The undercover rebels in Myanmar's military
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Nicola Coughlan, and for BBC Radio 4, this is history's youngest heroes. Rebellion, risk, and the radical power of youth. She thought, right, I'll just do it. She thought about others rather than herself. 12 stories of extraordinary young people from across history. There's a real sense of urgency in them, that resistance has to be mounted, it has to be mounted now.

Follow History's Youngest Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.

Two gig download speeds, individual speeds vary. See Cox.com for details. Hello, I'm Azadeh Moshiri from the BBC World Service. This is The Global Story. Now, before we get started, I should warn you that in this episode, we do briefly discuss an instance of torture, which you may find upsetting.

For years, Aung San Suu Kyi was seen by many in the West as a hero. Myanmar had been ruled for decades by a ruthless military dictator. But Suu Kyi, the opposition leader who wore flowers in her hair, was willing to challenge the army generals. I don't want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights. The world watched on as she was placed under house arrest.

on and off for nearly 15 years. And she even received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, a ceremony punctuated by a standing ovation in her absence. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Eventually, the military seemed to soften and agreed to an experiment with democracy. In 2015, for the first time in 50 years, democratic elections were held and Aung San Suu Kyi became the country's new leader in a landslide victory. But in order to stay in power, she was willing to make concessions to keep the military happy. Three years into her term, she even described the generals in her cabinet as rather sweet.

Those concessions grew until she became an international pariah. The UN's human rights chief wants a criminal investigation and in an exclusive interview with the BBC, he doesn't rule out the possibility that Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's de facto leader, could end up in the dock.

The world watched on in horror as the Myanmar military carried out what the UN called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing against the country's Rohingya minority. And yet the woman with the flowers in her hair stood by her army. Do you ever worry that you will be remembered as the champion of human rights, the Nobel laureate?

...who failed to stand up to ethnic cleansing in her own country? No, because I don't think there's ethnic cleansing going on I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what's happening But despite all of the concessions she'd made... ...the clock was ticking on Myanmar's democracy In 2021, the military seized power, imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi... ...and reintroduced a brutal, oppressive regime

Today's episode is not about Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains in prison. Instead, it's about the unlikely fighters who are taking on the military regime in the name of democracy. Regular citizens who never thought they would end up in a rebel military unit in the jungles of Myanmar and the surprise success they're having.

Well, with me today are Sowin Tan, the editor of the BBC's Burmese service. Hi, Sowin. Hello. And Rebecca Henschke, one of the journalists behind a new documentary from BBC Eye Investigations, which follows rebels fighting against the military government in Myanmar. Hi, Rebecca. Hello. Let's start with the day of the coup in 2021. Rebecca, can you remind me of how the world learned that the military had abruptly seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi?

It came as a shock to people inside the country as well as the global community that was watching Myanmar.

And there is one piece of footage that really captures that. There was a young woman who was doing a fitness routine live for her audience. She was an influencer. And

Behind her, you see troops rolling in. A military convoy of black vehicles descended on Parliament, arresting elected officials, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Pretty odd, huh? But it gives a sense of that contrast between what most people thought was just a normal day...

During a period where Myanmar was really opening up this quasi-democracy, young people really taking advantage of that, and then the shock of that door slamming shut. So when Meanwhile Inside Myanmar for the government and their advisors, their staff...

they were facing real consequences here for that coup. That was the day that the new parliament was to convene. Wow. So hundreds of MPs were gathering and suddenly Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the previous government, she and her whole cabinet were detained, which forced many MPs to flee from the country. And from then on, like, you know, for weeks, large, large crowds, hundreds of thousands of people, they came out onto the streets...

and they demonstrated

Five days after the military takeover and people are testing the limits. This group included factory workers from the western suburbs of Yangon, but led by young political activists. Especially the young people, they had the taste of democracy. As a citizen who was born in this country, I cannot accept the unjust takeover by the military. Our country is just a bird learning to fly. Now the army has broken our wings.

And they were extremely brave because the Myanmar military that listeners will remember is a formidable force. It's carried out human rights abuses against the Rohingya people. This is a brutal force. Because of this military dictatorship, many of our lives have been destroyed. We cannot let our future generation meet the same fate.

And they were unarmed. Some of them had picked up, like, the lids of bins as shields or umbrellas. And there was this sense of looming crackdown. This was the day Myanmar's army set out to impose its will on a furious population. One week or ten days, then they started to shoot right in the head of the protesters. Ah! Ah!

Not just tear gas, but live rounds too. All restraint now abandoned. The shooting was caught on camera by this terrified bystander. "Please don't shoot, don't let it happen," she says. And many were killed in the streets, shown live to the media.

And if I remember correctly, you know, we're talking about the bravery of these young protesters. They kept speaking out for months. Yeah, the protests continued even after the shooting began and the killings began, the detentions began.

They kept coming out onto the streets trying to show that they did not want the military back in power. And they really believed in those first few weeks that if they made that loud enough to the international community, that they would be helped.

So that was the hope. To the outside world, though, as often happens, most people then started turning their attention to other stories, other wars. It's a cycle, of course, we in the media know all too well. And one moment it seems everyone is watching and then suddenly the attention span lapses. But Rebecca, what's been happening in Myanmar while the world wasn't watching so closely?

So a lot of those young protesters fled the cities eventually because it was no longer safe. So they fled into the border regions of Myanmar. These areas largely have some control of ethnic groups who've been fighting the Myanmar military for decades for autonomy. So these are armed ethnic groups.

And so the young people were welcomed into these camps because they both have a common enemy, the military regime. And so who are these young people? They're regular young people who just felt the need to protest and now they're joining a fight. Yeah, there's models, there's actors, there's doctors, there's engineers. Just people who never expected to fight. They were very much an urban youth.

that had access to the internet, had access to the world. And then now they were in very remote jungle camps, having to learn a very different way of life, how to get food, how to survive, and also how to train to fight. And there's not enough weapons to go around. So people are training with wooden planks.

guns or just poles and learning how to fight with whatever they could find. They also enriched their military experience of the ethnic armed groups. So they bring in technology, they fashioned their own weapons, like drones have become effective weapons. These young people introduced this drone technology to the already existing ethnic armed groups.

So you're talking about people who were artists, who had completely different lives. You have everyone from every single walk of life. These are not military men and women. The BBC was able to embed with one of these rebel groups. How did your team decide who to follow?

We followed a man called Dewa, who's one of the most marked men in the country. He's a young rebel leader. Now I consider myself a dead man walking. In his words, if he was caught, he would be tortured. I am the enemy and they will kill me whenever they find me.

Rather than take me alive, they would torture me and kill me. Because he's one of these young rebel leaders who the military can see as being effective. He's got control over one of these civilian militia groups. They're called the People's Defence Forces, and his is called the Yangon Command. Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!

But he doesn't look like a rebel leader. He's in his 30s. He's a very slight figure. He wears studious glasses, sort of Harry Potter-esque glasses. He comes from a family that's been involved in politics for generations. Our family has been actively involved in politics since my grandfather's time until now.

All three generations have been jailed. He is someone that has real charisma. One of those people, when you meet them, you think, this is someone who's going to leave their mark on history. He just got married, like, two weeks or a few weeks before the coup.

But he also said that when he was a city kid, he always thought it would be lovely to live in the bush, you know, live in the jungle. And then he said after this experience, there's no way. He wants to go back to creature comforts because there's so many mosquitoes in those jungle camps. And it's a really tough life. He's also got other rebels, his people around him. What did the BBC team notice about daily life for them?

So they're all very young as well, mostly men, but there are a few women. There's a strong sense of unity amongst them. And you get that sense of this just really wasn't what they planned. We rallied peacefully on the streets. They cracked down on us. So we tried to protect ourselves. And we thought armed struggle was the only way to counter those with weapons.

And that's why we fought back. And also some of those men are now injured. I mean, they've lost legs, they're paralysed and they'll never go back to that future. But yeah, they're young men and, you know, in the camp when we followed them at night, they'd sit around the campfire and they would sing. And they sang a line in one of the songs around the campfire that...

We lived in fear for generations. Now is the time to fight.

And despite their appearance, their background, it's a reminder, isn't it, that they're a military unit in some ways and a resistance unit that is having some real success in taking on Myanmar's notorious military regime. What does that look like? What does that operation actually look like? So we witnessed when we were embedded with them, them attacking a very key strategic post next to a bridge. BANGING

Dewa said the strategy was to relentlessly pressure them. Our strategy is to mentally pressure the enemy, day and night. The sniper watches them and shoots at them, even when they're fishing water and cooking. So effectively a siege. And this carried on day and night for nine days.

And they would yell out to the men every now and then over these loudspeakers, sort of warnings to them saying you have no way of escape, but also to try and pull them across. They would say things like, come and join the people.

And then eventually on the 10th day at night, they decided to make the final push. So the men crawled across the bridge, keeping low. And then at the same time, the other team launched a drone attack using a camera drone that had a bomb attached to it. And we see that bomb drop.

The whole base goes up in flames and then they claim to have killed 30 soldiers in that attack. And then the next day we witnessed they were crossed the bridge triumphantly and surveyed the charred remains of this key military post. This is what we captured. This was their stronghold. And these places have not been surrendered for 40 years.

Look at it now, all gone. One of the reasons why they're able to be so successful is because they have a secret weapon that's proving very effective. They're getting leaked intelligence from the enemy camp, from soldiers inside the military. That's next, the secret weapon behind the rebels' surprise momentum. I'm Nicola Coughlan, and for BBC Radio 4, this is History's Youngest Heroes.

Rebellion, risk and the radical power of youth. She thought, right, I'll just do it. She thought about others rather than herself. 12 stories of extraordinary young people from across history. There's a real sense of urgency in them. That resistance has to be mounted, it has to be mounted now. Follow History's Youngest Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.

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No purchase necessary. VGW Group. Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus. Terms and conditions apply. This is The Global Story. We bring you one big international story in detail five days a week. Follow or subscribe wherever you listen. With me are Rebecca Henschke and So Win Tan. So let's get to it. This secret weapon you just mentioned that's helping the resistance forces in Myanmar stand up to their military government. You have to give us more details.

So they're called watermelons. So these are soldiers who outwardly appear loyal to the military regime, green, military green, but inside they're red. Red is the symbolic colour of the resistance, of the rebels. So they're outwardly soldiers loyal to the military, but inside they're leaking intelligence to the resistance.

So you followed some of these watermelons, as you call them. Could you tell me about them?

One of the watermelons that we spoke to was one of the first watermelons in those early days called So. He was a fairly young soldier and we learnt what were the events that drove him to become a watermelon, to become a spy. I saw right in front of me that they brought in innocent people.

beat them, pounding them. He was guarding some of those protesters that were pulled from the streets into barracks. There was a curfew after 8pm, so no one was allowed to come to the front of the barracks. A father and son came there after 8, so they were detained. The Dutch had the father first, in front of his son.

The sun was also punched. After that, they were forced to swim on the Tart Road. You know, they were forced to crawl to nets as if they were swimming. And he witnessed his other fellow soldiers swimming

interrogating one female protester and they wanted the password to her phone and she was refusing so they were torturing her. They kept pressuring her with different words along with the knife and they started using a gun various tactics to torture her. At one point they even said to me hey you come and hit her but I said I didn't have the stomach to do it.

But what he did do was he recorded that interrogation. He pulled out his own phone and started recording. Huge risk, huge risk. And then he walks out of the barracks and he sent that audio to the resistance, back to that woman's family. I don't know. I don't know what he's doing.

He said his hands were shaking. He couldn't sleep that night because if what he did was traced back to him, it would be very likely that he would be killed. And up until that point, how did he feel about the military?

He was very proud to be a soldier. His father was a soldier. Becoming a soldier was a dream come true. He showed us photos of those early days, you know, in his 20s, in his full uniform, and he's beaming with pride. It was a good time.

There was a form of democracy and the political situation seems to be improving. I was proud because my father was also a soldier. Because entering the Myanmar military was a golden ticket for many young men, Burman men in Myanmar.

We're talking about this risk. How do you even go about recruiting him, though? How did he end up becoming a watermelon? Well, in the early days, it was very much just personal connections because we're talking about a conflict between neighbours. So he knew people who were on the streets protesting. I knew their names and addresses were on an arrest list in the barracks.

Sayapa, you know, the military intelligence, knew where they all lived. So he leaked that information, giving them time to run, giving them time to flee to those jungle camps. I leaked information about troops...

which group operated in what area, how many soldiers in each unit, which group was where and how many were left in the base. I give them that kind of information. Our investigation has shown that the military is now riddled with these spies. And the opposition two years ago set up what they're calling the Watermelon Unit, which we got rare access to. And that unit was set up

because they needed a unit to manage the growing number of spies. And they say, they claim they have watermelons at every level, so very senior figures within the military but also in the military regime. When we were with the watermelon unit,

It's just constantly beeping different messaging apps through the night. They have it stationed in different time zones so they can collect all the intelligence. And then that's passed on to the relevant rebel fighting force so that they can either avoid the military based on that information or set up an ambush. The military clearly know this is going on. How are they reacting to that?

They have been carrying out sweeps. We did speak to one active watermelon on the front line and he said that he'd heard about sweeps, so they're looking for spies within their ranks. And he said when he hears about that, he cuts off all contact, he deletes everything on the phone. When we spoke to him, we were given like this code word that we had to send. So I'm going to hit the code that we were given, SWEAP.

When the Guatemalans see that coat, they know who I am, so they will talk. He turns up the television so that the conversation won't be heard. BELL RINGS

So they're living in a state of paranoia because it's very likely that if they were caught, they would be killed or severely punished. But the thing that really struck me about what he said was that often the watermelons also, the ones that are really motivated by a desire for a better future for their country, they're not really motivated by the fact that they're not going to be killed.

They've thought about it and they think the most effective way they can help the revolution is not to affect, but to stay within the military and act as a mole. So it feels like this has become a forgotten war because many thought this was a done deal. The military are now in charge. But while we're talking about our rebel units and people actually having an impact. So when is it really a winnable war, though?

If you ask me this question like four years ago when the military coup happened, then I would say no. But it's increasingly likely and the rebel groups are much more confident because recently also we have seen them gain ground victories across the country.

You know, they have effectively stopped the military's advances. But military also has a vast arsenal, superior air power. So even if this war is winnable, it's not an easy fight. BBC's data team have been looking at where the military has control. And it's...

Opposition forces now control over 40% of the territory. The rest is largely contested. And the military only has full control of less than a quarter of the country. What they do control is the high-density populated areas. So the military...

remains control of the urban areas. Right. And they also control major infrastructure and revenue. At the same time, China and Russia are still selling weapons to the Myanmar military. And as they're losing, we're seeing their brutality increase.

I want to return to Dewar because everything you're describing, of course, is the big picture, what the endgame is. But at the heart of this are real people, young people fighting this fight.

And Dewar is still imagining a normal future for himself. I wonder from your conversations, Rebecca, with these rebels, what is going through their minds? How much hope do they truly have? They still have hope. I think without hope, they couldn't keep fighting. But at the same time, I think there is a realisation amongst Dewar and his men that they may not live to see what they're fighting for. There is that level of commitment. Mm.

There was another young boy who I met who'd been paralysed from the neck down and I was sitting with him in the sort of makeshift hospital and his mother had come with him and she was holding his hand and she was praying over and over. You know, as a journalist, you do see a lot of horrific things, you see a lot of

horrible cases but that image has really stayed with me the sense of mum sitting next to her son he's never going to walk again and and just her hope her prayers for him and then also his resolve like he was really resilient and I asked him you know did he think they were going to win and he said of course we will win we have to win

And for someone like that, you know, a guy in his 20s whose, you know, his life will never be the same, that has to be worth it. Rebecca and Sewen, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

To hear that full investigation, just search for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at theglobalstory at bbc.com or you can send us a message or even a voice note. You can find those details in our show notes. Wherever you're listening in the world, this has been The Global Story. Thank you for having us in your headphones. Bye.

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And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders.

I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.

You just get sucked in so gradually.

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