Transcript: Episode #325: Cracks in the System
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Host 00:09
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Brad 02:06
And welcome back, obviously, as all of our listeners would probably be aware, Myanmar has been racked with an absolutely horrific earthquake, and we are trying our absolute best to gather as much information and provide as much coverage of not only the ongoing crisis, but on the complicated social and political environment in which it is taking place, we have the great privilege of being joined right now by Michael Martin. Michael, thank you very much for taking the time, and I'd like to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself for our audience more fully.
Michael Martin 02:36
Well, thank you for the invitation. My name is Michael Martin. Currently an adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington, DC. For 15 years prior to that, I was the chief analyst for Congressional Research Service and agency that provided Congress with information and analysis about world events.
Brad 03:00
Excellent, excellent. So let's get just straight into this. This earthquake was enormous. I believe, from memory, it's it was calculated as a 7.7 on the Richter scale, which is quite catastrophic. We've heard reports of buildings collapsing in Thailand, you know, we we've heard that Vietnam was picking up shocks. And now, of course, there's been a second quake, I think a 5.5 magnitude in Mandalay as well. What do we know about the actual situation on the ground? How bad is the devastation in Myanmar?
Michael Martin 03:32
We don't have a full picture at this point. Images are coming in or accounts are coming in from different places. I read one township in sagain Somebody estimated 80% of the buildings had collapsed. So the devastation in parts of the country is pretty extensive. You've probably seen images of major bridges and highways that are just no longer functional. So it's going to take days, if not weeks, to really get a full picture on how devastating this initial earthquake was, let alone these aftershocks that were expected.
Brad 04:12
And do we have any reference points an earthquake of this magnitude is obviously fortunately rare. Do we have any experience from past crises of the kind. What sort of problems are we going to be looking at down the line? Are we going to be looking at prolonged periods of time without access, for example, to medical infrastructure, without access to telecommunications infrastructure? Would this negatively affect food supply lines and things of that nature?
Michael Martin 04:41
Well, in the global context, certainly there are other examples, and I'm sure the international agencies who have expertise on this have an idea of what the timeline is going to be like. I heard an interview with somebody with one of the international organizations. They were talking about the immediate response taking weeks or months, and that assistance is probably going. To be needed for a year or more to get recovery really underway. So we're talking about a very massive earthquake in and an aftermath that's extremely severe.
Brad 05:16
Okay, that's pretty bad, and this is, of course, exacerbated by the ongoing conflict, we understand that as part of the resistance against the coup, a lot of the bridges have been blown up preemptively. We know that a lot of roads and highways have been sort of mined with IEDs. Ambushes are a frequent occurrence. How is this impacting? Or do we know how this is impacting? Our ability to collect information, our ability to get aid to survivors, and our ability to evacuate survivors from particularly vulnerable areas.
Michael Martin 05:52
Indeed, in the ongoing conflict in the country, both sides have both sides is sort of the simplification, but both sides have been destroying infrastructure for military strategic purposes. I suspect the earthquake has done a much more extensive job of destroying basic infrastructure than the conflict has done. The other aspect is that the areas that were most severely affected by the earthquake, at least, given the information that's available, are areas that parts of it are under control of the military junta, the SAC parts of it are under control of ethnic armed organizations. And in different regions, you have different eaos that are in control or their affiliated people defense forces. So the delivery of assistance is going to be more complicated than in the situation where you have a fully functional central government that can operate throughout the country. Myanmar is not like that anymore. It's a country where the military can operate in certain areas. The eaos operate in different regions, and so now there's no agreement on working across borders.
Brad 07:19
So because this is, this is, this is pretty nationwide. I mean, this is a devastating earthquake. Do we know how, how the differential goes to like we would know, for example, that Mandalay region is obviously at the epicenter. Has been most heavily affected. I believe sagaian region has been very heavily affected. If we were to go further afield in the country, are there regions of the country that we can say are not really affected by this, or is the entire nation impacted?
Michael Martin 07:49
I've spoken to some people in say, for example, the chin region, and that seems to be largely unaffected by it. And I've also spoken to people working in Bangladesh with the Rohingya community, and they were largely unaffected. So I suspect the mountains in the West protected. Rakhine State, Chin State, when you go down to the border, Karen state, the khurni state, the Mon state, I don't I have not spoken anyone in that region. Of course, cross away in Thailand, there was an effect. I did contact somebody in Chiang Mai in Thailand, and they reported not too much. There was some damage. So I suspect the most severe destruction caused by the earthquake is in that central corridor which goes from Yangon up to Mandalay and with napita in there. And then, as you go, as you mentioned Sagaing, the SAC mentioned Northern San state, which is interesting, mogway is and BA go were also mentioned as areas that were hit. So we'll just have to wait to see.
Brad 09:01
Because, of course, as you say that the collecting of this information is itself a problem. We're not getting a clear picture. A lot of the country still doesn't have regular internet access and electricity access, and this is obviously complicating everything. Are there at least international boots on the ground, who are in a position of expertise technical equipment and impartiality, who can give us a reliable picture of what's going on, or is even that an obstacle?
Michael Martin 09:34
There are groups, and I've in the past met with many of them, civil society organizations who have been providing humanitarian assistance to, for example, the millions of internally displaced people inside Myanmar that have been displaced by the ongoing conflict. And those groups are up and operating and are trying to gather the information the trouble they're. Going to have is, how do they communicate their needs, or what they're hoping for assistance to the international community that is trying to come in and provide the assistance. Who's going to play? Is there anybody who can play an intermediary and are the is the international community willing to deal with the appropriate intermediaries.
Brad 10:23
Yes, and that, that that's becoming its own issue, and has been an issue for quite some time, as we've discussed with previous guests, the the international community. I'm thinking, for example, of the Red Cross does not seem to want to play the game of recognizing someone's authority and does not want to. How should I put this? Put any government's dictatorships around the world on edge, and that seems to mean that they are willing to play ball with the SAC and they are unwilling to, at least officially play ball with the nug or the eaos or the various PDF groups.
Michael Martin 11:03
Yes, that has historically been the Red Cross' pattern. In this particular case, the Myanmar Red Cross allegedly has very close ties with the sac. So if the International Red Cross uses their local country organization as a delivery mechanism that's going to be seen by many people in the country and analysts like me, as effectively, the International Red Cross has chosen to work with the military junta, not the other groups, not the other Organizations.
Brad 11:38
Interesting. And so if, if we're looking at organizations on the ground, other than the red cross itself, but various just civil society organizations who purely have an a political position, is working with those organizations as intermediaries. Is that likely to be a safe option, or would that also be viewed as an inherently political choice.
Michael Martin 12:02
It depends on the manner in which you forge the interaction with them. For example, there are civil society organizations that are similarly affiliated with the different eaos, and they've been identified over the years by different people, but there are some that try to stay outside of that political dynamic. They just wish to provide humanitarian assistance. The issue then that comes to my mind is, okay, you have things that you want to get delivered to a particular area you need a safe, secure mechanism for delivery of those goods and materials. Who's going to provide that security? Well, if it's an area that where the SAC troops cannot go, or have not been able to go for months or even years, the SAC can't do it, you would have to somehow get the eaos to agree to allow passage. They've done that in the past. After Cyclone Nargis, there was some of that Tun that was in 2008 interestingly, a very similar geographical area that was involved in that passive cyclone. But there again, you saw these problems of delivering assistance. In that particular case, in some cases, when these independent civil society organizations were trying to deliver assistance, the military actively stopped the trucks and turned them back because they wanted to get credit. It's presumed the military wanted to get credit for providing the assistance, not the civil society group.
Brad 13:43
Wow, is there? Is there recourse in cases like this for international governmental aid? I'm thinking, for example, of Thailand. If Thai authorities and Thai aid agencies were to enter Myanmar and declare that they are going to distribute aid apolitically based purely on a triage of need. Would that likely be a solution to this political quagmire that a lot of the International pseudo political aid agencies, like the Red Cross have to have to wade through? Or is that itself a very complicated problem?
Michael Martin 14:19
Like most things in Myanmar, it's a complicated problem, but there already has been operationally mechanisms on the Thai border. One of the oldest standing ones is the border consortium that has found ways of delivering aid in EAA, control eao, controlled air areas without the active involvement of the military junta. So they basically gather the funds, they use the civil society organizations that they can to deliver assistance. And according to some people, they're actually much more effective at aid delivery than the military has been, particularly in the last few years.
Brad 14:59
Mm. Um, and on that point, and I think it's an incredibly important point, the military itself, are they actually an aid distribution organization will will be interviewing somebody else who's from within the military. You can shed some light on this. But the general story I'm getting is that the military is not equipped and does not see it as part of its remit to to work on disaster relief, and the military has no interest in aiding communities that have during this coup period, opposed military hegemony. Is it? Is it even reasonable or fair to view the military or the military government as as an aid supplying entity?
Michael Martin 15:42
Direct aid, from what I've observed in the past, no, they do not do that. They provide security. They help provide transportation, for access to transportation, for international groups that are coming in. But they want it done under their under their rules under their process for delivery of assistance, and that has been problematic in the past.
Brad 16:09
My understanding is that that that is not only the military trying to take credit. It's not only the military, as we've seen even during the coup period, seizing aid for the purpose of then reselling it to line their own pockets, but very deliberately weaponizing aid to deny it to communities that they have declared to be enemy, communities, even if those communities are purely civilian, would we anticipate that in this current crisis, they will be a not only a lack of any form of support coming from The military to specific communities that are an open rebellion, but also attempts by the military to prevent external actors from being able to provide aid to those communities.
Michael Martin 16:50
If indeed they follow the pattern they followed in 2008 with cyclone Narges. Yes, you're going to see the military actively preventing assistance being delivered by parties that they don't support, in particularly delivering aid to areas that they see as rebel strongholds or terrorist centers, or however they want to term them. And the also the good chance that you're going to see some of the type of corruptions that you talked about, that is to say, siphoning off international assistance to supply their own troops, who, in recent months, there have been real problems in just providing regular supplies, particularly food, for the SEC troops in the field?
Brad 17:43
Yes. And so this, this sort of becomes a larger question, because it it indicates that the SEC is not in a position to take care of their own military. They're not in a position to to continue their war effort as as it had been progressing. Is it likely that they're going to look at this as a as a simple cost benefit analysis, and say every, every ounce of aid that we give to a civilian population is an ounce of support that is not going to our military and is therefore furthering our our goals of establishing, you know, what they would consider to be stability in the country, and what they would consider to be legitimate rule in the country is, is it likely that an ideological and philosophical perspective, they would say aid coming into the country should be diverted to, first and foremost, helping the military to win the conflict, and then, if there's time, we should, we should help civilian communities.
Michael Martin 18:38
I think that would be an interesting line of questions to to pursue with your Myanmar military interlocutor, and pointing out, you know, there have been accusations in the past of them skimming aid for their own purposes and for their own troops, as well as being selective on where they deliver aid, targeting or providing more aid, or the bulk of the aid to areas that they see supportive of the military junta, and denying aid or providing less aid to areas that they see as the opposition or the enemy.
Brad 19:16
Fair enough. So then turning away from the military more to the eaos, you're relying on your knowledge of the military. You're relying on past examples. Cyclone Argus was a very, very clear example of this. But the eaos, I would imagine, the international community, international aid organizations, do not have as long standing experience with them. They do not have the same working relationships with them. Is there a fear that working with the eaos may also lead to, not only conflicts with the military in epito but also that the eaos themselves might engage in in duplicitous sort of behavior?
Michael Martin 19:57
It depends on the international organization or the. Government that's involved. So some international organizations have actually a history of working in EAL controlled areas and found ways and mechanisms of finding suitable partners. So they're not necessarily directly working with an armed ethnic group, but they're dealing with affiliates or organizations that were acceptable the eaos and so some have experience with it, but even those organizations deal with this institutional or sort of traditional practice of government to government relations, which you alluded to earlier. And so what you sometimes find is the head office is a predilection to steer towards, well, who's the government authority that handles this type of thing, whereas the people out in the field actually trying to deliver the aid are recognize that they, if you go to the quote, official organization aids, not going to get delivered, as well as if you go to the selective civil society groups. So there is some knowledge of it.
Brad 21:20
And that definitely seems to be a theme that I hear from the NGO world that typically you want to go as granular and local level as possible, to deliberate, but in a country as fractured as Myanmar, with so many local de facto authorities, if, if if a larger aid effort really wanted to engage with as many actual, practical local groups who do have a knowledge of the area, who can give accurate reports of the situation on the ground and the needs of the people and and do have at least some capacity to carry out local distribution, I imagine that they would have to be working With hundreds one, hundreds, one, hundreds of disparate organizations and entities. Is that feasible? Is that something that the international aid efforts are equipped to be able to handle, to coordinate between so many different local groups.
Michael Martin 22:15
I would anticipate that they'll try to either set up a mechanism to coordinate that. And as I alluded to earlier, I think there's a border consortium in Thailand that has been doing it in Burma Myanmar, going back decades. So that has been done before and there. So I think there are ways that that could be done, but that will take some time to set up.
Brad 22:41
Okay, okay. I mean, that makes sense. And we talk about years, we talk about the military. Obviously, the question that is on a lot of people's minds right now is when it comes to the national unity government. This is not an organization that existed prior to the coup. This is an organization that has been working very hard to try and get international recognition, international support. But in terms of crisis time, this is not an organization that has yet been tested internationally. Do you have any insights, or do you have any speculation as to the willingness that the international community may or may not have to work with the National Unity government as as a locally engaged actor in crisis relief.
Michael Martin 23:28
It'll be interesting to see that the nug has already attempted to step forward and present itself as a possible mechanism for this kind of coordination among the opposition. But as you probably know, the nug doesn't necessarily have good relations with all the ethnic armed organizations, nor are they recognized as the national unity government by most of the major ethnic armed organizations. So it will be challenging for the national unity government to both step up and have the capacity to coordinate, if it were asked by the international duty community to coordinate, but on the other side, to effectively work with the various ethnic or armed organizations or civil society groups who have not pre up till now, for the last several years, have not had the best of relations with with the nug.
Brad 24:37
Is there? Is there a sort of scramble to to receive almost the blessing of the international community in these times of of crisis, if someone works with you, obviously, the the NGOs, the UN the international communities are generally very eager to say, every branch, every arm of our operations, is, is. Semi independent. Just because one branch of the government does work with you does not mean that the other branch of the government recognizes you. Different context, different purpose. The United Nations will constantly say, you know, we recognize countries, not governments and so on. But is there a genuine sense that if you get called upon, if you are recognized, if you are used as a locally engaged organization during a time of crisis by international actors that that confers some sort of long term political legitimacy that after that, the genie is out of the bottle, and whether or not your crisis response was effective, you have now secured standing internationally as a legitimate player.
Michael Martin 25:40
It could, but it doesn't necessarily automatically provide that part of it is going to be in this hypothetical scenario that that we're discussing how well the nut functions or serves that purpose. You got to keep in mind that there's very little territory inside the country that the nug is actually governing there may be some regions somebody was mentioning in Saginaw, maybe parts of Mandalay, where people Defense Forces allied with the nug and reliant on nug assistance are the local governing body. But outside of those few locales, if you're talking about, say northern Shan State, parts of northern Shan State are under Khin independence army control. Parts of northern Shan State are under the Aung National Liberation Army's control. Parts of it are under the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance army control. And I could go on the nug if they want to deliver assistance in Kia controlled territory, they have to figure out how to work with the Kia to make that possible, and the Kia is going to have to buy in in doing so, so, and that's that's going to be Interesting to see how well that effort would would, would, if it could be successful, the alternative is, and I've talked to some people that are already looking at it, don't use the nug, but recognize, okay for this area, we need to find A respectable humanitarian organization that may have close ties with the Kia, but that's the best way of delivering assistance in that area.
Brad 27:50
Interesting, and so turning from within the country to out of the country, the international community, obviously, multiple countries have been affected by this quake, but Myanmar is very much at the epicenter, and it's a very large country, so it's not really fair to try to compare the devastation within Myanmar with the devastation in surrounding nations. But is there an interest internationally in actually getting in and doing something I'm thinking of, for example, China, China obviously has great vested interest in Myanmar. There Myanmar. They're right on the border. I'd be thinking of Thailand and and I would be thinking of Western nations, like the European Union, like the United States. Is the international community likely to really try to push for for aid, and likely to really try to push to to get boots on the ground and get things done, or is it more so the case that, because Myanmar is not as high on anybody's priorities list right now, with certain other crises that are happening around the world, that if the military and the eaos and the nug are making it complicated for international organizations to get their boots on the ground, Get get aid delivered to people that Myanmar would fall sort of onto the back burner, and there wouldn't really be that much fight among outside actors to demand to be able to go in there and help people. What would the what are the prevailing wins internationally on this?
Michael Martin 29:20
The initial reports indicate a widespread interest in trying to provide assistance. China has already sent people in and has already pledged funds. The United Kingdom is gathering equipment and announced, I think it was 10 billion pounds or 10 million, I'm sorry, M million pounds that they're going to provide assistance. I suspect other nations, Thailand will be interesting to see how much excess capacity they would have beyond what they need to utilize domestically. India has announced project Brahma to provide assistance across the border. So India is a. Already engaged. But the question become, I think, you raise a good, serious concern about if it becomes difficult to get the assistance in, if it becomes problematic to get the relief workers you need on the grounds to oversee what's going on, and there were problems after Cyclone Nargis, of international relief workers being stuck in Bangkok for days, if not weeks, while the former military junta processed their visa applications. So you have in the short term, if they can't move quickly to get the flows in. Will there be some frustration on the part of the international community, and will they pull back from their effort? The other two other concerns I have about it are one the scale or the scope that's involved. Just saw that the UN announced that they're going to need roughly $1 billion this year for the already existing 1 million Rohingya in Bangladesh. That's been going on for years now, and they they always are struggling to get funding. Are you going to have a robbing Peter to pay Paul effect going on here? Well, we can't provide the money to the Ringo right now, because we need to do it over here for the earthquake victims, or we only have money for the Ringo. We don't do it over here, because are there trade offs that are going to be involved in that situation? So the one concern is capacity for the international community, given how much assistance is needed in Myanmar, pre earthquake, now, post earthquake. So that's the one problem. The second is the like I the one commentator said, they're thinking this is going to be 234, years until you're going to get housing back in place and schools back in place, and the infrastructure rebuilt. The international community sometimes is not very good in this sort of sustained assistance environment, and it will give you the blankets, the tents, the water, the potable water, the emergency rations. And then we turn for what the next is, sadly, the next disaster that emerges in the world. And then they struggle. The international relief effort struggles to get funding for the ongoing recovery that is also important, in some cases, equally important to the immediate response.
Brad 32:51
Because the international aid as I generally understand it, as it's been explained to me, aid as a concept, seems to be bifurcated into relief aid, which is immediate, short term aid in response to a crisis or an emergency and development aid, which is your slow or long term attempts to elevate communities to higher sort of economic and technological levels. That intermediate step of recovery aid doesn't really seem to be popular. So is it? Is it generally a an issue that we see with aid, that there's no middle ground. You're either doing short, sharp intervention in a in a immediate crisis, or you're trying to take a relatively stable community and you're trying to level them up in terms of their infrastructure, in terms of their education, in terms of their economic potential, but there's just no there's no middle ground between these two things.
Michael Martin 33:48
I wouldn't say that there's no middle ground, but there is sort of this tendency to have the immediate response teams. So United States, they call them dark teams, that get out there and can hit the ground and get things up running and get it going. But then the US aid agencies, when we had them, also focused on longer term development, economic prosperity, quality of life, kind of issues, and as you're pointing this, this middle ground of okay, how do we get the recovery up and running? How do we now that people have temporary places to stay and have the medical care they need and the food and the clothing that they need? How do we re recreate their community so that they have a place, more permanent, place to live that often gets sort of lost in institutional structures that exist and.
Brad 34:49
and I just want to sort of make sure that we're we're recognizing the significance here, because in a country like Myanmar, for example, we the rainy season is coming. Um. Soon. And people, I think, who have not lived in tropical countries and are not familiar with this do not understand the scope of the flooding that is just endemic during during rainy season. Like a lot of the land that you walk on during the dry season is simply consistently submerged for for three months of the year, four months of the year, mosquitoes carrying malaria, mosquitoes carrying dengue, even even venomous snakes, are an endemic problem in many rural parts of Myanmar, the risk of exposure not having stable housing, not having a roof over your head, is something that that, I think, in a lot of places we we don't fully recognize, because we think, well, people can, can, can live in a tent. It's not great, but, but in a country like Myanmar, the the value that that housing adds to your life, to your ability to survive the year, I think, is significantly greater than it would be in in many, many Western nations, just because the environment is so is so different, if this reconstruction does not happen, if this rebuilding of these devastated areas don't happen, how much additional suffering and death. Not to put it into gloomy terms, but how much additional harm are we looking at in terms of preventable harm and preventable injury and preventable death?
Michael Martin 36:32
You raise a great concern, because I have traveled in parts of the country outside of the major cities, and it's recognized that there's certain times a year you can't get from one place to another place because the roads are just impassable. If indeed, you're looking at rural areas where virtually all the buildings have been destroyed, there's a good chance that any food store that they had in those buildings are also perhaps damage, irrevocably unusable. So getting enough food to those areas before the rainy season sets in is going to be a problem, and then where do you put it? Because you can't just leave it outside, because it could be damaged in the rain. So it's a very severe problem. And there just aren't the equipment that we have, say, in the United States, where you can air lift stuff in well, whatever helicopters are extant in Myanmar right now are probably primarily being used for military purposes, not for delivering food aid to remote villages in bag way or In sigma or in northern Shan state.
Brad 38:00
Absolutely and, and you, you raised in passing, at the risk of sort of wading into US politics, the, let's call it, the disruption to USAID that has taken place over the last couple of Months, as as it seems to be the case that that the United States is now trying to restore the USA ID. But as anyone who's worked in any organization of any kind would know, you can't take something offline and then try to bring it back online immediately and expect things to continue where they left off. What? What is the United States's capacity right now, if you have any insight into this in terms of actually delivering aid, has it is the United States capable of doing what it was doing? You know, in 2024 or has the disruption to USAID left? The United States ability to deliver aid negatively impacted?
Michael Martin 39:02
I in simple terms, the United States government cannot deliver assistance as effectively and efficiently as it could several months ago, USAID, according to some sources, which had 10s of 1000s of employees, has been reduced to 15, one, five. You can't deliver this type of assistance with 15 people trying to do it now, there are 15 employees. 15 employees.
Brad 39:35
Yes, the organization USA ID currently has 15 employees,
Michael Martin 39:40
According to some sources reported in the news, they are down to 15.
Brad 39:45
That that seems almost impossible, like that's that's comical. To put it, simply.
Michael Martin 39:52
Comical. One way of putting it, there are people that are still working under contract. I've spoken to. To some of them, but they are anticipating being furloughed, let go any day now. Now, mind you, the President, the Secretary of State, have both said, Yes, we're going to provide assistance. The Embassy issued a statement, I think, today, or saying that they're going to provide $2 million out of embassy funds. But when many of us are wondering, it's like, who, how are you going to do this, State Department as an institution, has some very good and capable people, but not necessarily the right people to try to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, given all the political complexities we've been talking about, they've got some good people who are knowledgeable, but some of the best people that I knew in dealing with Burma are no longer in the administration. When the new president came in, they left. Some of them had left earlier too. So for the international community, where you're sort of used to, or some people would say the US tends to be out front and taking, trying to take a leading role, maybe not the best way possible, but sometimes tries, I don't think you should look for the United States to be in a leadership position this time. It's just one, I don't see the capacity. And two, I don't see from from the White House, from the Oval Office down, actually, a strong enough commitment to respond to this disaster.
Brad 41:42
That's very sobering assessment of the situation as it exists. But I suppose it's very, very true as well. So in very simple terms, then, because I'm sure we can go into the weeds, but in very simple terms, you know, giving people the answer that many people are desperately trying to find out. What do you think is the prognosis on on the international community's aid to to Myanmar? Do you Do you think that there will be a successful international relief effort, or do you think that ultimately it is going to be stymied, that international ability and willingness to support is going to fade very quickly. What do you think we are likely to be looking at?
Michael Martin 42:30
Success is always measured in degrees. So will there be a fairly robust effort initially? Yes. Will the United States probably will not be, as I said, a leading role, or may not even be a major contributor to that effort, but there will be an immediate response, and aid and assistance will be provided through different mechanisms, in different ways. And the diaspora community. The Burmese diaspora community is already up and active in raising money, and they have, over the last four years, been very effective in gaining funds. So I would expect that to happen. My great concern is that in a few months, as memories of the earthquake fade, and sadly, if another similar large scale natural disaster occurs, will the attention of the international community turn aside and Myanmar get sort of lost in The constant flow of things I remember very going to an event in Washington where a un spokesperson was talking about the Rohingya that had fled, not in 2017 but the flotilla that a couple years earlier, that had been in the Andean sea and fleeing in the region, and you had 10s of 1000s of people from Burma in Malaysia and Thailand and other other parts of the world. And that UN person said that the concern was that they will just be stuck in limbo indefinitely, and they have been. Those people are still in camps in Bangladesh and Thailand in Malaysia, who are working covertly in countries and the international community just moved on and the issue got forgot.
Brad 44:44
Yeah, and I think, I think a lot of people have suffered that. And I would say that itself is, is something that we saw in 2008 with Cyclone Nargis, as the world moves on and as the military May. Life difficult for for international aid organizations. And yeah, I wish I had something positive to say on that note, but I don't experience tells us.
Michael Martin 45:12
I think the one thing that encourages me is how resilient the people have demonstrated to be over the years. I was talking to one close friend, and we commented on the fact that this is the first time, really in the history of the people, going back over a century, that they've had an opportunity to select a government of their choice. Up till now, either the British or the Burmese military have been dictating, okay, this is how you're going to be governed. And now you're seeing people all over the country, in different communities or whatnot, not only taking up arms to get rid of military but also gathering and saying, Okay, now that we got them out of here, how do we want to be governed in our town, in our township, in our ethnic state, in our region, however It may be, and I suspect that if the international community doesn't fully pull the weight that it probably should, that the people in the country will find a way of getting by, because that's what they've done for decades. They get by in their terrible circumstances.
Brad 46:39
And just survive however you have to.
Michael Martin 46:44
Right now, there's kind of a feeling of we will get through this pre earthquake, we will get through this post earthquake. Hopefully we'll get through this. It's just going to be a hard road, but on the other side, we will make a better country.
Brad 46:59
And so I want to make sure this interview doesn't drag on, although we could obviously be talking about all of these different ins and outs for hours, but we want to make sure that people are being informed as quickly as possible and and I think we've covered quite, quite a bit of ground as almost poetically, throughout the last three quarters of An hour, your your video has gradually been darkening. All equally represents, if only we can do that internationally, but just just before we just before we depart. Traditions are traditions, and we always leave our episodes by inviting our guests to share any direct message, any direct thoughts to to the audience, anything that you think would would help them in this time, or anything that you think they should be considering about and sharing with other people. If you have anything you you'd like to share directly, please take this time.
Michael Martin 47:55
I, The most direct message, I would say, is that there is, globally, a community of people who are highly concerned and who are who are scrambling right now to find any and all resources that they can to help and that we hope that we can mitigate some of the suffering that you have experienced, and that indeed, as I was hinting that a better future is coming for you and your loved ones, one without an oppressive military government, and one in which you and the people you care About can choose the type of society you live in.
Host 48:56
We've come to the conclusion of today's episode, and as the conversation you've just heard underscores the humanitarian situation in Myanmar is dire and demands immediate attention for millions of people. The struggle for survival is an everyday reality, and the need for urgent humanitarian aid cannot be overstated. Through this platform, we aim to raise awareness and keep the focus on these critical issues, but awareness must lead to action, and this is the point where you can come in to make a real difference. By supporting the nonprofit mission to Better Burma, you'll be contributing to our wider effort to bring hope and relief to those who need it most. Your donation can go towards providing much needed support to vulnerable communities in Myanmar and along the border that continue to be impacted by the military coup. Visit betterburma.org/donation to join this effort.