Insight Myanmar

Episode #111: Emerging from under decades of harsh censorship, local journalism and investigative reporting made great strides in Myanmar during the democratic transition in the 2010s. But all that was wiped out in a single blow when the military grabbed power. They began revoking licenses, arresting journalists, and torturing and even killing some in prison, posing a real risk to anyone trying to document the current conflict, and forcing many to go underground.This is the backdrop to the formation of the media collective Visual Rebellion, a platform for Burmese photographers, filmmakers and artists to display their work as an act of resistance against the military government. Two of the collective’s members appear as guests on this episode.Laure, a French journalist based in Bangkok, had provided media trainings in Myanmar prior to the pandemic. As the situation grew increasingly dire following the military coup, Laure reached out through her network to former participants from her trainings, and soon learned the difficulties they were operating under. This helped give rise to Visual Rebellion.Visual Rebellion team members currently reporting from Myanmar have all assumed code names for their safety, and attended cybersecurity training. Any material they are able to smuggle out of the country—often accomplished at enormous risk to their personal safety—is immediately posted and distributed by Laure and her colleagues.Next, Khant Pyae Kyaw discusses his role as a documentarian for the Visual Rebellion team. When the coup hit, Khant Pyae Kyaw was out on the streets covering the weeks of nonviolent demonstrations. But one day he witnessed the killing of his friend and other protesters, which shook him to his core. He has since faced other dangers in his reporting, including being accused of being a PDF soldier, and interrogated. Still, with the help of the resources that the Visual Rebellion team is providing, he persists in doing all he can to tell the story of what continues to happen in Myanmar.

Episode #110: Ariya Baumann’s spiritual journey began far away from the tropical surroundings of the Golden Land. She grew in a small town in Switzerland, among the snowy Alps. Raised in a Christian home, she began to ask herself existential questions about God. As she began to investigate possible answers, she came across some writings on Buddhism, and was immediately intrigued by the promise of meditation.Ariya tried on her own for a while, but wanted to take a more formal retreat, so she took off on a trip around the world. In Thailand, she joined a course at Wat Suan Mokkh, and then several Tibetan retreats in India. Two years later, she fell in love with an Australian man, and ended up following him back to his country, where she learned about an upcoming visit from Chan Myay Yeiktha Sayadaw U Janaka, a teacher in the Mahasi tradition. U Janaka encouraged Ariya to slow down her movements, so as to be able to observe every moment of mental and physical action. She found the results “stunning.” She had found her way.It was 1992, and very hard for foreigners to get visas for extended periods in Myanmar, but U Janaka managed to get her a six-month visa. She decided to ordain temporarily as a nun. But as months stretched into years, Ariya stayed in robes. She was amazed by what she experienced. “With the meditation, mindfulness, and concentration, and looking carefully, just like becoming an electronic microscope, we see more and more deeply into the true nature of this body of physical processes.”Over time, she picked up the Burmese language, which eventually led to her role as translator for Chan Myay Myaing Sayadaw U Indaka. She moved from the Yangon branch to the Hmawbi monastery, where longer meditation retreats were held, and became the foreign manager, and eventually, a teacher there. Her teaching career only grew from here. Alongside Daw Viranani and Chan Myay Myaing Sayadaw, she began offering intensive mettā retreats in English. Before COVID, the course was so popular that yogis would fly from all over the world to attend, and it was usually filled just days after registration opened.Today, Ariya is heartbroken about the current coup. “My heart is bleeding, and I'm so sad about what is happening in Myanmar right now,” she says. But as the devastation from the conflict continue to wreak havoc in the country, Ariya comes back to how much gratitude she has for the priceless spiritual lessons she learned there. “The fact that in Burma, the practice of meditation is respected and understood as something very precious. This makes Burma so special!... I find many people who have come to Burma have felt the same.”

Stephen Campbell has spent the last twelve years studying labor movements in Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries. Going back and forth across the history of the country’s labor movement, he describes something of a convoluted legacy of the role of labor in Myanmar, leading through the transition period and into the coup.1988 was a watershed year for labor in Myanmar, according to Campbell. After being declared illegal in the 1962 coup, informal labor unions began to spring up, initiated by workers unhappy with the military regime. But when the new regime took over following the failure of the democratic revolution, many labor leaders soon found themselves behind barsSmall changes finally came under the Thein Sein administration in 2011, when workers were allowed to unionize legally. Then the following year, tripartite collective bargaining was permitted by workers. But those gains are diminished somewhat because Burmese laborers are more dependent than ever on their wages, due to large-scale military- and corporate-land grabs throughout much of the countryside, which stripped countless poor families of their homes—and for many, thus their livelihoods—without any legal recourse. And overall, working conditions remained deplorable, with low pay, long hours, and unsafe conditions.Just six days after the military took power in 2021, 4,000 factory women, mostly young women, took to the streets in downtown Yangon. Campbell says that the organizing that took place in the initial days following the coup by labor was a template for the even larger, more general strikes that followed.Campbell sees much potential in the role of labor during the current revolution. He notes that if Burmese workers can develop greater solidarity, they would have the ability to shut the country down, a power that few other groups in the country can claim. And if they were able to do that, Campbell doesn’t see how the military would be able to fill their positions with replacement workers. Yet for that to happen, workers would need substantial outside support; many are living in dire economic conditions, and some compelled to return to their factory jobs to support their families.

“You can you hear from how I speak that these days, I am very distracted and distressed by the development of the entire thing,” Han Htoo Khant Paing admits during this urgent and emotional interview.Han Htoo is the author of a recent The Diplomat article describing the four state executions that the Tatmadaw has ordered. In the context of the military’s terrible brutality and atrocities—abducting, raping, burning, and killing with impunity since the start of the coup in February, 2021—some may wonder about the significance of just four killings.  But Han Htoo believes they are very important and symbolic.Two of the condemned, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, are accused of the murder of a schoolteacher they believed to be a military informer. The other two are very prominent names from the democracy movement over the past few decades. One, Ko Jimmy was a student leader back in 1988 as well as being one of the key organizers of the 2007 Saffron Revolution. The other is an important Burmese hip hop artist named Zayar Thaw, who was also an elected Member of Parliament.Moving to the wider international context, Han Htoo is unsure what larger bodies could—and would—do. He focuses his comments on ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations), Han Htoo unfortunately doubts that ASEAN will exert its influence beyond pro forma actions. He explains, “What [ASEAN member states] are really concerned about is stability, and the regional security threat,” and the executions don't really fit into that calculus directly. However, Han Htoo believes that the executions will only instigate more resentment from the resistance, which could further escalate the conflict and generate increased instability.In closing, Han Htoo urges listeners to do whatever they can in sharing his article and this interview, and writing to one’s local elected officials. He reminds us that if enough pressure is put on the Tatmadaw, it may literally save lives. “Please do anything that you can to save the lives of four champions of democracy and human rights.”

Soeya Min first got his start in the travel industry, then switched to the entertainment field. When the pandemic struck, with a lot of free time on his hands, he started learning about psychology.All these endeavors led him to podcasts, and he started up his own program, called Thoughts and Opinions, in which he talks with guests from a wide range of backgrounds. More than just looking to boost his own platform, Soeya Min is looking to helping elevate the entire local podcasting industry in Myanmar.The coup has helped him appreciate the value of psychology, which he now recognizes as critical to helping ameliorate the varying degrees of trauma that people have been going through. With a colleague, he opened his own mental health service platform, and now supports many who are in need. In Myanmar, however, this was no easy task because of the stigma carried by issues of “mental health.”Soeya Min feels that the entire country has been living through trauma since the coup, and has seen an acute rise in depression cases. Some of his recent clients have included defected soldiers, which provides a rare insight into the psychology of the Tatmadaw. Such work has required him to listen without judgment, hard as that may be, while realizing that what the soldiers really need is a type of re-parenting.Soeya Min’s understanding of psychology is influenced by his Buddhist meditation practice, and has been intrigued to realize how closely related the two actually are. While mainly self-taught as a practitioner, he has drawn on some techniques from the Mahasi tradition. These days, he has also found a focus on mettā particularly helpful, especially as a mental health professional dealing with clients who are going through terrible circumstances.As a mental health professional, Soeya Min is quite concerned with how long the Burmese people can keep going without any outside assistance. “All the Burmese people are asking for support... But when you have not received the same reaction or support [as Ukraine], people might turn cynical. That's what I'm afraid of, people get cynical and down. Then what to do?”

Like many of his Bamar colleagues, Khun Be Du and his Karenni community first attempted to resist the military coup through non-violent means. When that could no longer be sustained, he banded together with friends to form a local defense force. Today, he is playing a leading role in the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF), while also serving as Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation for the National Unity Government (NUG).Tatmadaw incursions into Karenni state are not new. Khun Be Du recalls hearing about crackdowns following Ne Win’s 1962 coup, when they attempted to deprive ethnic forces of food, funding, intelligence, and recruits. Peace negotiations were finally achieved in the transition period, finally allowing much-needed development work to proceed.But the Tatmadaw has rekindled past horrors. They now station 3,500 soldiers in Karenni State and have strategically terrorized over 100 villages. “We have to fight it,” Khun Be Du says simply. He estimates that for every local fighter killed, the Burmese military loses 30 men. In the face of such untenable losses, the Tatmadaw has taken a different tack, using tanks, mortar and artillery fire against vulnerable populations, and targeting schools, hospitals, IDP camps and other civilian centers.Perhaps the Tatmadaw’s worst evil came on an otherwise holy date for the largely Christian Karenni: December 24th, 2021. Soldiers stopped vehicles and gathered passengers into a group, stole their valuables and then proceeded to torture and kill them, then burning the bodies.Given that the atrocities being perpetuated on a daily basis in Karenni state are equally as bad as the current Russian aggression in Ukraine, Khun Be Du is frustrated that the plight of his people isn’t gathering more international attention and support. He ponders, “I wonder how much we have to die so that the international community will take action.”

The days turned dark in March 2020 when the Burmese military began attacking and killing nonviolent protesters. Soon after the crackdown, activists still courageous enough to take to the streets began holding signs that read: “We Need R2P.” R2P, or the Responsibility to Protect, is an international norm that the UN unanimously adopted in 2005, which purports to protect populations around the world from atrocity crimes, such as ethnic cleansing. However, R2P is not a legal doctrine, and so it can only be enforced when there is the political will to do so, and Scott feels it is most certainly needed now in Myanmar. But the international community has yet to act.This inaction has caused frustration among Burmese activists who have been calling for R2P for over a year now. Our guest today, Liam Scott, believes that criticism should not be directed at the R2P doctrine itself, but rather at those international bodies who refuse to respond.Scott thinks that the NUG has certainly “been specific in what particular tools of R2P they want the international community to employ, like with arms embargoes, with sanctions on oil and gas, and with depriving the military of the legitimacy that it craves on the international stage.” He also suggests taking a more nuanced view of R2P is more realistic as well as optimistic, where “boots on the ground intervention” is the only sign of effectiveness. He hopes that there can be a string of smaller successes that gradually develop into something larger. Still, Scott confesses he simply doesn’t know what more beyond the horrible things the Tatmadaw are already doing that would push international organizations to action. And he certainly wishes something would be done. Scott points to the fact that the Burmese military has never been successfully prosecuted for any past crimes, and suggests this is one reason why they are acting now with such impunity. He admits that the wheels of justice move slowly… though perhaps far too slowly for those victims still being persecuted. “I completely recognize and empathize with the fact that so many of these questions are coming from a place of pure desperation and frustration with an international community that has done so little in response,” Scott concludes.

The Myanmar military’s violent response to the democracy movement has caused angst among many devout Burmese Buddhists about how to defend themselves and their fundamental freedoms, while remaining true to their religion. Many are faced with that line where the cold edge of sila (ethics) melts along the warm edge of lived experience. Is sila black-and-white, or might there be more shades of grey? Bhikkhu Bodhi helps unpack this moral quandary in this follow-up discussion to our interview last year.Bhikkhu Bodhi acknowledges that the farther one’s own reality is from needing to make terrible, life-or-death choices, the easier it probably is to take an absolutist perspective on observing sila. However, those situations now unfortunately symbolize the “real reality” that the people of Myanmar face on a daily basis. What is compassionate guidance for those who do face such kinds of choices, who do have to act to save loved ones from the indiscriminate, murderous violence of the Tatmadaw, and restore basic safety and freedoms to their country? Bhikkhu Bodhi establishes two related frames of reference within which we can make reasonable choices. The first is to know the intent of our mind. It is not the action itself, but the intention that matters from a karmic perspective, and we should never kill out of hate. The second is to be sure of the reasons behind our actions. If we are not motivated by hatred of the enemy, but feel there is no other choice in order to save the lives of innocent people, it’s the very best we can do. Bhikkhu Bodhi also stresses that in the suttas, the Buddha is never depicted as being faced with these kinds of moral dilemmas. And he reminds us that this is the complex, modern, 21st century world we live in, not the 5th century BCE. So he says that the appropriate teaching around these issues is perhaps not so “obvious.” 

Kenton Clymer joins the podcast to speak about his book, "A Delicate Relationship: The United States and Burma/Myanmar since 1945." In the waning days of World War II, Americans were primarily concerned with stopping the spread of Communism, especially after Mao’s revolution, which thrust neighboring Burma into an important geopolitical position. Initially, the US thought that U Nu, Burma’s first Prime Minister, was too Socialist-leaning, while Ne Win, the eventual dictator, was seen as an anti-Communist strongman.The 1950s were a challenging decade for the Burmese government. The country’s ethnic groups were suspicious of a powerful central government—with some like the Karen actively fighting against it—and the Chinese and Americans were engaged in geopolitical maneuvering in the north of the country.After Ne Win’s second coup in 1962, the primary concern on the American side was ensuring that Burma didn’t fall into the Soviet or Chinese camp as a result. For the next 26 years, the US looked on as civil liberties continued to erode, the economy collapsed, ethnic groups pushed for greater rights, scores of Indians were exiled, and the country became increasingly isolated and shut off from the rest of the world.Besides Communism, the only other real area of American interest in Burma was the narcotics trade. As Ne Win was staunchly opposed to drugs, he accepted American support, including aircraft and intelligence sharing, to eradicate the poppy fields. However, it is uncertain how effective this collaboration was, and in fact human rights activists later discovered that the Tatmadaw used the chemical sprays on human targets in the country’s ethnic regions.The perception of Burma, and the shape of US relations, changed irrevocably in 1988, with the violent crackdown on student protests and the nullification of the subsequent election. The anti-Communist prism through which the American government’s Burma policy had been viewed for decades changed to one of human rights; Aung San Suu Kyi was its figurehead.  Clymer addresses some important developments in recent Myanmar history up to the NLD’s electoral victory in 2015, when his book was published, and discusses what occurred since. While he sees recurring cycles at play in the current situation, he also has reason for optimism. He feels that the current group of Gen-Z activists will not put up with oppressive military rule like in the past.

Ma Thida’s book, Prisoner of Conscience, details her remarkable and inspiring life journey.She was attending medical school when, in 1988, the military violently suppressed peaceful protesters. Soon, she found herself volunteering at local NLD offices that had formed in the wake of the unrest. In 1993 Ma Thida was arrested on a trumped up charge and given 20 years.Adjustment to prison life was not easy. She first found relief in the form of smuggled books, which she could only read secretly under a blanket. But over time, she turned to meditation. Transforming her prison cell into a meditation cell, she informed inmates and guards alike she would be practicing intensively for up to twenty hours per day.She worked with teachings from the Mahasi and Mogok traditions, and carried on a clandestine correspondence with Chan Myay Yeitha Sayadaw U Janaka. She mainly chose to practice Cittanupassana (contemplation of mind). And as might be expected in a prison, she focused in particular on the experience of dukkha (suffering).In the meantime and unbeknownst to her, Ma Thida’s arrest had turned into something of a cause célèbre abroad, attracting celebrity support, and even a visit from President Bill Clinton’s foreign emissary, Bill Richardson. Her case was also mentioned at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women held in 1995 in Beijing.Ma Thida was released in 1999, her prison sentence commuted. She did not involve herself further in politics, but has continued to followed the country’s momentous events, including the rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi. But as someone who was by Aung San Suu Kyi’s side during her initial rise to prominence, she expresses a concern that her status as an icon may have gone to her head, and also that she never truly understood the Tatmadaw.Today, many young Burmese activists have turned to her book to better understand their own path forward. For her part, Ma Thida, is impressed by how much this current generation seems to know, and how much and how fast they are able to learn. For this current generation of democracy activists, Ma Thida advises them to “focus on principle, not on person… [keep] an eye on the will of the majority of people, not just one person or yourself.”