Unfrozen Assets

Episode #375: “Don’t fall for the junta's attempt to try to propagandize!” says Derek Mitchell, former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar. In this interview, he assesses U.S. strategy under the Trump administration, focusing on recent sanctions “de-listings” that have raised concern. Regarding the de-listings, Mitchell believes that the they were a bureaucratic decision, not a strategic one. “It could be the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing,” he says, pointing to the hollowed-out National Security Council and lack of interagency coordination. Ultimately, he sees no change in the overall U.S. sanctions policy towards the junta. Another key issue involves Myanmar’s important rare earth deposits, which have caught the White House’s attention. Mitchell doubts this will translate into meaningful policy change, however, stressing that the deposits lie in conflict zones largely outside junta control and that only China has the capacity to process them. He argues that working through the junta is “a fool’s errand” and instead calls for engagement with ethnic forces and the democratic resistance. The junta is trying to spin the de-listings and some recent symbolic gestures into a narrative of growing international legitimacy and a change in US-Myanmar relations. The resistance rejects this, pointing to continued sanctions, congressional backing, and senior U.S. officials condemning the junta’s planned elections as a sham. Mitchell sides with the resistance, calling the junta’s spin mere propaganda from a losing side. Mitchell warns against viewing Myanmar solely through a U.S.-China lens, which “reduces the country to a pawn,” and urges sustained, careful engagement—including the appointment of a special envoy. “If we can do something in their interest to bring dignity to the people of this country,” he concludes, “that will automatically serve the strategic interests of the United States over time.”

7 Aug 1h 4min

Episode #374: “Miraculously, amazingly, the mission has continued up until now in 2025.” These words from Dr. Zaw Moe Aung, Executive Director of The Leprosy Mission Myanmar (TLMM), encapsulates the resilience of an organization founded in 1898. While still focused on leprosy, TLMM has expanded its work to extend support to all people with disabilities in the country, including the growing number of survivors injured by the scourge of landmines and explosive remnant of war. With the backing of international partners, TLMM has been providing prosthetics to landmine survivors, training physiotherapists, and operating mobile workshops in remote areas. Beyond physical aid, their holistic approach includes psychosocial support and peer interaction, empowering survivors who often prove to be each other’s most effective allies. Despite diminishing international attention on leprosy, TLMM, a locally led and staffed organization, remains steadfast in its original mission. Leprosy, or Hansen’s Disease, carries a deep historical burden of stigma that persists in impoverished modern-day Myanmar. Before 2020, 2,000-3,000 new cases were identified annually. However, the combined impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 military coup and subsequent conflict drastically reduced diagnoses, reflecting the challenges faced throughout the disability movement and chronic lack of reliable data to inform policy and action. The last five years, particularly since the 2021 coup and the March 2025 earthquake, have brought unprecedented challenges. Yet, Dr. Zaw Moe Aung maintains hope, viewing these disasters as paradoxical opportunities for transformation. Championing landmine and leprosy survivor agency amidst revolution, he says, “Let’s pray together that Myanmar can be transformed, can stop fighting and stop inflicting and conflicting with each other.”

5 Aug 2h 9min

Episode #373: In this wide-ranging interview, journalist Lorcan Lovett returns to the podcast to discuss Aung San Suu Kyi’s imprisonment, the fractured resistance, and Myanmar’s trajectory under military rule. He recounts his investigative work authenticating leaked prison logs from early 2024 that reveal Suu Kyi’s declining health, sparse diet, and isolation. Obtained from a group called People's Embrace—which connects with junta insiders—the logs were cross-verified with a neutral source in Myanmar and Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris. Lovett believes Suu Kyi, though held incommunicado, likely understands the scale of the civil conflict, reading between the lines of junta-run newspapers, and by other means. He speculates that her silence may be deliberate resistance, “She will not tell people to put their guns down.” Lovett explores Suu Kyi’s controversial legacy, particularly her defense of the military during the Rohingya genocide hearings at The Hague, noting how this has complicated her status as a democratic icon. Meanwhile, the broader resistance movement suffers from disunity. The NUG has failed to provide coherent leadership or military coordination, and internal disputes—such as infighting among Chin factions—have weakened momentum. Lovett warns that the junta’s upcoming election could be “one of the bloodiest... in modern history,” with bombings and assassinations likely, particularly in military-held areas. Though he doubts its legitimacy, he notes the vote may serve internal power dynamics—providing a way to ease Min Aung Hlaing out of military command while elevating him to a largely symbolic presidency. Lovett also observes that Myanmar’s hoped-for federal democracy may instead give way to a fragmented confederal model shaped by ethnic autonomy and local control. Lovett ends on a personal note: “I love Myanmar so much... I know I’ll go back there one day.”

3 Aug 2h 17min

Episode #372: “I focus on research that's mostly relevant for climate resilience, and I really look at Myanmar as the most interesting and important case.” Kyungmee Kim, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, explores the intersection of climate justice, extractive industries, and conflict in Myanmar. Her early work focused on community resistance to hydropower dams in ethnic minority regions like Karen and Chin States—areas rich in resources but historically subject to marginalization and violence. She uses the Myitsone Dam as a case study: secretly negotiated by the junta and China Power Investment, it was exposed by accident, sparking a grassroots campaign that grew into a national movement. Kim draws connections between this environmental resistance and the current pro-democracy revolution, arguing that climate justice and political liberation are deeply intertwined. Despite Myanmar’s low carbon footprint, it suffers disproportionately from climate change, while its military junta profits from oil and gas exports. Rare earth mining, too, harms communities through toxic runoff and unregulated exploitation, benefiting armed groups and perpetuating a conflict economy. Yet Kim highlights resilient grassroots actors who maintain renewable energy projects and conservation initiatives. She calls for international support—bypassing the junta—and stresses the need to scale up decentralized aid. Reflecting on Myanmar’s halted progress since the 2021 coup, she contrasts bottom-up environmental care with top-down corruption and extraction. Drawing from South Korea’s past, she calls for a development path that prioritizes justice, sustainability, and solidarity. As she concludes, “Unless we also consider the climate and the environment...we also cannot expect better future for Myanmar and also the future population, the future generations.”

1 Aug 2h 7min

Episode #371: “I remain confident in the longer term, completely, actually, that this regime is losing,” says Sean Turnell, Australian economist and former advisor to Myanmar’s civilian government, as he analyzes the recent U.S. decision to lift sanctions on several junta-linked cronies, in what his fourth appearance on this platform. While acknowledging widespread concern, he offers a measured, optimistic assessment rooted in his deep knowledge of Myanmar’s economy and U.S. sanctions policy. Turnell explains that this recent move is “very targeted to a few individuals and a few enterprises,” and not a broad shift in policy. He rejects the claim that it was prompted by a flattering letter from Min Aung Hlaing to Donald Trump, instead attributing it just to one of the rare successes in Washington lobbying campaigns around sanctions. He details how sanctions, managed by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), have been both financially and psychologically effective, especially measures against state-owned banks, which have “choked off” the junta’s ability to conduct foreign exchange and fund its war machine. Turnell expects additional sanctions targeting entities like the Myanmar Economic Bank and possibly even the central bank, though he warns that U.S. staffing shortages may slow progress. While acknowledging that the decision carries some unfortunate symbolism that could embolden the junta’s cronies, Turnell stresses that the core sanctions regime remains strong. But he urges relentless advocacy to prevent normalization efforts around the junta’s planned sham election. “We’ve just got to keep going,” he says in conclusion.

31 Juli 43min

Episode #370: "Why are [Asian women] not allowed to dream that we can open our own thing and lead our own work?" This question by human rights lawyer Emilie Palamy Pradichit slices through the silence, exposing the systemic barriers that have historically muted and marginalized Asian women in leadership. Pradichit’s journey as a young Lao refugee navigating discrimination in a low-income Parisian suburb crowded with migrants cemented this perspective. In Paris, she witnessed firsthand the insidious nature of inequality. These early encounters ignited a vision within her to dismantle entrenched norms - by centering the voices of underrepresented communities. Her passion to challenge injustice took her through studying human rights law at Sorbonne University and roles at the United Nations and UPR-Asia. However, her experience revealed the limitations of top-down approaches in achieving genuine grassroots change. “I was learning a lot, but I was surrounded by people with privilege. I was sitting at headquarters, and I didn’t know what it was like on the ground!” This realization sparked the creation of Manushya Foundation, envisioned as a distinctly feminist, intersectional, and decolonial human rights organization dedicated to amplifying the agency of marginalized communities in Asia. Pradichit’s work challenges what she terms “white feminism” and the imposition of external agendas. Her approach in the Myanmar context prioritizes the voices of ethnic minority women. As she puts it, “How can you be a human rights activist and exclude Rohingya people?” Pradichit’s sentiments reflect the important role of a decolonial lens in her work. “In the global majority work, it’s very important for the people from lived experience to be the ones leading the human rights work.” She believes this isn't just a strategy; it's reclaiming the power of lived truth leading the way towards real justice.

29 Juli 1h 59min

Episode #369: “I promised Aung San Suu Kyi and committed myself to work for democracy and human rights in the country as long as necessary. And still it is necessary!” So says Kjell Magne Bondevik, former Prime Minister of Norway and a longtime supporter of Myanmar’s democratic struggle. In this conversation, he reflects on his decades of advocacy for Myanmar, from a surreptitious 1997 visit to Yangon where he first met Suu Kyi, to his post-retirement work at the Oslo Center, which he co-founded to support democratic institutions globally. Bondevik describes Norway’s strategy toward Myanmar as one of principled engagement: opposing the junta while supporting civil society and political parties. Though optimistic during Myanmar’s tentative liberalization in the 2010s, he now concedes that Norway and others may have placed too much faith in the reform of Myanmar’s transition period. The military’s lurking presence was underestimated, ultimately culminating in the 2021 coup. Acknowledging the diplomatic dilemma around formally recognizing the National Unity Government, Bondevik calls for coordinated global action, combining pressure on the military with support for the democracy movement. He critiques ASEAN’s passivity and highlights China’s dual role—economically empowering the junta and holding sway over ethnic armed groups—as a major obstacle to international leverage. Yet he remains hopeful, urging Norway and others to sustain diplomatic efforts and keep Myanmar on the global agenda. “It’s very easy to be pessimistic and to give up… but we know from history that it’s possible to change the situation.”

27 Juli 34min

Episode #368: The Adhikara podcast is an important, new voice in Burmese media, aiming to build not just a movement but a resilient community against oppression. Created by Maw Nwei and Morgen after the 2021 military coup, Adhikara provides a platform for expression and education, especially around human rights. The podcast allows the creators to connect with the Burmese people without the barriers of traditional in-person training, offering flexible and accessible content to circumvent the economic and social restrictions of the military regime. The podcast focuses on fostering an intellectual revolution, encouraging listeners to rethink issues like patriarchy, cultural norms, and religion's role in society. Maw Nwei challenges traditional values and questions whether they align with modern, human rights standards. With content in Burmese and plans to include ethnic minority languages, the Adhikara team aims to address linguistic diversity and ensure broad inclusivity. Adhikara also addresses the tension between Buddhist teachings and the military's actions, calling out the concept of 'military Buddhism' and promoting the idea that true Buddhist values should align with human rights. By questioning and exploring the linguistic dimensions of human rights, Maw Nwei emphasizes the importance of understanding these concepts deeply within Myanmar's cultural context. More than just a podcast, Adhikara represents a transformative effort to democratize knowledge and foster a resilient community in Myanmar. As Maw Nwei says, "This is the best time for the Burmese people to talk about human rights... People are very eager and hungry to listen."

25 Juli 1h 12min