THREAD - HATE THE SYSTEM NOT THE 'THUGS'

I interviewed one of the regime's so-called "thugs" in 2011.

He was a Kachin teenager who had gotten into a drunken fight in Myitkyina and was then sentenced to prison.

#Myanmar #Myanmarcoup #myanmarmilitarycoup #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

In 2011, while the Myanmar Army was struggling to fight combined forces of KNU, DKBA and KNU/KNLA-PC...

...the military government began transporting prisoners from across the country to the southeast so they could be forced to porter military equipment. https://www.hrw.org/report/2011/07/12/dead-men-walking/convict-porters-front-lines-eastern-burma

He was one of these prisoners. He was hit by a DKBA bullet in the shoulder and hip, before managing to flee across enemy lines and give himself up.

They realised he was not the enemy and so he was allowed to live. He eventually found his way to Mae Tao clinic, Mae Sot, Thailand

I met him there. I think he was 19. He was shaken, sad and badly injured but wanted to tell me and my co-researcher what had happened to him.

He was a victim in all of this as much as any other human rights survivor I have ever met in and around conflict areas of #Myanmar.

Tonight as so-called 'thugs' are drugged up, set loose and paid to wreak havoc, remember that many of them just made ONE INITIAL MISTAKE that took them to prison, which then set them off on a spiral of suffering and pain.

They are not blameless for their own actions.

But the deeper problem is always the system not the individual.

If the system turns all the individuals against each other, the system wins.