(Aye Min Thant’s article from the NEW NARRATIF on September 9, 2021.)
On 14 June, a man wearing a white T-shirt, baseball
cap and blonde goatee turns on his webcam, revealing a dimly lit room full of
construction materials, safety equipment and a jumble of small containers, some
of them labelled as gunpowder.
Speaking into the camera, he recounts spending several hours that day “putting some things together”: mortar casings, a selection of cannons and homemade firearms known as zip guns. “I built a full-scale, 10-pound mortar today, and I’m going to show some of those things,” he tells his audience of around 40 people, who have gathered via Zoom to watch the demonstration.
For the next two
hours, Marc Andre LeQuieu, an American hunter and self-described machinist,
crouches over his work table, holding his materials up to the camera while
explaining how to build a variety of weapons that can be used against the
Myanmar military. The military, known as the Tatmadaw, overthrew the country’s
elected civilian government in February and has since killed more than a
thousand people suspected of opposing their rule.
Listing off
supplies—coffee cans, PVC pipe, black powder and ammonium nitrate—he tells the
group: “I’m going to show you how to make a large mortar shell.”
The lecture was
one of at least six Zoom meetings LeQuieu held with pro-democracy activists,
guerilla fighters and, occasionally, international humanitarian service
providers between March and August. In addition to teaching the attendees how
to make guns and explosives, he offered tips on how to survive airstrikes by
hiding in bathtubs, disable a car using a potato, and use “poop” and
“salmonella food poisoning” to “make people sick”.
He also shared
e-books with attendees with titles like Ragnar’s Big Book of Homemade Weapons,
CIA Lock Picking and How to Start and Train a Militia Unit.
“In order to prevail, the commitment to violence has
to be made,” LeQuieu tells participants during a meeting on 5 April. “I don’t
mean to be the white guy in the room preaching violence, but in order to end
violence, it takes a more violent act to do it. That’s why, when we talk in the
United States, what does it take to stop a bad person with a gun? A good person
with a gun.”
About an hour
into the 14 June meeting, while LeQuieu, 44, is listing the various uses of
improvised firearms, an attendee abruptly interrupts the lecture: “I just
wanted to welcome Dr. Sasa to the meeting.”
For about 20
minutes, Dr. Sasa, the spokesperson and Minister of International Cooperation
for the National Unity Government—the chief political rival to Myanmar’s
military junta—showers thanks and praise on the attendees, declaring that he is
“open to everyone” supporting efforts to defeat the military.
The presence of
a senior NUG leader at a weapons-making webinar led by an American gun
enthusiast—one who advocates for anti-coup activists to take up arms against
one of the region’s largest militaries despite knowing little about
Myanmar—raises questions about how the shadow government intends to balance its
“people’s defensive war” against the junta with its ongoing struggle for
democratic legitimacy.
No Bloodshed
Since the NUG’s
earliest days, armed conflict has been part of its strategy for supplanting the
military. The organisation was established in April, largely by deposed
lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy. In
May, the group set up an armed wing, the People’s Defence Force.
According to regional security analyst Anthony
Davis, PDF forces are now being trained by veteran armed groups such as the All
Burma Students’ Democratic Front, Karen National Liberation Army and Kachin
Independence Army, which have been fighting the Tatmadaw for decades.
Weeks after the
formation of the PDF, the NUG released a code of conduct, which says resistance
fighters “must not threaten, target or attack civilians” or target places where
civilians might be located. In recent months, the NUG has also made multiple
statements permitting the public to use violence in self-defence.
On 7 September,
after months of rumours about a coming “D-Day”, the NUG announced a “people’s
defensive war against the military junta”, calling on civilians to “assist and
protect the people’s defence forces” fighting the military.
However,
throughout the majority of the post-coup period, the commitment to preemptive
violence has been a minority position within Myanmar’s broader pro-democracy
movement, which has overwhelmingly been characterised by peaceful
demonstrations and labour strikes staged by the Civil Disobedience Movement.
With only small
military victories to date and little likelihood of defeating the Tatmadaw
without international aid and the ability to procure military equipment, the
NUG has concentrated its efforts on courting international support, an endeavor
largely led by its charismatic spokesperson, Dr. Sasa.
In the wake of the coup, Sasa has been campaigning
relentlessly for diplomatic recognition as Myanmar’s legitimate government,
giving dozens of interviews about the NUG’s commitments to diversity and human
rights, and its self-proclaimed popular mandate. His efforts have yielded some
results.
In June, the United Nations General Assembly voted
overwhelmingly for a nonbinding resolution calling on the Myanmar military to
respect the results of the November 2020 general election, which Sasa’s party,
the NLD, won in a landslide.
(PDF killed 3,000+ ward-administrators, policemen, and soldiers since June.)
The next test will come on 14 September, when a UN committee and the General Assembly are expected to deliberate on whether the NUG or the Tatmadaw should represent Myanmar at the UN, or possibly delay making a decision.
In a 30 August
speech, Sasa called on lawmakers in New Zealand to “help us with everything in
your power to ensure that the UNGA abides by its mandate to uphold the
well-being of the people of Myanmar” by accepting the NUG as the “sole
representative of the people and country of Myanmar”.
In the run-up to
the vote, Sasa has cultivated a folksy image for an international audience,
recounting to journalists his narrow escape from Myanmar by disguising himself
as a taxi driver; his humble upbringing in mountainous Chin State, where he
never learned his exact date of birth; and his success in setting up a medical
humanitarian organisation in his village with support from Prince Charles.
In one profile,
Sasa entreats US president Joe Biden to recognise the NUG and stresses: “We
want to win without fighting, no bloodshed.”
The NUG’s vocal
commitment to protecting civilian lives is a key selling point for the
organisation. The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a group of independent
human rights experts, cites the NUG’s efforts to become a party to the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court—something the Tatmadaw has not
done—as a key indicator that the NUG deserves official recognition by other
governments.
But on 8 September, the day after the NUG’s
declaration of war against the Tatmadaw, one of the same rights experts noted
that violence was the cause of Myanmar people’s suffering, not the solution.
“We empathise with the NUG, but we fear for what will happen as a result of
this decision,” the expert said in a statement.
In LeQuieu’s
meetings with Myanmar activists and fighters, he acknowledges that if attendees
heed his call for violence, they could threaten the progress others have made
on the diplomatic front.
“You have to be
very careful in guerrilla warfare and terror campaigns,” he tells his audience
on 31 May. “There will be civilian casualties—it should be expected. But every
effort should be made to avoid that, because that will also turn public opinion—international
public opinion as well.”
Nonetheless, he
proceeds to teach them how to create weapons that are, by nature,
indiscriminate. On 14 June, he suggests using a steel pipe to make a
“shrapneling device”. He explains how to create a “miniature cannon”, saying
“anything you put down that barrel is going to come out at high velocity”, such
as “nails wrapped in a bundle”.
Around 20
minutes later, during the same meeting, Sasa joins the call. He addresses the
participants, telling them: “Thank you all for doing everything you can to
defeat this military junta. I hope that you guys will keep it up.” One meeting
attendee, who asked not to be named, tells New Naratif that he was “glad to see
Dr. Sasa at the meeting because it means that the NUG is on the side of the
people”.
Who Is Marc LeQuieu?
LeQuieu’s
demonstrations are frenetic yet thorough. At one point, he explains that he
cannot drive a final screw into a device for “legal reasons”, so he completes
his demonstration verbally.
Referring to
another weapon, he says: “I’ve seen guys mount these in a rotary system, so
that they can literally sit and go ‘Bam!’ and then rotate it and go ‘Bam!’ and
then rotate it and go ‘Bam!’”
Although LeQuieu
admits during one webinar that he knows little about Myanmar, its history or
its ethnic dynamics, he stresses the necessity of violence in confronting the
Tatmadaw. On 5 April, he posits that the fight against the military might claim
the lives of up to 3,000 rebels, but “in the grand scale of warfare, those
deaths are very small”.
Imagining
himself as a resistance leader in the mountains of “Min-mar” with an army of a
few hundred men, he disparages the mass protests, saying: “I would be very
reluctant to take those [men] against the military fighting force if the people
I was going to assist were just holding cardboard signs and not showing any
real progress toward a goal.”
Later, after
warning attendees about the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Myanmar and
subsequent “bloodbath”, LeQuieu stresses: “You have to be willing to inflict
the same damages that are being inflicted upon you, and it almost has to be an
embrace of that mentality. You have to get it through your head that when you
see a soldier, that soldier is the enemy, and that soldier needs to die.”
During his
appearance on 14 June, Sasa expresses similar sentiments, while also vowing to
“provide political leadership” to the pro-democracy movement. “Dear friends,
let us not have any confusion that these people are bad, bad people, and we
need to take them out,” he says. “This military institution known as the
Tatmadaw has become like a cancer within the body of Myanmar…that will kill all
of our people.”
Responding to a
question from New Naratif about his relationship with LeQuieu, Sasa says during
the same meeting: “I am open to talk to everyone who is not [on] the side of
the military junta. The question is: are you with us or not?”
Others familiar
with LeQuieu’s webinars have been more discerning. Speaking on condition of
anonymity, the head of a human rights group tells New Naratif that he joined
one of the Zoom meetings by invitation, but left quickly.
“We’re a human
rights organisation. We don’t advocate violence,” he says. “If non-state actors
pick up arms, they need to abide by the laws of war, but regardless of that,
the idea that outsiders would essentially be advocating for young Myanmar
people to use violence and risk their lives struck me as ill-advised and
seriously problematic.”
A spokesperson
for Sasa tells New Naratif via email that the NUG minister “had some minor
level of familiarity with Mr. LeQuieu”, but “Marc is not, nor has he ever been,
an advisor to either Dr. Sasa or NUG, official or unofficial”.
“Dear friends,
let us not have any confusion that these people are bad, bad people, and we
need to take them out.”
A search for the
name “Marc LeQuieu” on social media turns up a YouTube profile showing LeQuieu
giving a shooting lesson; a Facebook profile showing him standing over a
recently slain African buffalo, with two rifles propped up against the animal’s
carcase; and a Twitter account with a header photo containing the logo of the
Three Percenters, an American anti-government militia.
In an email to
New Naratif, LeQuieu says the Twitter account is not his, and he did not know
the meaning of the logo until asking someone else about it. “I am not, nor
would I ever be associated with this group or any of its kind,” he says.
He also denies
having set up a LinkedIn account that contains a detailed work history,
including more than six years at the US Bureau of Land Management and stints as
a firefighter for the US National Park Service and as a volunteer reserve
sheriff’s deputy in Oregon. New Naratif was able to reach LeQuieu through the
contact information listed on the LinkedIn account, and two officials in
Oregon—a sheriff and a BLM supervisor—confirmed that LeQuieu had worked for
them in the past.
LeQuieu tells
New Naratif he was not paid for the meetings, during which he was “trying to
answer questions for people who were desperate to protect themselves and defend
their lives”.
(Screenshots of social media pages that appear in search results for the name “Marc LeQuieu”.)
Five people tell New Naratif that they joined the
webinars under the impression that LeQuieu had worked for the CIA. The head of
the human rights organisation says: “My understanding was that many of these
young people were led to believe they were being advised by US military
personnel.”
During a phone interview in May, LeQuieu tells New
Naratif that he was “recruited again by Central Intelligence and the Department
of State” and “had a handler” after having been hired by the US State
Department to help with a search-and-rescue operation involving a US citizen
“when Zimbabwe fell apart”.
“I’ve never been
a military person. I’ve never gone to boot camp,” he continues. “I’ve never
held a job with intelligence agencies. I’ve just been requested.” Later, in an
email, LeQuieu adds: “Obviously I cannot answer for impressions of me by
others.” Neither the CIA nor US State Department responded to questions from
New Naratif about LeQuieu.
Cowboys in Myanmar
LeQuieu follows in a long tradition of Western men inserting themselves into the Myanmar people’s fight against the Tatmadaw, which has ruled the country for almost all of the last 60 years.
In 2009, an
American named John Yettaw illegally swam to the lakeside home where NLD leader
Aung San Suu Kyi had been held under house arrest since 2003 (she was
imprisoned again on the day of the most recent coup). Yettaw claimed his
actions prevented the military from assassinating Aung San Suu Kyi by bringing
international attention to her plight, but his unsolicited visit violated the
terms of her house arrest, resulting in the extension of her imprisonment by 18
months.
In the early
1990s, an Australian veteran named David Everett committed a series of
kidnappings and robberies in order to raise funds to buy arms for the Karen
National Liberation Army, which has been fighting for autonomy in Myanmar’s
eastern Karen State for more than 70 years. He became one of Australia’s most
wanted criminals and served 10 years in prison.
“There’s quite a
lot of cowboys” in the history of Myanmar, says Kim Jolliffe, an independent
researcher who focuses on Myanmar. These cowboys, he says, range from
traumatised soldiers who no longer know how to live outside a war zone, to
journalists who want a thrill or an easy story, to legitimate experts who
sincerely want to help.
People in
Myanmar “find it difficult to know who’s who—to know who the harmful people
are”, Joliffe says. “These are untrained kids who are going up against a
military that is experienced in quelling rebellions for the past 70 years.”
“I knew one guy,
a US veteran called Lance Motley, who fought with the mujahideen against the
Russians in Herat, Afghanistan, and was later killed fighting with the KNLA
against the Tatmadaw,” says Davis, the security analyst.
“Every conflict
attracts a certain number of foreign camp-followers eager to participate in or
promote the cause,” Davis says. “Some are driven by ideological or political or
religious motives. Others by simple adrenaline rush. Today, some of these
characters don’t need to risk their necks. They can operate and offer
‘training’ online.”
The Last Fight
The early days
of Myanmar’s anti-coup movement were characterised by record-breaking numbers
of peaceful protesters occupying the streets throughout the country. The
military had been shooting protesters since the first weeks of the coup, but
the violence was sporadic.
LeQuieu hosted his first few Zoom meetings around this
time, and participants were mainly interested in learning how to make
bulletproof shields and body armour. But by late March, Tatmadaw forces were
committing massacres regularly, and some once-peaceful activists turned toward
offensive tactics.
During a Zoom lesson with LeQuieu on 5 April, one
attendee asked in the chat box: “Marc, Please teach us to build a Pipe Bomb?” A
few weeks later, he acceded, offering a lengthy verbal explanation of how to
fill a steel pipe with nuts, bolts and explosives. “Does that make any sense,
or do I need to actually go and get a pipe and build a bomb?” LeQuieu quips.
“Just kidding, I’m going to do that.”
Kyaw, a former
government consultant who joined the peaceful street protests in the aftermath
of the coup, says he tried to use his professional connections to convince
police officers to defect to the pro-democracy camp. However, he eventually
lost hope that he could dislodge the military junta that way, and he decided to
join an urban guerilla group that orchestrates attacks against military
officials and those perceived to be their allies.
“We are not
extremists. We are not terrorists. I was just a normal civilian before the
coup. I was just a businessman. I was not willing to kill even my enemies,”
Kyaw says. “[But] they squeezed the space for nonviolent methods.”
Kyaw says the
skills he has learned from LeQuieu—how to make improvised weapons, slash tires
on personnel transport vehicles and destroy military airport runways to disrupt
supply lines—have made him more optimistic about the prospect of removing the
military from power. “My friends and I are determined that this will be the
last fight,” Kyaw says.
Davis, the
analyst, believes that in an all-out offensive against the Tatmadaw, “hundreds
of young [People’s Defence Force] members will die needlessly, and it would
likely set back opposition to military rule for years. It would be a huge
strategic disaster”.
Aung, another
frequent attendee of LeQuieu’s meetings, says he also grew disillusioned by the
inefficacy of street protests. However, rather than joining a guerilla group,
the Yangon resident joined a group that seeks to demoralise junta loyalists and
encourage soldiers to defect. He is concerned that LeQuieu’s sessions are
leading people down the wrong path.
“We want to form
a coalition to get everybody to commit to the same set of values and the same
set of demands, and we want to push people toward a more political and
nonviolent route,” he says. “We want to get people to focus on things like
defections and things like sustaining the movement, as opposed to planning for
a violent assault.”
Aung also wants
to see fewer of his comrades die. “Nonviolence might just be better
tactically,” he says. “These are untrained kids who are going up against a
military that is experienced in quelling rebellions for the past 70 years.”
According to an
NUG report released on 9 August, these “untrained kids” have now killed more
than 1,100 soldiers in over 700 clashes in June and July. Meanwhile, more than
2,500 soldiers and police are estimated to have defected and joined the Civil
Disobedience Movement as of late August, according to People’s Embrace, a group
that helps military personnel join the pro-democracy movement.
Targeted assassinations, believed to be carried out by anti-coup fighters, also run the risk of harming civilians. In one assassination attempt in May, a parcel bomb went off at the wedding of a known military supporter, but instead of killing him, it killed his bride and two relatives. The attack also injured a 6-year-old girl.
“The idea that
outsiders would essentially be advocating for young Myanmar people to use
violence and risk their lives struck me as ill-advised and seriously
problematic.”
Jolliffe, the
researcher, says the NUG needs to hold anti-coup fighters accountable for
violations of its code of conduct, regardless of whether the perpetrators are
affiliated with the NUG. Otherwise, the military will blame every attack in the
country on the NUG. After all, the military junta has already declared the NUG
to be a terrorist organisation.
“Liars and
dictators claim there are no bad apples in their stock, but genuine and
legitimate representative governments don’t claim that, because it’s nonsense,”
Joliffe says. “Instead, they have a process to demonstrate that while there
have been bad actors and mistakes, they are dealing with them.”
Sasa did not
respond to questions about how the NUG holds its armed groups accountable for
conduct violations, or if it has investigated any of the hundreds of bombings
and assassinations that have occurred in recent months, including ones that
killed civilians.
When asked on 14
June about LeQuieu’s warfare tactics, some of which may violate international
law and the NUG’s directive to avoid harming civilians, Sasa replies via email:
“Nobody wants to see war crimes, if [there is] anything that contributes to
crimes against humanity that’s something that we would never do. …[What] we are
trying to do is to save the [lives] of the brave people of Myanmar who are
facing [this] murderous regime and who are being forced to defend themselves
with no other option left.”
The same day,
during the Zoom meeting attended by Sasa, LeQuieu recounts how what started off
as a series of question-and-answer sessions between him and the gathered
activists and fighters has taken on new significance following an earlier
conversation with the NUG spokesperson.
“I want to
support Dr. Sasa [and] the NUG,” he says. “Our heart goes out to that man for
what he has been trying to do. He really is an honourable man.” He adds: “We really are trying to spread
love. I say that, and people laugh because I’m showing people how to make,
obviously, things that could be used in a destructive way toward another human
being. But I’m also showing people how to defend themselves in the event that
they have no choice.”
Editor’s note: A spokesperson for Myanmar’s National Unity Government threatened New Naratif with legal action if we did not comply with the organisation’s demands regarding this article. You can find their demands and New Naratif’s responses here.)
