Thank you so much for joining us today, and we hope you'll be a really interesting seminar for everybody.
I just want to say a really big thank you to the Asian Studies Centre at St. Anthony's
College here at Oxford for hosting us and particular thanks to Claire Clarke-Salter,
who's been working very hard to make this happen.
Now we put a very extensive description of the seminar online beforehand, and I'm assuming that everybody will have read that.
So we don't want to waste too much time going over the details of what we intend to address during the seminar,
but our aims are really relatively simple. And first, what we hope to do is to provide some very useful insights into current events in Myanmar.
For those of you who are interested and may feel that media and other insights into the country has started to fade away or tail off in recent weeks.
And so we hope you can fill a few gaps for you. But second, we also want to bring attention to some of the important issues.
This is somewhat in the background of recent events as well, perhaps because of lack of media and other access,
and perhaps because they're not always easy things to understand because they relate to
areas and people and issues that are often excluded from attention at the best of times.
And we also want to try and bring in some comparative angles as well.
So thinking about what is what's happening at the moment and what's also happened in the past as well.
So we're delighted to have a panel of people who can address these issues with real insight
and experience and genuine expertise to bring a very distinctive perspective to them as well.
And what I'd like I'll do is just briefly introduce them and then will press on with the seminar.
I shouldn't say that we're just having a few technical issues bring in Panama into into the seminar,
but all I'll introduce you is it has issues and then hopefully should be able
to join us by the time we get to the point that she is supposed to present.
So our first speaker is going to be Tom Sheehan, and I'm sure that many of you will have watched Tom's award winning documentaries on
mainstream media without even really being aware that he was he was the person behind it.
But what is less well known is that Tom has been undertaking work and on Myanmar for
nearly 30 years and working a lot with local photographers and documentary filmmakers.
And he's currently working on a programme for Al Jazeera, which is going to be shown in July,
which I hope [INAUDIBLE] explain more to you about in his presentation.
So thank you, Tom, for joining us today, and we're really looking forward to your insights around these issues.
And then our second speaker is David Marr. David is originally from Chin State, and we're really delighted that he's been able to join us today.
The Chin State is one of the most least reported regions of Myanmar,
including critically during recent events when there has been some really devastating
events taking place that have really fallen below the radar in terms of news,
reporting and so on. So David is undertaking a Ph.D. at Astbury Theological Seminary in the USA,
and his work explores the intersections of religious faith and practise conflict and peace building.
And so we're really grateful to him for joining us and listening and looking forward to listening to his insights.
Now our third speaker is Comunemente.
And those of you with very long term experience of working in on me on Myanmar will be very familiar with Omar's activism and the great
courage she applies to raising a very critical but also constructive voice to political debate and her commitment to social change.
Ciroma also brings long term reflective experience to this to these issues as well.
She's a former student activist from the 88 generation, and again,
we're really looking forward to her insights and benefiting from her experience over the long term.
And so we hope that very much we'll be able to get her into the room by the time we get to have her part of the panel.
And then I thought Speak was really one of the most well known commentators and authors working on Myanmar.
That's Martin Smith. Now, Martin has decades of experience working with leading actors in Borderlands across civil,
military and political organisations, and he's got an almost encyclopaedic knowledge and he's truly a rare gem in Myanmar studies.
And we're really grateful to you, Martin, for joining us today. So if we pass on now with our panel, each speaker's is going to have 15 minutes.
We may extend it slightly if our mall unfortunately won't be able to join us.
But fingers crossed I'll be OK. Could you please put your comments in the Q&A box now?
If you look at the top bounds, I'm sure many of you will be familiar with teams.
But if not, just look in the top band of the teams and you'll see two questions and two speech bubbles with a question mark in.
And if you could put your questions in there and then those will be the questions that will draw from at the end of the seminar.
What? As many of these as possible, and if I could ask you, please, to to identify yourself when you post a question.
Just tell us your name and a little bit about your experience so that we can also contextualise your perspective too.
And I'd just like to remind you that the seminar is being recorded as well.
So, Tom, if you're ready, could we please hand over to you as our first speaker and thank you very much for your time today as well.
Thanks so much, Mandy. And and thanks everybody for joining the seminar.
I know it's probably an experience that a lot of us have had,
and I just wanted to reflect it before I start on the feeling that sort of conflicting feelings really over the last few months
of of of sadness about some of the terrible things that we've all seen and heard about and read about happening since the coup.
But but also some of the very inspiring things and the feelings of admiration,
also that I've certainly experienced seeing some of the responses to the coup.
And I feel privileged in in the work that I've been doing as a filmmaker in having had access to,
you know, a small window onto some of that, which is what I want to talk about this afternoon.
And I know that the other speakers today will provide some discussion with them about how the site of
the update is joining us about this amount of context and history and analysis to bring to bear on,
you know, on on the events that we've been witnessing. And what I really wanted to do was something a bit more anecdotal, I think,
and to talk a bit about the film project that I did, which has a difference of degree on this,
just in to this sort of ethics and practicalities and modalities of the media and how they
engage with the events in Myanmar and also the content of the film that I've been doing.
I think, as you know, has given given some some insights into the events as well just by way of background.
And I have been working for some time with Korean filmmakers and working on a project to to document things that had been happening in Korean state,
particularly in metro districts of Peru and state. And this was part of a longer term project to to make a film with local filmmakers.
And while we were doing that in January, we they started to witness something, which I think has happened.
For quite a long time, periodically in current state,
which was the expansion of Burma Army camps leading to road building for the military camps and and attacks on civilian villages associated with this,
these military operations, which already in themselves were what what breaches of the ceasefire agreement
that was in place under the agreement between the canyou and the government.
So that was that was happening anyway. And then when the coup happens,
I thought this was an opportunity for the Korean filmmakers to document the events following the coup from their own perspective,
and I started talking to Al Jazeera about that.
And I thought it was a very interesting project with the.
Quite an opportunity to to have a Korean perspective on events in the current state as a result of the coup.
Interestingly, the. The position of Al Jazeera was that they really wanted to see how that related to the much more widely at
the time publicised events that were taking place in the towns and cities of the pro-democracy movement,
the protests against the coup. And I think that that's it's significant in its own right that that's what they wanted, that they wanted.
They didn't feel that the events happening in the ethnic territory was themselves significant unless
they were somehow related to the pro-democracy protests that were taking place in the cities.
And I think we could we could talk a bit about why that might be and what the effect of that perspective
is on on the reception of the ethnic armed organisations and their role in political change in Burma.
But anyway, we carried on this conversation even while it was happening.
The discussion with Al Jazeera, the NLD took over a border post and in response, at least in part in response to that,
the coup that the Burmese military launched air strikes against the the positions within Karen state.
Well, all filmmakers were currently filming, so events somewhat took over and they carried on filming the aftermath of these air strikes.
In the meantime? We started to hear about pro-democracy activists coming to border regions.
The Karen and Kachin areas controlled by the KNU and KIRO respectively, and seeking shelter,
seeking asylum in some cases and but also seeking training military training from.
This knu from the CIA, and this had very strong echoes of of the months after the uprising in 1988 and the abstract arriving at the border,
which, you know, having been there in my floor in the early 90s, I remember it very well.
And this seemed like an interesting development to pursue.
What we what we found was that the. The KNU were very unwilling to publicise the arrival of.
Of pro-democracy activists and politicians into their areas,
let alone to acknowledge that there may be training taking place, which they publicly denied.
Whereas in the area,
they were much more willing to discuss that and initially at least are also willing to to
go on the record talking about their changing relationship with the pro-democracy movement.
But that position slightly changed during the course of the filming, which mainly took place in May,
and I think that's very interesting as to why that would have been possible to
take ourselves back to that moment in May when we started filming what we had.
Were reports of hundreds of young,
mainly young people coming from cities across Burma and arriving in Kachin state and
taking part in a formal training programme lasting around about 30 days with the CIA,
at a at a camp that was devoted to that purpose.
And by the time we started filming,
there had already been two groups of four hundred Chinese go through this camp and and another group arrived, which which we then filmed.
What I was hoping to do was both to get an insight into their expectations and
experiences of arriving there for the training and also almost in parallel with that.
To interview political figures from the emerging CLP, H and Enugu, the national unity government.
And also with the leadership of the Kio and the KNU to see whether this group of trainees arriving in the ethnic areas for training
in some sense was a microcosm of a broader emerging alliance between the pro-democracy movement and the ethnic armed organisations.
And so to talk a little bit first about the the trainees, it was a really fascinating experience to work with local filmmakers.
I didn't myself travel that there were any number of reasons why that was difficult.
And so working with local filmmakers who interviewed people, as I said, mainly young people, not uniquely, but mainly young people,
some of whom who had no previous involvement in any political activity,
who had taken part in protest strikes and demonstrations since the coup and who had been.
Really shocked by the level of violence that they had been met with, and in many cases,
that is what stimulated them to seek out the training, which they had come to join.
And the second thing which really struck me was how I think both motivated but also naive they were
in general about how they would use this training in any strategic way to overthrow the military.
The. The observation which which came across incredibly strongly from a number of
them was that the experience of coming to join with the KOGO for this training.
Combined with the experience of the violent repression of the of the demonstrations had made
them see the ethnic armed struggle in a different light from how they had previously seen it.
You know, one one of them in particular explained that this had completely transformed her view of the ethnic armed organisations,
which she had previously thought of as rebels,
whose involvement in the political future of of Myanmar was was essentially unhelpful and destabilising,
and something to be controlled and contained, rather than something to be honest, for future change.
And I think that. Change in perspective feels very significant, and certainly when we moved on to the interviews with political figures,
that was a theme which emerged again and again,
both in relation to the ethnic armed organisations, but also talking to politicians from the national unity government.
And I think I'm probably arriving near the end of my allotted 15 minutes.
And so I just want to end, I think.
With some observations about the moment at the end of the training when these young people were getting ready to leave and
travel back to their towns and cities that they had come from and watching the footage from that scene when it came back to me,
I was really overwhelmed by.
The lack of a very coherent strategy for how they may use the training that they had just taken part in in a constructive way to pursue
the legitimate political aims that they had and which they shared with the members of the KOGO that they've been training with.
And it really worried me and and and made me feel anxious for that future that they would.
Set off back into the towns and cities that they've come from now very exposed by virtue of having been to the rebel areas,
but without water, it seemed to me a clear strategy.
Leadership. Arms or means of protecting themselves, let alone putting up some convincing resistance to the control of the Tatmadaw and that,
I'm afraid, was that was the impression that I was left with.
And I'm sure, you know, our other speakers this afternoon will be able to put that into a broader political and historical context.
And I think I should probably hand over this point and let them speak and take over,
but I will look forward to any questions that people have based on that little snapshot.
Thank you so much, Tom, I really appreciate it. Could you just remind everybody when your documentary is likely to be?
Thanks, man. Yes, it will be out on July the 14th on Al Jazeera, and it will be available on the Al Jazeera website thereafter.
So I do hope that people watch it. It was made by some incredibly talented Karen and Kachin filmmakers,
and they've done a really extraordinary job of getting an insight into something which I haven't seen anywhere
else and which I think they provide a perspective which is genuinely unique in the reporting that I've seen.
Thank you. Thank you. And we'll try to circulate that to. Everybody is registered as well.
Thank you. So will not move on.
And can I just remind everybody, please, if you do have any questions, put them in the queue and I will pull those together at the end.
And I'm delighted also that I can.
Omar has been able to join us, so we've got a full cohort on our panel as well, but we're not going to move over to David and OK.
So David, when you're ready, if you would like to like to begin.
Hello. I'm David Moore honour to share a panel of Myanmar.
Firstly, I would like to express my thanks to the Universe, the Oxford Asian Studies Centre, for hosting this seminar.
Secondly, I would like to thank Dr. Mandy said.And for inviting me to share the under reported situations in Mindat of Chin State.
Thirdly, I would like to honour all the fallen heroes in our home to.
Today, the topic of my presentations is beyond street protest to me, revolutions in Mindat change date.
Thousands of people in different parts of Myanmar still protest on the street, but people in Mindat have overcome.
Straight protest. And now they are protesting against the coup.
True to me, revolutions do is the Burmese term for hunting gun.
Before I share. About the way how people in Mindat protest against the coup.
I would like to share a brief background of Mindat mean that is not a very famous town in Myanmar.
It is a small hill town in Chin State with 50000 residents, as you can see the picture here,
that is the picture mean that it is located in the southern part of Chin State.
It is a hill town. And there are three tribes in Mindat.
Such as Moon Die and Gong, they are called Cho People.
Interestingly, there are three religions in Mindat, which I called a b c a stands for animism.
All Primal Religion B stands for Buddhism and C stands for Christianity, so a, b c, moreover,
mean that is also home to a national hero by the name of von Xuelong who resist it against British colonialism.
Most of the local residents in Mindat are farmers of whom most of men are Hondas.
You think to me for the one handing. And Mindat become the first ethnic minority group to ever under martial law.
It is historic. Why mean that under martial law?
Second, how do people Mindat respond to the coup before?
And after martial law, and the third question is, what are some current tragic situations under martial law?
These are important equations. We have to deal with today.
Let me begin by sharing the origins and different forms of protest in Mindat.
People in Mindat, courageous, united and creative.
Like. Many people in different parts of Myanmar, people in Mindat protest that on the streets,
and then they also joined the civil disobedience movement here.
After our youth KDM Mindat has the high percentage of the participants.
Some local people told me there could be 90 percent of the CDM participants, but all the others told me that there could be 80 percent.
So I'm just trying to use the middle ground and say there could be about 85 percent of freedom parties when that is impressive.
That's very, very high. Most of them are medical doctors and medical nurses and medical staff, as well as some public school teachers.
And in the beginning, people in Mindat thought that these was the fight between Aung San Suu Kyi and the military party.
Partly because some of the people in in mean that were not quite happy about Aung San Suu Kyi's party,
partly because they prioritised democracy federalism, we could, implying that they prioritised democracy and tend to.
Less emphasised federalism, as you understand.
People in Myanmar, particularly the ethnic minority group, really want to have federal democracy.
So many ethnic minority groups tend to focus on federal democracy.
But during the election campaign? Aung San Suu Kyi's party trying to privatise democracy federalism.
But later on, people in Mindat felt that this was not the fight between Aung San Suu Kyi party and the military.
They came to feel that these is about fighting against the army of the military government as the common enemy.
And they believe that this is not just about party politics. Bravo.
This is about the nation politics in Burmese, we call it.
This is not just about making money, but rather this is about making money.
This is the nation politics, and the common goal is to achieve federal democracy.
So people in Mindat are quite creative in terms of symbolic forms of protest.
They used the to protest, you know, tattoo is a cultural practise for some women in Mindat, so they use Tet to protest.
And also, some Christian groups use the phrase as a symbolic forms of protest against the coup.
So a group of Christian leaders and church members gathered and pray to God.
And the third picture shows that they imitated Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, which I call it the leader Hong Kong in Chin state.
So in the early. Stage of protest against the coup, people in Maine that use different forms of protest,
including some music and many other forms of protest against the coup.
Starting in early March. The army trying to use a violent crackdowns on the on the non-violent protesters.
Then people in mean that started thinking about self-defence.
How could we defend against the military coup?
That was how they started thinking about self-defence in the early March.
As the first picture shows, the army trying to occupy some public buildings, such as hospitals and public schools, like in this picture,
we can see how the army attempted to occupy the hospital because they wanted it and they
forced some medical doctors and nurses to continue working instead of joining to KDM.
But the local people in mean that. Expel them from the hospital area.
So the first attempt of the army to occupy it in the hospital was not successful.
And here we can see how the the group of young people in Mindat trying to protest against the coup.
These picture shows that a group of young people in Mindat protested against the coup in the early morning of April 24th, around 4:00 a.m.
In this protest, they show their support for and Eugene.
National unity government. In that morning, the army arrested seven protesters for females and free meals.
These was the beginning of two main revolutions because the army did not release all the detainees the the promise,
the local people, that they will release these seven detainees, but they failed to release them.
This was the beginning of two MI revolutions, so that means to me.
Revolution began on 24th of April. There was a serious fight between Army and Shin and Defence Force here after our youth KDF Mindat.
So there was a serious fight between. Army and CDF, Minda, starting on April 24th.
And the and the cedarfx mean that killed several armies,
including burning six trucks of the soldiers and then the army used the heavy weapons such as artillery and airstrikes.
And and then they declare martial law on May 13.
So interesting to hear what happened when martial law has been declared.
They the CDF mean that's surrender. No, they did not surrender.
Instead, they withdrew because the army arrested some civilians and used them as the human shields.
So some CDF in mean that did not surrender, but they withdrew because they don't want to kill their own people.
Those who were used by the army as the human shields on the front.
So the consequence of that martial law is that the local people in Mindat fled to some forest and the nearby villages,
as you can see who in this true picture, the second picture shows how the people in Mindat fled.
To the forests and the second picture and the third picture is quite striking to us here.
A woman carried a heavy stuff and then she also carried a gun on her head.
She carried a gun for self-defence while she is in the forest.
So 90 percent of the local residents in minutes left for the forests.
And here we can see some internally displaced people camp here after I will use IDP camps.
So a big number of. Minda, people stay at the IDP camps in the forests as well as in the nearby villages.
Here you can see how they lived at the camps, particularly here,
the the the fourth picture on the right side shows that a young boy pray to God by using Rosary.
It seems like he is from the Roman Catholic family because he used a rosary when he prayed to God.
And this is the rainy season, so you can also see that he have got wet in the forest.
This is how they live at the at the IDP camps. Since the vast majority of people in middle left detente, only a few people,
maybe 10 percent of people and animals left behind, you can see who the picture on the left site.
You can see some pigs and some animals and such, and a small number of people are left in the tank.
Most of them are men, women and the elderly people, those who cannot walk and flee to the forest.
And the second picture shows that how the the army destroying some houses and stole some properties in the tanks.
You can see in this in this picture. Some armies destroying some houses and then stole people's properties without any permissions.
This is terrible. And then in these three pictures you can see here, the first picture a young boy.
He's in the forest at the IDP camp. He still protests against the coup by using his three finger salute.
He's do protest again. The coup in the forest and in the in this in the second picture,
you can see there's a church that is one of the IDP camps and then the second picture.
It's also the one of the IDP camps in Mindat. But the army attack each IDP camps.
The reason why they are doing is that the army wanted the people at the camp to return to their town so that the army has some human beings to ruled.
That is what happening right now.
So it's very terrible that the army attacked each IDP camps, so there is no safe place for the people in Mindat to live at the IDP camp.
So they have to flee from one place to another.
There was what's happening, and this is the rainy season in in Mindat and in Myanmar, and this is a really terrible situation for the IDP people.
Let me conclude my presentations by offering some brief reflections.
Let me ask the questions. Can we go beyond the military coup?
If yes, how? If no, why? In order to go beyond the military coup, we need to use to.
Movements, both internal movement and external movements, so we have to use these two movements as partners.
In the internal movement we can think about.
The violent resistance against the violent coup by using arms as using sorry.
The main goal of these is to defeat Mendham people, I'm sorry.
To fight against the armies. Well, this could be effective.
We can also think about the terrible situations of the itby people at the camps, particularly,
there's a scene when two big elephants fight their real victims, all the grasses on the ground.
That happens to the people when the army and the CDF win that fight.
Who are the real victims? The victims are the innocents, the local people in Mindat, those who fled to the forest and leave at the IDP camps.
And here the challenge is that the army blocked some routes for the humanitarian assistance.
The army blocked every way away. The idea? People could get some food and some drinks, and some of them have lack of medical care.
And a number of people at the IDP camp have died, including a seven year old baby, because they have lack of food.
They have lack of water.
They have lack of medical care, and they cannot get access to those humanitarian assistance because the army blocked all the roads everywhere.
So considering these terrible situations. Of the Idlib people.
I won't suggest that there could be negotiations between the army and the CDF, Mindat.
It doesn't mean that the ZDF in Mindat have to stop fighting against a coup.
Rather, the goal of that negotiation is to minimise the suffering of the IDP people if they could make a negotiations.
Then the IDB people could return to their town and stay at their home more comfortably.
Of course, we are not sure that all the people could return to the towns because they feel sold.
There is another case. But in order to minimise, it's important for the IDP people to return to the town.
That could be better solutions at this point.
But again, it doesn't mean that this could solve what really is happening.
It means that in different parts of Myanmar, but rather this could solve the suffering of the IDB people.
And the second way of. Defeating this coup is non-violent ways.
So in this case, violent weight of resistance against the core is not the only way to defeat the coup.
But non-violent way could also be another way to defeat the coup.
In this case, we can think of the civil disobedience movement like KDM.
The main goal of this aim is to stop government mechanisms.
Within this. Non-Violent resistance.
We can also think of the intellectual critique of Buddhist dictatorship.
Buddhism is a religion of non-violence, a religion of compassion.
But what the military government doing is contradictory to the religious teaching in that case.
Some intellect, you have to come up and criticise and confront the wrong ideology.
I am particularly interested in this movement, which they need to resist and criticise and confront the wrong ideology of religious practise.
And we also need the external community's collaborations with this internal movement.
In this case, I will urge the international community to lament with the pains of people.
Second, I urge the international community to listen to the crying voices of the people.
And recognise and Eugene. For example, we can think of the ASEAN associations of Southeast Asian nations,
choose to listen to the voices of the ruling authority instead of listening to the crying voice of the people.
This is not a good example.
I urge the international community to listen to the crying voice of the people, which is urgent now and recognise and Eugene, which stands for the.
Civilians, and that vote is that the international community could advocate for freedom of these
civilians from military dictatorship and for achieving their federal democracy.
In this context, what I should urge the international community is to support the IDB people, those who are really, really.
Helpless. They are victims. They need international community support.
The second group of people that the international community could help is the CDP participants.
Some of them stopping receiving salary and income from the government.
They need financial support.
The third group of the people that the international community could help is the strikers, those who are strikers against the coup on the frontline.
These are important. Again, I would emphasise we need to use two different forms of resisting a coup.
First is violence against the coup.
In this case, we can ask whether we should go before Aung San Suu Kyi method of non-violent.
Definitely, yes. We need to go beyond Aung San Suu Kyi met that of no, it doesn't mean that we need to replace.
Non-Violence with violence instead, we have to hold these ways together to defeat these military dictatorship.
Together, we will defeat this dictatorship. Thank you so much for listening to my presentations.
Thank you so much, David.