Transcript: Episode #296: Of Unity and Uprising
Below is the complete transcript for this podcast episode. This transcript was generated using an AI transcription service and has not been reviewed by a human editor. As a result, certain words in the text may not accurately reflect the speaker's actual words. This is especially noticeable when speakers have strong accents, as AI transcription may introduce more errors in interpreting and transcribing their speech. Therefore, it is advisable not to reference this transcript in any article or document without cross-referencing the timestamp to ensure the accuracy of the guest's precise words.
Azad 0:00
Of course, the jet fighters are coming. But at the same time as the jet fighters are coming, they are also flying these y 12 airplanes. I don't know Google y 12. It's like a Chinese propeller airplane. You know it's meant to it's like a cargo transport airplane. But for a lot of these soldiers, defection is, of course, if you fail at defecting, it's a death sentence, no, especially in Chin State where it's not like, okay, there's a front line you can slip away to. You're on an isolated Hill surrounded by soldiers. If anyone sees you, walk away there. It's very likely they're gonna see you. The reason that we're not seeing, you know, like, entire battalions up and walk away for two reasons. One, of course, it's very difficult to defect, like, practically difficult to defect to walk out of your base. The second reason is, as we're seeing now in Tun long and as we kind of saw a little bit tetan In some cases, in some fights, especially when it gets out to be like a protracted fight, the soldiers have a decent chance at holding their ground, no the capabilities of the resistance to mount some kind of like, you know, lightning bolt attack and Smash the front lines and capture everybody we haven't seen so far, at least not in Chin State. The Junta is getting destroyed. I mean, everywhere its defeat.
Host
Just a quick note before today's show, while we have transformed our entire platform to respond to the ongoing crisis, increasing our production of both podcast episodes and blogs. We cannot continue without your support. Please consider making a donation or contributing as a volunteer To support our active engagement at this critical time.
Brad 2:58
and welcome back. We have the pleasure today, once again, of a recurring, returning guest, Azad, whom we spoke to a couple of months ago, who's been embedded with resistance groups in Chin State. We're going to be talking about the situation in Chin State and a bunch of related things, but I'd like to thank you very much for giving us your time and give you the chance to introduce yourself, maybe audience members who don't remember the last episode, or who didn't catch it?
Azad 3:26
Yeah, sure. Thanks. I'm glad to be back. My name is Azad. I'm an internationalist from the USA. I've been here in Chin State with the resistance forces since February of this year. Before I came to Chin State, I was in northeastern Syria with the Rojava revolution. I was there from 2020 to 2024 before coming here to
Brad 3:43
Myanmar. So right off the bat, okay, it's fascinating for us. We spoke a while ago. One of the things that I want to get sort of sorted mentally for everyone is it might seem banal, but climate so obviously we know that from typically about April and May onwards until sort of October ish Myanmar typically has a rainy season, and rainy seasons generally slow down military operations. But Chin State, I understand, is significantly more mountainous and arid. So has, has the climate in Chin State been negatively affecting your ability, or the Tamil does ability to operate lately?
Azad 4:23
Yeah, I think I don't know. Chin State might be a unique case. It's not like Sayagyi or some of the more lowland areas where it's kind of like a shifting front line, and the junta has to worry about their supplies and moving around their soldiers from the front. In Chin State, it's very much. The Junta positions are all stationary. No kind of as we discussed last time, they're hunkered down in the remaining bases that they have left. So for them, transport or and logistics is not so much of an issue as it always is anyway in Chin State, because they're anyway, surrounded and isolated. So just like before, they're getting all of their supplies, either from, you know, the local towns that they're occupying, you know, forcing. The locals to give them supplies and oil and rice and stuff like that, and things that they can't get from the locals. They're getting on either monthly or, you know, bi weekly helicopter shipments, whether that's mo whether that's supplies. I mean, I'm sure you've been seeing now they're even dropping in Starlink by helicopters.
Brad 5:18
I'm just curious, like with the Starlink, because I know that Starlink was made available and continues to be used by resistance group start Myanmar, which makes sense, because you don't have internet connection and phone connection, but with the military, it seems like Starlink as a company, could theoretically be in a position to shut that down. I'm just curious whether you have any thoughts, or whether you have any understanding of how the military would gain access to this and and whether this, this could be implemented from the outside.
Azad 5:49
Yeah, I'm not sure about the specifics. I mean, I won't give the exact specifics, especially for the system that we might be using. But as Starlink is a satellite system, that means that its area of coverage can be registered in any number of countries in the region, no. And because it's satellite coverage, you can still tap into the as long as you register it in some different country, you can still tap into that network. I don't know the scale to which the junta is doing that, but it's as long as you have the money and the support. It's hypothetically possible. But yeah, as to the logistics of the rainy season anyway, in Chin State, the junta was already getting most of their supplies before by helicopter. It I think it's been a very, very long time since any kind of like on the ground shipment came from outside of the chin hills, for obvious reasons. No, it would be suicide. So in our side, also, it's not like we really have a front line to contend with to move supplies around. It's more of the junta is in their isolated positions, and as we're seeing now in the fighting in tan Tun now that fighting has been kind of continuing through the past couple of months, when the fighting is isolated in one place, I think the logistical problems that rainy season poses aren't as pronounced necessarily.
Brad 6:59
Because I suppose it doesn't really make as much of a difference in a place like chin where, of course, the rainy sea, one of the big effects of the rainy season is always, and this is something that we see with even Russia and Ukraine, with the springtime for is heavy vehicles. Right? When you're looking at armor, you're looking at tanks, you're looking at, you know, heavy trucks, they get bogged down in the mud. But because of the mountainous nature of of Chin State, I imagine that they wouldn't be utilizing that those kinds of assets anyway. So whether the ground is muddy or not isn't going to make an enormous difference to their ability to to move units, correct?
Azad 7:35
Yeah, exactly. And not only that. I mean, everyone saw a couple months ago the horrible floods that happened all around Myanmar, you know, not to say in Chin State we didn't get a lot of rain. We did, but it's mountains, you know. So there were landslides, of course, but nothing to the scale of like, you know, total civil immobilization that you saw in some of the more floodplain areas.
Brad 7:53
Okay, it's good to know. And I want to sort of continue getting this picture of what's going on in Chin State, because, as you say, we discussed last time that the military are largely holed up in their bases. And I had another interview that was focused, I believe, more on Karenni state. And what I was being told was that there is among the resistance groups it is considered to be to a degree advantageous to have those military occupied bases functioning and active, because, as it was described to me, yes, the bases are capable of organizing sorties. They are capable and regularly do, launch mortar and artillery bombardments from within the confines of the base. However, if the base is completely taken over, then the Air Force has no reason not to engage in wild, white scale bombing of that region. Whereas as long as the base is being held in lockdown, effectively, the troops inside the base are kind of being held in a type of hostage situation where they are preventing the Air Force from being able to just wantonly destroy that entire sector? Is that kind of a situation that you're also seeing in Chin State?
Azad 9:10
Yeah, I think we haven't gotten to the stage yet where, no, we haven't seen total destruction. Now, for instance, recently in matupi, the brigade was taken and of course, no, there is always the how we can say response from the junta, and also, anytime we attack the junta, even if it's just like a smaller operation, there's always, of course, the immediate response from the Air Force. I think the question is really in what might be one of the biggest differences between Chin State and what's going on in the east is the scale to which fighting like this is happening, and the scale to which defeats like this are happening, and the responsive willingness of the junta to punish something like that. Let me maybe clarify a bit like now we're seeing Lashio is getting hammered every single day by airstrikes, no and on one hand. That's because there's still heavy resistance activity in LA show, there's still lots of people there, but it was also a very, very big symbolic defeat for the regime. So keeping the hurt, keeping the pain in, the damage on in that area, is obviously going to be on the top of their mind if some outlying junta outpost in Chin State was taken, like, for instance, tantalum is already anyway, ashes, you know, like they're fighting over rubble in tantalum. Yeah. So if the base in Tang falls, or if the base in somewhere else, like matupi or tetem or falam or haka or maybe Hakka, that's a different story. If something like that happens, where it's just kind of a more outlying battalion that falls, of course, there will be some kind of response or reprisal, but the junta is, is really, especially the Air Force, running on fumes, you know, like they do not have the resources to flatten every single city, even though they would be morally fine doing it. They really are what we're seeing recently, uh, kind of weighing very carefully all of their resources, especially when they're sending out these bombing sorties.
Brad 10:57
Okay, so that, see, that's a very important piece of information that you've just shared there, because we have been discussing this particular issue for years now, and it ultimately comes down to not just the manpower and having available psychologically reliable and I know that seems a little bit unusual, but at this point, it is becoming a factor. Having psychologically reliable manpower is one thing, but having munitions and having fuel is another. And we've heard reports for a very long time that, well, the junta don't have as much ammunition as they should, because they're not shooting off these salvos. The artillery salvos in as large numbers as they used to, and the bombing runs are not being done as frequently, but it seems to be the case that they continue to operate. They are still bombarding, they are still using their artillery. They are still flying bombing sorties. So it's really important that that we do have this insight. So you're saying that there is a noticeable decline in the frequency and the willingness of the Air Force to engage in these bombing sorties and to put assets into the air is that what you're saying?
Azad 12:09
I mean, I can maybe not a decline, I think maybe just a notice lack like in the entire time I've been in state. No, I'll put it this way, if the enemy has the resources to do something, and has the ability to do something, and it strategically makes sense for them in military perspective, then of course they would do it. No but I've been in multiple places now, and also been through a couple airstrikes now, and the idea of, okay, well, you know where the camps are really. The camps in Chin State are not super secret. You know where the rebels are. You know where the people are. You know where the people who are fighting you are. So theoretically, you have the ability to strike them, but we're seeing, really, until, kind of like, the very pivotal moments where it would actually make a difference in a battle, they're choosing not to do that, which I mean the only reason, you the only thing that makes sense to me now, I'm not in the junta, you know, I can't project myself onto them, that would that would necessarily imply a lack of the resources to be able to do that everywhere that they can, and from our kind of intelligence in the towns that we're surrounding, in the towns that we're fighting in, even there are some commanders who are asking and saying, Look, they're around our towns. We know where their camps are. Please send some jet fighters, please bomb them something like this. They're actually getting their request for air support declined, and what they're being told is, and now, of course, this is all conjecture, but this is our understanding based on some intelligence we have. What they're being told is, no, we can't send you any jet fighters where you have to wait until there's some kind of battle that starts so that the air support will actually make a difference, because I assume they simply cannot spare the they can't spare the support.
Brad 13:47
And I'm wondering, do you actually have reason to believe that the request has been sent and the request has been denied, or is that conjecture based on what you're seeing in the skies?
Azad 13:59
No, that's, I mean, that is reliable Intel, we can say, but also not like I have. Since we last talked, we've been through multiple more airstrikes, and I mentioned last time about how bad the junta soldiers were and even how bad their air force were. The Junta airstrikes that now came since the last time we talked were on very, very like, you know, you couldn't miss them if you tried kind of targets, you know what I mean, like, very large targets, very noticeable, and with multiple attempts and multiple airstrikes, the junta could not hit them really. Yeah, exactly. So I it's a combination of not having the ability to actually hit the targets that you are sending out these limited airstrikes on at the same time, having limited airstrikes to send in the first place. So the junta knows that, okay, if they're going to send an airplane bomb, it has to be in the middle of some huge battle that it's going to hit something, but as long as they're sending it out, at least seemingly no, I mean, I'm in awe how they have yet to hit anything. Uh. So as long as they're sending it out on these isolated targets, I think probably even themselves are not super confident in their ability to be effective.
Brad 15:07
So this is another important one, because you keep talking about airstrikes, and a lot of people talk about airstrikes, and we see them on news a lot, but there is there are airstrikes in their airstrikes, because, you know, we look at what is the meaning of an airstrike in the Gulf War, when you have, you know the f1 11 Aardvark with its laser guided precision munitions, and its airstrike is one missile hitting one tank. And then you look at what is an airstrike in World War Two, and it's an entire bomber wing just dropping hundreds of of bombs onto a onto a city, and flattening everything in sight like air strike is very broad. Can you sort of describe in terms of length of time aircraft in the sky, munitions drop like something so we have an idea of what is the scope of what we call an airstrike in the context of Chin State?
Azad 15:58
Yeah, absolutely. Now I want to make a quick analogy. If you remember back to the Syrian civil war, no 2011 2012 there was huge international outcry in this one huge buzzword, no, it was barrel bombs, because the Assad regime was flying these mi eight helicopters, and they, you know, for lack of precision munitions, for lack of rockets, for lack of something like this, they would just be flying over rebel held territories and dropping huge oil drums filled with explosives out of these helicopters. Basically, you know, killing indiscriminately. That is essentially, you know, not to hyperbolize. That is what is happening in Chin State. Of course, the jet fighters are coming, but at the same time as the jet fighters are coming, they are also flying these y 12 airplanes, I don't know Google y 12. It's like a Chinese propeller airplane. You know, it's meant to, it's like a cargo transport airplanes. Yeah, they're flying and from what I can gather, they're using them as scout planes. But also they're, they're just dropping munitions out of the back cargo doors, out of this and obviously they're not hitting anything important. But I mean, that is the level of desperation that they have in regards to the Air Force and their ability to strike targets. No. Anyways, even their jets are really not hitting their targets to what I've seen. Of course, that's not the case everywhere, but the fact that they're also flying these, you know, like outdated propeller airplanes and just dropping bombs out of the back of them, I think, really highlights their philosophy in battle, which is, look, just throw the bombs and hopefully it'll hit someone and scare them away.
Brad 17:24
So, I mean, and for people who can't be bothered googling this, it's, it is a, how's it described? It's a twin engine, turbo prop aircraft. So this is, this is the kind of aircraft you would expect to be doing mail delivery between. You know, a state capital and maybe a rural town where the roads aren't particularly great, not, not what you would associate with high level military anything, to be completely honest. I mean, Cambodia is using it. Djibouti is using it. Eritrea, Ghana, Guyana, you get the picture. So that's kind of comical. Can you give an estimate, like, how many of these bombs are they? Are they throwing out? Is it just one plane dropping one bomb? Or do they just have, like, a rack of these, and they just let them fall where they fall?
Azad 18:18
Yeah. I mean, what I saw in 10 was the first time I saw this. And I was really confused, because, you know, this is maybe a little bit funny, you know, in cartoons when, like, a bomb, pause, it goes new, like, it makes this very hilarious cartoon town. The first time I ever heard that was in 10. And I was like, what is that? And it was, it was a y 12 dropping a bomb. So not like, obviously, they have limited cargo space, and they just fly around in a couple circles and drop all their bombs and mostly hitting nothing, and have to fly back to their regional resupply center. But it's the amount to which they're able to do this with one flight is not very effective. What we're seeing now in Tang, however, which is a fight in I'll talk about the planes first, maybe we can talk more about TANF long in general later. It's a fight in a very limited geography. This old town of tantlong, which was burned by the junta a couple years ago, like completely burned to the ground. The Junta kept their base there, and now the fighting is resumed to remove the junta from that area, they have called in hundreds of airstrikes. I don't know the exact numbers, but no, I'm trying to keep up with like the CNA pages and the CC pages that are reporting the news. And it's hundreds and hundreds of both airstrikes and y 12 bombing runs. So I really don't think they have any specific target or any specific something that they're aiming at, other than just send what we have at that area, and they're hoping, by numbers, that they can cause some casualties.
Brad 19:48
Because if we think about this, just in militarily speaking, dropping munitions, like even in World War Two, which was a while. Ago. We're talking 80 years ago. You still had bombing aircraft with a bombardier who had a proper look down site and was trained to calculate based on air speed, based on altitude, based on, you know, certain drag constants of the munitions, where that bomb is going to hit the ground, right? There was at least some targeting. But with the Y twelves you've described, unless they've done some serious, serious retrofitting to them, and I'm willing to bet that they haven't, they wouldn't even be, hypothetically, any capability to determine where that thing is going to fall, because if you're rolling it out the back, I mean, as like an improvised whatever it might be, it's that you don't have looked down. You can't calculate, you know, the target. You can just sort of fly in a line towards it and sort of guess that your X number of seconds away from Target, and then yell at the guy at the back and say, just throw it out the door whenever you can. So I'm kind of, I'm just kind of shocked by this whole thing, because there's no point to doing that, like you're not going to hit anything, even if you really want to, you can't be effective with this. So it just seems like a complete waste of fuel, ammunitions, more than anything else.
Azad 21:18
When it comes to anything in war, especially things that you have to rely on volume, like artillery or, I don't know, in the most extreme case, barrel bombs out of the back of a y 12. It's one of those things where, when you look at their options, no, it just highlights, okay, it's not very effective, and the chance of you hitting something is low, but they don't really have a lot, a lot of other options. And of course, yeah, if you get hit by it, it's not going to be a going to be a good day.
Brad 21:44
Do you do, you know, and I know this might be, you know, sensitive operation wise. But do you know whether anyone in the resistance has been the victim of these bombs?
Azad 21:53
Uh, I in, yeah. I mean, I assume, just especially in tank long, where the fighting has been going on for about two months now, and of course, before in matupi, where there was a fairly large battle a little while ago. Yeah, of course, these things eventually. You know, if you drop 200 battles out of the back of a plane, then one of them is going to land near someone, no, but obviously their per flight effectiveness is very low. I mean, I remember when I first came here, I saw this spreadsheet that was put out by a local resistance group, and it was documenting all of the air attacks in a certain battle. And it was over like 350 air attacks, I think, within the span of one week. And now I was very shocked, because I asked, okay, 350 air attacks? How many casualties, the casualties I forget if I mentioned this the last time, comparatively, the casualties per air sortie, we can say per airstrike or per air attack are like zero, like the average casualty for each airstrike is zero, and occasionally someone will get injured or someone will get wounded. Now what I would like to highlight, however, is that that's the case for the fighters overwhelmingly, both with the junta artillery and both with their airstrikes and both with even when they go into the town and they cause problems in the town, the the number one victim of the junta is the civilians, because, of course, while they're aiming for the soldiers and they're trying to kill the soldiers, what ends up happening Is they miss horrifically, and land on a school or land on a church or land on, you know, somebody's house. I mean, even in the time that we've been preparing for our next battles, the kind of retaliatory air strikes and artillery that's come has missed us entirely. But you know, almost a dozen civilians have been killed or wounded just from these kind of like retaliatory actions from the junta. So, yeah, the effectiveness against the actual fighters, not so high, but maybe the psychological damage that it has upon the populace, no, their fear of the junta. Maybe that's kind of the effect they're going for.
Brad 23:53
I'm not entirely sure, yeah, because this harkens back to what you were saying a little bit earlier, right? If, if there's something that makes sense for the enemy to do militarily, and they have the capability to do it. Why wouldn't they do it? But I kind of wanted to ask this, in your experience, does the tama do the things that make sense militarily because, because, from what I've seen since, since the coup happened, really over the last couple of years, has been a continuation of the same thing that the military have been engaged in since the 60s, which is completely militarily ineffective strategies and a rigid belief that if you terrorize the civilian population through any means, whether it's randomized strikes, whether It's arson, whether it's besiegement, whether it's targeted rapes, whether it's what have you that that will in some way bring about victory and consolidate your power. But of course, we know that that doesn't actually work in a real military sense. Is it your Is it reasonable to assume that the military would make corruption. Wrecked strategic choices if they have the means to make those choices, or is it possible that the military is not interested in good military strategy because they believe that they need to just target civilians harder?
Azad 25:11
Well, look, I'll say two things to that matter. One is that not especially when dealing with the SAC from place to place. Obviously, there's different commanders in different regions, and you know, the approach that you might get with one commander might be totally different from another commander. Now a good example, I'm in a place right now where the commander is, you know, at least not like a genocidal, like, you know, evil guy. He seems to be just like a normal dude who's a commander in the tatmadaw. And of course, he's still willing to kill civilians, and he's still willing to do all the terrible things that you have to do if you're a commander in the enemy, but he hasn't, you know, started this campaign of just like massacre. But as we saw in tenem, the second that the rebels started even getting close, they immediately started burning down the towns. They started killing and harassing the civilians, you know. So from place to place, obviously, the strategy is going to be different depending on the command. But what we can see, and this is my second point, we can see that we cannot deny it. It is effective. No, like if you're a military that you cannot militarily defend yourself. You're numerically outnumbered, you're isolated, you're surrounded. Everybody hates you if they if you can't fight, the very least you can do is make the civil population fear you and not support the resistance as much so at the same time, no, you could make all the arguments. You can say, Okay, well, the the harsher the junta is, the more people will be inspired to resist. But while that's true on a on a kind of more broad level, when you get down to the tactical level, when you start launching artillery at a village, then the people in that village are going to leave, and when the people in that village leave, then, of course, it gets more difficult for the resistance to act in the area. I mean, that's been the junta strategy going back for decades. No is displace the local population so that the rebels can't get support. Now, of course, on the larger scale, that makes people hit the junta, that makes people support the resistance. But for these commanders who are holed up in their base, that's kind of the terrorism is the only weapon they have left to prolong their life for however many months or however many more weeks. It may it may do.
Brad 27:13
So, okay, so, so it seems, in your, your case, you you're at least dealing with an adversary who is somewhat rational, if morally completely corrupted, but not not sort of so you would. You wouldn't be expecting in chain state to see completely unhinged acts of of sadism apropos of nothing.
Azad 27:37
Oh no. I think that that is entirely likely. I think that's maybe not even unhinged. No, the massacres that we're seeing in places like boudolin A couple weeks ago, the massacres that we're seeing, you know, all over the country, I don't want to classify these as, like, unhinged, you know, crazy people doing this. It's very much the intentional strategy of the dictatorship to push this campaign of fear. So no, I think the enemies that we're facing are, I would say, not stupid, but incompetent. No, like incompetent, but they have the guns of of a state military. They have the jets of a state military. They have the artillery of a state military. Maybe they can't utilize all that to its maximum effectiveness, but that doesn't mean that you know they're that they're stupid or that they don't know exactly what they're doing.
Brad 28:24
Okay, it's good to know. Okay, so let's, let's start zooming in a little bit. Let's look at the specifics. So Danton probably, probably the best place to start with. People will remember that even this was years back. Now, earlier in the coup, Dan Lang was burned to the ground twice, possibly even three times. It's it's just been so brutally and violently contested again and again and again. As you say, it's just, it's just ruins now. So can you give us an update on what's what's happening in Tun long right now?
Azad 29:05
Yeah, sure. And for the curious, you can go to Google Maps, and you can go to Tun long, and you can turn on satellite view and you can see just the situation. It's very bad. Yeah. So first disclaimer, I'm not in tantalum, and I'm also not with the groups that are fighting in Tun long. I'm just, you know, from here and there, getting information. But I think it's important to understand what's happening in tantal as kind of indicative of what's happening in Chin State. And I don't know if people want to extrapolate that to other places, in Myanmar as well. Now in tantal, the Qin LAN Council, you know, the CNF, the CNA and their allied groups have been fighting to, you know, take the take the junta forces that are holed up in the ruins of tantalum in the hills surrounding Tun, to attack them and remove them from the area. And the fighting has been, I don't know the specific day that it started, but I want to say about two months now, or maybe a little bit longer than two months, and it's. Been very hard. No, and there's been lots of from from what we understand, I don't have specific numbers, there's been lots of casualties on both sides. The Junta has came with hundreds and hundreds of air strikes, not just against Tang where the soldiers are fighting, but also in the surrounding villages. The initial situation was that tantal, like many other places in Chin State, has a very residual garrison. No, there's maybe only, at least, from what I understood to be the earlier estimates, maybe 100 somewhere between 102 100 soldiers there holed up in varying outposts surrounding tantalum now in the initial battle, as we all saw, you know, a couple of weeks ago, there were initial successes from the chin Lin Council forces. There was the auto hill that got taken and slowly into the town they're pushing. And I believe, at least as far as I understand from the publicly available information, it is still kind of like there is a front line in the town along the ruins. But what we saw is that the relatively small initial garrison was bolstered by at least, according to reports, 200 soldiers, 200 reinforcement soldiers now in Chin State. That's really significant. While 200 soldiers, maybe that's just a company somewhere else in Chin State, every single battalion or so called battalion, every single like outpost that we're facing that's an outpost 200 soldiers. You know, that's a whole new battle. So with the arrival of those reinforcements, the battle has drawn on. And I don't know what the initial projections were, but at this rate, it's looking like casualties on both sides are very heavy, both on the resistance side, both on the top mcgloth side. And of course, fighting like this over long periods is incredibly expensive in terms of ammunition and supplies, which, you know, where the resistance we we can't say we have a ton of so it's very difficult. But I think everyone is very hopeful. I know I'm very hopeful that there is final victory in tonto, but I think what happened from the beginning of the battle to now in the battle, I think is a really good thing to look at for kind of a blueprint of what the fighting here in Chin State looks like. No, you have these isolated and maybe numerically not so significant junta positions, but they are dug in. No, they are equipped properly. Maybe they have bad morale, maybe they have bad food. Maybe they have bad training, whatever at the end of the day, if you dig a trench on a hill and you give everyone on that hill guns, it's going to be difficult to take it, especially when they have 100 to 200 soldiers on the hill. So a little bit about what we talked about before, the current state of the resistance. No, the resistance vastly, vastly outnumbers the tama DAW, especially here in Chin State, but I possibly even around the country. No, so they have the numbers, and also they have the even armed members to outnumber the armed members of the tama DAW, but the difference really lies in the amount of supply that you can put up a protracted fight. No, the junta can always get air support. They can always get resupply the resistance cannot. They either have to buy or somehow otherwise procure more ammo to continue the fight. And secondly is the level of training. I haven't been with these soldiers, so, you know, I don't want to say anything insulting or say that they aren't properly trained, but the level of training across the board, I think you're seeing with the resistance compared to some of the SEC fighters is maybe not up to par. So when you combine kind of all those factors into a soup, you have a very difficult battle, especially when it gets protracted. Okay?
Brad 33:32
So So I understand the situation, although it seems strange, so I want to clarify. Is it the objective here to get rid of all of the Tamago bases and the Tamil fighters in Chin State, is that the page everyone's on? That's the goal.
Azad 33:50
I sure hope so. That's the page that we're on.
Brad 33:54
Okay, okay, I'm just, I'm just making sure, because I know in some places like, you know, let's keep some of them alive so, you know, so we don't get bombed. Okay, so if that's the goal, the thing is, so you say, putting people on a hill in a trench with guns, difficult to take that position and strategically and militarily, I understand that that is the truth. However, my other question is, is there any hope with regards to defections, if these guys are so cut off from the rest of the tama door, they're stuck, as you say, they have bad conditions, they have bad food, they have low morale. And my understanding is that the resistance in Shin state and all across Myanmar has been very, very proactive with regards to keeping the door open for defections and making sure that defecting soldiers are not going to be shot, are not going to be tortured, are not going to be treated as badly as they would be if you know the shoe were on the other foot. So is, is that something that is working in Chin State? Do you see anyone defecting?
Azad 34:53
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, almost every week we have one or two defectors. No, I think especially the people who. With their gun, they get a huge pile of money, and they get their travel organized through resistance territory to wherever they want to go. So a lot of these people want to go back to their family. A lot of these people want to go here or there or somewhere. So no, of course, we're seeing people who are taking up these offers. But for a lot of these soldiers, defection is, of course, if you fail at defecting, it's a death sentence. No, especially in Chin State, where it's not, like, okay, there's a front line you can slip away to. You're on an isolated Hill surrounded by soldiers. If anyone sees you walk away, they're it's very likely they're going to see you. So no, the reason that we're not seeing, you know, like, entire battalions up and walk away for two reasons. One, of course, it's very difficult to defect. Like, practically difficult to defect, to walk out of your base. The second reason is, as we're seeing now in Tun long and as we kind of saw a little bit in tetem, some of these, in some cases, in some fights, especially when it gets out to be like a protracted fight, the soldiers have a decent chance at holding their ground, no the capabilities of the resistance to mount some kind of like, you know, lightning bolt attack and smash the front lines and capture everybody we haven't seen so far, at least not in Chin State. So I think both the commanders there locally, as well as the lower level commanders and the soldiers are kind of weighing their odds. They're seeing the fighting that's been happening so far, and they're probably thinking, all right, as long as we can pull them into a drawn out fight, we probably have a pretty good chance of sticking it out.
Brad 36:29
Okay? But because that, that's kind of my thinking, is like, you're looking at these bases and you're saying that they're like, assuming these are representative of the bases that we see across the rest of the country, like numbers I'm hearing in some cases, like 150 Yeah, fighting men in a base of maybe 200 civilians, wives, children, elderly, all that sort of stuff. Yep, exactly. Um, so it, I don't know, under these kinds of circumstances. I mean, you look back at sieges in the medieval period, you know, talk of just giving up and opening the gates if you're not afraid that the enemy is going to storm your position and massacre everyone inside, if you've been given the option of walking out of there alive, starts to look pretty good. So I'm genuinely surprised that we're not seeing defections or surrenders at the entire outpost level, because it seems like, I mean, what's going to happen to them, like they're isolated. It's not like the commander of the garrison is going to be dragged off to napidor to stand trial and be hanged, right? He's in Chin State, like, come get him. So I don't know. I'm just confused on that point. It seems like that would be the logical choice for them at this junta.
Azad 37:46
Well, I would say to you, in soldier life, very rarely you do logical things. Of course, up until the point of the everyone kind of has this internal calculus. No. Now, I won't say for us, because obviously we don't want to surrender. But, you know, you talk about, you talk about a normal soldier here who maybe doesn't really want to fight, but just because he doesn't want to fight and he doesn't want to die somewhere, doesn't mean that he's also willing to take the very large risk of never seeing his family again. Or, you know, maybe his family is living in one of these cities and there will be some kind of repercussion, or just practically, it will be very difficult for him to go back to some place that's controlled by the junta if he deserts no so there is this calculus of, okay, what are the chances of me dying versus what are the chances of me being, you know, now, living this, like life in exile or getting displaced, or something like this. So no, what we see is, when the fight gets serious, the junta doesn't fight No. Of course, all over the country, we're seeing it wherever there's a really big battle, we are seeing huge numbers of soldiers deserve no by the hundreds, even like we saw in LA show no. But the difference is, in those kinds of battles, that is a battle, battle, you know, like there is the threat of, oh, shoot, if we don't surrender, we're gonna die, or we're gonna get rid anyway, you know. And I think right now, that's one of the now, I'm not saying this to, you know, I don't want to be pessimistic here about our chances of Chin State. My previous analysis that I said that by next year, Chin State will be free. That is still the case. I fairly fully believe, but I won't try to oversell the current capabilities of the resistance fighters. There is still a long way to go. There's a lot to go in terms of supply. There's a lot to go in terms of training. And right now, what we're seeing in Chin State, as opposed to something like Kachin state, or maybe in rockin state, or maybe in some places in the east, it's not that we have a unified super awesome force, that when we go we have this kind of lightning war, and we're able to win and force them to surrender and do something like this. No, I think that's coming. And I think that, no, maybe behind the scenes, there's lots of steps, there's lots of training. There's lots of things politically that are happening that will get us closer to moving in that direction, but as long as the balance of power is more how can we say as long as the tama da has a fighting chance, then I think that they will be carefully weighing their options before surrendering.
Brad 40:17
But you're also saying that they they don't really have that fighting chance you So you are saying that you believe next year, Shin state will be liberated completely from Tamago control, correct?
Azad 40:28
If not completely, then practically, there should be almost No Tamago soldiers left in Chin State. That's correct.
Brad 40:35
That's okay. So that's fine, okay. So let's so let's actually, before we do that, I do that. I do want to go through a couple of other towns just to to build up the picture of of the state, but I do want to come back to that larger strategy. So let's, let's go through a couple. I know that last time we spoke, we spoke about the battle into them. Yep, has there been any change or any update into them since
Azad 40:58
I have not been there, so I can't speak on that. But to my knowledge, most civilians have returned, those who wanted to return, and there is still kind of this interesting frontline situation going on, but not to the level of intensity that it was before. No.
Brad 41:16
Okay, how about matupi?
Azad 41:19
In matupi, I can't speak to that totally informed, because I'm also not there. I feel like you're gonna, like, by process of illumination, find out where I am. Yeah, I can't speak to that. But after the recent successes, there have been more airstrikes coming recently, but as far as frontline combat against junta soldiers in the area. Now this is going to make me sound really uneducated, especially because I'm working with Jun brotherhood Alliance, but I'm not entirely sure if all of the battalions of matupi were taken or if there's still, like one left on a hill isolated somewhere, but to my knowledge, that was a victory, like the battle in matupi was a success. And so if there's no fighting there anymore, and forgive me for sound uneducated, it's either because the remaining junta soldiers are just totally isolated, and we called it a success anyway, or because there's no more junta soldiers there.
Brad 42:08
Okay, so we get we can largely refer to Mato p as Liberia. Yeah, we can say that. Okay. And so the the big ticket item of the state with state capital Hakka, is that, is that still under military control, or is that alliance control?
Azad 42:22
Yeah, it is. It is under military control. But recently, in the past couple of months, cdf, haka has been doing a lot of really good like guerilla style attacks. They've attacked the police station, they've attacked some outlying posts, they've been doing some ambushes, and they've been posting really good results. They've been taking weapons and ammo from the police and from the military. So while obviously, Hakka, you know, for people who don't know, is the biggest city in Chin State, it also has probably the largest garrison in Chin State. So it's definitely not on the short term, you know, on the slate of anybody. But the good news is that in Hakka and surrounding Hakka, these kind of guerrilla attacks and these chips away at the top of those power have also been happening.
Brad 43:01
Okay, okay, so, so across the state, it sounds like everything is either static or is slowly moving towards Alliance control. Is there any territory in the state where you feel that the military have made any gains?
Azad 43:15
No, but actually now that you remind me, I can't believe I forgot. Also, I believe in the time since we talked Chika and Tun song also fell to chin Lin Council forces. Okay, yeah, so now north of tetem is clear. Of course, there's still the issue, which, I mean, that's a whole can of worms. But anyway, north of tetem is clear. Tetem also contested falam, contested haka. There's resistance forces going in and around Tun long there's currently a battle happening. Matupi, we can say, has been fought for no all around the state. That's why, that's why my analysis is by this time next year, if not fully, then practically all of the SEC should be out of Chin State.
Brad 43:58
We can say, okay, that's I'm just, I'm just trying to make sure that that, that I'm not sort of giving into too much optimism, because it's very easy to do that, and it's very easy for the military to pull, pull something. And so you're saying north of 10 is clear. So 10 itself is quite far north, though.
Azad 44:22
Yeah, north of okay, so towns, or like village towns, you can say of Tun song in Chicago, both of them had a military garrison, but both of them were cleared out a couple months ago by cc forces.
Brad 44:32
Yeah. So is it? Is it possible? And so it's probably so very difficult to calculate, but is it possible to give an estimate of how much of the state is still under military control.
Azad 44:44
I mean, if you want to put it up to like land mass, probably like a couple square kilometers. But if you want to put it, yeah, if you want to put it more like zones of control, then, yeah, there's still a couple towns. Obviously, there's haka, there's Tun long, there's falam, there's 10 and then still in the South. East of Chin State, no around kanp, if I'm pronouncing that right, there's still some people left. So in terms of, like, you know, physical ground under the military's control, almost trivial. But of course, as we discussed earlier, these bases are more like control nodes than they are area control things.
Brad 45:23
Absolutely okay. So that's, I mean, it's look, it's looking quite good. And I also just wonder whether Chin State really matters enough to the military, because, you know, they have very limited manpower. They have very limited resources. Is it possible? Do you think that the military would turn around. The central leadership would turn around and say, Hey, we need to start shoring up the numbers in Chin State. We really need to start focusing on that. Or are the lines in and out of the states so thoroughly controlled and mined and ambushed that there's just no hope of reinforcements entering?
Azad 45:57
Yeah. I mean, look, on one hand, it's again, I imagine the enemy is doing his own threat analysis, if we're being honest about ourselves right now, it has been three years, and still, I would say there is not a huge like flashing red button danger group in Chin State that can wipe the junta off the map. No, like, I think we will beat the junta. But it's not like it's, you know, it's not like it will be without a lot of sacrifice and without a lot of hard work. So I think the junta is probably seeing, okay, Chin State, what's happening right now is there is not a huge threat to them in the long term, in the same way that, like the Kia or the AA, or like the Karenni groups in the east or something like this, these are like long term strategic threats. You know, these are big organizations, huge militaries, that even after their own areas, are going to be coming for the junta in for the junta defeat. I think at Chin State, you haven't seen that yet, and so that's why the junta hasn't hit the panic button in Chin State. Now, again, I don't think that will always be the case. I think that again, Chin State will be liberated. And then, of course, after Chin State, we're on to the next place. But the timescale at which that is happening, I think, has has not caused the junta to flip their panic alone.
Brad 47:07
okay, and so, so moving to the to the more strategic, uh, situation for you guys. So the plan is to get rid of the military. But so the my understanding, is that there's not a huge amount of movement happening, and the way, the way you were describing it, as we were discussing previously, it's a lot of groups waiting on other groups waiting on other groups. So can you, can you describe the sort of level of cooperation and collaboration between different organizations fighting in Chin State and why they can't operate fully independently?
Azad 47:40
Yeah, so I think maybe not just in Chin State, but all around the country. The number one threat, really, when we're fighting the junta is, one, their artillery, and two, their air support. No, obviously people are very scared of an airstrike, because, you know, unless you have some good cover, there's not a whole lot you can do to fight against it. If you've got a soldier a car from you, you can shoot back at the soldier. If the jet is coming. Really, you kind of just have to sit there and take it so psychologically, and also, you know, strategically, it's a big worry for a lot of the resistance forces. So a common tactic, you know, we saw very successful with 1027, a year ago, is to have a kind of offensive in many places all at once. That way the junta air response will still come. Of course, you know it's still inevitable, but the resources will be stretched over a wider front, and that will have, you know, less of an effect on the attacking force. Now, I think, you know, that's a good idea, of course, practically, I also don't want to get air striked, but I think it runs into a problem here or there, where you're waiting and let's say two, two towns are waiting on each other, and then one of those towns is waiting on some different town, and then one of those groups is waiting on some different groups, and you get into a whole kind of spaghetti knot of people who are waiting on other people for kind of the perfect moment. No, this is very cheesy for me to quote, you know, an American general, but there's the, I don't know if it's patent. Actually, I just added myself as stupid, because I don't know who actually said it, but the quote goes, is that a perfect plan or a good plan now is better than a perfect plan later? And I think that probably holds true here as well. No, I definitely don't disagree with trying to do everything we can to minimize the, you know, threat of airstrikes. But, you know, having this complicated web of people who are waiting on other people, especially from a political aspect, you know, don't even talk about the airstrikes. Talk about like, let's say you're in Chin State right now, other than the border town of Rico dar and you know, some other like villages, there is functionally not like. And now, you know, slowly, matupi and Plato as well. There's not like a huge independent political entity that can now take the responsibility, or at least have the experience, of taking the responsibility, for these places that are now liberated. So, of course, they will be liberated, and IT revolution. So everything has a solution, but at the same time, nobody wants to be the. First person to have all junta's political and military might leverage it against them, if that makes sense. So you know, not to frame it in such a negative light. But there is a very complicated balance of like, cooperation and waiting and planning and, you know, waiting for that perfect moment.
Brad 50:20
If that makes sense, which which, I suppose that makes on this that makes sense, in a way, just to clarify like I want to understand, is this the negotiation? Are we talking about multiple different organizations coordinating their own independent tax so that they all occur simultaneously, or are we talking about multiple groups deciding to collaborate against a single joint target.
Azad 50:43
The first well, actually both, okay. It's okay. It's both. It's multiple groups collaborating for simultaneous attacks on multiple targets.
Brad 50:55
Okay, but as general rule, each group would be responsible for its own target. So you're not, yeah, yeah. So it's not like we're all saying we all have to attack this one place, but we all have to attack it on the same day to minimize casualties in each individual group. It's I want to have an operation in the north. You want to have an operation in the South. I want to have an operation here. Let's just do it on the same day.
Azad 51:21
Yeah. So simplified, but yeah, that's, that's, that's the gist of it. And really interestingly, I think what we can talk about this is in these operations, there are a whole rainbow of groups coming together, even in places where it doesn't really make sense for them to fight. Now, of course, I don't want to dox myself here, but I'm in a place that's very far away from some of the places that people who are fighting with us are coming from, you know what I mean. So even past strategic levels, there is a very real how we can say component of cooperation and solidarity, realizing that a fight anywhere is a fight against the junta everywhere. No. So you have groups and commanders and, you know, detachments, whether it's a section, whether it's a squad, whether it's a whole company of guys coming from some other place to fight the junta. There is very much the idea that, okay, wherever we're fighting, it's the same fight. It's the same front line. And now maybe that has some political contours here and there, but we can see that the collaboration, you know, we're fighting here in Chin State, but there's a bunch of people here who aren't from Chin State, who are also fighting alongside us and fighting with us.
Brad 52:25
Okay? I mean, it's really good to hear. But then that question is as well these delays, is it? Is it possible that that putting off and putting off is is eventually going to give the military an opportunity to do something that they want to do.
Azad 52:41
I think, yeah, that's, that's probably the biggest counter argument that you could say, the longer that you wait to get your perfect plan the enemy, he's not sitting there asleep. He's also improving his defenses and making his plan, and also probably screaming every day to his commander, begging for reinforcements and begging for supplies. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of the trade off that you have to make.
Brad 53:04
I mean, that's, that's incredible. So how? Okay, so let's talk relationship. How is the relationship between the various groups? I understand, you know, you've got chin brotherhood, Alliance. Clearly, there is some, some unification going on. There are there? Are there any groups that are just not playing nicely with one another, or just don't believe in each other's plans and strategies, or is everyone pretty much United already? Everyone's on the same page, and it's just the minutia that's stopping them from actually making an agreement and moving forward.
Azad 53:36
Well, you know, I would say that is the million dollar question for Chin State is, what's the deal with chin brotherhood and chin then Council, I think. Now, you know, of course, take everything that I say here with a bit of bias, because up until now, I have only been with the groups that are in the chin brotherhood. So I'll give a brief recap, and I'll try to be as neutral in this recap as I can. But of course, I'm hearing one side of the story, if you will. So, you know, take everything I say with a grain of salt. The essential situation in Chin State is that before about last year, there was one kind of we can call it hodgepodge coalition of all of the different political and military groups in Chin State called the icncc, the interim chin National Coordinating Committee. If I'm not mistaken, I know it's IC NCC, but maybe the acronym anyway, this was kind of, you know, in collaboration with also the nug and with all of the groups in Chin State. It was kind of like the big tent Chin State organization. No, you can say everyone was working together. And, of course, there's always these little political things between the different groups, but everyone was more or less in this group to coordinate and to, you know, do the day to day work of revolution. Last year, the chin then Council was formed, and this was kind of an effort that was spearheaded. Led by the CNF chin National Front to make a interim, we can say, like legitimate chin government, you know, they drafted a constitution. They, you know, made this whole legislative system. They made the whole military system. And the goal was, okay, let's, let's, now we have our revolution. Let's make our let's make our system, you know, let's make it official. And I would say a lot of the people in the IC NCC then joined that. We call it CC now, chin land Council. But the on the other side, there was a lot of pushback from people who didn't support this. People in the ICN IC NCC said that, you know, they kind of the accusation is that CNF is now pulling out of the icncc and making their own kind of governing body. So essentially, the way it worked out was everyone who didn't join Council and didn't agree with this kind of like CNF led vision of what the political future of Chin State should be. Then pulled out and stayed in the IC NCC, which is still a body to this day, and formed, you know, the chin brotherhood. So now we have the situation where I would say, you know, to be fair, it is probably split 5050, down the middle, where once one side is CC, one side is CB. Now on both sides, of course, there have been military operations, no like the operations in southern Chin State and matupi, you know, alongside the Arakan army. And also the fights now in Tang, the attacks happening in haka from the chin Lin Council each side. And, of course, the Battle of Saddam. How can I forget? And of course, Sisi taking Tun song in Chicago in northern Chen state. So each side, no is fighting the junta, but due to not just these political differences over the formation of chin Lin Council, but also due to these more complicated things that I couldn't even begin to talk about, about, like tribal differences and like tribal politics in Chin State and also diaspora politics, which is also playing a big role in this. It is a very complicated, complicated can of worms that especially me as an outsider, not only as someone who's not from here. I'm not chin. I don't know the deep complications for this. It is very opaque even to me, what I can say on this issue. And what I think, especially for maybe listeners of this podcast, what you should care about is, I think, what is the way forward for Chin State? No, it's my opinion, you know, the opinion of lots of other people that, okay, we have these issues, and you know, they have to be resolved one way or another. But at the end of the day, the only way to victory is by coordination. Now I think that regardless whether the CC and the CB start working together or they don't work together and they each just do their own things in their own areas, regardless, Chin State will be liberated. No, I think that's that's not in any doubt, Chin State will be free. But the question is, with how much sacrifice which instead be free with how much you know, how many martyrs will we have to give? How much resources and supplies will we have to expend to fight the junta? I think that the sacrifice of a victory would be much higher in a kind of divided situation where everyone is working in their own spheres, and much more importantly, the actual final defeat of the junta after we liberation state. What do we do next? I think if you look at other places that have a unified army, you know, they are the most effective fighting forces in the country. You look at Kia, kndf, can you No, also Arakan army. These places are, of course, not without their political problems. No. I mean, I'm sure. I don't know if you've had any other podcasts guests on that have talked about, like, the political problems in other places. But of course, everybody has these micro, tribal political differences like this. But our goal here is to defeat the junta. So I you know, I believe going forward, and I think most importantly, what we're seeing now with the lessons that we're learning in tetem, the lessons that we're lessons that we're learning now in TANF long is that, yeah, we can do it by ourselves, but it's really expensive, both in terms of material, both in terms of the lives of our comrades, both in terms of the civilians and the people that die, you know, in the in the duration of this fight, it's very expensive. So I'm hoping that going forward, and there are efforts on both sides to kind of have some kind of reconciliation and collaboration, but I'm hoping that becomes the rule going forward, because, really, Chin State could be an example of, like a powerhouse in the revolution. No, I by my analysis, if tomorrow, just by the snap of a finger, you ignored all politics and united all of the Chin State groups and put them together in one big army. I mean, you could wipe the junta off the map, it would be a joke. So I'm hoping that that kind of perspective is what progresses going forward.
Brad 59:53
Yeah, so I want to go back to what you were talking about there, because post victory is something that we need to be talking. Out a lot more, especially now, as you know, you're saying that you you believe that the state is going to be liberated relatively quickly, and you're physically there. So the problem here is that, if Qin state is liberated, what options does it have? Chin State is famously a very poor state within Myanmar, the the community that have come out of Chin State and fled to India are increasingly, from my understanding, facing discrimination over there that doesn't seem to be a lot of good will on the Indian side of the border towards Chin State and on, you know, to the south, you've got Rakhine. To the east, you've got San where the military is still engaged in combat quite heavily. Is Chin State in a position to stand on its own two feet? Let's say you get rid of the military. Can Chin State simply stand and sustain itself and support itself and begin the process of reconstruction and sort of rising from the ashes, to use the poetic terminology, or is Chin State going to have to start looking for external partners to keep it aloft?
Azad 1:01:09
Well, that's a good question. And I think even before the coup, no, even before the revolution, Chin State was very underdeveloped, and especially before 2008 No, like before you some of these kind of, like, new how we can say, like, investments in Chin State. I mean, before 2008 and a lot of these places, there was, like, no roads, you know. So even even before this revolution, the situation in Chin State was really not great, and only with some, you know, help and investment from some kind of central government was there able to be some developments, I think, especially after the revolution, that's going to be difficult, no, but, I mean, of course, there will be NGOs who will step in, and there will be anyway, some limited remnants of support from junta institutions like I don't know if you know this, but at least this is the case in Chin State. I'm sure it's the case other places as well. Even in places where the junta is defeated, there are still, like, junta road workers or something, you know, like, it was really funny in tetan, we were getting ready for tetan battle, and there's this bridge crossing a river, which is a very important bridge. If you don't have this bridge, then you can't travel anywhere in tetem. And we were crossing, and there were workers working on the bridge and, and this is, mind you, kilometers deep into rebel territory. And I asked the person I was with, I was saying, oh, Are these our workers? And they said, no, no, these are the junta's workers. So even in some places where the junta is being defeated or is being surrounded or losing, it's still somehow maintaining the infrastructure in some places, which, of course, we can't rely on that to go on forever, especially because it's pretty nonsensical, but I mean that, combined with NGOs, combined with, really, at the end of the day, it's a revolution, and I firmly believe in the ability of anybody in a revolution to kind of solve their own problems and find some kind of solution, even if it's, you know, Having military people paved roads, or, you know, donation campaigns, or self organization campaigns. You know, I believe that it will be okay at the end of the day. It's a revolution.
Brad 1:03:10
No, yeah. And, and the other question is, and I know you already talking about this, and I know you've made your your hopes on this very clear and Chin State. I think Chin State was very, very early in creating its own system of governance, its own sort of, what's the what's the best sort of political term to use here? I don't want to use shadow government, but its own sort of alternative government to the military regime. So I think it seems, from an outside perspective, that Chin State is in a very good position to have centralized civilian authority post liberation. But I want to get your perspective. Do you think that it is likely that Chin State is going to have that peaceful transition to a statewide, recognized civilian authority. Or do you think the likelihood of the various armed resistance groups standing up and saying, Well, no, no, no, I fought for this region, so I should get to rule this region, is is going to be a problem?
Azad 1:04:14
Yeah, no, I think. Look, here's a problem, especially with this big divide right now with CB and CC, at least on paper, this idea of a Qin Lin Council now is, I mean, having a unified body that we're able to somehow legitimately govern chin Lin with, I think is a good idea. Of course, the big problem, at least from what I understand from a lot of the groups that did not support join the chin Lin Council, was the timing of it and the specific provisions in the documents of the foundation of the shenan Council. No, we were talking about, like, some political nitpicking things here. But that doesn't mean that these groups aren't also wanting something along the same lines. And I think we're not dealing in Chin State with like, warlords, you know, like, really. We're very fortunate that a lot of these groups, even the older ones, even the newer ones, are formed by mostly, like, normal people, you know, it's like, we're not dealing with like, you know, drug runners or, you know, or something like this, really, in each place, even if there might be really heated political tensions, and especially recently, there's a lot of political rhetoric that I really don't like and that I really don't agree with even though these tensions are really high, I think it's still coming. You know, I want to believe that everybody is genuine in their positions and is not doing anything maliciously here. So I believe that after, especially after the junta, is liberated from Shin state, I think it will be kind of obvious that there has to be some kind of reconciliation and some kind of, you know, democratic process moving forward now, I hope that happens sooner. And, you know, to my knowledge, to my understanding, I can't speak, you know, too much on this, because it's just things that I'm hearing. But there are processes going on for reconciliation, for talking about increased cooperation, for talking about, you know, getting to the bottom of some of these political issues that is happening right now. I don't want to paint a hopeless picture. It's just that the sooner that happens, the better. But I do think it will eventually happen. I want to be optimistic on that.
Brad 1:06:13
Okay? I mean that at the very least, that is something positive to look forward to. And another thing, obviously, that we that we have to discuss today, and something positive, and something that, once against, the audience, does have the opportunity to engage with, and has the opportunity to assist with, is the AIF. So can you, can you take us through what is, what is AIF, and we'll talk about the fundraiser you're running.
Azad 1:06:37
Yeah, sure. AIF stands for Anti Fascist, internationalist front. It is a format. Well, it's what it says on the can of soup. I guess it is a formation of internationalists who are Anti Fascist, who are coming to Myanmar to join the revolution and to fight alongside the people here resisting the dictatorship.
Brad 1:06:59
Okay, okay. And so that's so is this, I want to clarify. Is this an international organization, or is it specifically targeted at Myanmar?
Azad 1:07:09
It's specifically targeted for people who are coming here to Myanmar.
Brad 1:07:13
Okay, okay. It's really interesting. And can we get an idea of the scope of this, like, how many, how many people are coming to Myanmar? Do you have any idea, or is it possible to even talk about that?
Azad 1:07:25
Yeah, we can't talk about like numbers specifically, but we can talk a little bit about the purpose of such a formation, maybe also especially the context. No, we talked. So the way that this kind of came about, we can say, I'm here in Chin State right now, but even though I'm here, there's, of course, other internationalists also in Chin State, but also other places in the country, especially in the East. And there have been for years and years, no at all points there have been people coming, either to for humanitarian work or to give some kind of training. I mean, even as back as like the 80s and 90s, there have been people who have been showing up in Myanmar. You know, a difference, I think, is up until now, the people who have been coming, I mean, myself included, have only been able to come here to Myanmar because they already had some kind of experience or some kind of connection. No, like I was in Syria for four years. I got my military experience there, and through this way or that way, I had some connection that was also here, and I was able to organize my own travel to Myanmar and to join this revolution. And of course, there's other people here who, maybe they're ex military, or they have experience in Ukraine, or, you know, for any, any number of backgrounds, they have also, on their own accord, individually, come to Myanmar with this group or that group to do this training or that training. And the important thing is that up until now, that's kind of been a very individual effort, and it's also mostly, to my knowledge, been like ex military guys who are doing this. The point of AIF the Anti Fascist internationalist front is to from a very intentional internationalist perspective, from a political perspective, not just coming here to give military training, not just coming here to, you know, big air quotes, help or something like this, from a very intentional political perspective, coming to join the revolution, to fight alongside the people of Myanmar. Reason being, the dictatorship that is currently here in Myanmar is just one representation of fascism, no, of power against the people. And that dictatorship that's here in Myanmar is, in a very real sense, an international fascism. No, it's just that it has one little sprout representing itself here in the dictatorship. So by coming here, no, by fighting alongside this revolution, we're recognizing that the enemy we're fighting is the same enemy. So it's not that we're coming here to help. It's not that we're coming here to, you know, to assist in any way. It's much more. We're coming here to participate in a fight that is as much the people of Myanmar as it is our fight.
Brad 1:10:01
And, I mean, it's very inspiring to hear that there are people who who are doing that night. I again, I don't want to get into anything that might be operationally sensitive, but I assume that these are mostly Westerners, correct.
Azad 1:10:15
Well, yeah, actually, you'd be surprised. Oh, really, yeah. Well, there we go. So people from all over, yeah. I mean, of course, especially because a lot of the publicity for this so far has been through my platforms and people who following me who are, anyway, Westerners. Then yes, of course, you know, I won't, you know, obviously it skews towards people coming from the west who are applying, but also people are coming who are not from the West, which is very cool.
Brad 1:10:47
And you say they're applying. Is there a selection process that people would have to go through? Yes, there is okay. So you would, I'm just sort of broad strokes curious. What are you are you looking for proven history of applicable skill set military training, or are you doing sort of an ideological assessment, like, what are you kind of looking for, for recruiting? Sure?
Azad 1:11:10
So again, for the record, I know you're using the royal you here, but it's not just me. I'm also not, like, don't I don't want to say anything as, like, the official spokesperson of AIF or something. It's just that, by necessity of this kind of organization, the people who are coming and going are not publicly advertising. So people who are coming and going, you know, can't be super public about it. So up until now, I have the largest kind of platform, if you will. So, you know, I can answer some questions about it, but please don't interpret what I'm saying as like, Okay, this is the AIS position, but generally, what we and our comrades are looking for is not necessarily somebody who has military experience. No, like I said, up until now, it's only been people who have something to offer before. No, they have some kind of ex military experience, and they're coming here to give training. Our goal is to provide a vessel for people who consider themselves revolutionaries to come and join the revolution, not only to do material action against the dictatorship, but also to develop themselves as revolutionaries.
Brad 1:12:20
Okay, interesting. And are you, I presume, that you're not just looking for the military, like, Would you be particularly interested, for example, in people who have medical experience, right?
Azad 1:12:32
I mean, for us, No, we don't really factor in, like, someone's specific experience. It's much more about, I think, the mindset of people who are coming here, you know, we don't want it to be the place that you go if you want to fight in Myanmar, you know, that's that's really not our goal. Because anyway, on the strategic level, it's not that when you have, you know, a battalion of foreign people, that it's going to make any material difference in the war. What we're here to do is very much a political act, and it's very much how we can say like it has a lot of meaning to it. So of course, we're coming to in any way that we can contribute. And of course, there's people who are coming with medical experience, with Drone Experience, maybe they do have military experience, something like this. But the important thing is, what we can contribute as comrades in a revolution, how we can help ourselves become better revolutionaries, how we can no fight alongside our comrades and understand this struggle. So, yeah, it's not, it's not necessarily about the talents that somebody is bringing that leads them to come or not.
Brad 1:13:36
That's interesting. Like, let's say then, like, just to take to a more extreme. Let's say you're, you know, you're young, you're at university, or maybe you've just finished your university in whatever your degree might be, you know, arts, business, communication, what have you. But you have no particular medical, mechanical or military experience. But you know, you've got an open mind and a big heart and two hands and you're willing to do work. Is it possible for someone in that situation to be able to go to chin and to be able to find ways to meaningfully contribute?
Azad 1:14:10
Well, that's a big question. And of course, the answer is yes. But the reason it's a big question is because that's kind of the whole point here. No. I mean, let's look at the Myanmar revolution. We're looking at a revolution of people who, in the exact same situation you described a couple years ago, were faced with a military coup, no, and those are, those are people who decided, look, okay, maybe I'm a poet or maybe I'm a student, or maybe I'm a doctor, or maybe I'm a teacher or whatever, but they decided that I don't care if I don't know what I'm doing, I know what is the right thing to do, if that makes sense. So no. Now you have 10s of 1000s of people all around the country who are making the decision to leave behind that life and fight the dictatorship. Now I think, speaking for your specific question, the people who find themselves in the situation, can they do it? I think absolutely they can do it. No. Maybe you recall from our last time, our last interview before I went to Syria, I was a barista. I made coffee. Okay, so, you know, I don't want to. Nobody should try to, like, gatekeep revolution, or nobody should try to cast any doubt on what a people, a an organized, politicized people, can do when they really decide to stand up for themselves, for freedom and to fight dictatorship, which also includes somebody who considers themselves, I don't know, maybe you're political, you're somewhere, and you want to stand up for what's right and for what you feel is unacceptable. I think that is the fundamental capability of any human.
Brad 1:15:39
I think it's a really empowering message to be honest. And I know I don't I want to drag things into into other politics, but I know that right now, there are quite a lot of people feeling very How should I say, disempowered politically, and might be looking for a way to contribute the themselves fully to making some sort of tangible difference and doing something that is morally right and upstanding. So, yeah, for those people definitely, definitely, would then recommend, you know, AIF, and you know, seriously considering whether this is a course that someone might want to, might want to do. The world is filled with these opportunities for privileged Westerners to quote, unquote, contribute, to go to villages, build a house, build a well, build whatever, only to realize that it's basically just a very expensive backdrop to your Instagram posts and your contributions were effectively nothing, that the only contribution was the 5000 to $10,000 that you paid for the privilege of going somewhere to pretend that you actually helped. And here is an opportunity to actually, genuinely help people who do need the help and and and participate in a revolution that is meaningful and that that is significant, and that is very morally one sided, to be completely honest. But for for those who are not interested or are not able to actually go in person, I understand that you do have a fundraiser. Now that you are, you're trying to collect funds to support the AIF that our audience might also be able to participate with. Can you? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Azad 1:17:22
Yeah, absolutely. And first, no, I want to say that for exactly what you described, the message for people who may be feeling not out of touch with the power that they actually have as humans, especially in the oppressive systems in which we live, I want to emphasize that it's not that we are going around, putting up flyers everywhere, saying, join the AIF. You know, whether we have five people, whether we have 50 or 500 people, that's not really our goal here. What doing in this revolution, what the AIF is, is a vehicle for the people who consider themselves revolutionaries, for the people who consider themselves on the side of the people, if you will, on the side of freedom, to be able to go to the front line of where that battle for freedom is actually happening. And so, you know, whether people decide that that's something that they want to be for themselves, then that's up to them, of course. But as to the fundraiser, yes, a couple weeks ago, we made the announcement of the AIF, and now we're slowly getting in the first batch of people who are wanting to come and we're laying the groundwork for those people to come in in an organized way. And of course, that has a lot of expenses. Until now, we've been working, you know, as individual internationalists. Before this kind of formation came about, we've been working with our local allies, with our local groups. Up until now, like here, I've been with chin brotherhood. Other people have been elsewhere. And of course, we rely really heavily on our allies, and they're very enthusiastic about this. But from our perspective as internationalists, we don't just want to come and be a drain and be a draw. No, we can contribute what we can, and especially when it comes to like equipment, transportation, things like this, which you know, for these groups, they themselves are fundraising a lot. You know, if you go to Facebook of any group, you'll see everyone has a fundraiser for bulletproof armor or a truck or, you know, their drone team or something like this. They themselves are doing lots of fundraising. So as internationalists coming here to fight alongside, we're really we want to pull our own weight, and that, of course, has its expenses. The primary among that being a car, which is, of course, expensive, and of course, the personal equipment, the magazines, the bulletproof, you know, things that we want for our soldiers, those things add up. So for our we can say, establishment fundraiser, the things that we need to get ourselves off the ground without having to be too much of a drawer, absolutely.
Brad 1:19:41
And I think this is a very worthwhile undertake. I mean, not only because, you know, putting bulletproof vests on people is a good thing because we want them to not be shot, but also just in the broader sense, it's so vexing and so frustrating for people far away from the conflict to know what's. Happening, to hear what's happening and to be deeply moved by by the events, and not really have a way to get invested, not really have a way to assist, not really have a way to make a difference. And you get these very vague calls for for money and donations to be sent, and this vague sense that the money will will achieve something, but having a very specific organization, having a very specific goal, a specific fundraiser for a specific outcome, is, I think, something that that makes sending that money emotionally more satisfying. It makes it clearer to you what it is that you've helped to accomplish. It allows you to feel like you really are making that contribution. You really are making a difference in in the world. So I think these type of fundraiser and just projects like this in general, are so, so so essential to keeping engagement with people outside who are deeply disturbed by what's happening in the country, but don't feel that they have a meaningful, tangible way to contribute, a meaningful, tangible way to get involved and invested with with the ongoing disasters. So all that being said, I think this has been really good to get that update on what's happening in Chin State, to hear back from someone that we've heard from before, to see how things have progressed, to see how things are changing, or even to hear where there are points of stagnation and, and I'm very heartened to hear you saying that you continue to believe that Chin State is going to be liberated in 2025 that's, I mean, That's, that's outstanding news. And and we need more optimism right now. Everything in Myanmar seems to have sort of slowed to a crawl. Progress has sort of seamlessly slowed down. So it's it's important for us to have these insights.
Azad 1:21:53
Yeah, absolutely. I think no, what we're seeing now is kind of the bust cycle in this whole boom and bust cycle of offense and defense and junta retreating in new attacks. While there may be a lull in the attacks that have been happening, I think we should look at the context. The Junta is getting destroyed. I mean, everywhere it's defeat. Every single place you look, the junta is getting defeated or retreating or is being encircled, or they're surrendering, or they're massacring the civilians out of desperation, or they're begging for supplies, or they're getting ambushed. It is. It's genuinely a terrible situation, so maybe from the scale of the 1027, attacks that happened a year ago. Okay, things are slowing down a bit, but the reason is because the massive successes that have been happening all around the country. No like the Western command center is currently being surrounded in in rockeen state, in the East, in Lashio, the Eastern command center has fallen no so slowly the junta is losing its nodes all around the country, and is shrinking and shrinking now it's going to get eventually, of course, to a kind of position where they will reach a critical mass of defensive capability and really be able to leverage their air force and their armor and their, you know, superior material over a limited geographical space. I mean, eventually that is somewhere in our future. But everyone who's looking can rest assured with the fact that everywhere the resistance is not only gaining victories but growing stronger, learning these lessons that even sometimes a defeat may teach you and coming back and taking the lessons of this stagnation, or we will not use the word stagnation, but learning these hard lessons of what we need to do for victory, the lessons that, of course, the sacrifices of our martyrs are teaching us, the sacrifices of the people who are dying in our towns from the junta airstrikes and the junta's artillery bombings are teaching us and This determination to go forward is really stronger than ever. I mean, Wherever you look, there's groups that are getting stronger. There's groups from the east, like, for instance, B PLA is now moving into the plains territories. Wherever you look, there is kind of this blossoming and this flowering of resistance activity. So I think sometime in our short future, something on the scale of 1027, this new explosion of resistance, offensive, this new explosion of liberation. I think really, truly, we can look forward to seeing this happen. No, we can look forward to the unification of Chin State and the marching of all the soldiers of Chin State. And there's 1000s and 1000s the marching of these soldiers now down into the plains of sayagyiyang and Moe NIWA and magway and something like this. No, like, there is 1000 things to look forward to. And again, my same message, which is the message I gave last time, is, do not listen to these cynical mainstream media headline people, because what they're interested in is, really, how can we say, whenever there's a big headline, whenever there's some terrible tragedy, whenever there's some, you know, massacre of civilians, of course, they will be there to report on it, but at least from the coverage that I've seen, the actual level of hope, the actual level of commitment of the people on the ground, the level of of true dedication and really happiness and joy that is going on in this revolution right now, and I'll. Muslim for the future is not being represented so well, and I think that's a really big takeaway.
Host 1:25:15
Many listeners know that in addition to running these podcast episodes, we also run a nonprofit Better Burma, which carries out humanitarian projects across Myanmar, while we regularly post about current needs and proposals from groups on the ground, we also handle emergency requests, often in matters that are quite literally life or death. When those urgent requests come in, we have no time to conduct targeted fundraisers, as these funds are often needed within hours, so please consider helping us to maintain this emergency fund. We want to stress that literally any amount you can give allows us to respond more flexibly and effectively when disaster strikes. If you would like to join in our mission to support those in Myanmar who are being impacted by the military coup, we welcome your contribution in any form, currency or transfer method, Your donation will go on to support a wide range of humanitarian and media missions, aiding those local communities who need it most. Donations are directed to such causes as the Civil Disobedience movement, CDM, families of deceased victims, internally displaced person, IDP camps, food for impoverished communities, military defection campaigns, undercover journalists, refugee camps, monasteries and nunneries, education initiatives, the purchasing of protective equipment and medical supplies, COVID relief and more. We also make sure that our donation Fund supports a diverse range of religious and ethnic groups across the country. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about past projects as well as upcoming needs. You can give a general donation or earmark your contribution to a specific activity or project you would like to support, perhaps even something you heard about in this very episode. All of this humanitarian work is carried out by our non profit mission. Better Burma, any donation you give on our Insight Myanmar website is directed towards this fund. Alternatively, you can also visit the Better Burma website, betterburma.org and donate directly there. In either case, your donation goes to the same cause in both websites, except credit card, you can also give via PayPal, by going to paypal.me/betterburma. Additionally, we can take donations through Patreon, Venmo, GoFundMe and Cash App. Simply search better Burma on each platform, and you'll find our account. You can also visit either website for specific links to these respective accounts, or email us at info@betterburma.org, that's Better Burma, one word spelled B, E T, T, E R, B, U, R, M, a.org. If you would like to give it another way, please contact us. We also invite you to check out our range of handicrafts that are sourced from vulnerable artisan communities across Myanmar, available at alokacrafts.com any purchase will not only support these artists and communities, but also our nonprofits, wider mission that's Aloka Crafts spelled, A, L, O, K, A, C, R, A, F, T, S, one word, alokacrafts.com. Thank you so much for your kind consideration and support.