Myanmar Rebels Free State – Governance Is The Next Battle | Political news

Karen State, Myanmar – Tau Hti In 2021, it was a tiny speck amid the hundreds of thousands who snaked through the streets of Yangon, demanding a return to democracy after the Myanmar military seized power.

“We had signboards and they had guns,” she said, lamenting the events of March 2021.

In four years, a lot has changed for Thaw Hiti and her descendants in Myanmar.

After the military carried out hundreds of bloody crackdowns on those pro-democracy demonstrations, young people fled to territory controlled by militant groups in Myanmar’s regions bordering Thailand, India and China.

The seal went away.

By race Karen her choice was clear.

Since the 1940s, the Karen National Union – Myanmar’s oldest militant group, has been fighting for political autonomy for the Karen people in eastern Myanmar’s Karen State, also known as Kayin State.

In a recent interview with Al Jazeera in Karen State, Tau said how angry she was about Hiti’s takeover of the military and how she wanted to become a rebel soldier.

All newcomers to the KNU state had to go through a survival course that included weapons training, long-distance marching, and basic self-defense.

Firing a gun, Tau Hti remembers, gave her a sense of strength after watching the military slaughter her opponents.

Now, her face breaks into a big smile when she says, “I like guns.”

But being short and petite, she struggled to complete the basic survival course and knew she wouldn’t pass the KNU’s real military training.

“I came here to join the revolution. But as a woman, there are many obstacles,” she said.

“I want to do this in my mind but physically I can’t.”

Lessons in oppression

With an educational background and the ability to speak Karen, Tau Hiti and her husband instead opened a KNU-accredited school to educate more than 100 conflict-displaced children.

The school is hidden in the jungles of eastern Myanmar because of the military’s tendency to launch airstrikes on public services on the Karen side – including schools and hospitals. The bombing is aimed at destroying the new administrative structures that give legal recognition to Karen autonomy.

Unlike schools controlled by the military regime, she said, her school teaches children in the Karen language and teaches Karen-centric Myanmar history, which includes the decades of oppression the Karen have faced, often outside official narratives.

The Karen have been fighting for their autonomy for decades, but as new, pro-democracy forces joined forces with tribal militias, the Karen’s long-running conflict with the Myanmar military – a predominantly Bamar ethnic force – exploded dramatically.

In particular, in the past year, the military has lost large areas in border areas – including Rakhine State in the west and Northern Shan State in the east – as well as Kachin State in the north and beyond. Karen State.

But as the Warriors expand their territory, they face new challenges to manage.

Parallel management

Kaikdon, which came under military control in March, was spared devastating airstrikes that overran other major towns in Karen State.

During Al Jazeera’s recent visit to Kyakdon, the town’s restaurants were filled with civilians and Karen soldiers eating Burmese curry. Shops were open selling furniture and traditional Karen fabrics, while the main street was backed up with traffic.

Soe Khant, the 33-year-old KNU-appointed administrator, says he has big plans for the liberated state.

“I want to finish public works, get electricity and water and clean up the plastic and overflow areas,” said Soi Kant, who was officially appointed as interim administrator, which is scheduled to be done in a year.

In the end, he would agree to be elected by the people rather than appointed.

“If the people want it, I will take the position. If they choose someone else, I will pass,” he told Al Jazeera.

Soi Kant said the military regime “completely ignored the people of this city.”

Soi Kant, who grew up in Kaekdon, told him how he would go with a friend to a hilltop near the city.

From there, they picture the cluster of buildings around the dusty main road, the winding river that feeds the farms, and the nearby mountain range of Thailand’s border.

As he got older, he turned to photography and started making a living from wedding shoots.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Myanmar in 2020, he answered another call, establishing a social welfare organization.

After the military coup, the situation worsened.

“My friends and I volunteered to take care of people because the health care system was broken,” he said.

While Soe Khant is relatively new to running a parallel administration, the KNU has been doing so for decades – albeit often in small rural pockets.

“We’re going very fast, but we’re not going far.”

Kaukarek Town Clerk Mia Ayi served as village tract leader for 12 years before being elected to her current role, the third highest in the town.

He told Al Jazeera that years of war and manpower shortages have crippled the local economy and weakened the KNU’s ability to provide public services.

“There are no factories, there are no industries, you can’t work here to support your family,” he said, explaining that because of the conflict and hardship, young people are moving to nearby Thailand.

But the brutality of military rule is often its own enemy.

It incited a stronger resistance and drove manpower into the arms of his enemies.

Win Htun, a 33-year-old former Myanmar police officer, joined the KNU rather than follow orders to arrest and torture pro-democracy activists.

“I’ve always wanted to be a policeman since I was young,” Win Chun said.

“I believed the police were good and tried to help people,” he said, adding that the reality was a culture of corruption, discrimination and impunity.

Win Htun police officials, who belong to the majority Bamar ethnic group in Myanmar, treat their fellow Karen very unfairly.

“If any of them do the slightest mistake, they will be severely punished,” said one Karen officer, who returned to the barracks an hour late and was put in jail for 24 hours.

Win Chun said he has submitted resignation letters many times during his 10 years in the police service. Every time you fight.

In the year

He has now fully joined the KNU police force.

In response to the military’s brutality and realizing that the revolution was on the verge of victory, young educated professionals like Tau Hti and years of government service like Win Htun came to fill manpower gaps in the administration. New free areas.

But many thought that the struggle to oust the military would take a few months, or at most a few years.

Despite numerous defeats and other unprecedented setbacks, the troops still managed to withstand it.

“It’s like running on a treadmill,” Tau Hti said of the revolution’s gains but continued setbacks.

“We feel like we’re going this fast, but we’re not going that far,” she said.