Karen State, Myanmar – Thaw Hti was just a speck amid a march of hundreds of thousands that made its way through the streets of Yangon in 2021, demanding a return to democracy after Myanmar. The army seized power.

“We had banners and they had guns,” she said, bitterly recounting the events of March 2021.

In the intervening four years, a lot has changed for Thu Hti and her generation in Myanmar.

After the military Hundreds were slaughtered In the bloody crackdowns on those pro-democracy protests, The young men fled To territory controlled by ethnic armed groups in Myanmar’s border areas with Thailand, India and China.

Hettie’s thaw is gone too.

Her choice was clear, and she is ethnically part Karen.

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

Speaking during an interview with Al Jazeera in Karen State recently, Thao Hti recounted how she was so angry at the military for seizing power that she wanted to become… Rebel soldier.

All new arrivals to the Karen National Union territory had to undergo a survival training course, which included weapons training, hiking over rough terrain, and mainly self-defense.

Thao Hti remembers that shooting a gun gave her a feeling of power after she helplessly witnessed the military massacre of her fellow protesters.

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

But being short and thin, she struggled to complete the basic survival course and realized she would never pass the KNU’s real military training.

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

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

Lessons in oppression

With an educational background and the ability to speak the Karen language, Thao Hti and her husband instead opened a Karen National Union-accredited school where they educate more than 100 children displaced by the conflict.

The school was hidden in the jungle in eastern Myanmar due to the military’s tendency to launch air strikes on parallel Karen public services – including schools and hospitals. The bombing aims to destroy the emerging administrative structures that legitimize Karen autonomy.

Unlike schools under the control of the military regime, Thu Hti explained that her school teaches children the Karen language and teaches a Karen-centered version of Myanmar’s history that includes the decades of oppression that the Karen faced, and which is often left out of official narratives.

The Karen have fought for self-rule for decades, but with newer pro-democracy forces cooperating with ethnic armed groups, the long-running Karen conflict with Myanmar’s military – the majority Bamar ethnic force – has exploded with force.

In the past year in particular, the military has lost vast swaths of territory in the border areas — including almost all of Rakhine State in the west and northern Shan State in the east — as well as large parts of Kachin State in the north, and even more territory. From Karen State.

But as fighters control more and more territory, they face a new challenge: managing it.

Parallel management

Kyaikdon in Karen State was captured from the army in March, and has been spared the devastating air strikes that have plagued other large towns where resistance forces have won.

During a recent island visit to Kyaikdon, the town’s restaurants were filled with civilians and Karen soldiers eating Burmese curry. Shops were open, selling household goods and traditional Karen fabrics, while the main road was busy with traffic.

Swe Khant, the 33-year-old town administrative director appointed by the Karen National Union, said he had big plans for the liberated lands.

“I would like to finish the public works, turn on the electricity and water, and clean the plastic areas and overgrown areas,” said Su Khant, who has been officially appointed interim director, with elections scheduled after one year.

He agrees to ultimately be popularly elected, rather than appointed.

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

Su Khant said the military regime “completely neglected the people of this town.”

While growing up in Kyaikdon, Su Khant recounted how he would climb to the top of a hill near the city with a friend.

From there, they would sketch the cluster of buildings surrounding the dusty main road, the winding river that feeds the farms, and the nearby mountain range that forms the border with Thailand.

When he grew up, he turned to photography, making his living photographing weddings.

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

After the military coup, the situation worsened further.

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

Although Su Khant is relatively new to running a parallel administration, the Karen National Union has been doing this job for decades – albeit usually in smaller rural enclaves.

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

Kokarek Town Secretary, Mia Aye, served as village area leader for 12 years before being elected to his current position, the third-most senior position in the town.

He told Al Jazeera how years of war and a lack of human resources have hampered the local economy and undermined the Karen National Union’s ability to deliver public services.

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

But the cruelty of a military regime is often its own worst enemy.

It inspired more intense and driven resistance Human resources Into the arms of her enemies.

Former Myanmar police officer Win Htun, 33, joined the Karen National Union rather than follow orders to arrest and mistreat pro-democracy activists.

“I’ve always wanted to be a police officer since I was little,” Wayne Hutton said.

“I thought 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 majority, said police authorities were treating their fellow Karen people very unfairly.

“If any of them made a small mistake, they punished them very harshly,” he said, recounting how one Karen officer returned to the barracks an hour late and was put in a prison cell for 24 hours.

Wayne Hutton said he submitted letters of resignation several times during his ten years in police service. And every time they were rejected.

After the 2021 coup, he fled with his wife and daughter to Karen-controlled territory, where he underwent a comprehensive background check and a period of probation to “build confidence.”

He is now fully integrated into the Karen National Union’s police force.

In response to the army’s brutality and the feeling that the revolution was on the verge of victory, young, educated professionals, such as Thu Hti, and people who had spent years in government service, such as Win Htun, came to fill the human resource gaps in the country’s administration. Newly liberated areas.

But most of them believed that the battle to overthrow the army would take only a few months, or at most, a few years.

Despite a series of defeats and other unprecedented setbacks, the army managed to hold on.

“It’s like running on a treadmill,” Thu Hti said of the revolution’s gains and continuing shortcomings.

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