So I saw Rambo with 3 guys, and when we walked out of the theater they were remarking on the awesomeness of the different shots when Rambo slaughtered Burmese soldiers, but then the conversation turned “wait Thelma, does that stuff actually happen?”

So for everyone who saw Rambo and wants to learn more than just exactly how many pints of fake blood were used in the filming -here’s my post-Rambo Q & A

Q: ‘Wait, I didn’t know the government attacked ethnic minorities, I thought it was only the stuff with the monks’

A: The conflict in eastern Burma, is the longest running armed conflict in the world. The military has grown increasingly bent on complete domination over ethnic minority states. They wage a brutal campaign aimed at not just ethnic armed defense forces but also the civilians themselves. In the past eleven years alone over 3,200 villages have been destroyed, millions of civilians have been forced from their homes creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

Q: How many troops are there in the Burmese army?

A: There are over 400,000 soldiers in the army. 50% of the nation’s budget goes to the military, while 90% of the population lives at or below the poverty line. They have one of the largest armies in Asia, even though they have no external enemies. There are also more child soldiers in Burma than any other country in the world (nearly 70,000).. Desertion rates are high, with as many as 10,000 over a four month period, fueling the increasing numbers of forced conscriptions and child soldiers.

Q: “Okay, why can’t we just go in like Rambo and destroy them?”

A: As tempting as it would be to send the Marines into Napyidaw the jungle capital where all the generals live, Burma has a long history, led by the country’s respected and rightful leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and most recently demonstrated by Buddhist monks, to promote national reconciliation through nonviolence. Moreover, countries in the region would not be happy about an invasion

Q: “The scenes where the soldiers throw landmines into rice fields and then force people to go through them, does that actually happen?”

A: There are no reports of this specific tactic. The Burma Army does lay landmines and does target civilians- for example they lay landmines on trails they know villagers will use. During offensives against the ethnic armed resistance, the Burma Army will sometimes force ethnic minority civilians to walk in front of the Burmese troops to have them step on any resistance laid land mines there might be, a horrific tactic known as human landmine sweeping.
The Burma Army also mines villages after they have force villagers to flee to the jungle to escape being captured for forced labor or killed to ensure villagers are killed if they try to return home.

Q: What kind of humanitarian aid gets to the people? Is it all done by naive groups like shown in the movie?

A: The military junta greatly restricts international organizations from delivering aid to the ethnic groups in eastern Burma. Few foreigners actually work inside the war zones.

There are the Free Burma Rangers, multi-ethnic relief teams which deliver humanitarian supplies and document human rights abuses. They are extremely experienced and are mostly comprised of trained, courageous and compassionate ethnic nationals..

In addition, there are many other community based organizations that secretly work to reach this desperate and vulnerable population with humanitarian aid.

Q: The scene where they rape the girls? Is that common?

A: Unfortunately, rape is a systematic weapon of war that the Burmese army uses against women, women are routinely abducted, used as sex slaves and trafficked to other countries. Amongst many of the ethnic groups, (i.e. the Karen, Mon, Chin, and Shan) there has been extensive evidence gathered of the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war.