Myanmar’s rebels liberate territory – administrating it is the next battle

In a march of hundreds of thousands that made its way through Yangon’s streets in 2021, calling for a resumption of democracy after the Myanmar military seized power, Karen State, Myanmar, was a tidbit among the many specks.

She reminisced violently about the events of March 2021, saying, “We had signboards and they had guns.”

Thaw Hti and her generation in Myanmar have undergone a significant change over the past four years.

Young people fled to ethnically armed regions in Myanmar’s border regions after the military massacred hundreds of protesters in bloody clashes.

Thaw Hti went, too.

Ethnically part Karen, her choice was obvious.

The Karen National Union, Myanmar’s oldest ethnic armed group, has been fighting for the Karen people’s political autonomy in eastern Karen State, also known as Kayin State, since the 1940s.

Thaw Hti described how she wanted to work as a rebel soldier because she was angry at the military for gaining control in an interview with Al Jazeera in Karen State recently.

A survival course was required for all new KNU residents, which included basic self-defense, marching long distances in rugged terrain, and weapons training.

Firing a gun, Thaw Hti remembers, gave her a feeling of strength after powerlessly watching the military massacre her fellow protesters.

Now, her face crinkles into a huge smile when she says: “I love guns”.

She knew she would not succeed in the KNU’s real military training, and she struggled to finish even the basic survival course because of her short and slight frame of mind.

“I came here to join the revolution but as a woman, there are more barriers”, she said.

“Mentally I want to do it, but I can’t physically.”

Lessons in oppression

Thaw Hti and her husband, who has a background in education and language proficiency, instead established a KNU-accredited school where they educate more than 100 children who have been displaced by conflict.

Because of the military’s propensity to launch air strikes on the Karen’s parallel public services, including hospitals and schools, the school is hidden in the forest in eastern Myanmar. The bombing aims to destroy the new administrative structures that grant Karen autonomy.

Thaw Hti explained that her school teaches children in the Karen language and teaches a Karen-focused version of Myanmar history, including the oppressive decades that the Karen faced, which are frequently left out of official narratives.

The Karen have fought for their autonomy for decades, but as newer, pro-democracy forces team up with ethnic armed groups, the Karen’s long-simmering conflict with Myanmar’s military – a majority, ethnic Bamar force – has exploded in intensity.

The military has lost a lot of territory in the borderlands, especially in the last year, including nearly all of Rakhine State in the west and northern Shan State in the east, as well as a lot of Kachin State in the north, and more of Karen State.

But as fighters take more and more territory, they are faced with a new challenge: administering it.

Parallel administration

Kyaikdon in Karen State, which was abducted from the military in March, has been spared the devastating airstrikes that have harmed other large towns that the resistance forces have won.

During Al Jazeera’s recent visit to Kyaikdon, the town’s restaurants were filled with civilians and Karen troops eating Burmese curry. While the main road was backed up by traffic, shops were open that sold traditional Karen fabrics and household goods.

Soe Khant, the town’s 33-year-old KNU-appointed administrator, said he had big plans for the liberated territory.

With an election scheduled in a year, Soe Khant, who was appointed interim administrator, vowed to finish the public works, restart the water and electricity grid, and clean the overgrown and plastic areas.

He agrees with eventually being popularly elected, rather than appointed.

“If it’s what the people want, I will take the position. If they choose somebody else, I will pass it on”, he told Al Jazeera.

Soe Khant claimed that the military administration had “totally neglected the locals.”

Soe Khant, a friend of his, described how he would climb to the top of a hill close to the town as a child.

From there, they would sketch the densely populated neighborhoods that surround the dusty main road, the farmland-irrigated winding river, and the nearby mountain range that forms Thailand’s border.

When he got older, he turned to photography, making a living from wedding shoots.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Myanmar in 2020, he answered another calling, launching a social welfare organisation.

After the military coup, the situation worsened further.

“The healthcare system broke down, so my friends and I volunteered to help take care of people”, he said.

While Soe Khant is relatively new to the business of running a parallel administration, the KNU has been doing this for decades – albeit usually in smaller, rural pockets of territory.

‘ Going so fast, but we don’t go very far ‘

Mya Aye, the township’s secretary, served for 12 years as the township’s third-highest official.

He described how years of conflict and a lacked of human resources had hampered the area’s economy and hampered the KNU’s capacity to provide public services.

“There are no factories, no industry, you can’t work here to support your family”, he said, explaining that because of the conflict and hardships, young people would move to live in nearby Thailand.

But the military regime’s cruelty is often its own worst enemy.

It has fueled more fervent opposition and mobilized resources against its foes.

Win Htun, a former police officer in Myanmar, left the KNU to protest orders to detain and abuse pro-democracy activists.

Win Htun said, “I’ve always wanted to work in law enforcement since I was a young person.

“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, a member of Myanmar’s Bamar ethnic minority, claimed that police in Myanmar treated their Karen colleagues unfairly.

He recalled how one Karen officer arrived at the barracks an hour late and spent the day in a prison cell before being punished for making a “very harsh punishment” for making a “very small mistake”

In his ten years of police service, Win Htun claimed to have written resignation letters numerous times. Each time they were rejected.

After the 2021 coup, he fled with his wife and daughter to Karen-controlled territory, where he was subjected to a thorough background check and a “trust-building” observation period.

He is now fully integrated into the police force of the KNU.

Reacting to the military’s brutality and a sense that the revolution is on the verge of victory, younger educated professionals, like Thaw Hti, and people with years of government service, such as Win Htun, have come to fill human resource gaps in the administration of newly liberated areas.

However, most people believed that a few months or at most a few years would be needed to end the military.

The military has been able to hold on despite a string of setbacks and other unheard of defeats.

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

Source: Aljazeera