A very interesting article about a conflict I know allmost nothing about. With the intention to figure out, how to effectivly help people, under oppressed governmen, by helping the local community structures directly.
"I was making the trek into Myanmar to get a sense of how communities were organizing themselves in the vacuum created by the retreating Tatmadaw"
"The restrictions placed by Western governments on engaging with pariah regimes limit the ability to negotiate access to communities and peoples in desperate need of assistance."
"or however dramatic and intense the conditions ordinary people confront in such contexts, their community structures continue to function. It is on such local governance structures that any international effort in contested political settings should be built."
"What I discovered in the course of the five-week trip was a country in the midst of a profound transformation. The struggle against the Tatmadaw has morphed from a fight by ethnic groups to control territory into the emergence of a new form of participatory governance. This governance model has been created organically by a new generation of activists"
But meeting the goal here concretely is not so easy, as traditionally international help goes to strictly civilian organisations only, to not participate in the war. But here there is no seperation.
"I mentioned to Arkar Min Tun, one of the founding members of the group, that in order to receive international support it could be in the organization’s interest to clearly separate the military and civil components of KA-Zero’s activities, he told me it was not possible for as long as the fighting continued. The country was in the midst of an all-encompassing revolution; any separation of activities would be artificial and would undermine the legitimacy of the movement in the eyes of the population"
All in all, the rebels sound quite nice:
“When you give a soldier a gun to fight, you need to tell him that he needs to know that he will have to give it back.”
But there are also dark sides, for sure:
"Sometimes this creates challenges. Marwi explained to me that many of his backers exhort him not to take prisoners."
"I was making the trek into Myanmar to get a sense of how communities were organizing themselves in the vacuum created by the retreating Tatmadaw"
"The restrictions placed by Western governments on engaging with pariah regimes limit the ability to negotiate access to communities and peoples in desperate need of assistance."
"or however dramatic and intense the conditions ordinary people confront in such contexts, their community structures continue to function. It is on such local governance structures that any international effort in contested political settings should be built."
"What I discovered in the course of the five-week trip was a country in the midst of a profound transformation. The struggle against the Tatmadaw has morphed from a fight by ethnic groups to control territory into the emergence of a new form of participatory governance. This governance model has been created organically by a new generation of activists"
But meeting the goal here concretely is not so easy, as traditionally international help goes to strictly civilian organisations only, to not participate in the war. But here there is no seperation.
"I mentioned to Arkar Min Tun, one of the founding members of the group, that in order to receive international support it could be in the organization’s interest to clearly separate the military and civil components of KA-Zero’s activities, he told me it was not possible for as long as the fighting continued. The country was in the midst of an all-encompassing revolution; any separation of activities would be artificial and would undermine the legitimacy of the movement in the eyes of the population"
All in all, the rebels sound quite nice:
“When you give a soldier a gun to fight, you need to tell him that he needs to know that he will have to give it back.”
But there are also dark sides, for sure:
"Sometimes this creates challenges. Marwi explained to me that many of his backers exhort him not to take prisoners."