DAVE EUBANK makes an exploding gesture with his fist to alert the guerrilla soldiers following him of the danger ahead. "From here until we pass the road, the trail is lined with mines," he says, scanning the mountainous Burmese jungle for signs of trouble. "Watch where you step." As his signal relays down the line, conversations fall silent and the air hums with only the sound of heavy breathing and hundreds of footsteps on hardpacked ground.
Eubank picks up the pace, slashing through brush and thorny stalks that tear at his clothing. A former US Special Forces officer and ordained Christian minister, he started the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) in the late 90s to provide medical care and aid to people resisting the Southeast Asian nation's military junta, a brutal dictatorship that has crushed dissent and oppressed ethnic minorities for seven decades in what is the world's longest-running civil war. With a few volunteers and his own wife and kids in tow, Eubank set FBR apart with a relentless commitment to go places other humanitarian groups would not. And that's built FBR into a movement that fields teams and tracks human-rights abuses across Burma's front lines and beyond, from northern Syria to Sudan. But critics say Eubank is a Christian zealot who is risking the lives of his family and followers in a vacuum of oversight. They claim FBR is blurring the line between humanitarian work and ideological activism by training and, at times, fighting alongside armed groups while preaching the Gospels of Jesus.
Bu hikaye Rolling Stone UK dergisinin June/July 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Rolling Stone UK dergisinin June/July 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
BACK TO THE GRIND
The Clipse broke up when a spiritual path called to one of the brothers from Virginia. Now, one of the greatest duos in rap returns
THE SCREAM QUEEN NEXT DOOR
In just a few short years, Hunter Schafer has gone from small-town North Carolina to global runways, Euphoria stardom, and her first lead role, in the horror flick Cuckoo
Together in Electronic Dreams
Raphaella Lima of video game publisher Electronic Arts brings music to her childhood love of gaming to spotlight many of the most exciting emerging acts of the past two decades in the hit football game EA SPORTS FC
JAMIE XX WAVE AFTER WAVE
Nine years after his decade-defining debut album In Colour, Jamie xx returns with In Waves, a darker and broodier follow-up that saw him fall back in love with making music
"You can feel trapped when people perceive you as one thing"
On their career-best fourth album, Fontaines D.C. have shed their skin of old to deliver something more fantastical. Grian Chatten tells us the story behind their evolution
IN COMPLETE CONFIDENCE
Confidence Man's Janet Planet and Sugar Bones go bigger and wilder than ever before on 3AM (LA LA LA), an album made about partying, while partying, and perfect for partying to
Collective consciousness
Ezra Collective return with Dance, No One's Watching, the roaring follow-up album to last year's boundary-moving Mercury Prize win
DAYDREAM BELIEVER
Welsh techno-pop artist Kelly Lee Owens is the first signing to Dirty Hit's new dance label, dh2. She talks \"transcending my bullshit\" on the euphoric, thumping club tunes of fourth album, Dreamstate
A BUNCH OF (PRI)MATES
From the story of 'Gary', the title track of Stockport band Blossoms' fifth album inspired by a fibreglass gorilla, to breaking new ground with their own record label and staying friends after 10 years, the tightknit band tell Rolling Stone UK all about it
RULE OF LAWTEY
Stepping up to play a comic-book icon in the big-budget sequel Joker: Folie à Deux could prove a life-changing moment for Industry star Harry Lawtey. But he's trying not to think about it...