Insight Myanmar

Episode #416: In the early 1990s, a chance encounter with Burmese student exiles in Bangkok sparked Nic Dunlop’s enduring interest in the country. His initial ignorance of the country developed into curiosity, empathy, and visual storytelling. As a photojournalist, Dunlop has spent years documenting the “invisible dictatorship” of Myanmar’s military regime, focusing on the mechanisms of social control, forced labor, and repression. His 2013 book, Brave New Burma, aimed to educate Western audiences about the complex realities behind simplistic narratives. Rather than reinforcing the myth of Aung San Suu Kyi as a saintly figure, he presents her as a tough leader shaped by privilege, critiquing her understanding of marginalized communities alongside a limited understanding of the country’s peripheral conflicts. He also challenges the Western romanticization of both Suu Kyi and Myanmar, arguing that it led to performative policies and a blindness to the structural conditions that enabled the 2021 coup. Dunlop documents not just brutality, but structure—capturing how indoctrination, poverty, and coercion shape Myanmar’s military conscripts. From refugee camps to prison quarries, his work illustrates repression both subtle and overt. His photographs, including one of Suu Kyi herself, offer visual testimony to the country's contradictions. In the end, he emphasizes humility as essential to understanding Myanmar: “The more I learn about Burma, the less I know.”

Episode #415: U Jāgara's spiritual journey is a fascinating exploration of monastic life, creativity, and the transformative power of the Dhamma. Born in Quebec, his introduction to meditation set him on a path that would span traditions and continents. His spiritual journey was initially shaped by his time in the Goenka tradition, where he valued the rigor and structure of its method. He later practiced Mahasi Sayadaw’s teachings in Yangon, which introduced him to the nuanced and adaptive approaches of Burmese monastic practice. Then in Sri Lanka, he immersed himself in rich Theravādatraditions of scholarship and meditation that expanded his understanding of the Dhamma, affording him both intellectual depth and the opportunity to live a solitary monastic life for a time. Appointed as a teacher within the Goenka tradition, U Jāgara eventually grappled with the organization’s growing rigidity. For example, he felt that the pre-recorded discourses limited the opportunity for creative and responsive teaching. He also noted how the exclusion of alternative meditation techniques narrowed practitioners' understanding of the Dhamma’s diversity. In addition, he strongly believed that the discouragement of interaction with monks and traditional Buddhist rituals created a sense of separation from the broader, Buddhist spiritual community. Though valuing its teachings, he transitioned away from the Goenka organization, seeking a more integrative approach to the Dhamma,. A transformative chapter unfolded for U Jāgara when he left monastic life temporarily to explore lay life in France. Balancing personal aspirations with the needs of others, he gained insights into the richness of human relationships, responsibilities, and shared growth. Yet, the call to monastic life drew him back to Myanmar, where Pa Auk Sayadaw’s individualized and methodical guidance reshaped his meditation practice. Under this mentorship, U Jāgara refined his focus on jhāna meditation, achieving profound clarity and insights.“We have to remind ourselves that the monastic life is not for everybody, and it's a question of choice. It's much better if you if you are able to be monastic, and it's cool because you don't have responsibilities, and you just devote yourself to the Dhamma! But it does not, by itself, integrate the lay life, and lay life can be very rich.”

Episode #414: “They just didn't believe me at first. So I had to prove to them.” With these words, Xiao Yar Yar captures his struggle for recognition— a struggle that has defined both his personal life and his role in Myanmar’s revolution. When the military staged its coup and dismissed the election as fraudulent, Xiao Yar Yar knew the generals were lying. He had collected votes and seen the results himself. Watching peaceful protestors shot down shattered any remaining illusions. A student training to be a teacher, he set aside his future and stepped into the jungle as a medic. “I received medical training after the revolution. Before the revolution, I was just a young man trying to be a teacher,” he recalls. His medical knowledge was born not in classrooms but on the battlefield— learning to stop bleeding, improvise tourniquets, and stabilize the wounded. Later, he trained others, equipping them with lifesaving skills. Disease and exhaustion ravaged fighters as much as bullets, and Xiao Yar Yar became both medic and counselor, keeping morale alive with humor, food, and small gestures of care. Support extended further through his initiative, “Owl Company.” He delivered hammocks, backpacks, food, and small comforts like soft drinks to the frontlines, filling gaps that larger groups overlooked. Yet the suffering also stretched to IDP camps, where families displaced by bombings endured hunger, dirty water, and trauma. Xiao Yar Yar provided what he could—food, filters, encouragement. Yet he warned that mental health, especially for children, was dangerously neglected. “I think the NUG has to take an action about the IDP and the civilian mental health issue,” he insisted. But as an LGBTQ man, discrimination followed him everywhere. He was mocked, underestimated, and even forced into weapons training by mistake. But he proved his worth as a medic leader. “I have faced the discrimination for my whole life,” he acknowledges. Years later, he sees a stronger resistance with better weapons and training, but unity remains essential. His final words are simple and sharp: “We have to unite very well... all of the EAOs and all of the PDFs.” 

Episode #413: “No one's liberated without everyone being liberated, right?” Those words belong to Nitchakarn “Memee” Rakwongrit, a Thai youth activist whose journey from a rural upbringing to the center of Bangkok’s protests has made her one of the country’s most visible young voices for democracy and feminist struggle. Born in Mahasarakham province in Thailand’s Isaan region, a place long tied to grassroots democracy but often dismissed by elites, Memee grew up in a politicized household, as her father, a staunch Red Shirt supporter, constantly encouraged her to question authority. At sixteen she moved to Bangkok, and when dissident Wanchalerm Satsaksit was abducted in Cambodia in 2020, she joined her first street protest. She recalls it as the moment the curtain lifted on authoritarianism.  Around the same time, having faced harassment and “slut-shaming,” Memee’s feminist awareness deepened. With the Feminist Liberation Front Thailand, she adapted the Chilean anthem “A Rapist in Your Path” into Thai, sparking both solidarity and backlash. “For me, feminism is not just…a theory with big words or vocabulary, but how we are really living our life,” she says. Memee’s activism quickly put her in the crosshairs. At just sixteen she was arrested for a speech about women in prison; over the next two years she faced seven more cases. Authorities subjected her to symbolic punishments, which she wryly called “certificates of activism.” In 2021, she shaved her head at a rally, declaring, “I will shave my head until this Prime Minister quits!” It became a shocking but powerful symbol of resistance. Despite repression, Memee expanded her reach, and became involved with the Milk Tea Alliance. “It gave me the privilege to be able to listen to broader perspectives and border experiences,” she says. She has worked tirelessly to support Myanmar’s pro-democracy struggle, building bridges through “Thai Students for Burma.” For Memee, activism must also include joy. “Fun has two benefits,” she explains. “It is good for mental health in the community, and it attracts more people to join.” Humor, memes, and play, she insists, are weapons against fear.  

Episode #412: “We are in Myanmar, and nothing is clear cut.”Anthony Davis offers a stark assessment of Myanmar’s war, drawing on decades of experience studying insurgencies. He begins with the United Wa State Army, a thirty-thousand-strong force running a state the size of Belgium. “It would be entirely wrong to see the Wa as simply Chinese puppets or Chinese proxies,” Davis insists. The Wa have scaled back arms transfers under Chinese pressure, but they remain determined to expand their autonomy. Their ambition is recognition as a state, linking their territories along the Chinese and Thai borders. If the regime collapses, Davis argues, the Wa will act swiftly to unite and consolidate. He calls them “a critical player in the overall struggle for Myanmar.”The Wa’s influence now extends west of the Salween, through ties with the Ta’ang, leverage over the Shan State Progress Party, and neutralization of rivals like the Restoration Council of Shan State. This, Davis notes, is ascendancy rather than reckless conquest—a quiet dominance shaping the conflict’s direction.Davis also identifies drones as a decisive factor. Initially dismissed, they became central to resistance victories in late 2023. The junta responded by creating a drone directorate, importing Chinese systems, and applying Russian expertise from Ukraine. By 2025, drones, artillery, air power, and conscripts are integrated into an operating machine. “It’s an army in the way the resistance, by definition, is not,” Davis observes.Resistance morale remains high, but Davis stresses that spirit alone cannot sustain the fight. “They have got plenty of morale. They’re not short of guns. But if you don’t have enough ammunition, then you’re in trouble.”Elections, he says, “will happen come hell or high water,” yet will not bring peace. China’s backing of the junta complicates everything, while the Arakan Army’s rise in Rakhine could change the board entirely. Davis closes with a warning: “The bottom line is, you can have a ceasefire today, but [the Burmese military is] going to come back, they’re going to rebuild, they’re going to re-equip, and they’re going to come back at you.”

Episode #411: This is the second part of our interview with the meditation teacher, Tempel Smith, and it starts off with his decision “to commit to deep intensive Burmese-style meditation, break through some of these habits, and then find a more integrated lifestyle.” With this in mind, he boarded a flight to Myanmar with his friend Diana Winston, and ordained under Sayadaw U Pandita.Although U Pandita’s reputation as a stern and very demanding teacher caused him some concern, he went to the Sayadaw’s monastery and began to practice. Tempel describes U Pandita’s style as a “ruthless investigation” which was uncommon among Western teachers, and which ultimately led to a deeper understanding of the second foundation of mindfulness.After some time, Tempel became concerned about the intensity of the practice, and when he heard about the newly established Pa Auk Monastery, he decided to try it out, as he was especially keen to practice mettā intensively through jhāna meditation.At Pa Auk, he would find a very different style of monastery. The monastics and lay meditators were more relaxed, and openly discussed scripture and practice between meditation sittings. Tempel also found the actual practice to be quite different, particularly the absorptive states that Pa Auk taught. As he progressed in samathā, he began to see lights, considered a positive sign that one’s practice is going well,. He even began to develop psychic powers, such as predicting the future. This, in particular, shook him to his core, and caused him to question Western notions of “the real world.”This paradigm shift of reality began to affect his faith as well. “I was feeling that devotion to the Buddha, his teachings, the centuries of people practicing it, people rediscovering it at different times and re-encouraging that level of practice,” he says. “And then to see that it wasn't mythology, that it actually could be possibly more true than you might have imagined.”In the next segment, we explore how he took these teachings from Myanmar back home to the US with him.  

Episode #410: “We’ve got to find a way from surviving to thriving again.” With this vision, Jue Jue, a social worker and founder of Jue Jue’s Safe Space, seeks to transform Myanmar’s mental health landscape. Raised in a politically engaged family—her father an 88 Generation activist and her mother a frontline social worker—Jue Jue’s early exposure to trauma and resilience shaped her lifelong dedication to social justice.Her understanding of inequality deepened upon moving to the U.S., where her accent and ethnicity led to discrimination, mirroring the systemic exclusion ethnic minorities face in Myanmar. This caused her to reflecting on her own Bamar privilege, which exposed her past biases, especially toward groups like the Rohingyas and Indian-Burmese. She committed herself to building inclusive, respectful spaces.Jue Jue’s Safe Space, launched in 2019, evolved from a Facebook page into a critical mental health platform for Burmese communities. Inspired by personal struggles and intergenerational trauma, the initiative counters stigma by offering culturally grounded, clinically sound services. Jue Jue emphasizes that mental health suffering often stems from systemic injustice, not individual weakness.She challenges her country’s romanticized patriarchy and calls out its political misuse, while urging a return to Buddhist principles of compassion. Despite operating without steady funding, her initiative has supported many during Myanmar’s cascading crises—pandemic, coup, earthquake—while promoting agency and emotional resilience.Though not yet ready to treat oppressors (those who are currently in the military perpetuating abuses), she hopes for a future where reconciliation is possible. “We’re going to shine again,” she affirms, envisioning a Myanmar rebuilt through inner peace, inclusion, and empowered healing.

Episode #409: His military experience enabled a rapport with Myanmar’s armed actors, says Rory McCann, who recently served almost two years as the country Weapons Contamination Specialist for the ICRC. A challenge at the beginning of the job was to build trust with different conflict parties, in part to convince them that the ICRC was teaching weapons safety regarding landmines and other explosive ordnance, not weapons handling. As a 25-year veteran of the Irish Army, McCann was deployed in Chad, Syria and Uganda, with his training in the ordnance corps preparing him for humanitarian mine action. His ICRC role included interaction with the Myanmar Armed Forces and other armed groups. “When you're talking about humanitarian mine action, it has to be much more systematic and you're looking at the international mine action standards,” McCann says. International standards, which are not adhered to in Myanmar, set guidelines across “five pillars": clearance, risk education, victim assistance, stockpile destruction, and advocacy. McCann says his role was educating armed actors about obligations to protect civilians and landmine use under customary IHL. Myanmar is not a signatory to the CCW or the Mine Ban Treaty. Conflict actors are still legally bound by customary IHL that prohibits indiscriminate use of landmines. “Landmine fields are designed to be an obstacle … What we were seeing in Myanmar … they’re simply being used in a sporadic and maybe punitive manner.” Known as “nuisance mining,” this fails to meet military objectives and poses indiscriminate threat to civilians. At present, only risk education, victim assistance, and advocacy are underway. Since 2015, the ICRC and MRCS have conducted over 1,800 sessions reaching 69,000 people in 2024. More than 4,800 people with disabilities were supported through physical rehabilitation services. National ownership is an ICRC goal, though McCann admits conflict makes realization unlikely, focusing instead on risk mitigation and advocacy. 

Episode #408: “There is no way to tell the story of Myanmar and where it’s headed if you are leaving out the Wa,” says Patrick Winn, a veteran Southeast Asia reporter and author of Narcotopia. His book traces the wild story how Wa State, a mountainous enclave on the Chinese border, became defined by narcotics, and how it has become one of the key powers in the country today. A pivotal figure is Saw Lu, born in the mid-1940s, raised among Baptist missionaries, and convinced that literacy and Christianity could unify and “civilize” the Wa. Recruited by Burmese intelligence in his twenties, he was sent to Pang Wai, one of the largest Wa strongholds, as a teacher. Winning villagers’ trust, he then stumbled on a small CIA weapons cache. Through charisma and tactical skill, he transformed himself into a militia leader.  Meanwhile, Kuomintang exiles who had fled China’s civil war turned to opium trafficking, industrializing heroin production along the Thai-Burma border. The CIA and Taiwanese intelligence viewed these warlords as useful anti-communist allies, even as their heroin flowed into South Vietnam and fueled American soldiers’ addictions. Saw Lu tolerated the opium trade, which he despised, to keep Wa villages united against Maoist influence. At one point, the U.S. even used him as a DEA asset, code-named “Superstar.” In the late 1960s, the Communist Party of Burma controlled much of Wa territory for twenty years, during which time Saw Lu faded into obscurity. But a mutiny of Wa soldiers eventually kicked out the Maoists and birthed the United Wa State Army (UWSA). With Chinese backing and drug profits as their main source of income, the UWSA grew into Myanmar’s most powerful non-state military. Saw Lu returned to the scene, and for a while his anti-drug zeal offered a different path to Wa leaders. He wanted to get significant U.S. investment in Wa State in exchange for helping it destroy the drug trade. In the end, however, the CIA undermined Saw Lu’s plans, and he was disgraced.   Today, Wa State is a “narcostate,” effectively an unrecognized country, a state within a state, stable within its own borders yet destabilizing to Myanmar’s unity. “If you think it’s just some dark, out of the way place that doesn’t matter, please update your thinking on this,” Winn warns.

Episode #407: One month after the coup, Captain Kyaw Kyaw defected from his post as a military pediatrician. After years of seeing the military brutalize the civilians they were supposed to protect, committing systematic war crimes in conflicts with ethnic armed organizations, he had still felt loyalty to the soldiers in the lower ranks who he viewed also as victims. The carnage that met protests against the coup, however, was the final straw leading him to join the ranks of defectors.In his account of indoctrination and military training, a clear picture emerges of a military leadership that profits off the suffering of the rank-and-file, most of whom are kept in the dark about the historical record and the facts on the ground today. It is also a picture of a military force that is severely debilitated. “I think at least 30 to 40% of infantry soldiers have to be dismissed because of mental instability, drug addiction or alcoholism,” Kyaw Kyaw says. “Half of the brutality, war crimes, and atrocities occur on the front line and among the civilians. A portion of the soldiers are already psychopaths with severe psychological trauma!”It is an open secret in the military, he says, that the real number of combat-ready soldiers is less than half the official statistics. Corruption riddles the procurement and construction sectors, while cementing the loyalty of top generals whose economic interests depend on the military’s economic stranglehold. In Kyaw Kyaw’s estimate, a significant portion of the military stays loyal only for financial gain, while a minority subscribes to the propaganda. About half, he believes, realize the military is the main perpetrator of injustice, although many are held in check for fear of the consequences if they defect.Kyaw Kyaw has a warning for an international community that has failed to take effective action: “Injustice can be very infectious. If more countries believe in power, instead of dialogue, instead of justice, it will backfire for every nation in the world.”