it was not. And you the title of that interview, as it was published, is the UN has failed the people of Myanmar, which is a pretty, pretty intense title. I don't know whether you or not you were involved in crafting that title, but it's a very intense statement to make. So I'm wondering you as having been inside the UN looking at the issue of Responsibility to Protect, looking at the issue of saying this is a country in crisis where a civilian population is being violently and lethally subjugated by an illegitimate military regime that has seized power in violation of its own constitution and is murdering civilians indiscriminately in in such a situation, and the civilian population is begging for international intervention to help them in such a situation. Do you feel that the United Nations has the the legal and operational legitimacy and capacity to take action, and more importantly, do you think that it has the cultural and political clout to actually do something in a situation like this, or are they too afraid of repercussions from Other countries?
Charles Petrie 51:39
Yeah. Okay, well, there's sort of the multiple, multiple levels of answers. I mean, the first is RTP. I think the, you know, I think we during the post Cold War period, you know, from from the early, late 80s, early 90s on, you know, I think there was, I mean, there was, there was a genuine attempt to to to push, and, you know, promote values of protection of the individuals and instruments to protect The individuals, sort of a sort of, yeah, a human, humane, humanitarian, human rights agenda. And r 2p was one of the instruments that was put in place and but R 2p has three components to it. You know, it has, it has, of course, the interventionist component, which is the last one. But then it has two other components which are much more. The first is working with, with local governments, local authorities, local actors, to get them to understand the need, to address what's going through, what's happening. You know, capacity building, reinforcing. And then the second component, which is to work with, with regional bodies and neighboring states to put pressure and to to to sort of encourage, you know, governments and authorities to act differently, and then the interventionists, but, but I think in a way, after the end of the Cold War, what there was much of what was presented and pushed was was sort of was Western dominated. I think there was a certain level of arrogance from us on the west, on the rights or the goodness of what we were pushing through, and in terms of RTP, and this arrogance led to RTP, the actions, or the invocations of RTP, being very much focused on this last interventionist bit, as we saw in Libya and so in that and other areas, in terms of rhetoric and that, I think, undermined the value of the tool, because it was seen by non western powers as as just another form of Western intervention. It was a way for the West to expand its influence, and that's where, you know when when, and that's the world we've come into. I think we need on the west to understand, you know, we need to accept and to introduce a high level of humility in our understanding of our position in the world, and the understanding we need to understand that there are other forms of other philosophies, other ways of viewing social interaction, or societies, we are very much focused on the rights of an individual other societies are much more focused on the community and the responsibility of the individual within the community. See, you know, so there are different philosophies, and we need to try and understand that, for me, the horror of or the sadness that these young cdmers That you know, raising the RTP banners, you know, for me, the sadness of that act was the fact that there were so many Western politicians and government officials who were also invoking our 2p and it was so incredibly disingenuous, because they knew that there would be no intervention. And yet, you know, it was, it was, again, this sort of feel good sense that we seem in the West to want and so it was a feel good yeah, or to PES Yes, but, but they knew that it wasn't going to happen, that it wasn't going to be such an intervention. And that's, I think that's the first failure of the West, is the of the international community. But the West is where we're not we're not honest enough in telling groups and and people what, what they can genuinely expect from from from the international community, the the title, you know, the UN has failed. Myanmar actually, in a way I thought was slightly misrepresenting the discussion, because there was a lot of discussion, and it was only at the end that I made the point, which is standby, that the UN has failed Myanmar and and I think in part, the UN has failed Myanmar structurally. You know, there has not been an in country head of the UN since the coup. Since even before the coup, the individual who was the UN resident coordinator, fantastic individual, was sick. He was receiving treatment outside, and there was no attempt to replace him at the beginning of the coup. And so since then, the UN in country has been leaderless, and so the representative of the UN body is always an individual from an agency, and that can't work in a very complex and volatile political situation, because you're asking the head of the UN to take positions on behalf of the whole system, on the on the part, you know, take courageous positions that could actually undermine the the operations of the agency he or she represents. And that is asking a lot, but it's asking even more when you consider that this person's career and advancement is based on the agency's performance and however courageous the UN takes what agencies really look at is funding and how much, how much the Agency is actually able to deliver. So I think, I think that, you know, one of the tragedies of the UN is the fact that the UN country team in Myanmar is basically orphaned. They have no leader. They have no, yeah, they have no Yeah. They have no leader, and they're not getting the direction from New York. New York. New York is, is, you know, there they there is not, there is no commit, senior level commitment in New York to really focus on what needs to be done in Myanmar, what needs to be done for the UN in Myanmar in order for the UN to be able to operate. And I can say this with great confidence, because Ban Ki Moon, when I resigned from the UN in 2010 and 2010 Ban Ki Moon invited me back 2012 13 to do of the a review of the UN's failure in Sri Lanka and and, and, you know, and and and the review came out of the Ban Ki Moon. When the Sri Lankan war finished, Ban Ki Moon set up a panel of independent experts, world renowned experts, to look at what had happened and to advise him on what needed to be done. And so the panel did, they looked and they submitted a report to Ban Ki Moon. But they with the report, they submitted a seven page confidential letter, half of the seven pages, so half a page of the seven pages was the panel telling Ban Ki Moon, you, you, you're going to have to fight hard to implement the findings of this report, because there's going to be tremendous resistance from the Sri Lanka government. I mean, they're, they're going to go really, really hard against you to the same. And half other pages had to do with the UN's performance in Sri Lanka, and what these high level, these are world renowned judges, very, very high level international experts who said that what they saw of the UN's performance in Sri Lanka was probably one of the worst that has ever been undertaken by the UN and they said that they would have included no that it was so bad that they decided it not to include it in their report, because they feared that it would detract from the core of the report, which had to do with the Sri Lankan government's responsibility. But they encouraged Ban Ki Moon to undertake an internal review of what the you of the UN's failure in order to draw some really, really critical lessons.
And Ban Ki Moon asked me to to lead that that review, and we produced a report that is considered one of the three most damning reports ever written on the UN and the recommended. And for me, you know, one of the shock, shocking aspects of of the work was realizing that the majority of the people and the majority of senior leadership in the UN did not see protection as being their responsibility. And so, so the first recommendation that was given to Ban Ki Moon is to reaffirm the primacy of the UN Charter to UN staff, that protection is something that concerns all staff. And then, then, you know, then we, you know, there were a lot of individuals who did some really bad things in a lot of senior leaders who did some really bad things in Myanmar, in in Sri Lanka. And so at the time we were going to write the report, we sort of hesitated, do we focus on individual failure? But then we realized that actually, a individuals were allowed to fail because of this, you know, systemic nature of of the organization that allowed it. So then, then we focused on the systemic failure of the UN in such situations. And what, what Kate, what was written in the report was that, you know, when you have a crisis like like Sri Lanka, like Myanmar today, the Secretary General has to immediately name a senior UN official responsible for managing the crisis, because what you need, you know, the UN is made up of many different components. You have the political, humanitarian, human rights development. And what you have in the UN when you don't have the senior level leadership is you have competing strategies, and you have strategies and approaches that actually end up negating the effect of each other or undermining each other. So you need a senior UN official, responsible for one the elaboration of a system wide strategy for the country, but then responsible for calibrating the responses. So you need you at a certain time, you need to push the Human Rights point up front. But it doesn't mean that the other efforts aren't done. You find ways of calibrating, calibrating that and yeah, and that, you know that that right now. I think that's the that's the fundamental failure right now of the UN's response in Myanmar is that there has not been ownership, has not been claimed at the senior level in in New York, and as a result, you can have a situation where the UN country team is orphaned, where they, you know, where there is no there's no leader, even in country to take difficult positions, Because those who are in the, you know, interim positions are taking difficult positions on the bar part of the UN that will undermine the work of the agency they represent. So, so they're not going to do it.
Brad 1:04:16
But I mean it, it's a little bit disheartening what you're saying, because you're talking about, you know, the you were asked to undertake an investigation, you you wrote this very damning report about the United Nations failures and and I think that's very admirable. And I think that any organization that takes itself seriously has to be critical of itself. It. It has to recognize that it is not perfect. It has mistakes. It has to accept those mistakes and try to rectify them. But the issue to me is the United Nations. It It feels to me that the United Nations has been down that road a great number of times before. I mean, you yourself, were present in Somalia, you were present in Rwanda and. Um, you know, the United Nations failure, instead of an Itza comes to mind there. There seem to have been a lot of conflicts around the world where un un intervention did not prevent, uh, terrible things from occurring, where possibly even peacekeepers were responsible for doing, uh, criminal actions. And there seem to be a lot of cases where, you know, Liberia comes to mind for me, where a peacekeeper presence pauses a conflict, but the everybody understands in the country that those peacekeepers cost money, and their mission expires at a certain date, and at that date, many of those peacekeepers, or all of those peacekeepers, are going to be withdrawn, and at that point, the conflict can simply continue where it left off previously. So no lasting stability has been brought to the country. It just paused the conflict temporarily. So it feels to me like the United Nations would have gone through this process a large number of times, and would have critically had to evaluate, why did we fail to prevent these things, like, if we have all these resources, if we have all of these countries, we have, you know, all this, all this legitimacy and authority and respect, why did we fail to prevent these terrible things from occurring? Do you feel when you were doing your report that you were covering new ground, and it was mostly new mistakes that had been made that had not been made by the United Nations before. Nobody could have predicted them. Or do you feel that a lot of what you were covering in your report was lessons that could have been and should have been learned from previous incidents over the last, you know, half century of the UN's operations and had just not actually been implemented.
Charles Petrie 1:06:43
Yeah, definitely the latter. Yeah, no, there's nothing, nothing new, I think, to make the situation. I mean, you say, of course, you know that that's that. Listening to me say these things is disheartening, but, but I would say, you know, this is, this is the real world. It's I, what I'm sharing is, is a reality check. So, but, but what makes it worse is that in you remember that? So I did the Sri Lanka report, and then in 2017 19, you, you had the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar and and another sort of failure of the UN then, and an exceptional individual, Gert Rosenthal, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, very, very distinguished person, was commissioned by this Secretary General to do a review of of what had happened in in Myanmar on the ringa crisis. And basically what he wrote was, actually, I don't need to write a report. The only thing you need to do is to read the Sri Lanka report, because it's exactly the same systemic failure of the organization. So, yeah, no, no, it's very serious. And yeah, yeah. I mean, you know it's, it's, yeah, but, but it's, it's, I mean, yeah, I mean one, one should be shocked, one should be outraged, and one should want to do something about it. Because I really think that you know what, you're right. It's all a series of consecutive failures, you know, and but that, I think, is the real world you know, the the human nature, the you know, the egoism, the and sort of, the you know, strength makes right, or might makes right. But one should never forget that what the UN, even in its current state, the UN represents the illusion of what should be, you know, the illusion of of what should be, the moral standards, you know, of, you know, international moral standards. And I, you know, I say, maybe I say illusion, but that's a little bit like your disheartened thing. I think, I think we should, we should, you know, there is the sense as long as, as long as there's the UN you and I can have a discussion like this, because as long as there's the UN you're going to be horrified by the fact that there isn't a more ethical, more morally, morally supported intervention. You know that there isn't sort of something better. If there was no un, there would be no reason for us to have this discussion. So I, and that's for me, comes to the point that we have to save the UN. You know, there has to be, you know, there has to be a collective there has to be collective action. To get the UN to to to to set itself at the correct moral level, moral status.
Brad 1:10:12
And I Yeah, and I definitely get that. I want to also focus within the scope of what the United Nations has been doing. I want to look at article 99 as as that arose at the end of last year. And I know that you've also described this as a particular I know. I know when I'm just piling onto the United Nations right now, and I promise that I'm going to pile to individual nations after this. I don't. I don't want it to seem like I hate on the UN party, but, but, but I do. I do think that this is also a very salient point that should be, that should be brought up. Can you talk us through what Article 99 actually does?
Charles Petrie 1:10:53
Yeah. I mean, when we discussed it before, I mean the point I was, I was raising with Article 99 is how it was a missed opportunity for the Secretary General to position the UN at a higher moral level. Basically, Article 99 is an article that allows the the Secretary General to convene an exceptional meeting of the SEC of the Security Council when he believes that the that there's an there's a threat to international peace and security, that the world order is being threatened, and he very, very correctly triggered, and it's only been, you know, triggered seven or eight times in the history of the Un so it's a very, very, you know, little used instrument. So when the Secretary General triggered article 99 it was a very, very significant moment and, and this was the moment when he could have made an impassioned plea for, you know, for what was happening to world order. You know where. You know we, you know the fact that we are looking at, you know the emergence of the double standards, the notion, when you look at you response to Ukraine, local response to Gaza. How, how, how there was a growing sense of double standards emerging. How already then, you know, the rules based order was not, was was eroding. There was increasingly, you know, we were entering a world where there, where there was no, you know, where, where international rules, where, where we're being flouted. You know that that international instruments that were there to help create, you know, stability and protect where we're being ignored. So he could have made a speech that that would have focused very, very strongly on those elements. And to say that was, you know, that in already and in December, it would have had huge impact. You know, that was the risk to international peace and security. Instead, he made reference to those elements, but he, he, he basically enveloped them in a presentation of the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the risks that were that were being faced by the population in Gaza, which was very correct, but for me it was, it was a missed opportunity. You know, in a way, why? Why convene article 99 if you're going to give a humanitarian briefing that your, you know, Martin Griffiths, who was the head of, you know, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, could have, just as well have given so so it was, it was a huge missed opportunity. I think what probably influenced the Secretary General or his entourage, is how, how strongly the Israelis had hit him at the beginning of the conflict, I think, in October, November, and how they really targeted him and targeted the UN and as a result. And I guess, you know, a number of other member states where of the permanent five were, were very uncomfortable with the Secretary General, you know, raising, you know, raising the visibility of the implications of what was happening. And they put, probably put a lot of pressure on him to water down his his speech when he made it in December, which is, which is really an incredible shame, because this was really the moment for the Secretary General and the UN to stand up firm and to say very, very strongly, you know, this is, this is what was this is the risk to the world. This. Is the way the world is going, and it would have almost been prophetic, because it's exactly where we are right now. You know, we're all waiting. I'm talking to you from from Amman Jordan. We're all waiting for an Iranian response to an assassination, Israeli assassination, and we're all waiting with fear that this is going to trigger, you know, a regional conflict. So, so had he made that very, very strong statement in December, he would have positioned the UN at a very, very high level in terms of, you know, define, defining what were the moral and ethical standards that the international community should be living up to.
Brad 1:15:51
And it's it feels that this comes back to the phrase that you were using before, which is the fairy tale of the West. And I'm trying to sort of grasp it, because in some instances you seem to be saying, well, it's a fairy tale, and we have to be realistic, and we have to understand that the world as it exists today does not have these white knights. It does not have actors, whether they're national actors or whether they're super national actors who genuinely are willing to sacrifice and to take a stand on the same principles that they give speeches about and that they claim to be champions of, but simultaneously, you seem to be sort of saying that the United Nations should lean into the fairy tale and should say, well, But this is the world as it ought to exist, and this is the moral standard that we ought to have, even if the United Nations doesn't necessarily have the power and the means to enforce it directly, it should at the very least lean into the the image to say, well, this is the Standard. This is the beacon that you should be following. And if you're not following it, at the very least, we can, we can call you out, and we can criticize you for having failed to do that. So I'm wondering like, what, where do you really see the the United Nations and the sort of the leading powers in the world? Do you Do you think that what ought to be happening is that they should be taking a much, much more direct, much more involved role and doing things like, you know, interventions, as we spoke about with RTP, or do you think really the role should just be, scale it back and just try to set a moral standard, try to call people out for the things that they're doing that are wrong, but recognize, you know, the world in which we live, you know, for what it is, and not rely on this idea of saying, Well, you know, we ought to have the ability to stop you from from doing these.
Charles Petrie 1:17:52
Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I like the way you sort of raise the contradictions in what I've been saying. I mean, the UN is a fairy tale organization. It's been constructed to give some credibility to a fairy tale, and that's why it has to be preserved. It has to be protected. I went when, when, when I, you know, when, in, in Rwanda, during the genocide, you know, there was a point, I mean, it was, it was really intense. And there was a point where, you know, towards the end of May, early June, the killings continued, continued, continued, and you really didn't see hope. You know, especially the Security Council was paralyzed Rwanda, the genocidal government, was on the Security Council, so they were able to define international action. So it was really, really desperate. And I remember meeting a father, father vieco, a priest at some point in the middle of of Rwanda, because you could travel. I mean, as long as you weren't Belgian, you know, you, you could actually move around fairly easily in Rwanda while the killings were going on. And so when you you, of course, there weren't many vehicles traveling. So when, when you saw a car coming in your direction and it was a foreigner, then you would stop, and you would sort of share with each other what the barriers were like, you know, how, how, how, you know, what were the people drunk? Were the kids? So you'd get a sense of what you were moving towards. And I remember and Father vieco, you and I used to cross paths quite a lot. And then remember one point, you know, and then afterwards you do so a little bit of small talk and and so I asked Father vieco, one at one point, I said, Father, how do you keep going? I mean, this is such a desperate, such a, you know, despairing situation. And of course, when I said that, I thought, well, he's going to talk about his faith. But he said, No. He said, You know, if you believe in something, you believe that some. Thing needs to be done, and you believe it very strongly that it's the right thing to do. He said, Never stop you. Never know. You may be the person in the in the middle of a dark desert that holds a torch that will allow somebody else, that will guide somebody else to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish. So the reason why I think the fairy tale the UN, the UN, you know, the institutional fairy tale that the UN represents, is so important, is because of Generation Z. It's because of this younger generation of fighters that I saw in Myanmar, you know, the revolutionaries who, who are committed to changing. It's, you know, even though many of them have, have, have been overwhelmed and destroyed, it's, it's the movements that came out of the Arab Spring. You know, this, this young generation of people who believe that a better world is possible. And I think to have a fairy tale institution like the UN is essential to help guide them in the belief that it is something possible. If you didn't have this fairy tale institution, which is the UN, it would be darkness. You know, it would be a barbarian, a barbarian world where might dominates. But as long as you have this belief that, and you know, and it's an institution, it's an it's an institutionalized fairy tale. As long as it's institutionalized, it gives it greater credibility when, when, when I was mentioning fairy tale before, it was a lot more linked to government, Western governments responses. You know, the fairy tale that, you know that when South Sudan became independent, that all of the issues were going to be resolved. You know, that there was, there was no problem. You know, the big problem was the north and south. But, you know, not realizing that it wasn't a fairy tale, the emergence of Southern Sudan, there's some really deep, ingrained tensions that emerged, the fairy tale that ansang Suu Kyi could lead the country. You know, when, when there were so many tensions. You know, I think as as an iconic person, Aung San Suu Kyi is, is revered by all but, but her period, you know, as a politician, was, was not necessarily very successful, and yet some Western governments didn't find the the the the the interest or the force to try and help guide her, give her political insights in, you know, in leading the country between 2015 and 2020 20.
Brad 1:23:03
Yeah, so, so, so, I think I get what you're saying, right? It's almost like the light in the darkness, right? The symbolic value and power of having that beacon and and I think, as we've spoken about the United Nations failures in Myanmar, I think this, this is a good opportunity to talk about the light in the darkness within Myanmar itself, and that is coming in the form of, of course, the revolutionary forces. And as we're going to be discussing the the various forms of self governance that have been established and and proof positive and demonstration that the people are able to to appoint leaders for themselves, and that governance of the People By the People is very much a reality, that that can be implemented if the willpower is there. And to that end, I want to discuss the the journey that you took So you, as I said you went into Karenni, state. And again, for those who are interested, the article is entitled A journey into rebel held Myanmar, which is a brilliant read, I should say, first and foremost, I just want to to commend you on this Karenni, as as you know because you were there, but as many of our listeners might not be aware, mountainous, very mountainous, not particularly well developed, traversing a state like that is is quite a taxing, physical ordeal. So I think it is very, very commendable that you decided to go in and and throw yourself, not just metaphorically, but very physically, into into this incredibly dangerous, but also grueling, grueling task. So I first just want. Ask, how did that come about? How did you decide that, yes, I want to sneak into a rugged, underdeveloped, internet, isolated war zone to see this for myself.
Charles Petrie 1:25:17
Well, it came out of basically a year and a half so early, early, early last year, 2023, I went up to the border, in along the border to Chiang Mai miss, because a number of friends, you know, Myanmar friends Mon, were, you know, they were, they were refugees, and they really needed to get asylum because they were really under threat. And so I went up to try and see how I could help them. And while I was up there, I mean, a number of things struck me. I mean, the first was really getting a sense of how little humanitarian aid was actually reaching the non sac controlled areas, and then. And then, the other thing that really fascinated me was starting to get a sense of of how, you know, because the SAC were were losing ground, or losing their ability to actually move into areas or evolve into areas. You saw emerging new forms of governance. You know, either the ethnic armed group administrations were getting stronger or more autonomous, but you also saw new forms of governance emerging, and Karenni was mentioned to me. So then, when I came out, I wrote an article with with somebody from the former, from the World Bank, Scott Guggenheim, whose long history in in Afghanistan, and also in ache, in which we argued that a new way, a new form of intervention, needed to be considered that that when, when you looked at situations like Myanmar, where the regime was considered illegitimate by the West, which and that Myanmar was not an outlier, because the study was done by Chatham House and New York University that found that 50% of populations living in context of conflict Were living in situations where the authority was considered illegitimate. So when you looked at these situations, and of course, the West withdraws all of its structural aid, and they turn to humanitarian aid, you're limited in what you can do with the humanitarian lens, because the essence of humanitarian intervention is the ability to negotiate access, and if negotiation is built, is based on a give and take, and if you're not allowed to give because the regime's considered rogue, then there's not much access. And then then we went on to argue that, you know, what we also we need to appreciate, is that communities are resilient, and that in many cases, you have new forms of local governance that emerge, and that the international community should be willing to take the risk to one understand these new these new forms, and actually invest in them and work with them. And so then I did so the paper, the article in DevEx, was well received. I was in Washington. I went to different governments and talked and, and the response was very positive, yeah, very interesting. But I knew that that well, it was but, but it was one the discussions were actually fairly superficial, because I, you know, I was really, you know, I was able to pitch it in a theoretical way, without anything concrete and, and I knew that the minute I stepped out of the door, you know, the whole conversation would would would dissipate. So then I decided that the only way I could really, you know, maybe break through, would be to actually go inside and to have a look. And so that's what I did. Spent one week sort of in the cane lay fifth brigade area, in a way, getting sort of acclimatized. And then, and then, yeah, then, then, then a month, just in, in moving around, Karenni, so loiko, the mozo, and then different areas, having, you know, looking at, well, getting a better sense, and, and, and what, and what I, you know, I went in with fairly clear expectations. So one was I went in to try and get a better sense of how much ground the sack had actually lost. And the second was looking at what were these new forms of governance in terms of how much ground the sack had lost. I mean, I came out not with the belief that the resistance is controlling 60 or 70% of the country, but more with the sense that the SAC no longer has access, you know, physical access to 60. I think. 60 something, 62% of the country. But they are still present through the shelling, the mortaring, you know, the drones, the spotter planes. So they're, you know, they still instill that, that sense of real fear among the population. You know, I was caught up in three, three such attacks. It was heartbreaking to see the fear on people's faces as they rushed into the shelters, but it was extraordinary to see them come out of the shelters with even greater anger towards the sack. You know they are not being you know this is not cowing them to the military so much so that. Well, anyway. So there was that the local governance bit, the governance bit was fascinating, because you really do have a civil society driven form of governance emerging in Karenni with the interim Executive Council, the Karenni kscc, Karenni state consultative council or committee, so you really have a participatory form of governance emerging. The one thing I hadn't expected that really became, struck me was the Generation Z, this new generation of activists who have come and they've completely transformed the sociopolitical landscape of Myanmar these. This is a generation that has its own language, that cultural language that has its own, music that is completely interconnected. You know, in a way, the generation, the people I saw, the activists I saw, have more in common with the young from other parts, even other parts of the world, because they're interconnected with other parts of the world than they do with their parents. You know, they are they and they are, yeah, and it was fascinating to see the energy, the commitment. You know, the fact you know many of them. You know university educated, doctors, teachers, you know the civil disobedience movement. People seeing the hospitals that have been built destroyed because the hospitals, markets, schools you know, are targets of military sac military operations, and seeing them, I met one group that was into its fourth hospital, fourth hospital. They were rebuilding the fourth hospital, deeper, deeper into the jungle. It was extraordinary to see this new generation of activists. In fact, one of the doctors I saw told me, you know, you need to understand that this is no longer a civil war. This is a revolution. And you really got that sense that it was really, really interesting to see.
Brad 1:33:04
And I do specifically want to talk about, I mean, multiple things that you've just raised but one of the ones that stood out to me when I was, I was reading the noema article, is this hospital. So the way that you described it here, you've said they're on their fourth hospital, the way it's described in the article is that the reason they're on their fourth hospital is because active hospitals with patients and medical staff are being targeted by the military and are being shelled. And as you say, literally and metaphorically, they dust themselves off, pick up what survivors they can and move a little bit further away and establish a new field hospital, that that seems to be the cycle now that it just really stayed with me when I read it, because it's one of those things that just seems too barbaric to have been an accurate representation of reality, that it's just something that is just so unconscionable on the surface of it. So can you, can you talk a little bit more? I'm just, I'm just fascinated and horrified at the same time, and I just want to understand a little bit more about what was in the original article. Was a relatively short paragraph, but I just, I feel I need to understand more about that situation.
Charles Petrie 1:34:26
Yeah, I know it's exactly as you've you've presented it. Yeah, this is, it's, I think the group's called Spring hope. It's some young doctors who have come together from different ethnic groups. But coming in, they fled. I think most of them had been trained in in Yangon, maybe some in Mandalay. And they, yeah, they, they've, they've been building building. They first built a hospital fairly or they moved into a space that was a clinic and transformed it into a hospital. They. It was, I think it was rocketed, that there was an airstrike that destroyed it. They moved to another place, went deeper into the jungle. That was, that was, again, I think it was either shelled after a spotter plane went over, or mortared. And there again, they, they, they, I mean, they, they did that again, you know, three, two more times, and moving deeper, deeper into the jungle and hiding. I mean, now, now, of course, you know the one, one of the interesting phenomenons also that I saw in Karenni is, is the, you know, given this notion of a revolution means that everybody's involved in the revolution in different aspects. So so you do have tremendous and most of the support coming to the revolution, or what's going on in Karenni comes either from local donations, so local people or from the diaspora. So most of the money comes from the people themselves, either inside or outside the country. So in a way, the groups and the people make no distinction between providing support to the IDPs, because 80% of the population of loiko and they Moso are hiding in the jungle. So, so the you know, the activists and the solidarity among the people you know, provide support to the to the more destitute IDPs, because they're, you know, they're IDPs also who still have resources or set up small businesses. You have micro economies that are set up. But so, so that that so and, but these same groups do also provide support to the fighters, you know, to the fighters who are, you know, fighting the sack and, and, of course, food, material, whatever, and of course, they take care of the wounded, but but the situations are becoming so complicated that now doctors are forced to set up two different types of hospitals, one for the wounded fighters, and they do also treat surrendering sac sac prisoners and another one for the general civilian population, because the fear, and that's, you know, fear born from from experience, is if they treat both in the same same in the same area, The risk that the SAC will learn the location of of of the hospital is very high, either you know, you have infiltrators, spies who come, or just people who are so, so happy and and so what's the word grateful For the service they provided, you know, a young wife. You know, woman, difficult childbirth, gets the baby. It's celebrated. And in the celebration through social media, you know, there's mention of the extraordinary work of the hospital. So, so now what, what they they've, what they're doing is the most of these, most of these doctors are setting up two very distinct hospitals, one for the frontline troops and the prisoners of war, and another one for for for the civilian population.
Brad 1:38:35
And just one thing that you said in that just really stood out to me in a very negative way, like when you said, everyone's involved, and it's, it's, maybe it's the the fact that I'm European and I come with a very specific history, but just when you say that phrase, everyone's involved, it just It immediately takes me to the concept of Total War, which, which, of course, we unfortunately experienced in World War Two. And it's just, it's such a horrifying concept. And again, like, as you're saying now, that the need to set up separate medical facilities designated for civilians, because it's just an risk. It's just, it's just a part of life that the military does not care that they're not going to not bomb a site just because they're civilians. They're like, I was going to to ask, and then I thought, Wait, what would be the point of asking this? Are the resistance groups painting red crosses on on the tops of the hospitals, or are they painting the shield of the Geneva Convention on the tops of their hospitals to designate them as as as protected facilities? But it occurs to me that it wouldn't matter if they did, because the military, even if they do recognize the significance of these symbols, would. Not care and and would probably use these symbols to to guide, you know, their ordinance, onto these, onto these facilities. So it's just a very harrowing, harrowing situation on the ground.
Charles Petrie 1:40:12
Well, it's, it's, it's out there. No, no, it's worse. I mean, the reason why they don't put the crosses, and, you know, is because they would become immediate targets, know that SAC, because that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to discourage, you know, get cow the population into submission. And so they're targeting hospitals. So if there was a cross, they would, they would attack the you know, they become an immediate target. They target churches. They target, they target market markets. So that's why markets are all under the jungle. They target schools. No, they it's, it's, it's a, it's a strategy. It's a, it's, it's a blatant strategy of the SAC to target in order to break the the spirit of the people. And that's not working. And I agree with you. I think, I mean, when I was talking to one of the groups, you know, in in Karenia, I was telling them, you know, you guys, maybe you want to, you should actually separate the work you're doing from the for the IDPs, the support you're giving the the IDPs, from your support to the frontline troops, you know, the combatants. And I was told that that's impossible. He said, Because, because there is, you know, the people giving us the money, they make no distinction. Actually the majority, the majority of the people who give us the money actually want us to help the combatants. Because it's, you know, it will help defeat the sack but, but they were and, you know, so he was saying that it's impossible to make that distinction. If you say, yeah, all out war, that's what the sack is doing. Is all at war. I think you could say, all out resistance to the fighting. And that's, that's the notion, in a way, I think that defines what this doctor told me the difference between a civil war and a revolution. You know, a civil war is insurgencies. You know, it's much, you know, and you can have people who stay out of the Civil War. You know, you have the collateral, which is awful war, but you have sort of the within inverted commas, the collateral damage, you know, the civilians caught up in a civil war, but but when, when, but when you but when you're in a revolution, it's everybody resisting this, this, this, this aggression, and, you know, and actually a situation where the common enemy, the SAC bonds people together, which you know, then, I mean, it's a whole different discussion, because then, then you have the fact that you know when you know. In fact. I was telling some some of these, especially some of the kndf people, the Karenni nationalities, Defense Force, and and, and some of the doctors and the rest. And I said, you may not realize it, but you're actually living the best, the best years of your life, the best moment of the conflict, because the moment you know, the SAC is defeated, this bond, the common you know, the bonding that this enemy brings, disappears, and then you're going to have a lot of, you know, you'll have a lot of simmering tensions that are going to reemerge. And that's why, for me, the IEC, the Interim Executive Council, is so important. You know, the setting up of these, these, this sort of local governance structure is very important, because it needs to be in place to be able to manage these, these underlying tensions that are going to emerge afterwards.
Brad 1:43:48
And I mean, they definitely are like that. That's, I'm sure this, it's a really big topic that we're going to have to breach, because there's no other way around it. But before we get into the concept of sort of sort of federalism and the balkanization, all these other discussions that are being had in the periphery, I think, I think it would be good if we do talk about the IEC and the kscc and just generally the the way that governance is being handled. Because I think Myanmar has been characterized, and I think you're definitely in a much better position to to pass judgment on this. Myanmar has been characterized as a this conflict as as a series of firsts. You know, we have a government in exile that is in the country. They're not in exile. They're an opposition government that has been created during a conflict inside the country, and continues to operate within the country and has established itself in parts of the country and is providing services to the people. We also have never before seen levels of cooperation and collaboration between armed groups, some of which are and some which are not, directly, you know, organized beneath. The National Unity government in Karenni, it's not organized by the nug. And of course, we have the emergence of a lot of local governance, which is not unique to Myanmar. We've seen similar things in Kurdish territories, for example. But it is quite remarkable, the way that you can have basically peaceful administration and effective administration in many parts of the country that are otherwise suffering from an ongoing conflict, are suffering from shortages of essential necessities, you know, to food, drinking water, medical supplies, shelter and so on. So can you, can you talk us through, like, how, how would these organize, these, these, these governing bodies brought into existence, and what is it that they're actually providing to the people?
Charles Petrie 1:45:52
Okay? Well, I would, I would flip what you just said around, okay, and I would say that what you have are, strengthened local structures. You know, regions, you know, so you have, you know, the ethnic armed groups are much stronger, and they're, you know, they've developed even stronger autonomy. You know, you have Karenni, which is fascinating, because you have a new form of participatory government that's been put governance has been put in place. Also very, very autonomous, you know. And then you have what's happening in the north and the rest so, so what you have is a mosaic of much stronger autonomous components, yeah, and, okay, and, and, and, and it's and so, so you have, you have, you have the elements of a new form of federalism, you know, Almost like a bottom up form of federalism, yeah, what you have in Myanmar today are two different concepts of governance. You have one concept that is very much and there are a number of Western donors thinking that way. The NLD thinks that way. You know, which is one where you need to reestablish a central government, and then the central government will devolve power to the regions. You know, that's the way you need to do it. You know you have another, another view, which is no you have this mosaic of strong autonomous areas and this and they will, they need, you know, coming out of their structure should be a central, some sort of federalizing, central authority. And these, these are, you know, I think you know, I would say that the first approach enters the fairy tale area. The second the second approach is basically reality, you know, I think what has happened after the coup on the first of February 2021, is that the center has imploded, you know, and the country has fragmented, you know, the SAC has has lost its ability to control the country, replacing the sack with an nug, NLD structure, you know, without fundamentally changing sort of the the the elements of the Constitution, the rest will not work. I mean that that train has left the station and and and, and, and so, you know, and so, when you know, when you go into the you know, the points you made, I think, I think it's just reality, you know, the nug is is, no, it's the local structures that are providing the services to the people they are. They are the key providers of support to the populations they control. The nug is able to provide some assistance, but they're absolutely not the dominant force on the ground. They're there, there, you know, they're there. They have, they have within them deputy ministers, ministers who are very much representative of their regions, you know, their areas, who are part of the nug. But are, but are much so are very much attuned to what's happening in the areas they come from, their areas of origin, but they are not the masters of what's happening in the area. You know, the fighting is not done by the nug. The nug is supporting the fighters, the fight. Is done by this forces on the ground, some of which are directly affiliated to the nug. Others that are, that are willing to be part of the nug movements. But, you know, but they're, you know, the they are. This revolution is not being managed by the center, because the center no longer exists, and there is no longer space for the center. You know that that is yesterday's yesterday's game, and we see it in many other countries. You know Somalia. You know when I resigned from the UN in end of 2010 for two years, I was advisor to the president of Somalia, Sheik Sharif, and Mogadishu and and I was part of an effort to try and project, you know, Sheik Sharif's authority in the rest of the country, you know. But basically, I mean, it was, it was, it was destined to fail from the beginning, because Sheik Sharif represented one clan, the rest of the country had other clans. Why would another clan another part of the country that had already developed its own autonomy? Why would they be willing to subjugate themselves to Sheik Sharif's clan? It just didn't make sense, you know, and clan warfare has been quite active in Somalia. It's the same thing in Myanmar, you know, these, these are, you know, the Karenni, the kscc, the IEC. They are really developing a fascinating form of local governance. You know, why would they subjugate themselves to to nepido? What does nepido have to offer them, you know, you know why. You know, why would they wait for nepido to offer them the recognition that they already have? I mean, nepido and has absolutely nothing to offer them, as you know, in terms of recognition and support. They have their support. One of the, you know, one of the things I, you know, I wanted to get a sense of is, you know, to what extent was what we were seeing. And you are the IEC, kscc, very committed to finding common ground with all of the the the the forces on the ground. So the KCC and the IEC, you know, they're constituted, but they've left senior positions open for groups to join. You know, groups that they're still trying or for political or or ethnic groups that they're still trying to encourage to join. So the space is there for them, very, very aware of the tensions that they that the simmering tensions that are currently simmering, you know, inter ethnic inter ethnic tensions. I think one of the things about these activists and revolutionaries coming over it is this younger generation Z in the future, I would not be surprised if there aren't tensions between the local communities and this generation Z, you know, but, but again, you know, these are, these are tensions that are, that have to be managed. So one of the things I looked at, I wanted to get a sense of, is whether what I saw in in Karenni was an outlier, a one off. And so, you know. So I spent some time in Thailand after moved coming out, and then I've been in touch with with quite a few groups.
And the sense I'm getting is that there's a lot of interest among by other groups in what's happening in Karenni, you know, the form of of, you know, partic form of participation in the establishment of the administrative structures. You know, getting, getting buy in from the population, in the structures that are being set up. I think it's it's interesting to other groups, because groups are seeing they need to transit from a military form of administration, or an administration that's heavily dominated by armed groups to something that's much more participatory, where communities are much more involved in the establishment of the administrations, so that they become much more accepting of the governing authority. I think groups see that not only in the areas they've traditionally controlled, some of them are more advanced in that than others, but also, given that many of these groups are now in control of areas where they've never been in before.
And so this, this IEC model, is a good way to try and get the population to accept their presence, you know, to get them to participate in their governance. There are different levels of adoption, you know, certain groups, I think the Karen KNU, very interested, very focused, looking at how they can, they can, you know, set up an IEC type consultative structure. It's actually they have the the elements of one. But, you know, they. Have their seven, seven brigade, seven districts. They have many different forces. You know, others are planning. You know they're, they're looking at setting up the conditions for consultative Council, type structure that they propose to roll out in 2025, so, so there's, there's some, some really interesting, you know, discussion between groups and the I and the IC is very open to try and share their their experiences, with with with the other groups. So, so basically, what you have is the emergence of a new form of governance, a new dynamic that is appearing in Myanmar, but the one which is strengthening, and, you know, inserting itself into this mosaic of autonomous areas that has, that has Not emerged, as you said, you know has always existed, but has been strengthened since the first of the first of February 2021.
Brad 1:56:10
And I find it interesting what you what you said, in inverting my approach, just the way you've described, it is very bottom up, that it's very locally driven, very people driven and and I think that bodes well for for the concept of federalism. That bodes very well for having structures in place. As you say, we're getting people used to the IEC, getting people to think, Okay, well, this works for us. This is, you know, this is fine. But I'm wondering at the same time, because this is the balancing act, isn't it, in any federalism situation, what is the balance to be struck between having central authority and having localized self determination, because it seems right now, the way that you're describing it, it seems to me like the tendency is much more towards local self determination, devolution of of power. And do you think that that could have negative ramifications, assuming the tamado is unseated, assuming that we enter into the next chapter when we try to establish the new character in law and constitution of Myanmar. Do you think that having all of these different groups who have established, you know, a political presence, but now, as you're saying, also popular support in their local regions could undermine hopes for the retention of a unified and somewhat centralized Myanmar?
Charles Petrie 1:57:54
Yeah, no, that's definitely the risk. I mean, those are the tensions that have to be dealt with, but I think the risks will be realized if there's an attempt to re, re establish the strong central government, which is a little bit, you know, what the NLD is pushing, the energy NLD part is pushing, believing that, you know, they, they are the legitimate government, you know, having won the elections, which is true, but, But you know, the situation is fundamentally changed. And if donors insist on a quick fix, because, you know, they're, you know, the quick fix to the what's currently going on, which is replacement of the SAC by some sort of construction that includes the nug and LD. I think, you know, I think what's fascinating about Myanmar is that it's in the midst of of its own transformation. And what's very, very important for the international community is to respect that and, and to give space and and, and to allow what's happening to develop, you know, and and to to to engage in a very humble and facilitating way, you know, not to try and mediate anything you know, to facilitate. And the reason I say that is because I, you know, so, so I think Myanmar, the reason I'm, I'm, you know, aside from, yeah, but one of the things that I I'm really, that really fascinates me about Myanmar and why I'm invested in trying to understand it is because I think Myanmar has lessons to give to other parts of the world. And so the more we can understand these dynamics, this bottom up approach, as you say, you know, the more we can be aware of the challenges of the balancing act, you know, because they are very, very serious risks. But what's interesting now is no single group is calling for independence. They're they're much more focused on their their their autonomy, and so, so there's space for dialog, there's space for reflection. The importance is to give, give them, give the groups the opportunity, the fact that the. IC is engaged with discussions with the tnla, the KNU, the sagain forum and others, in terms of sharing their experiences, we should be facilitating and supporting that, you know, rather than come in with our own models. You know, the reason I say that is a lesson from the the period of the ceasefires. You know, the for me, what was fat, you know, the 2012 to 2015 what? What was fascinating for me, you know, was was realizing when it was going in, and especially among the Karen and and seeing how they were embracing the opportunity of these ceasefires. You know, I went out into the jungle, you know, spent nights with, with the IDPs, hiding in the in the in the jungle, you know. And it was fascinating to see how much hope and and how you know, the fact that fighting it stopped, how much you know, how much relief it was bringing. And at the time, you know, there were a lot of these foreign mediation. People coming, and they would come in, and because, you know, I was one of the people who was being asked to set up, I would get, I would have discussions with them, and what I would tell them is, don't, don't do anything. Just observe. I said, this is the most fascinating. This is such a unique opportunity for us to understand how, you know, how, how peace or the elements of stabilization actually can come about, because the people hiding in the jungle wanted, you know, and, of course, completely ignored, so much so that I started calling these groups the mediation vultures, because they just came in and They just wanted to impose, you know, they wanted to impose the Northern Ireland model. This is how we resolved it in Northern Ireland, yeah. Then they, Oh, no, this is how we resolved it in Colombia. And they were just imposing their models, which were not at all, you know, they were, they were instructive in terms of giving some guidance, but they weren't adapted to the situation in Myanmar. But more importantly, what these mediation vultures were doing is they were taking people out of the process for site visits and trainings elsewhere. So so people who were essential to the success of the ceasefires were being taken out in order to be lectured at by all of these very sort of high level and influential analysts, that's what I fear. That's what I think must not happen in Myanmar today. My one of my fears is that the IEC and the kscc, the structure, becomes a donor darling, and that donors just flood in. They they take them out, and they, they flood in, you know, this is how we do it in Switzerland. This is federalism in Fritz. No, no, this is federalism in Germany. This is how we do federalism in Germany. No, no, no. We've got a federal structure in the US. This is how we do it in the US. And that they just take people out on site visits, you know, you go around, have a look at how it's working, go to trainings and stuff, and they completely undermine what's happening right now in Myanmar, that that is my greatest if I were to have a fear, my greatest fear is that we are going to be The instruments of screwing this up.
Brad 2:03:21
And I mean, I take that point, and I understand that a careful balance has to be struck with the, you know, with with regards to how much intervention and how much of a role external experts can have. But do you not think that there is the opposite possibility as well, that without that intervention, because this is federalism itself, is not a new concept. We have many federal systems, as you say, like Russia and the US and Canada and Switzerland and Australia and so on. So we have many federal systems in the world, and they're all different. They're all unique. And in the Myanmar context, I think federalism is going to be much more complicated, because most of the federal systems that we have in the western world evolved in a very different way. But at the same time, because it's such a unique situation, and because Myanmar is such a complex country in terms of inconsistent levels of development, in terms of culture, in terms of language, in terms of religion, in terms of long standing tensions between different stakeholder groups. Do you not think that if, if we step back completely, if external people step back completely, people who maybe have studied this for a very long time, and do not come in and say, hey, the system that you're proposing in this document is not likely to succeed. And we know that because of case study, case study case study that we may also be doing a disservice by. Allowing people to to run into a constitutional structure that is going to collapse within, you know, a decade or half a century, because there are some glaring flaws, and there are some major questions that that you can look at, and you can say, hey, if these questions are not answered in the Constitution today, it's going to come down to a constitutional challenge decades from today, and the outcome of that challenge might trigger resentment towards the system. It might trigger breakaway movements, whatever that case may be. Do you not think that we have to be conscious of both ends of the spectrum, of over involving ourselves, but also of taking too much of a step back?
Charles Petrie 2:05:42
No, I mean, definitely, I definitely agree with you. Now I'm not saying take a step back. I'm quite the contrary. I'm saying, I'm saying the word I'm looking for is humility, to have the humility to come in and and help off. You know, offer support. You know, facilitate, help, facilitate, but, but not be directive and not impose one not take ownership for what's happening on the ground. And the problem is a lot of these groups, you know, these, these mediation groups, they need to take claim ownership, because it's their way of getting funding. So, so, so they need to be able to say we are the key elements in, in in this process, because that's how they get funding, from, from, from, from, from donors. And what I'm saying is you don't, you don't want to do that. You know, you don't want to, you know you need to come in with with a level of humility. You need to offer advice. You need to facilitate interactions. Yeah, you need to offer whatever guidance you you can, but, but not, not be directive, not, not impose a model, because, because we're looking, you know, the dynamics are very different, the socio economic conditions, the the dynamics are very, very different. And it's that's so, so one needs to, one needs to guarantee or preserve, sort of the the local ownership of the process, you know, and encourage it. But, but, but no, so. So I totally agree with what you're saying. What I'm I'm mentioning is sort of one step up, where we start imposing, you know, it's basically white men, you know, white people who come and and dictate how they view the thing. The situation should be managed. I think we need to, we mustn't allow that to happen. And in a way, I in a way, I think it's the nug. It's the role of the nug to do this, it's the role of the nug, rather than then, then focusing on, we need to get to nipido in order to devolve authority. No, I think the nug needs to look at. What sort of structure should we think about when, when the revolution is, is, is one.
Brad 2:08:00
Although that, that alone, raises an important question, because you You say, Well, the n u g should be the one doing it, and, you know, I would support that. I think they're the they're the front runner in this race. You know, the n u g has the best possible chance, it has the the most size, it has the most legitimacy, the most recognition, and so on and so on and so forth. But the the the to take it back to realpolitik, the nug is not in possession of the majority of the guns. And there are a lot of organizations around the country that are very pointedly not the nug. They are not organized under the nug. They do not follow the instructions of the nug. They're very independent, and they're very proud of the fact that they have existed for a very long time, that they have provided services to their people. The KNU comes to mind. The Kia comes to mind, the Arakan Army, for all of the things that they have done that that we criticize them for, very appropriately, they have existed for quite some time. They have significant power. They have significant pull. These organizations, sort of they, it seems to me that if the nug steps up and says, Hey, we are going to take this lead in determining how federalism can and should work, it seems that a lot of these organizations might be in a situation to turn around and say, well, well, hang on, who who decided that you can take the lead on that federalism? Is all of us involved, or we all have to agree to the terms of federalism? We all have to agree, yeah, how much power we give up?
Charles Petrie 2:09:35
That's exactly what the nug must not do. The nug must not come in and because they don't have the legitimacy of the ground. They mustn't go in and say, and they mustn't go in and act as if they were one of these mediation groups and to say, here we've come in. We know what the and I talked to some of the nug ministers, and I said, this is your opportunity to contact the different groups and to ask them what they were. Expect of a central government, you know. So this is, this is the moment for the nug to try and sort of investigate what could potentially be their role in a new Myanmar, rather than then come in and assert, you know, this is what our role is going to be, because we won the elections in 2020 that that's, that's, that's yesterday's game. You know, there's too much blood that's been spilled. Too many people have have died and there and then. And you know, and the Generation Z and the others they, you know, they've moved on. They're no longer there. So it's really an opportunity for the nug humility to come in and say, okay, you know, what? What, yeah, what, you know, contact the groups. What, what, what would you see as being an added value from, from nepido? So, so that's what I mean in the in the sense that the energy should take the lead the nug should take the lead in thinking through and in developing, in in in in discovering what could be the construction of this Federalist state, federal, federal state.
Brad 2:11:16
And obviously, you know, being conscious of, of what you've said that we don't want to get into this territory of, you know, white saviors coming in and determining it. But just because Myanmar is such a complex and and unique case, and especially given the region right like when we when we look at most of the countries in in Asia, they tend away from federalism. I think Malaysia would be an exception to that. India's quite complicated as well, but by and large, they do tend towards as much as possible, much more centralized systems. Do you have an idea of what federalism could look like, or would look like, because we have a lot of options to draw from. There are religious lines, there are ethnic lines, there are cultural lines and linguistic lines, but many of those are blurred, many of those overlap. Many of those would turn into 1000s of enclaves and exclaves. We could go back to pre colonial divisions and maps. How do we determine who is large enough to warrant having a subdivision of their own? How do we even begin to to approach it? Because, of course, as I said, in the West, most of our federal systems evolved from pre existing polities that decided to unify and create a federal system. That was the case in Switzerland, that was the case in Canada, that was the case in Australia, that was the case in the United States. Whereas here we're talking about taking a previously centralized polity and radically devolving authority to completely newly created, potentially federal subdivisions, which I don't know if there's a historical precedent for this to ever have been attempted. So do you have any thoughts on what you think might be an effective way to go about this?
Charles Petrie 2:13:11
Of course not.
Brad 2:13:15
Times that okay.
Charles Petrie 2:13:15
Yeah, because,yeah, no, no, of course not. I definitely don't see myself as a white savior. No, no, but that's, that's part of the challenge. I mean, that that's what so, so, so fascinating. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's, but you have people on the ground who have ideas, you know, you have people within the IEC who have a view on what they would expect. I mean, the fact that the, you know, people in tnla, PSDF are are laying the ground for the establishment of a future consultative mechanism. I mean, they're thinking these things through. So that's, that's where, you know. But no, I have absolutely no idea. Yeah, and, and, and I, you know, so, so, no, I mean, that's, that's, that's the challenge, and that's where you know, and it's a huge challenge that that you know the structures in Myanmar have to confront, and you need to be willing to support, support them in assuming the taking on the challenge. But as you said, you pled in my court. You said, this is completely new. It hasn't been done before. That reinforces the point that you should not try and impose any of the other models that have emerged elsewhere.
Brad 2:14:39
I mean, yeah, because I don't think that it would be, it would be possible or reasonable. And I personally suspect that my suspicion is that the direction that things are likely to go is very much to take the largest existing sort of eaos in. And and assign ethnic subdivisions that would be associated with them and with their ethnic identities. I suspect that that is a likely direction. However, I don't think that that would make for a particularly stable situation. I do think that a radically different approach to federalism, which is not as rooted in the idea that we can draw clear delineations on the ground, which separate group A from Group B and give them self governance, and assume that that is going to fix the problem. I think a radical deviation from this concept is going to be necessary in the Myanmar case, and it's just, I, I really have no idea what that might look like, or what that could look like, and I very much wanted to succeed. It's just, this is going to take a lot of careful planning.
Charles Petrie 2:15:50
Yeah, no, I agree. I totally agree. Totally agree. No, that's a huge I mean, as you know, you know, the this there, this is, you know, the defeat of the sack is, is sort of just the first it's the first step in a very, very complicated journey. On a very, very complicated journey. I totally agree.
Brad 2:16:11
The insights that you have, I think, are just incredibly valuable and just very rich. I I want to understand a little bit more about what it was that you saw in Karenni, not so much about governance, but about the people themselves, the conditions that they're in. One one thing, for example, in your article, that that stood out to me as well was when you were talking to Marwa. I think was his name, Mari, sorry. And he he's telling you that many of the people are feeling frustrated that prisoners are being taken because if prisoners are being taken alive from the military, then that means that they have to be housed and they have to be fed, and those resources have to be paid for. And that means that, in a circular fashion, the civilians themselves feel that their hard, sacrificed donations are being wasted, keeping alive military members that that there is this, this, this, it's stronger than anger. And you were describing previously as well, when, when you saw these bombing attacks, that people would be terrified and run and hide, and then when they emerged their their anger had just deepened. That, that I think is a very natural and very human response. I wouldn't expect anything different, to be completely honest. But do you have concerns with regards to that? Do you have concerns that this conflict, if it goes on much longer, is going to tip into a point where the resistance is no longer trying to hold the moral high ground. The resistance is no longer trying to uphold the international standards, which they have been doing quite an admirable job of attempting to maintain. They haven't always succeeded, but they have very much been trying to do so, but faced with an enemy like the military, and faced with what you're saying that there is, there is tension and there is pressure from the population themselves. Do you think that there is a possibility that that, that threat is going to tear and they're eventually going to say, You know what, no more prisoners, that's it. We're done.
Charles Petrie 2:18:34
Well, I think, yeah. I mean, I think it was more sort of an A reflection and indication of how much hate there is towards the sac. And then at the same time, I think it's, it's, it's sort of, it shows how, how much Mari and the kndf or and the K that are sort of maintaining standards. And so they are taking POWs. They're taking care of them. The IEC, you know, has a has taken on prisons, the management of police and prisons. So some of the pmws are being taken care of by the, you know, within the IEC prison structures, others within the kndf prison structures. So they are being, they are being served and support it. And so, so. So, I think these are sort of natural tensions and and I think the you know, and it's you know, as much as it brings out how much hatred exists towards the sack, it also brings out the nobility, or the you know, the high ground that the kndf holds in terms of prisoners, I think I, you know, I, I think what has been, what has been unleashed in, or what has been released within Myanmar is, is violence, yeah, and, and, what, what all. So exists in Myanmar is a proliferation of arms. So, so, so I'm not sure, you know, will, will the revolution lose the moral high ground? You know, the longer this lasts? And not sure. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it would naturally, you know, inevitably, but there is, there is violence. But what I what I do think, is that once the sack is defeated, or the revolution is won, I think, I think the management of tensions is going to be a lot, lot more difficult, because, because of this, this, this violence that's been introduced. And, you know, violence is a bit everywhere. You know, the assassination of SAC administrators in in, you know these are, I mean, I'm sure that some of them, or many of them, are nothing more than people are trying to make money, get money for their families. But the assassination of of government administrators, you know, the the just the different, you know, the call to assassination, which I don't think was a particularly wise call the beginning by the nug, you know. And I think, I think, yeah, I think you know, I think you know a monster. You know small monster, not a genocidal one, but I think a small monster has been unleashed into Myanmar. In Myanmar, and the fact that there's so many weapons available and in the general population, could translate into into difficult to deal with tensions.
Brad 2:21:45
I think that proliferation of arms is is something that I'm very concerned about. I think a lot of people are very concerned about and and again, coming back to to Mari, the deputy commander of the kndf that you that you reference quite a bit in your in your article, there's that direct quotation that you highlight from him, when you give a soldier a gun to fight, you need to tell him that he needs to know that he will have to give it back. And yeah, I think that's a very poignant point. And the problem is that most of the experts that I've spoken to, most of the analysts I've spoken to, when I asked them the question, okay, so what's the plan for getting all the guns back after the conflict? Everyone's response is, we have no idea, and and we don't know what impact this is going to have on the country. So that, I think, is something that that really terrifies me for the future of Myanmar, post, post stability. But I mean, assuming we get to that point, and hopefully we will, and hopefully soon, but that that said, in terms of victory and in terms of success, this is a really important point about Karenni. People have said that Karenni is very close. It is, is possibly the closest federal subdivision to victory. Currently, that loiko is likely to become the first state capital in Myanmar that is fully under resistance control. And the possibilities for that are enormous. I think if Karenni fully becomes liberated, that gives us, because it's on the Thai border, that gives us the opportunity to open up a actual, genuine humanitarian corridor. And as you note in your interview with irawadi, the Thai government has been engaging with this concept of a humanitarian corridor, whether they're doing it genuinely or duplicitously, I don't know. And Karenni borders, Shan and Kara borders, the KNU territory. So I think that, I think the potential would be enormous. The question is, do you think the claims of the reports that we've had that Karenni is likely to be completely liberated and that the final basis in Karenni can reasonably be shut down, leaving us at a point where it's actually quite difficult for the military to air strike and mortar strike and rocket strike, because they don't have any nearby basis of operations. Do you think that those are realistic?
Charles Petrie 2:24:10
See, I mean, I wouldn't really have any basis in which to respond. I mean, I'm not military or anything like that. I my understanding, I mean, my understanding right now is that the kndf has had to withdraw troops from, for example, the university in loiko, because the military the SAC reinforced its presence. So So I think there, it's not total, it's not total control yet. And then, and then, of course, there's all of the, you know, the air strikes, and you don't, you don't. I mean, you're, you're, you know, you just need to give greater capacity to the planes. You won't get rid of them. So I didn't know, but, but, but, yeah, I So, in that sense, I Yeah. I wouldn't know how to answer that question. It's not over yet. My sense the fighting is not over yet.
Brad 2:25:09
I mean, that's, yeah, that's an unfortunate reality that I think we're, we're resigned to. But what? What about the situation of the civilians on the ground? Because a lot of what I heard from Karenni was quite, quite stark, massive food shortages, nothing, but, you know, plain white rice, not even you know, potatoes and onions in a lot of places, plenty of ghost villages. But the military have left mines in a lot of people's houses. So the demining process is slow. Shelling has destroyed the roofs of a lot of buildings, making them completely unsuitable as shelters, particularly with the rainy season approaching. Generally, the situation that that was explained to me by previous guests has been in terms of necessities of life. The situation is abysmal and in terms of collaboration and coordination and goodwill between revolutionary organizations, whether they're PDF associated or not, is actually surprisingly very strong and very high. Does your experience in Karenni corroborate that?
Charles Petrie 2:26:19
I mean, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't say, I mean, you know, you know, I'm right next to Gaza. I, you know, when you compare to what's to the situation in Gaza, I think it's nowhere close. I think, I think it's true that that villages, I mean, yeah, that the tatmadaw sac have planted mines everywhere. So, so part of the supports that you know, the kndf needs, they're doing it themselves, but and even some of the civil society groups are doing themselves. This is equipment and training for demining. I think that's important. I think people have fled. They fled into the jungle, but what you see emerge are micro economies. So I would, no, I wouldn't, I mean, I didn't see this destitution that is being painted. And in a way, I think it's a slight misrepresentation of what's going on, because it sort of implies that the people are just submissive and passive. But you have, I mean, you have really interesting sort of markets developing along the road, especially from the Moso and going out, you have internet cafes that are being springing up because internet is available with Starlink. The Starlink has completely transformed the communications capability, you know, it's, it's accessible, you know. So you have, you you have, you have young markets, you, you know, mechanic shops, you so, so you have, you have an economy that's, that's functioning, bread production, the rest, but what? But the longer and people are living on their reserves, you know? So they're living on their financial reserves, or whatever, the longer they're forced to be IDPs, the longer this continues, yeah, the greater the number of people are going to enter the subsistence, you know pit, or become much a pit, but the subsistence category where they will need, where they will need support, and where you know they, they, they, you know they, yeah, They need support. They need help. Right now, I think there's, there's, there's a it's a sufficiently vibrant economy for for some support to get to them. You know, because the numbers are are still not the majority. But the the moment when the economy is no longer able to sustain the general population and is no longer able to support those in need of subsistence. Then, yeah, then I think, then, then, yeah, then, then it is going to become catastrophic, but, but, but painting the, you know, painting this as, as sort of, you know, completely, you know, Reliant and submissive population, you know, eating grass because they can't get they can't because they've eaten all of the leaves that that were, were were really, really far away from I mean, what really interested me were the was the the economy that was flourishing, the fact that you could find, you know, and stuff was actually coming, even from Mandalay, you know, they were coming from, from from sack controlled areas. Goods were coming into, into, into the demo so loico area, some were. Going out, and then, of course, stuff was coming in from Thailand.
Brad 2:30:04
The Thailand doesn't surprise me because, because I know the border is relatively porous, but it is very interesting because that that what you're saying, that the goods are being shipped in from SEC control territory. That implies that there are people who are able to go into sec control territory, load up a truck and drive it into resistance, control territory and not be assassinated, murdered, exploded, what have you?
Charles Petrie 2:30:31
I mean, it's high risk, and they need to pay but, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not, it's not a walk in the park. You need to negotiate. You need to pay off. But no, but it's happening. Yeah.
Brad 2:30:44
So what is the medium of exchange? Are they still using the Myanmar chat? Or what is the currency? Yeah, Myanmar, really? Yeah, you would have thought it would have lost its stability and been replaced by by barter economy, or US dollars or something. But okay, yeah.
Charles Petrie 2:31:01
And you change you've got, you know, you change the money. You've got money changers,
Brad 2:31:06
Okay, that's interesting, and so and so, what are they? Predominantly, because that that that is shocking to me, like, after the very sort of Stark reports that I'd heard of Karenni. It never really occurred to me that they would be as you're describing an economy. So what? What is it? Is it mostly like clothing and food stuffs and essentials that are being traded for, or are they also non essential items that people are still interested in acquiring?
Charles Petrie 2:31:37
Yeah, I mean that. Well, right now, people still have, you know, still have capital. So, yeah, so it's a whole bunch you you would to make furniture. They have, of course, guest houses. They have, yeah, a lot of basic necessities, food, uh, clothes, yeah, cement, construction materials. I mean, it's, it's, it's sort of, yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a functioning low level economy that that's basically because the people who've been forced out of loiko and demoso. Are, are have actually, you know, they've moved, and they've moved those who could have moved their assets with them, and some still have access to their warehouses. So they've basically moved. Many have just moved their businesses from loiko and demoso and set up temporary shop in on the road, the main road to Cherry Cherry Hill, I think it's called.
Brad 2:32:51
So in your experience, then, having having been around, you know, you were around local, you around the moss, and you moved around The state, to what extent would you say that normal life is continuing for the for the civilians? So going to work, you know, buying, buying things in the shops, cooking, you know, going home, spending time with your family, like these types of things that we take for granted. To what extent is that actually the reality for those civilians?
Charles Petrie 2:33:21
No, it's been completely disrupted. No, no, okay. I mean, there is no normal life, but, but what there is is, you know that there because they've all, I mean, they've all lived through trauma, but, but what you do have are, you know, you have local local economies. You have markets working. I mean, they're not flourishing. They're working. You have different forms of activities, you know, you know, yeah, mill grain, grain mills, flour mills, sorry, yeah. You have lot of lot of sort of that life continues, but it continues in a completely different in a completely different way.
Brad 2:34:09
Okay, that's, I mean, it must be an incredible thing to experience just to it's almost like a duality of of life continues, things have to be done in amongst warfare and devastation. It just everyone who describes it to me, and I suppose I'm in a very privileged position never actually having seen warfare firsthand, but everyone who describes it, they make it sound like something that just cannot logically exist, like like two completely incompatible things have just been forced together and in some sort of abstract pastiche, somehow. Yeah, it it happens and it exists. But I just find it very difficult to imagine in my head what, what it must look like, and what it must feel like, and what, what the energy of all these places must feel like when you're there and when you're talking to these people, it must be a very strange and unsettling.
Charles Petrie 2:35:20
It's, it's, I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, respecting the fact that people are resilient, you know, they, they resilient, not in the sense that they can sort of just absorb, but more resilient in the sense that they fight, they, they, you know, they're, they're they. They don't just sit down and and take it there. You know, they are trying to, you know, to to live, but, but you know, and, and you know, to, yeah, to not, to not reestablish their well, they're trying to reestablish their lives, not without the hope that it's going to return to the way was before, because it's been massively disrupted. But they are, they are trying to, yeah, to reestablish their lives, of course. I mean, you do have, so that's, that's sort of the general play, but you do have, of course, IDPs, who are very destitute, hiding in the jungle, and they are dependent on support. So they get some support. Well, they get quite a lot of, well, they get support, not, not a lot. They get support from, you know, from local community, from the local communities, from the organizations that are, you know, in place. So, so they do, they do get, they do get some support, but, but it's true, the longer this lasts, yeah, the more dire The situation's going to become.
Brad 2:36:49
And so ultimately, like we've, we've, we've covered a, I think, an incredible range of topics, and I think we've, we've looked at the international level, and we've looked at the very local level, and I think we've gone through a lot, and I really, really, really appreciate you sharing your insights. I'm sure that we can, you know, delve into any of the topics that we've discussed today and do two hours just on that one topic, because there is just such a depth there when it comes to discussing federalism, when it comes to discussing the United Nations, or United Nations, when it comes to discussing the duplicity of of politicians and actors on the world stage. But I am conscious of your time and I and I do think it is a an organic place for us to stop. But before we do that, as you may or may not be aware, we always end our episodes by inviting our guests to share some final thoughts for our audience, anything that you think the audience should consider, any fundamental message that you think that they should carry with them as they go on throughout the day and and maybe discuss what they heard and discuss some thoughts that were raised when they're talking to their friends or to their family. So if you have any message that you would like to spread to them directly, or any thoughts you would like to share with them. I might invite you to do that now.
Charles Petrie 2:38:03
Well, I guess, yeah, I guess, I guess my, I mean, my message would, would be the people listening who go, never give up. I think what, well, Father vieco was, was one who told me that. But then also, from what I saw in in Myanmar, you know people are resisting. You know they're not sitting down there. You know they're not sort of just, yeah, giving up. No, never give up if you know, really fight. It's really important to fight and, and, and it's important to understand that as an individual, you have responsibility to fight. You know, don't, don't transfer your sense of responsibility to an organization you know. Realize that you remain responsible and you can have an impact, even if you don't see it, you can have an impact. So my key message is, never, never give up the fight. Really, absolutely, never give up to fight.
Host 2:39:14
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