REVOLUTION IN MYANMAR

CARLO COZZOLI

One of the most active units within the KNDF (Karenni Nation Defence Force) is the drone operators unit. The U.A.V. battalion is made up exclusively of 20-year-olds who have learned to build and fly drones through internet.
In hidden camps in the jungle the young people drone operators manufacture and train to fly the aircrafts they then use to spy positions of the Burmese military and to provide cover for their comrades engaged
in the frontlines. In the photos fighters testing a new drones.

Some members of the PDF Naypydaw battalion cross on the back of an elephant the Htoo Chaung River in the Karenni territory to head to the Loikaw front.
The People's Defense Force is the military arm of the Government of National Unity of Myanmar, the executive deposed by the military putsch in February 2021 and which today, in exile, represents the legitimate government
of the country. The PDF was born on May 5, 2021 and includes young people from all over the country who have decided to join the ethnic guerrillas to fight the regime.

A peasant woman works in a rice field in Loikaw a few kilometers from the front line and the explosions of the artillery used by the S.A.C (State Administration Council) Burmese government forces. Due to the conflict in
Myanmar today 18.6 million people need humanitarian assistance and there are over 3 million internal refugees in the country and15 million citizens are in a state of food insecurity.
Despite the dangers and the proximity of the shells, farmers do not abandon their own lands as the work in the fields is their only source or support.

The church of St. Matthew in the parish of Dognekhu of the diocese of Loikaw was set on fire on June 15, 2022. According to church officials, the soldiers They were camped inside the church and had burned it and several
houses before leaving the area. At least nine Christian churches have been hit by artillery shelling and airstrikes by the Burmese army in the Loikaw diocese since the eruption the conflict between military forces and rebels
in May 2021.

In a secret location in the jungle near Demoso, a prison has been established where several military junta soldiers captured in the city of Shar Twa during the battle that took place in February 2024. The prisoners are forced
to spend their days with one leg immobilized in a wooden pillory. The military claims that their rights are respected but they all confess that they have not committed any crime and that they were forced to enlist due to the
regime's introduction of obligatory military service.

3D is the wars nickname of the KNDF UAV battalion commander. The young commander, only 23 years old, earned his name due to 3d printing light weapons when the civil war began. Today 3D creates, tests and pilots
combat drones and teaches young Karenni guerrillas how to use a drone. His true dream though, once the war is over, is to use drones to transport food and medicine to the most remote areas of the country.

Maui, 31 years old, general of the revolutionary formation KNDF (Karenni Nationalities Defense Force), before the pustch he was an agronomist with a degree in geology. After the military junta took power he was among the
founders of the rebel group and today he is the military leader of the Karenni guerrilla. Every year he gets the tally marks tattooed on his back as to remember his soldiers who fell in battle. Today 369 KNDF soldiers lost their
lives in the conflict.

Nay Lin Aung, a math teacher at Daw See Ei School, was teaching class on the morning of February 5, 2024, when the junta conducted an air raid that intentionally hit the school, killing four children and injuring dozens.
The teacher, after trying to shelter his students in the trenches that line the schoolyard, then tried to help the injured students and it was he who found the lifeless bodies of four of his students.

Mari-oo is 18 years old and one of the youngest members of the Burmese guerrillas. After his brother was killed by the junta’s military forces, the young man ran away from home to join the revolution. Before the coup Mari-oo
was a brilliant student who dreamed of working in the IT field. However today he admits his only wish is to return to school but only when his country will be free and at peace.

REVOLUTION IN MYANMAR

CARLO COZZOLI

Myanmar is a strategic country located between India and China in Southeast Asia. Civil war has been ongoing for more than three years, causing over 80,000 civilian deaths and displacing more than 2.6 million people — yet another conflict in a country shaken by violence since the military coup of February 1, 2021, when the Burmese army seized power and established one of the most brutal and repressive regimes of our time.

Today, the conflict pits the military junta — backed by Russia, China, and India — against an armed resistance movement composed mainly of young people in their twenties who abandoned their cities and former lives to fight in the mountains and jungles in an attempt to restore the democratic government overthrown by the coup. Many belong to Generation Z and are conquering new territories thanks in part to online tutorials, which they use to learn how to build homemade kamikaze drones, now among the leading causes of death on the front lines.

In the summer of 2024, I entered Myanmar clandestinely by illegally traveling up the Salween River after meeting contacts from the KNDF in Thailand, the rebel group controlling Karenni State. The journey lasted two days, crossing rivers, mountains, and jungle by car and even by elephant until reaching Demoso.

The hottest front for the KNDF was Loikaw, the capital of Karenni State, surrounded by rice paddies and dense jungle. During my stay, the city was lost and then retaken by military junta forces. I had the honor of following Commander Maui and his soldiers on the front lines, documenting the story of young men saving lives every day at the front, guided by a Buddhist spirit far removed from our imagination, while fighting junta soldiers, some of whom were captured and tied to pillories for months.

Today, Myanmar is one of the most inaccessible countries in the world for international media. To report on the struggle for democracy, journalists must secretly cross the jungle separating Thailand from Myanmar. In this land, religion is often used by the military junta as a pretext to destroy Christian places of worship, as well as schools and hospitals.

The efforts of these young guerrilla fighters, far from the spotlight of international media, have become emblematic of the struggle between authoritarianism and democracy in our era — between dictatorship and freedom. In the jungles of Myanmar, an entire generation is fighting its war for the future.

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REVOLUTION IN MYANMAR

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