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- [00:17]
Narrator
For the past two years, Myanmar has recorded the most deaths and injuries from landmines and explosive remnants of war of any country in the world. In 2024, reported casualties more than doubled from the previous year in statistics that assuredly undercount the devastation caused by these terrible weapons. Although Myanmar had already seen decades of landmine contamination since the 2021 coup and subsequent conflict, there's been a sharp increase in the deadly and indiscriminate use of anti personnel mines, with children and other civilians suffering the consequences. People are being maimed and killed in the course of their daily lives, shattering families and disrupting livelihoods with a persistent threat that could last generations. Insight Myanmar's in depth series, titled Navigating a Minefield explores the situation on the ground, impacts on survivors and communities, and humanitarian mine action making a difference at the local, national and international levels. We are joining a network of independent news media publishing in Burmese ethnic language and English both in Myanmar and in the diaspora to raise awareness about the dangers of landmines and explosive remnants of war, as well as action that can save lives and support community leadership. More information about the series is available on the Insight Myanmar website under the Mine Action section.
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Colin Mayfield
Sam
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Interviewer
sa. And welcome back. We are once again particularly blessed to to have the kind of guest who can give us an unparalleled insight and first hand experience into the realities of on the ground in Myanmar. I'm joined today by Colin Mayfield. Some of our audience are probably familiar with Colin and his work and everything that he's been through over the last months and over a year at this point, but I think in a case like this, I just want to give you the opportunity, Colin, to introduce yourself completely for the people, tell them who you are and let them know what what it is that you've been doing and what you've been working on.
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Colin Mayfield
Thank you and I'm happy to be here as well. My name is Colin Mayfield. I am a journalist from the United States. I do documentary filmmaking and I've covered a number of conflicts around the world. But the work I'm best known for has been my reportage in Chin State, Myanmar. I've been to Chin State twice at this point. Hopefully I'll return for a third point at some point soon. My first trip was in 2023 and I was living with People's Defense Force Zoland for a couple of months and then I returned in 2025 and was again living with PDF Zoland. And unfortunately, as some of you in the audience may know, my last trip was cut short because I had an unfortunate run in with a Tatmana landmine. So I stepped on a mine and lost a good chunk of my foot. So mines in Myanmar is something that I have unfortunately come to know very well.
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Interviewer
So a tragic reality. And this is one of our episodes in our ongoing series focusing on landmines. And I certainly want to be sensitive to the trauma and to the pain, but at the same time, I think we are currently looking at someone who has an almost unparalleled ability to articulate exactly what the associated trauma of landmines is like at the personal level and at the community level and at the broader of strategic level, how it impacts the ongoing resistance activities. And so with, with that in mind, I just want to. To start off by talking about before you had your unfortunate accident, you were already aware of the landmine problem in Chin State. You, you were already aware of how it affected the civilian population particularly. I want to just set the scene here within the Qing context. Can you give any sort of quantification for how widespread landmines are in the area? How, how many communities across Chin or approximately what percentage of the population would you estimate live in enough proximity to landmines that it is an active fear, is an active concern, it is a factor in the decision making of their day to day lives that, hey, there might be landmines in my village, there might be landmines on the road to the market, might be landmines in the rice field, there might be landmines in the local church. What quantification can you give us on how widespread this problem is?
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Colin Mayfield
I certainly couldn't give a percent or a specific number as to how many people have been affected within Chin State, but just anecdotally it is something that I saw across the state. I've traveled across the state quite a bit and in various towns and cities that I've visited, there were places that I was told not to go by the people I was with. Locals would tell me, don't go to this area over here because we know it's mined. Or I would meet someone who stepped on a mine in this area. Sometimes you could, you know, see them because they were coming out from the ground because of rain and, you know, becoming uncovered. When I was visiting Mindat with Mr. Yao Meng, the spokesperson of the Chin Brotherhood, he was showing me around the city and I was basically going on a tour where he was showing me places where the Chin Brotherhood was fighting and explaining these important elements of the battle to liberate Mindat. And he would say, you know, don't walk over here, don't go in that area, because we know there's mines, somebody has stepped on a mine there, we've recovered mines from this area or whatnot. And I mean, it was that way for so much of the state that I visited. There were a number of villages that I visited where locals would say, you know, don't go in this area because we know that there are mines there. Or, or. I remember one time with PDF Soland, I was going from, from one base to another base in a different region, you know, still within Shin State. But while we were on the motorcycles, we stopped to get something to drink and in the distance we hear an
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explosion and we find out after the
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fact that a cow stepped on a mine. And that kind of thing happens frequently. I, I personally know about a dozen soldiers who are missing legs from stepping on mines. I, I saw one of them have his leg amputated immediately after he stepped on a mine during a reconnaissance mission back in 2023. It's every, everybody in Shin State knows
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somebody who has been wounded by a landmine.
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I don't think that there's anybody in the state that doesn't know a single
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person who's been affected by those weapons.
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Interviewer
So looking at the wounding aspect, so you yourself have been wounded by a landmine and you say that you have seen a dozen people who themselves have lost legs and feet to stepping on landmines. And you say that there's practically no one in Chin who doesn't know someone who, who has lost something to landmines. And this again, I think, doesn't quite match because when we, when we think of landmines, a lot of people are in a slightly different mindset with landmines. There's a lot of World War II type thinking when it comes to landmines. And people assume that landmines are designed first and foremost to kill and, and that anyone who survives but is wounded is sort of either the victim of a secondary type of landmine that's not a primary armament, or just got sort of very lucky. But the reality is quite different. So it very much seems to be the case that particularly with the M14 topper landmines that are so prevalent in Myanmar, the objective is not to kill people, the objective is to wound and to maim people. Would you say that's a fair representation of the landmine strategy?
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Colin Mayfield
That is most certainly a fair representation of landmine strategy. If you kill one enemy, enemy combatant, you've just killed One enemy combatant. But if you blow his or her foot off, then multiple other soldiers have to tend to that person. The medical team and medical clinics have to devote resources to that person. So, you know, like, if I had been shot in the head, that would have been the end of it. But because I stepped on a mine, soldiers had to devote resources to my evacuation, people had to get me to a clinic, I had to undergo first aid. So it, it's a lot more of a drain on resources than just killing somebody outright. If you can maim them, you can get multiple people off of a battlefield. And it's also a terror tactic as well. It's a horrifying thing. And I mean, the regime knows that it can't forcefully occupy the entirety of the country, but what it can do is heavily mine civilian areas, villages that are sympathetic to the resistance, and it can make that land unusable.
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Interviewer
And within this stratagem, I think this is something that we've seen in many different conflicts around the world. Certainly it brings back memories to me of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the use of explosives that were designed to look almost like toys or, or, you know, edibles or something like that, with the intended purpose of targeting children, because a wounded child is an incredibly effective way to prevent adults from being able to dedicate their, their time and their efforts to the front line. The wounded child's incredibly resource intensive need. And, and you know, certainly this type of strategies is something that, that is very callous, but we do see it employed because as you say, it is, it is quite, it is quite effective. But I do, I, I do want to ask on specifics of that, is there any particular targeting of, of non combatants here? Like when we have the targeting of a comb and you say, well, it's, it's strategically better for us if a combatant is wounded because then multiple combatants now have to take on caring, nursing, medical roles. But it's different than saying, what about if I, if I wound a civilian in the hopes of getting word to the front line and that civilian's parents or sibling or partner is now going to say, well, I have to return home, I have to care for my, my wounded relative, I have to lay down my arms. These are, these are two very different approaches to what is a very similar strategy. And I think there, there's a significant moral chasm between the two. With the tamado, did you see any evidence or any indication that even within what is already a pretty grotesque strategy of, of intending to maim and to wound people to drain resources that within that stratagem there is a concerted effort to target not just combatants, but average everyday civilians as well. In the hopes that any relatives that they have on the front lines would then have to lay down their arms and return home to care for them.
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Colin Mayfield
Well, not, not just them having to lay down their arms and care for a wounded relative, but just in general, civilian casualties from these weapons is going to be a drain for resistance forces because like the clinic that treated me in Chin State, which was, you know, a resistance run clinic, it was not just militants being treated there. Most of the people being treated there were local civilians. Because I mean these aren't just gorillas hiding out in the jungle. They are actively trying to build their own society and maintain their own society. They're running schools to the best of their ability, they're running hospitals and clinics to the best of their ability. They're trying to be a government. And, and with that you have, you have to take care of your citizens. So any, any, any person who's wounded, be it a combatant or a civilian, is going to be a drain on medical resources for these resistance run clinics.
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Interviewer
I mean, it paints an indiscriminate picture though of the military just saying we don't care who we hit as long as we hit something.
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Colin Mayfield
Yeah. And it certainly seems to be just a callous, not even disregard, but just disdain for human life. I mean they're, they're mining villages that are sympathetic to resistance groups. It's, it's completely punitive.
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Interviewer
I think, I think that's a really elegant and important way of putting it that it's, there is no strategy, there is no military or strategic justification for these mining operations. It has nothing to do with area denial of key strategic high ground or, or even sort of resource rich areas. It has everything to do with the psychological toll of knowing that you are near to landmines as you go about your day to day tasks and that if you want to have food to eat, you have to roll the dice. Going to the fields, going to the market, going wherever, and recognize that there is a chance that you are going to step on a landmine just in the course of trying to survive, which is again pretty detestable and also illegal. But here I want to understand a little bit more about the psychological impact of that because we can say that the people are dedicated to the revolution and we can say that they face the danger bravely and they go on about what they need to go on about. But the reality is that humans are Humans and humans are afraid of dying and humans are afraid of being injured, and humans are afraid of losing their loved ones. Did you, in your time here, did you get a sort of understanding of what the actual psychological impact is? Has it had a deep impact on the civilian communities? Have they changed how they operate? Have they changed how they work? Have they allowed themselves to come under greater risk? Have they allowed themselves to say, I'm simply not going to do certain activities or I'm going to scale back certain activities that under other circumstances I would consider to be necessary? For example, going to church or tending to the fields or what have you, simply out of the fear of landmines, or is everyone just saying, look, the landmines are there, the landmines are there. There's nothing I can do about it. I will continue to go about my day as I have and as I have to, and, and sort of what happens, happens.
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Colin Mayfield
I think it's both depending on, you know, each individual life has to go on. You have to work and, and go about your life as best as you can. But, you know, if you have a trail that you know is safe, you're not going to deviate from that at all. You know that the path ahead of you is safe because you walk it every day. And you're certainly not going to step off of it because there is that risk that that can happen. So it's just people have to be exhaustingly vigilant and exhaustingly careful trying not to go out of their way and put themselves at more risk than absolutely necessary. Because again, people still have to farm, people still have to tend to their animals. But as for, you know, trying something completely different, and I, I don't think that most people would, you know, go out of their way doing something that they know may not be safe unless they absolutely had no other option to do that. Like if you had a cow that wandered into a forest and you weren't entirely sure whether or not that area was mined, but your life depends on getting that cow, I think a lot of people would try and go get it. So it is this constant fear that people in this part of the world are just living in.
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Interviewer
Yeah, I mean, it's horrific. And just seeing the damage that a landmine causes, that's something that doesn't, that doesn't leave your mind. I mean, I can't imagine the kinds of memories that, that you would, you would have. But then by extension, I think about it every day. I'm not surprised. But then this, this means that the people of Chin are likewise collectively probably thinking about, and not just thinking about, the generalized fear of landmines, but many of them have the image of what it looks like when someone steps on this seared into their memories.
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Colin Mayfield
Yes, and even before I stepped on one, I had it seared into my memory because I remember even before I stepped on a mine, I had this image of what a landmine can do seared into my memory because like I said earlier on my first trip to chin State in 2023, I was going on reconnaissance missions with People's Defense Force Soland. They were planning to attack regime outpost atop Kennedy Mountain. And there were some tripwires that were pointed out to me. And had they not been pointed out to me, I might have set one of them off. But then about a week or so later, on another reconnaissance mission, a soldier named Tong Kham stepped on a mine. And his leg, his left leg was just shredded. And the medics arrived on scene shortly after I did. He stepped on it, I arrived, and then the medics arrived shortly after me. And he was losing so much blood and his arteries and veins were just completely shredded. And the medical team decided the best thing to do would be to amputate then and there and find the veins and suture them shut. And that entire amputation, I mean, he's just lying down on a plastic tarp in the forest while having his leg cut off, and he's going in and out of consciousness the entire time. And so, yeah, even before I stepped on a mine myself. That's something I'll never forget. I'll never. I'll never forget seeing him getting his leg removed after he stepped on one.
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Interviewer
I mean, it's conjures up images of, you know, 19th century battlefield medicine, of, you know, soldiers just, just suffering from, especially with the, with the munitions that were being used back then, like these very, very large explosive injuries and, and surgeons just having to be there, very good and very efficient at performing amputations and applying tourniquets and cauterizing in field with little medicine, no anesthetic, or at best, mild anesthetics. And these are things that we talk about the horrors of warfare past, but it's not, it continues to be a reality. And I think that's something that we just don't think about, is something that we don't realize, even when we think about the Myanmar conflict, that battlefield amputations are just a thing that sometimes has to happen. And it's a horrific image to imagine, but that's the truth.
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Colin Mayfield
And it's unfortunately incredibly common in Myanmar. Somebody in that country steps on a mine every day. There are roughly a thousand landmine casualties every year in Myanmar.
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Interviewer
I mean, that's, that's three a day.
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Colin Mayfield
It's. Yeah, it's, it's, it is truly horrific.
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Just the, the frequency scale.
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Interviewer
Yeah.
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Colin Mayfield
Which this happens here. I mean, it's the most heavily mined country on earth and. Yeah. It's just, it's unfortunately a part of life in Myanmar.
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Yeah.
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Thanks to the Tatmadaw's indiscriminate use of these weapons.
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Interviewer
Absolutely. And just to make it even worse, once again, conjuring up the imagery of 19th century and 18th century warfare, it's not even necessarily the landmine itself, it's not necessarily the explosion, the shrapnel, the impact, and it's not necessarily the resultant blood loss. But because many of these areas, Chin included, have been heavily cut off from medical supplies by the military in a very deliberate tactic to undermine the quality of medical assistance that civilian and combative alike can receive. My understanding is that the landmine problem is grotesquely exacerbated by things like sepsis.
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Colin Mayfield
Yes.
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Interviewer
That. That can cause secondary death.
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Colin Mayfield
No, I.
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So the medical clinic I was in was a. A squalid place. I, I would, I currently live in Poland. I would feel much safer getting a surgery at a vet clinic here in Poland. And that's at no fault to the people who treated me. They did the best they could, but they simply do not have the resources needed to treat with these kinds of wounds because they are being strangled by the regime. Their access to medical supplies is incredibly limited. And my foot, I was in that clinic for about two weeks and my foot got black and necrotic and I had sepsis. And when I was finally evacuated to India, which was lucky for me because, you know, most Myanmares can't evacuate to another country for medical treatment. But my doctor told me in India that if I had stayed in Myanmar another week, sepsis probably would have killed me. Like, I was. I was getting very feverish, and so when I got to India, they had to amputate more of my foot. They had to remove all the necrotic tissue, and they had to amputate about a centimeter or more of my bone because of. Because, I mean, the bone, the bone marrow was infected and. Yeah, so infection is definitely, definitely something that will still kill you even if you survive after stepping on the mine. And that's if, of course, you don't bleed out from the mine, because some people, unfortunately, do bleed to Death after stepping on these weapons because they aren't able to get the tourniquet on. They might be by themselves. And it, in my situation, my foot
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got so bad that the medical staff
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I was with who were treating me
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in Myanmar, they were contemplating doing a
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baloney amputation if the infection got much worse. And it was really looking like there wasn't going to be any option but to cut my foot off completely because the infection was just so bad. So I am incredibly fortunate that I was able to go to India and get adequate medical care. But you know, most people don't have that option.
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Interviewer
And, and I imagine, just as you say on, on the exsanguination, it's not like we would expect in, in let's say even a Western military, that there is a centralized, well established and, and sort of well supported system for donations of blood, storage of blood and the rapid distribution and infusion of blood. Other I, I, I gather that there's very little opportunity if you've lost a lot of blood, there would be very little opportunity for you to get an infusion. What, what, what is the situation like with that?
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Colin Mayfield
That I couldn't say because I've, I've, I'm not familiar with anyone who's gotten a blood transfusion within Myanmar. The people I know who did step
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on mines and did end up needing
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blood got said blood in India. So, oh, Hong Kong after he stepped on a mine and lost his leg and he, he lost a few liters of blood and he had to get a blood transfusion. But that was done when he arrived in India. And a lot of people just more centrally in the country are further away from the border, are just not going to have that luxury of a blood transfusion.
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Interviewer
Yeah, because I was going to say that the implication there, when you say that you don't know of anyone receiving it, the implication is that that's kind of it.
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Colin Mayfield
Like if you, I've only ever seen people getting IV fluids. I've never, I'm not familiar with anyone who's gotten a blood transfusion.
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Interviewer
So the strong implication here is even before the sepsis gets you, if you survive the initial blast, if you can't tourniquet and stem the bleeding fast enough, even if people can get to you, you might still bleed to death because there just isn't a stash of donation blood lying around that they can give. I mean this, because what this, what this does now when we're having this discussion, we're talking about landmines and I think, you know, in a Lot of the discussion that we've had around landmines that the focus has historically been on the minds themselves, the injuries that the mines themselves cause and, and the effects of, you know, losing a limb, this and that, you know, everything to do with the intended functioning, quote, unquote, of the landmine. But now with this broader understanding that the landmine is not even necessarily first and foremost a, a weapon designed to take off extremities, it is a weapon that, that is probably killing more people, from the sounds of it, through blood loss and sepsis, than are dying from the explosions themselves. I mean, maybe I'm conjecturing, but it may even be the case then that without adequate medical support, more people are dying from these secondary causes after stepping on landmines than are even going on to survive and live with the loss of extremity, as we've been discussing. That sort of really puts the landmine strategy in a very different perspective and it demonstrates it to be an even more insidious tool than we give it credit for.
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Colin Mayfield
Certainly with adequate medical care, far fewer people would end up dying after the fact.
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Interviewer
But of course, the military have done everything in their power to curtail the adequate medical care and to stop medical supplies from reaching these areas, almost, almost guaranteeing that if you are effectively, what the military is trying to do is say if you have been the victim of a survivable accident or attack because of the work we've done in undermining the supplies of medicines, we are increasing the chances that you are going to die anyway, but in a much slower, more painful way, which is. It's typical of the Tamil do, But it's still horrifying to sort of come to that, to that conclusion. But having had that discussion, I think this is a good time, if it's something that you are comfortable discussing, if you can take us through what it was that you experienced on the day that you stood on that landmine and the subsequent route to get medical care. I know you've outlined a little bit just now, but I think it would be useful for people to understand how long this process was and just how many different stages and how many hurdles you have to get through in order to now find yourself in Poland receiving the care that you're now receiving.
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Colin Mayfield
So while I was in Chin State, this last time I was with People's Defense Forces Oland, at a village near the base of Mount Kennedy. And the regime
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controlled and continues to
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control the town of Tidim, which is the only major town in that region. That immediate region And TIDIM is controlled by the regime. The Tatmadaw has a base in Tidim. And that late October, early November, the regime was starting a counteroffensive to recapture a bunch of this liberated territory that was held by resistance groups. And the Tatmadaw sent out a column from Tidum going up the Tidum road to recapture some of these villages. And the PDF was holding them off at the road, you know, trying to keep them from coming up. After a little while, we heard some gunshots from the other side of the valley. And one PDF recon guy sent a drone up and saw that there was a, an additional Tatmadaw column coming across the valley in our direction. And it's clear that Tatmadaw was trying to pincer us. So the PDF and I quickly evacuated to another village. But the village that we were in fell to the Tatmadaw. The Tatmadaw came in, looted the village pretty thoroughly, they raped one woman,
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Podcast Host
a
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Colin Mayfield
whole litany of abuses. And before leaving, they mined the area around the village pretty extensively. So I went back with PDF Zoland to, I was accompanying them on a reconnaissance mission to see if any Tatmadal were still in the area. There weren't any in the village, but, you know, there were still a few outcroppings and places that they wanted to, the PDF wanted to check out to see if Tatmadaw was still there, including atop Kennedy Mountain. So I went with this PDF group to a couple of different locations where they're trying to scout out and see if any Tatmadaw were still in the area. Went to one spot, flew the drone, didn't see any, Went to another spot, they flew the drone, didn't see any, and checked out a couple of spots that day and then went to go check out the last spot, didn't see anyone, Wanted to check out the last spot, didn't see anyone. And some soldiers who went in another direction were on their way back. So we're waiting on this other group of soldiers to get back. And we're parked at this intersection
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near
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what used to be a Resistance police checkpoint. It was people's police checkpoint and, and this is a checkpoint that I'd been to dozens of times. I'd hung out there with the People's police force. I seen civilians pass through this checkpoint many, many times. And right before we were about to leave to get back in the car. Car and on the side of the road, I. The entire time we knew that the area was mined because some PDF soldiers had previously located some mines, and some villagers reported that the Tatmadaw had been putting these mines down. So we knew that there were mines in the area. And I was trying to be very, very careful and watch my step. So I was looking at the ground, trying to make sure I don't step on anything. And then all of a sudden I did, and there's just this bright flash, flashing light, and my ears were ringing, especially my left ear, because it was closer to the explosion. You know, bits of flesh and blood and dirt and debris flew through the air. And I'm still looking down. I got hit in the face. I came very close to losing my left eye. Scars above, below, and beside my left eye now very close. So I was very, very fortunate I didn't lose my left eye.
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My right leg was peppered with shrapnel.
- [37:30]
My hand was grazed. I could. I could see the tendons underneath or on my knuckles. I had a huge chunk of flesh taken out from my left hand. And I looked down and, you know, or I'm still looking down, and I immediately knew what it was, Immediately knew, like, I stepped on a mine and I recognized that, hey, I'm still standing. I still have most of my foot. So I immediately knew that it was a toe popper. And the soldiers I was with look over to me and I say, like, I just stepped on a mine. And I picked up my camera and immediately started filming and, you know, doing my job, because this is something I'd thought about before, like, if I step on a mine, I need to keep filming. I have a documentary to make, and I need to be calm and keep working on it. But, I mean, it was terrifying. And one. One of the officers I was with, he immediately took his scarf off, a man named Amos. And he took his scarf off, ripped it up, used it as a tourniquet. Amos sought me on the ground. The commander of PDF Soland, Chief of Staff Gidon, he was present when it happened as well. He immediately starts radioing the doctors and the medics. And when people in camp heard that I stepped into mine, everyone thought, you know, I lost everything below the knee. And people were quite relieved that it was just a toe popper. And, yeah, they sat me on the ground, almost put the tourniquet on my leg, and he's cutting my pants off. I, meanwhile, opened my first aid kit, pulled quick clot out, and poured it all over my right leg, where I got hit with lots of shrapnel. And they bandaged me up, loaded me into the car. After about 10 minutes, it started to. I didn't feel it at first, but after about 10 minutes or so, it started to burn like hell. And for the next hour and a half, two hours. Finally met the medics. They came to meet us. So we were driving toward them. They were driving in our direction. We met. And then I finally got some. I got an iv, I got some fluids, and I got some tramadol, some liquid tramadol. And I was just chain smoking cigarettes that entire car ride before I finally met the medics. Like, all I could do was just savor the nicotine and try not to focus on the excruciating pain that my foot was in. I mean, I felt like my foot was crushed by a train or something. It was just horribly throbbing. It was. And I was. I was, you know, going in and out of delirium and cracking jokes to. This is the most intense pain of my life. All I could do is just, you know, recite prayers and curse. And it was incredibly painful. But after about an hour, hour and a half, maybe two, met the medics, finally got some painkillers. And then about three more hours after that, I arrived at the field clinic or the clinic that the local resistance groups were using. And so I arrive at this clinic, I get more painkillers, they undo my bandages, and I'm able to get some real. A real clean shot of my foot and see it. And, I mean, I've been in a number of wars at this point in a few different countries, and I've seen gore before, but seeing my own bones sticking out was certainly quite different. Had an X ray made. I was instructed that I couldn't eat anything because the next morning I was going to have my surgery. There wasn't a doctor there at the moment. But the next morning I got an epidural, and thank God they had that. But I got an epidural and went in for the amputation. I didn't sleep at all the night before because my foot was just throbbing. And so I was awake during the amputation because, again, there's no general anesthesia. I was just the epidural. But again, thanks to it being an epidural, I couldn't feel anything from the waist down. So I was awake watching the amputation. But because it was the first time that my foot wasn't throbbing since it happened, after a while, I finally fell asleep, and then I woke up to. To my doctor plucking bits of shrapnel out of my hand and head. But then, you know, I Spent the next two weeks in, in that clinic in Myanmar in Chin State. And the infection got very, very bad. And they had, the medical staff had to do dressing changes and clean my wound regularly, you know, like scrub it out with antiseptics. And that was excruciatingly painful even with the local anesthesia that they had because, I mean, painkillers were few and far between. But I was getting local anesthetic and I was just gripping the sides of my hospital bed and they, they had to hold my leg down because I'm just. It, it hurt so badly having, having them go in and clean my foot. So they, they had to hold my leg down while they lanced my foot with a needle trying to get a bunch of the pus out. And then the next day they had to do something even more drastic to get more pus out. So they again have to hold my leg down and they undid some of the sutures and massaged some pus out.
- [43:48]
And they're doing everything they could to
- [43:49]
clean it, but it's just, it wasn't an adequate place.
- [43:53]
Even though they had antibiotics, they didn't have nearly enough antibiotics. And when I got to India, I
- [43:58]
had a wide variety of antibiotics, a whole cocktail of antibiotics to, to kill that infection. But it just, there wasn't enough in Myanmar for sure. Not enough painkillers, not enough antibiotics. And yeah, it's. So I got to experience the Tatmadaws restrictions on medical supplies entering these areas. And that was, it was quite, quite a miserable time for sure. I still have a few pieces of shrapnel in me. There's a few pieces in my head that I can still feel like there's a decent sized piece on my jaw. There's a, a big piece on my right leg. The vast majority of the shrapnel they got out, but there were a few pieces that were missed. And there are three pieces in my left hand that are still here and you can just feel them under the skin and they move around. But there's only, only one piece that causes me much discomfort. So at some point I'll get those removed. But I haven't been in too much of a hurry to do that.
- [45:09]
Interviewer
I mean, that's just fascinating on that one, because I was going to ask what is it? Because we hear the word shrapnel a lot, people talk about shrapnel. I was going to ask what is it like living with shrapnel? I imagine, obviously the foot is the main thing that you were focused on. That's where the most of your pain would have come from. But was the shrapnel a significant sort of aggravating factor? Did it cause a significant amount of additional pain and discomfort?
- [45:39]
Colin Mayfield
Just discomfort. I mean, the. The painful part was the foot and the foot infection. And like, when I was in that hospital bed, you know, in pain, the pain was coming from my foot. And the fact that my right leg is. My right leg looks like a Dalmatian now with how it just got lit up. But that didn't. That didn't hurt.
- [46:04]
That.
- [46:04]
That didn't really hurt. I only. It was. It was uncomfortable when I woke up after my surgery. And, like, I'm having it, you know, plucked out of my hand, but, you know, it wasn't particularly painful. It was just. That was just, you know, a great amount of discomfort. But the. The foot was excruciating.
- [46:28]
Interviewer
And. And I want to go back to something that you mentioned. You said you opened up your first aid kit and you pulled out the quick clot. Just for the benefit of the people in the audience who don't know what that is, can you explain that?
- [46:42]
Colin Mayfield
Yes. Quick clot is a powder that you apply on wounds, and it causes blood to coagulate and it stops blood loss. So it's. So I just. I poured it into all the wounds on my right leg, and it stopped the bleeding and it bandaged over it.
- [47:03]
Interviewer
I mean, just. Just on that, because having just had the discussion that we've had about the. In availability of blood transfusions within Myanmar, it. You know, I don't want to sort of put. Put my words in your narrative here, but that fact that you had that quick clot and you were able to stem that bleeding, it sounds like that could have been a very major contributing factor to your survival. And the image of you having to do that to yourself while suffering this incident, it's just. It's such a surreal image.
- [47:40]
Colin Mayfield
Well, I
- [47:43]
don't know how much of a difference it made, to be quite honest, considering the fact that my right leg wasn't too badly wounded. A lot of shrapnel, so I don't think I would have bled out from it, especially since they bandaged it immediately after I put the quick cloud on it anyway. And the only reason I did that was just, you know, so I would be doing something to improve my situation. And the other. The other soldiers were a bit more preoccupied with my foot while I was doing that.
- [48:17]
Interviewer
Okay, okay.
- [48:18]
Colin Mayfield
So it's not like I had to do it myself.
- [48:21]
They were just busy bandaging my mangled foot while I meanwhile, poured a quick clot on my right leg.
- [48:29]
Interviewer
And so having gone through all these things, you know, they're trying to clean you as best as they can and get the pus out. And obviously you're in a significant amount of pain. How did you, how did you manage to get extracted?
- [48:47]
Colin Mayfield
I told my family what happened shortly after the fact. And meanwhile, my little brother in Alabama, in the United States. I'm from Alabama, most of my family lives in Alabama. And my brother at the time was working at a sporting goods store. And that weekend there was an American football game between the Universities of Auburn, which was the university that I went to, and the University of Alabama. So there's this Auburn, Alabama football game happening that weekend called the Iron Bowl. It's this big annual football game because these two university teams are rivals. And our state senator, Tommy Tuberville was in town. He happened to visit this sporting goods store. My brother phoned my, my family and they stopped, they stopped Tuberville. And pretty soon my mother was on the phone with one of his liaisons. And then they connected her to the U.S. state Department. And then pretty soon I was talking to the US Consul in Yangon and the US Consul in Kolkata. And the US State Department and India's Ministry of Foreign affairs agreed that I could come to India for medical treatment. So I didn't have an Indian visa because I didn't go to India to get into Myanmar. I went through another country and I travel across Myanmar to get back to Chin State. But yeah, so after two weeks in
- [50:39]
the hospital,
- [50:42]
I was told that I would be going to Ebenezer Medical center in Isol in Mizoram, India. And Yeah, so the U.S. state Department worked it out with the Indian government on my behalf. And the Indian government, you know, they gave me permission to come to India for medical treatment. And that's something I'll always be grateful for.
- [51:07]
And
- [51:10]
so my friends in Chin State drove me to the border and they handed me over to the Assam Rifles. And the Assam Rifles being the paramilitary border force for Northeast, that part of northeast India. And the Assam Rifles loaded me into an ambulance and then it was 5 hour ambulance ride to Ebenezer Hospital in ISIL. I was triaged in the emergency room. There were some local Indian journalists there waiting and they took my photo while I was talking to doctors in the ER bed. I didn't even notice that I was having my picture taken. But I saw myself in the Indian news over the next couple of days. And the next morning I Had my surgery in Isol. This time I had an epidural and general anesthesia, which I quite enjoyed. The general anesthesia. That was nice. I've always enjoyed general anesthesia.
- [52:13]
And. Yeah.
- [52:15]
And then later that week, because of the infection, they did. My surgeon recommended to me another amputation to remove more of the bone, because the infection and a centimeter of bone is not something I was going to fight over. So I readily agreed and had that. That third surgery in India. So the second surgery that I had in India, but the third surgery, total.
- [52:43]
Interviewer
Wow. And so. So. So that was at a higher standard, you would say.
- [52:48]
Colin Mayfield
Oh, much, much higher standard.
- [52:49]
This was a proper hospital.
- [52:52]
Interviewer
So you were. At this point, there was no risk of sepsis. You were being given the antibiotics. Everything was being properly cleaned, and you were.
- [52:58]
Colin Mayfield
They were doing different tests to make sure I wasn't allergic. And one antibiotic I was allergic to, but I still had to take it because it worked. So it just, you know, burned in my veins. But there was more than adequate painkillers in. In. In India, which, I mean, I did get some painkillers in Myanmar. Like, I did get Tremadol and I got some morphine, but it's just not nearly enough. Yeah, not nearly enough for sure. Whereas, you know, in India, there were adequate amounts of antibiotics, adequate amounts of painkillers, and this time I was in a proper hospital, not a clinic that's lacking resources. Yeah. Then I. I spent about three weeks or so in the hospital in India. Once I was finally safe to travel, I flew here to Poland. I had another surgery in Poland. So I spent about a week in the hospital in Poland. Then I got out. Meanwhile, my. At the time, middle toe, the. But it's not really my middle toe anymore, but that toe atrophied quite a bit and developed into quite a bad hammer toe. So I had my fourth surgery here in Poland, where my surgeon went in with a burring saw, removed cartilage from in between the two bones, removed that joint completely and fused the bone together, put it in place with a Kishner wire. So I had this wire sticking out of my toe for six weeks, and that has, for the most part, straightened the toe. It's not curled up under my foot like it used to be. But I will have to redo that surgery again on the other joint of the toe. So I'll have to have the other joint of that toe removed and have it pinned again. That way I can make sure that that toe stays straight and doesn't continue to curl like it has been.
- [55:13]
Interviewer
And so about your, your current condition and sort of the long term prognosis, I don't, I don't sort of mean to pry too deeply, but what is, what is walking? So I just want to ask, like, how, how are you finding walking and getting around in general?
- [55:30]
Colin Mayfield
So when I got to Poland, it was the, the worst time for me to get, be getting to Poland because
- [55:38]
this was the coldest winter in Warsaw
- [55:41]
in about 13 years. So my girlfriend was pushing my wheelchair through the snow and my foot was still incredibly swollen at that point, so I couldn't wear shoes. So I just had scarves wrapped around my foot and. But eventually swelling went down to the point where I could put shoes on. Now I can, you know, wear my, my old shoes, no problem. After I got out of the wheelchair, like with my physical therapy, I've. I've done intensive physical therapy. At first it was about twice a week, and then it moved down to once a week and now once every week and a half. About. And. But after I got out of the wheelchair, I was walking with a cane and now I can finally walk without a cane. And not only can I walk without a cane, I can run. So I have a prosthetic insert that fits into my shoe and it takes up the missing space. If I'm walking long distances, like more than 10km, my foot will start to hurt and I might decide to use my cane because I'll be getting tired and. But yeah, my leg is much stronger. I can walk again. I can hike. I'm signed up for a 5k run this upcoming Saturday. I don't know if I'll be able to finish it in the time constraint, but I think I can. So I'm going to attempt that. Like I said, I will end up getting that other surgery on my toe at some point. And then there's one other surgery I might get where they're gonna potentially smoothen out the bone of my metatarsal and get some donor tissue from my thigh to provide it a little bit more extra padding. That surgery, I don't know if I'm gonna get just yet. I will see by the end of the year how I'm feeling, but it's been amazing improvements. I mean, I can, yeah, I can walk and run and my balance is a bit off. Like if I'm on the train sometimes it's a little bit difficult and my running is a little bit lopsided and wonky. But I'm getting better and better and I'm able to be more active. I'm not confined to a wheelchair, and I'm incredibly grateful that I still have my foot. And it could have been so much worse.
- [58:18]
Interviewer
I mean, you know, recognizing, of course, that there is. I mean, it sounds terrible to say, but there is, There is a large degree of luck here that, that. That you were only as injured as. As you were. The, the fact of the matter is, of course, the landmine's objective, its very purpose was to maim you and, and stop you from being able to walk and run. That. That was the whole point. And I think there is a sort of poetic beauty to the fact that it hurt you, but it failed. It has categorically failed to stop you from being able to do the things that you do. And it is not drawing resources away from the resistance because you, you know, you are in recovery and you are working harder and you are making this progress. And I believe you said at the very beginning of our discussion that you actually have the intention of at some point, in some way returning to Chin State, which if you do that, I believe that that would be a very potent sort of symbolic middle finger to the regime to say that like, no, you tried, but you failed. The landmine does not stop you from walking, from running, from marching, from hiking, from observing and documenting the things that are going on. And I think in a very small way, that's something to be grateful for.
- [59:57]
Colin Mayfield
Yeah, I'm incredibly grateful. I mean, I was fortunate that I stepped on this M14 with my big toe, and if I had stepped on it in the center of my foot or with my heel, I would have. I would have lost my entire foot. I nearly lost my eye, but I didn't. And, yeah, it was a long setback. It was months of not being able to run, but now I can, and I'm getting stronger and stronger, and I should be able to. I'll make a nearly full recovery. I mean, it'll never be the way it was before. I'll always have some problems, but it certainly is not going to stop me. And I do hope to return to Chin State and continue reporting in Myanmar and documenting the crimes of the sac. This landmine certainly isn't going to make me change career fields.
- [61:11]
Interviewer
And I think we all have sort of unending admiration for you and for your resolve and for your ability to continue doing the critical work that you do, despite the military throwing everything it has at you. But as you say, your work is documentary in nature. And on this, I want to turn to what it is that you have documented. I hope Fervently that we are going to have another interview in the coming weeks, in the coming months, where we can go into a much broader discussion. But when it comes to these landmines, I want to raise with you one of the most prevalent stories that we hear, anecdotes that we hear, which is the idea that the military use civilians and prisoners as human mine clearing operations, forcing them to walk ahead of the military through fields and on roads in order to cause these people to step on landmines and trigger them before the military would be injured by it. This is, I think it is very famous. Even in the movie, the Rambo movie set in Myanmar, we see this depicted. It's something that a lot of people have in their understanding of la minus in Myanmar. But it's one of those things where we always have to check this. So I wanted to ask you, have you heard anything? Have you seen anything? Have you encountered any evidence or any anecdote that would imply that this kind of behavior, that this kind of not even human shields, but human mind clearing is a thing that the Tamado is engaged in.
- [63:01]
Colin Mayfield
So I have not personally witnessed this happening. However, people who I know very well, people who I trust have seen it happening. I have no doubt that this is happening. I heard from some friends in Shin State the other day that near the, near the town of Tainan, the regime was using villagers to forcibly clear minefields. And people I know, people I trust have witnessed it. I've not witnessed it myself and I've not been able to speak to any civilians who survived being forced by the Tatmadaw to clear mines. But people I know say that they have and I, I certainly believe it. And one thing that I have seen is I have seen the Tatmidal using human shields. So I mentioned earlier the how the Tatmodal sent a column from Thym trying to recapture a bunch of territory and they, they forced a number of local civilians to march in front of the column. So I got word that PDF Zoland had captured a wounded Tatmadol prisoner and this man had been shot and he was being tended to by some of the PDF medics. So I get there and I found out when I got there that actually it wasn't a prisoner. Initially everybody thought he was a prisoner, but then he was pretty quickly recognized because he was speaking the Zomi dialect. Some people knew him as a local villager. And yeah, the Tatmadov forced this man to march in front of him, in front of them. And when the PDF shot And he was wounded. The Tatmadaw abandoned him and left him. And that's why, like, when the PDF got there, at first they thought that he was a Tatmadaw soldier. And then it quickly became evident from people recognizing him that know that he was just a civilian. And he was explaining how they were forcing him to march in front of them. In front of them. They had a gun to his back. And when the fighting broke out, other villagers who were forced to march in front of them were able to flee and hide, and they hid in barns and outhouses. And I was able to speak to a number of them the very next day.
- [65:44]
And
- [65:46]
so, given the fact that I've seen for myself, the Tatmadaw does use human shields. And people I trust are telling me how they know people who have been,
- [65:58]
you know, forced to clear minds.
- [66:00]
So I have. I have no doubt that this is something that the Tatmadaw is doing. I mean, this is a group that's
- [66:06]
infamous for its disregard for human life,
- [66:11]
Interviewer
almost contemptuous of life.
- [66:13]
Colin Mayfield
Yeah, it's. It's just. It's just pure contempt for life. So I have. I have no doubt that the Tamida is forcing civilians to clear minds.
- [66:22]
Interviewer
I just want to clarify, because this is a terminological thing that we. That we come through, and I know it can sound a little bit, you know, panicky, but I want to just make sure. When you use the term forced to clear minds, I think the image that a lot of people have in their heads is that they are given equipment and sent into a field and told, your objective is to identify and disable landmines, whereas that. That does not seem to be the thing that's going on. So when you say that people are being forced to clear landmines, do you mean they're being recruited for this purpose or just walk through it?
- [66:59]
Colin Mayfield
The. The cases that I'm aware of, the cases that I'm aware of in Chin State have been situations where it's a villager with a gun to their back. And the Tatmadaw says, you're going to march in front of us.
- [67:14]
Interviewer
Yeah, because it's just that there is no. To the best of my knowledge, there is no terminology that exists to describe this particular crime, or if it does, I've never come across it. It is.
- [67:26]
Colin Mayfield
So I was giving them metal detectors and, yeah, okay, find them. It's. It's.
- [67:32]
You're gonna march in front of us,
- [67:35]
and if you get blown up, you might live. If not, we'll shoot you.
- [67:39]
Interviewer
Yes, that's the other thing as well. So the implication here is that if anyone is taken for this purpose, they will die. Right. If they make it through the field unharmed, it is not the case that the military will thank them for their service and let them go home. They're going to be killed anyway. Is that an accurate representation there?
- [68:02]
Colin Mayfield
I mean, it would seem to be, for sure.
- [68:04]
Interviewer
Jesus Christ.
- [68:06]
Colin Mayfield
And, I mean, I've read UN reports
- [68:10]
from other parts of the country where
- [68:12]
villagers describe, you know, family members being forced to do this mine clearance. And a lot of the time it does seem that, you know, you are unlucky enough to find a mine and you get your leg blown off and the time, it all just leaves you. It's not like they're going to be the ones to render first aid.
- [68:32]
Interviewer
Oh, God. But this. So this raises a very interesting thing, though, because the Tatmadaw are the ones predominantly laying the mines. So if they are using civilians in this way as. As mine clearance, the implication is either that they are afraid that resistance forces have been laying mines or that they themselves have no idea where their landmines are and they're just generally adopting this policy of taking civilians and using them to clear the mines because they just have to assume that they may have mined this particular road or this particular field. There's no real way for them to verify that. What would be the reasoning here?
- [69:24]
Colin Mayfield
Well, I do think. I don't think that the Tatmadaw is particularly, you know, keeping track of where they're putting all of these mines. And, you know, notwithstanding the fact that previous juntas have laid them as well you know, under different administrations, the Tatmadaw was still putting down mines. But. So I certainly don't think that. I don't think that the Tatmadaw has any way of knowing where all of the areas they've mined are because they've just proliferated them throughout the entire country. Now, the second thing I'll say, I cannot speak for all of the different armed groups within Myanmar because this is a country that has more militias than anywhere else on earth.
- [70:19]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [70:20]
Colin Mayfield
But what I can speak for is the groups that I have spent the most time with, that being the Chin Brotherhood. And I have never seen the Chin
- [70:29]
Brotherhood use indiscriminate minds.
- [70:32]
I have seen the Chin Brotherhood use mines, but remotely detonated mines, the kind of thing that you would plant under the road and like, a civilian car drives over it, no problem. Or civilian walks by it, no problem. But when the spotter sees the Tatmadaw
- [70:52]
convoy going by, then you remotely detonate them.
- [70:56]
That I have seen. So these mines, you know, not a war crime because they're not indiscriminate, they are remotely detonated.
- [71:06]
Interviewer
I mean those are charges, we would say those, those are just remotely detonated charges. Would hardly even call them mines, really.
- [71:12]
Colin Mayfield
Well, regardless, yeah, regardless of whether, whether or not you would or wouldn't call them mines. They're not indiscriminate.
- [71:20]
Interviewer
Yes, yes.
- [71:21]
Colin Mayfield
They are intentionally used and intentionally detonated and they are not victim detonated. Yes, that's, that's a key distinction here. So the explosives I've seen resistance groups put out for the Tatmadaw are not victim detonated.
- [71:42]
So I've never been worried about walking
- [71:43]
in front of one and having one go off because again, PDF Zolin isn't going to set it off if I walk in front of it. They're going to set it off if a NSAC convoy walks in front of it.
- [71:56]
Interviewer
So yeah, and presumably they wouldn't leave it there either. They either use it and it blows up or they go back and they collect it because explosives are in short supply. They wouldn't just sort of leave it
- [72:07]
Colin Mayfield
there for, they'd use it somewhere else. Most certainly, yes. So it's, it's not resistance groups who are littering the country with millions and millions of minds where we don't know where they all are. It's the Tamida doing that themselves.
- [72:26]
Interviewer
And on, on the, the Tamado doing this because you mentioned earlier on in our discussion that a lot of people, they would have certain areas, certain paths, certain fields, certain whatever that they know from experience that place is safe. I've been there and it's safe and I can go there tomorrow and it's still going to be safe because unless the military have come, we don't have anything to fear. The question that I have, and this might be a misunderstanding of what types of mines exist. Is there any type of sort of aerially deployed mine or do you, do you strongly know that if the military have not physically boots on the ground been to a certain area, that area does not magically grow landmines. They can't just spray them from, from an aircraft. That's just not an option.
- [73:18]
Colin Mayfield
Well, the Russians have been using lots of these butterfly mines in Ukraine. So there are mines that do exist that you can drop them over an area and they flutter down and then they can be stepped on. And you know, the Tatmadaw has plenty of Russian advisors in the country. I mean, right now they're doing joint war Games. I was reading about that this morning. So I would not be surprised if there are butterfly mines being employed in Myanmar. It's not something that I've seen. I've, I've seen PDF soldiers being wounded by bombs dropped from loitering drones and I've seen, you know, the use of FPV drones are, is the Tatmadal dropping butterfly mines? Probably, but I have not seen it in Chin State.
- [74:15]
Interviewer
Okay, okay. So as a general rule, without boots on the ground, you can be relatively confident that an area will continue to be safe.
- [74:26]
Colin Mayfield
I mean, unless they start, you know, employing butterfly minds at a massive scale. But.
- [74:33]
Interviewer
Okay, okay, that's good to know. And then the, the, the question is, for people like you going out into the field, this is something that I wanted to understand a little bit more on, and it's something that I think most, most of the guests that we have on are not going to be able to answer. What do you guys actually do? I know you said that you were looking down at the time that you stood on the landmine. You were looking down because you were actively trying to keep an eye out for mines. Do you have anything like, maybe like one person in the squad has a rudimentary metal detector or something? I know Topop is a very difficult to detect because they're very low metal mines, but
- [75:17]
Colin Mayfield
plastic.
- [75:18]
Interviewer
Yeah. So, so this is the question, like do, do you have measures of, of some sort or even something as simplistic as just, you know, having like a, a large knotted rope that you whip the ground with or something like, is there any standard operating procedure that, that squads going to, towards the front line into areas that maybe mind will employ to either be on the lookout for mines or to try to preemptively trigger those mines to minimize the harm to somebody who might otherwise have stood on it?
- [75:51]
Colin Mayfield
That one I really couldn't say because I haven't seen.
- [75:55]
I don't know whether or not the
- [75:57]
PDF does or doesn't have metal detectors that they're using.
- [76:02]
Interviewer
The ultimate question here is one of effectiveness. And I know that we've touched on this, we've spoken about the psychological impact, but at the end of the day, we also see in Chin State, tragically places, as you said, Falam has fallen back into military control. We are seeing the military make gains and we know that the military extensively used landmines around their bases and around defensible positions. So the, the, the question is, is the landmine use actually benefiting the military in, in real strategic ways? Is the military actually gaining an advantage by, by doing this in terms of being able to decisively recapture resistance cities? Or is the use of landmines overwhelmingly a psychological tool, a punitive tool, and a weapon to terrorize the civilian population? That does not actually bring military and strategic benefit to the military because as I say, they do seem to be making inroads in Chin State. Are landmines a part of that success?
- [77:22]
Colin Mayfield
I do think, unfortunately, they are finding that the landmines are quite useful, as sick and twisted as it is. But you know, if you have, if a frontline soldier, you know, loses a leg and they can no longer be like an active infantryman, then you know, that is beneficial to the regime. So I think that they're going to continue to use, I think they're going to continue to use land mines for sure, because they are seeing successes in whittling down, you know, resistance groups through the use of mines and. But I also think that they're seeing success in landmines being one of their many, many terror tactics. It's something that has, it has people that live in these resistance occupied areas or mines have people that live in these resistance held areas living in constant fear. People are rightfully terrified because of it. But at the same time, I think that this, while it is very terrifying, I do think that in a lot of cases it strengthens people's resolve against the military. I just because you lose your leg and you can't be an infantryman, doesn't mean that you can't be a gunsmith or work in logistics. So Tong Kong, despite losing his leg, he's still in the People's Defense Force. Soland. When I returned in 2025, I met him there and I spent a lot of time with him and with his prosthetic leg, he's driving trucks, he's working logistics, helping to carry supplies to and from the front lines. So he might not be an infantryman anymore, but he's still a soldier and he's still fighting with the PDF despite losing his leg. And there are a number of other PDF soldiers who I've met who are missing legs, but they're still maintaining and restoring weapons and helping in camp to the best of their abilities. So while it is definitely something that, you know, weakens resistance forces, it also hardens a lot of their resolve.
- [79:55]
Interviewer
And I think again, much, much like yourself, when you say these people, they, they've lost limbs and yet they continue to contribute. The implication there's is that not only are they making that contribution, but they are not continually actively Drawing resources away from the resistance. So as, as perverse as the intention was for the landmine to incapacitate that individual and also draw other people out of conflict, they, they are saying, not only do I not need to take two, three people away from the conflict to care for me, I will continue to make my contribution to them so that they can continue to fight to the best of their capabilities. Which I know we've just said that the landmines are tragically successful to a degree, but it's one of those cases where someone's very existence, continued existence, is a form of defiance. You know, like I, I exist despite the military. I, I continue to live and operate to spite the military because they tried and they failed. And, and I think that there is in, in amongst all of the darkness of everything we've just been discussing for the last hour and a half and, and the evil that landmines are and the evil that the military poses, there is, there is a sort of poetic beauty in that, coming out of that, that hellfire and saying, no, I will persist. If nothing else, I will persist in defiance of what you wanted to do to me and to my comrades. I find it very inspiring. And I have absolute sort of respect and admiration for people like yourself and like these fighters who say, you know, I can lose a leg, but I'm not going to stop. I'm going to keep going.
- [81:57]
Colin Mayfield
Lots of, lots of soldiers I've met
- [82:00]
have been amputees, and they're still contributing to the resistance in every way that they can.
- [82:08]
Interviewer
I think it's just absolutely, it's absolutely incredible. And the, the problem is now sort of coming to the conclusion of our, of our interview again, hopefully the first interview, and there will be others to come. Under normal circumstances, at the end of interviews, what I ask people is generally the view of the future. I ask, like, what is the proposed solution to this problem? And I would ask them, you know, what is the light at the end of the tunnel? Where is the improvement? You know, what can we do and what can we expect? And the sad reality is from our discussion here today, it doesn't sound like there is anything other than defeating the military, which would solve most of Myanmar's problems overnight. It doesn't sound like there is anything that can be done to immediately alleviate the problems posed by landmines to, to mitigate the military strategy that there, it doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel on, on this one. But recognizing that I'm putting you in a very, very difficult and awkward situation. I will still ask you just on the off chance if there is anything that can be done, if there is any way in which we are able to contribute, people on the outside could make a meaningful contribution to help mitigate this, this crime against humanity. Really? What, what is it that can be done?
- [83:41]
Colin Mayfield
I, I, I think you, you said
- [83:44]
it well when you said eliminating, defeating
- [83:48]
the military would certainly alleviate most of Myanmar's problems.
- [83:52]
And I highly doubt that the Tatmadaw is going to abandon its terror tactics. I think as long as the Tatmadaw is in power, you know, whether or not they pretend to have a civilian government or not, as long as this government remains in power, this issue is going to persist and people are still going to be suffering from landmines all across the country.
- [84:22]
And
- [84:24]
that seems dismal but you know, certainly shouldn't give up hope. I, I think that, yeah, I, I do pray that that government does fall. And in the meantime, for those of us not in Myanmar, I think we can, we should do everything that we can to, to help landmine survivors. So again, I've been very fortunate in the fact that my injuries weren't too bad compared to a lot of people and, but you know, for a lot of, a lot of people in Myanmar, they can't afford the prosthetic. So Tom Khan texted me the other day saying how the spring for his prosthetic leg broke and getting a new replacement spring is going to be about US$3,000, which might not be a lot for most of us in the west, but for somebody in Myanmar that's an exorbitant amount of money. And one thing that I am doing is I'd like to fundraise and give back to other victims of landmines. So I'm going to finish setting up a fundraiser very soon. That way other victims of landmines who don't have the resources that I have had are able to at least get some assistance with medical treatment and long term care and getting prosthetics. And I think of course also don't, don't normalize this regime. I think that the travel influencers who go to Myanmar are disgusting. And you know, okay, yeah, the beer is cheap in Yangon, but it's only cheap if you're not countering in all the civilian blood. It's, we shouldn't normalize that country. It's, or that government, rather, that government shouldn't be normalized. You should not go on holiday in Myanmar. You shouldn't, you shouldn't go to Yangon or Mandalay on vacation. If you care about these kinds of things, if you care about human rights issues, don't vacation in a fascistic regime. If you. Yeah, don't, don't normalize. Don't normalize that government.
- [87:21]
Interviewer
Absolutely. And unrelatedly, we have also been keeping an eye on many of these travel influences traveling to Myanmar. And we, we would very much like the opportunity to speak to some of them and ask them some very pointed questions. But so far none have seemed enthusiastic about that opportunity. I wonder why.
- [87:43]
Colin Mayfield
Oh, yeah, because we're showing them as apathetic and opportunistic. Yeah.
- [87:51]
Interviewer
Yeah. And at the very best, earth shatteringly ignorant.
- [87:57]
Colin Mayfield
Yeah. Best case scenario.
- [87:58]
Interviewer
Yeah. Best case scenario, you're an idiot. Worst case scenario, you're on the take from, from a fascistic regime. So I fully agree with you. Genuinely. And once you, once you set up your fundraiser, please let us know. We'll be, we'll be honored to help promote it and, and try to get it out to an audience. And as we conclude here, again, I want to thank you very much. I know it has been a while, us working to setting up this interview and getting to this time and I know that in the time that we have been speaking and planning, you have gone through so much and I really appreciate, and I know that our audience appreciate it. I know that our team has collectively very much appreciate you coming on and sharing your personal story and sharing what you've gone through and helping to highlight in a very human and very first person way the suffering and the trials and the difficulties that a lot of the resistance fighters in Myanmar continue to face and unfortunately are likely to continue to face for some time to come.
- [89:11]
Colin Mayfield
And I mean, the only comment I would have added of don't vacation and Myanmar I already touched on. So I think we covered everything for sure. But yeah, likewise, thank you very much for having me on. I'm very thrilled that I finally got to come on to Insight Myanmar and tell my story and tell the stories of other people that I met and yeah, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
- [89:56]
Podcast Host
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Insight Myanmar podcast. As with many of our conversations, the one you just heard shines a light on a pressing issue regarding the challenges and complexities now being faced by Myanmar and its people. These stories are powerful and necessary to raise our awareness, but the real, the real value of having our awareness raise comes when it can be translated into some type of positive action. And this is where our pitch comes in. One such action could be supporting us in producing more episodes like this one, so that we can continue to air diverse stories and perspectives about what's really happening in Myanmar. This will help raise the awareness and reaching even more listeners who themselves might be propelled to take some type of
- [90:40]
Narrator
positive
- [90:42]
Podcast Host
as you might imagine, we do have production costs, and it's mainly the generous support of our listeners that enables us to continue this important work in amplifying voices that need to be heard. And so, by contributing, you're not just supporting a podcast, you're helping to create space for solutions to emerge, for stories to inspire change, and for awareness to develop into meaningful action. If you believe in the importance of these conversations and want to help us in keeping them going, visit insight myanmar.org donation together we can make sure that these critical conversations continue to inspire action and change.
- [91:31]
Colin Mayfield
Foreign.
- [91:57]
And Yaranaya da Yarana but yarana.