Insight Myanmar

Episode #363: In post-coup Myanmar, where conventional aid channels with humanitarian intentions risk getting diverted and empowering the military junta, Blockchain technology presents a nuanced alternative. An anonymous Blockchain researcher, 7k, highlights both the promise and the pitfalls of digital solutions. He explains that “Blockchain is a fundamental technology that enables cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to emerge or work,” offering a potential detour around junta-controlled centralized banks. However, he acknowledges that crypto is not without its own challenges and pitfalls: the risk of arrest, fraudulent schemes like money laundering, and practical obstacles such as limited accessibility, elevated costs, and the necessity for user-friendly interfaces.  He notes that Blockchain offers a potential bypass to centralized banks controlled by the junta. Unlike centralized servers susceptible to control and surveillance, Blockchain functions as a distributed ledger, providing transparency coupled with pseudonymous transactions. This characteristic, according to 7k, could offer a layer of protection against the junta's oversight, enabling more secure operations for the people of Myanmar and aid organizations. Moreover, in a nation grappling with a rapidly depreciating kyat, cryptocurrencies offer a potentially more stable store of value. The technology's utility extends beyond finance, with initiatives exploring Blockchain-based digital identities for marginalized communities like the Rohingya, who have historically been denied recognition.

Episode #362: Myanmar has recorded the world’s worst casualties from landmines and explosive ordnance for the first time, with over 1,000 casualties in 2024 alone, 29% of whom are children. The inaugural episode in our “Navigating a Minefield” series kicks off with Bekim Shala, a humanitarian mine action expert whose journey in the field began in his native Kosovo, heavily contaminated by landmines during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Witnessing the human toll there, he recognized the importance of mine action. “By being exposed to people who have been injured really quickly, it became clear how important this work is,” Shala says. His work has since taken him to numerous conflict and post-conflict zones, including Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, and Vietnam before arriving in Myanmar in 2016.  As a coordinator for humanitarian mine action in the country, Shala led a team contributing to explosive ordnance risk education (EORE) and secured permissions for surveys through engagement with Naypyidaw, while pushing for permission to conduct de-mining. Shala believes that “had COVID-19 not struck and the coup not unfolded, [they] would have been clearing landmines in Myanmar by now.” However, the 2021 coup worsened the situation, with landmines now pervasive across all states and regions, moving increasingly into residential zones. This shift, coupled with indiscriminate mining by less experienced parties, has led to an increasing threat to civilians that could take decades to defuse.  Most landmines are factory-produced by the Myanmar military, although improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are also made by some ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). Systematic clearance is impossible given the conflict and lack of permissions. As Myanmar is not a signatory to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, Shala’s strategy focuses on engaging all parties to reduce landmine use, especially in civilian areas, looking ahead to a future where the country can be cleared of explosive ordnance. “Even small reductions, such as refraining from use in populated areas or encouraging basic record-keeping of where landmines are laid, can shave decades from the other end,” he says.

Episode #361: “I am Burmese. I feel like it is my duty and responsibility to speak about it.” With these words, Myet opens a conversation that explores Myanmar’s past and present, weaving together personal history, political critique, and spiritual insight.  Raised under military rule, Myet witnessed the silencing of dissent and the trauma that shaped her parents’ generation after the 1988 uprising. After resettling in the West, she was struck by how little people knew about Myanmar’s history and suffering. “We do not exist in the imagination of the world as a place of suffering,” she says, highlighting the disparity in global attention, where some crises are prioritized for their geopolitical weight, while others, such as Myanmar's, remain largely unacknowledged.  Myet critiques Myanmar’s 2010–2020 “transition” as a façade that never disrupted military power. She praises the post-coup resistance as more decentralized and inclusive, led by youth, women, queer activists, and ethnic minorities. Here, she urges deeper forms of solidarity, calling on the international community to abandon simplistic narratives and instead “care” in meaningful ways. “For me, the opposite of violence is not just peace. It’s care.”  Spirituality grounds Myet’s resilience. A daily meditator, she draws on both the Burmese monk U Jotika and the Western teacher Eckhart Tolle to cultivate presence and self-understanding. Rather than aiming for perfection, her practice is about “being,” not “achieving.” She also speaks to the burden of survivor guilt: “Sometimes I feel guilty, just to be secure.” Yet she refuses to give in to despair.  Her closing message is direct and urgent: “The world needs to care before it’s too late.”

Episode #360: “To have my daughter summarily decide that I was complicit in genocide, I really had to think through again my logic for taking the position that we should stay. It sent me on a lot of soul searching,” confesses Ellen Goldstein, a former World Bank Country Director for Myanmar. This revelation, a central theme to her book “Damned If You Do”, encapsulates the dilemmas she faced during Myanmar's tumultuous democratic transition and the Rohingya crisis. Goldstein's decades-long career, dedicated to poverty reduction, led her to Myanmar in 2017. Initially, the World Bank’s aid program brought economic reforms and growth. Yet, she quickly recognized that this prosperity masked deeper systemic issues, not reaching ethnic minorities in remote regions facing “exclusion, discrimination and abuse of civil liberties and human rights.” This exposed a fundamental flaw in the traditional development model, which often overlooked the political and systemic dimensions of poverty.  A critical juncture arrived in 2017 when the military's atrocities against the Rohingya escalated. Despite a pre-approved $200 million grant to the civilian government, Goldstein faced an agonizing moral choice: disburse the funds and risk complicity, or withhold them. She chose the latter. This controversial decision, though ultimately costing her job, became a catalyst for change. And so instead of withdrawing, as some advocated for at the time, the World Bank “stayed engaged but focused on other things, such as social inclusion in conflict areas, specifically for deprived ethnic minorities.” This strategic pivot influenced a new World Bank approach for fragile states: “to never disengage but to try to engage in ways that could drive forward the right values.” Considering this shift, Goldstein advocates for moving beyond state-centric foreign aid and supporting non-state and resistance actors in Myanmar, showing how dedicated individuals can continue to create new pathways for justice and human well-being amidst tragedy.

Episode #359: “The real motivating force is people, it is those human relations.” Duncan McArthur, a backpacker turned decades-long humanitarian leader, found his truth not in textbooks, but in the raw, unfiltered experiences along the Thai-Burma border. His journey began as an English teacher in a Karen refugee camp, where he was inspired by the resilience and humility of the communities he worked with in the face of unimaginable suffering.   Motivated to stay on the border and continue working there, McArthur soon joined The Border Consortium in 2003, a charity organization that exposed him to the complexities and frustrations of the humanitarian aid architecture. He has observed how the transition-era ‘peace industry,’ as he calls it, often prioritized formal ceasefire agreements over addressing the root causes of conflict, leading to an influx of international aid workers who at times seemed more interested in career advancement than genuine impact. He also challenges the traditional notion of neutrality, advocating for Hugo Slim’s practice of “humanitarian resistance” where, in certain contexts, “choosing sides is actually essential in order to reduce suffering.” In Myanmar, this might mean working with ethnic armed organizations and civil society in Myanmar to reach the most vulnerable, who live beyond the military’s reach.  McArthur also acknowledges the shortcomings of the UN's presence in Myanmar, which he sees as a lack of political leadership and a reluctance to directly confront the military junta. While appreciating the institution's aspirational goals, he urges a more proactive stance, including exploring satellite offices or parallel systems in neighboring countries to support sub-national authorities. McArthur's perspective is one of grounded idealism: recognizing the inherent self-interests of all actors, but seeking to align them with the greater good. “The challenge is as much as it is for negotiating access and delivering aid,” he reflects, “but also about how to strengthen the platforms that raise the voices of the oppressed and the marginalized to a meaningful level.”