A pair of speakers, matching in size with the guys toting them, are delivered to the stony summit. A large Myanmar army facility is located in the town of Hpasang, around 800 meters below the surface.
It's a scorching hot day—above 40 degrees Celsius—and additional youthful resistance fighters are positioned behind on bamboo poles, toting a bulky, hefty battery pack and amplifier. Nay Myo Zin, a former army captain who joined the resistance after serving for 12 years, is leading the climb.
He had the appearance of a performer ready to go on stage, especially with his dark green camouflage jacket slung over one shoulder. He is here to persuade the country's governing military's loyalist troops on the base below to change sides.
Two groups are engaged in combat in this deep jungle in the eastern region of Karenni state, Myanmar. The conflict has, in one form or another, lasted for decades. However, the resistance's quick progress in recent months suggests that they could be winning this time.
The country of South East Asia is at a crossroads: ethnic groupings and a new army of youthful rebels have driven the dictatorship to the brink of collapse after decades of military control and terrible persecution.
Between half and two thirds of the nation have been overtaken by the resistance in the last seven months. Thousands of people have died, many of them young children, as a result of the military taking over in a coup in 2021. About 2.5 million people have been forced to flee, and the military is dealing with an unparalleled threat to its authority. In an effort to blunt the increasing opposition, its airplanes often strike homes, schools, and churches (the resistance has none of these).
The army fires on Nay Myo Zin's location before his sound equipment is turned on.
Undeterred, he yells, "Everyone, cease fire!" while flicking the switch and holding the microphone. Please put out the fire. Just give it a listen for ten or five minutes. Surprisingly enough, the assault ends.
He informs them about the recent rebel drone strikes on military installations in Napidaw, the nation's capital, and the 4,000 troops who submitted to the resistance in northern Shan State. It's time to quit up because we are winning and your dictatorship is collapsing.
Battles and deadlocks have taken root in Hpasang and across Karenni state, as well as throughout most of the nation, as a massive rolling insurrection poses a danger to the military junta's power. The elected civilian government was overthrown by a military coup in 2021, and Aung San Suu Kyi, along with other political figures, is still imprisoned.
Nonetheless, this fight goes unreported since the world's focus is mostly on the Israel-Gaza conflict and the situation in Ukraine. There is no freedom of the press; international journalists are closely watched when they are permitted formal entry. Through visits authorized by the government, it is impossible to hear the opposition side of this narrative.
We crossed into Myanmar and lived with resistance groups battling throughout Shan State, which borders China, and Karenni State, which borders Thailand, for a month in the country's east.
We traveled via backroads and jungle trails to the front lines, where, like to Hpasang, the fighters hold the high ground and the military has been trapped and shut off for weeks. In some places, like Moebye, which is located farther north, the resistance has lost a great deal of ground to frontal attacks across highly mined territory. The power of the insurrection and its limits are evident there as well as at Loikaw, the state capital.
The opposition in Hpasang has been holding out for the better part of the day, sure of their advantage. another 100 additional troops are thought to be wounded or dead, and another 80 men have been besieged within the camp for more than a month.
Nay Myo Zin advocates for surrender over his megaphone from the mountaintop, saying, "We have surrounded you." There's no chance that a helicopter will arrive. Support from ground troops? No. You have today to choose whether you want to join the people's side.
From the military camp below, there is quiet.
Nay Myo Zin exhorts them to desert from Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the junta that is in power.
"I'm confident that none of your lives will be lost. This is the greatest assurance I can provide. Don't be stupid, then. Until your last breath, would you rather defend the tyrannical riches of Min Aung Hlaing? I'm waiting to greet you right now.
After a little while, the only sound coming from the hilltop is that of flies buzzing, as if the junta soldiers are thinking on how to react. It's not an easy choice; if they give up and go back to places under military rule, they would very likely get a death sentence.
Their response is clear and loud. The rebels start to run for cover as they open fire on the rocky outpost once again. Today there will be no giving up.
Still, Nay Myo Zin doesn't stop transmitting. On the other hand, the person in charge of the base capture operation takes a different tack over the radio. He insults the military personnel on the same frequency as they do.
He accuses them of being disloyal to their nation and of serving as Min Aung Hlaing's guard dogs in a torrent of insults.
The troops answer with their own insults. Cut off from food and manpower supplies, they maintain their position, steadfast in their conviction that the military has a right and an obligation to govern the nation.
There is no way to bridge the ideological divide on either side.
After about half an hour, the resistance fighters stop using the carrot and stick strategy.
Nay Myo Zin accidentally revealed the men's location ("I'm 400 yards away beside the loudspeakers," he stated) in his passionate plea for surrender, and they are now fearing a mortar or artillery attack. Subsequently that night, the hillside is struck directly, but nobody is hurt.
This is a generational fight, not merely an intellectual conflict. The younger generation is battling against the established system, a new order trying to overthrow a stubborn old order. The linked elite against the disengaged. The same young people who believe that this is their moment after hearing stories of failed revolutions.
Following fifty years of military control, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy led a short democratic experiment in Myanmar beginning in 2015.
Even while they weren't without serious issues, those years were seen by many as an all too brief period of unparalleled freedom. They had been let down by the voting booth, and when they peacefully protested after the coup, they were confronted with arrests and deaths. Many of those engaged in combat told us that taking up guns was their only option.
Numerous professionals, including surgeons, mathematicians, and martial artists, have given up their education and employment in large cities like Yangon in order to join well-established ethnic and resistance organizations that have long fought military government.
Every combatant on this front is younger than 25.
22-year-old Nam Ree of the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) recounts his motivation for joining the rebellion.
"The dogs," a term of abuse used often by the armed forces, have not been just. They executed an illegal military takeover. The young are not happy with it, he claims.
He had on a Barcelona FC shirt, faded combat pants, flip-flops, blue nail polish, and an ammunition belt. The majority of the individuals around him do not own a ballistic helmet. Nobody has body armor.
Following the coup, a new army of youthful leaders and combatants emerged, known as the KNDF. For many years, ethnic armed groups in Karenni, often called Kayah state, have fought the military. On the battlefield, however, the KNDF has given them victory and solidarity.
On October 27, of last year, an alliance of organizations in the country's north took control of military posts and border crossings, turning the tide against the junta. Since then, the armed opposition has taken control of dozens of towns around the nation. While it still maintains authority over the major towns, the military is losing ground in the countryside and along Myanmar's frontiers.
Ninety percent of the Karenni state is now under the hands of the KNDF and other rebel factions. Despite being the smallest in the nation, it has developed into a staunchly anti-government hub.
Maui Pho Thaike, the tattooed and massively muscular deputy commander of the KNDF, is seated under a mango grove. He is an environmentalist who studied in the US and started shooting three years ago.
He claims that the military junta is the oppressor of the nation's many ethnic areas and does not recognize it as a legitimate government.
He claims that the nation is now engaged in combat with the army.
"The tactics are evolving. Now, every strike is coordinated," he claims.
Although there are many of combatants in the KNDF, supplies of guns and ammunition are severely lacking. Most of the insurgency's funding comes from contributions made by the nation's diaspora.
"We certainly possess sufficient heart, morals, and compassion. We're going to beat them that way," Maui declares.
He has a tattoo on his hand that says "free thinker" from a previous era, when Myanmar was temporarily attempting an unsuccessful transition to democracy. I ask him, Are you still a free thinker? "Not in this uniform," he answers. But I'm a free guy without this outfit. That is our objective. We'll make it once again.
Entering Myanmar is like traveling to a nation cut off from the outside world, not simply a forgotten conflict. In Karenni state, a large portion of the internet, mobile phone network, and energy supply has been cut off. Despite being behind, the military nevertheless maintains control over the state's major thoroughfares because to its residual facilities.
Driving from Hpasang farther north to the town of Demoso, which is 60 km (37 miles) away, took nearly 10 hours due to the rutted dirt routes, hills, rivers, and valleys.
When we got there, the adjacent town of Moebye was the scene of a botched attempt to attack a military installation, which resulted in the deaths of 27 resistance fighters.
Young KNDF members sleep on hospital beds on dirt flooring at a jungle hospital. While some offer a thumbs up and grin, the majority lack limbs.
Following the base assault, Aung Ngle, 23, sustained shrapnel to his femoral artery, resulting in an extremely enlarged left leg. He is too unwell to converse, but as he starts to grieve, three of his colleagues approach to him, hugging and soothing him. He will have to go to Thailand for more treatment since they won't be able to operate on him. I ask the doctor whether he's going to make it. "He'll be alright," he assures. But because he is no longer able to fight, I believe that he is now despondent.
This is, in many ways, a very different kind of conflict—brutal and personal. Days of close-quarters battle in Moebye saw frontal infantry attacks uphill against military fortifications.
A guy has several injuries on his stomach, hands, and legs. He claims that a hand grenade was the cause of them. When it came in, they had gone to get a commander who had been struck in the leg. He states, "It was at close range, about thirty feet."
We saw firsthand the increasing intensity of the conflict when we ventured farther north into the southern Shan state, in the direction of the town of Hsihseng. A counteroffensive was in progress nearby as the military attempted to seize the still-disputed path to Loikaw, the state capital.
Though it is not their state, the KNDF, commanded by a warrior known as Darthawr, is in the lead. Like many of his soldiers, he has scars from past assaults; one is a dark red scar that protrudes from beneath his T-shirt.
He tells me, "For us, defending this place is like defending our home." Neither he nor his troops are wearing body armor, and he is dressed in shorts and flip flops. Neither do we.
He shows out the military's positions, which are 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) distant, while we stand on a low hilltop near a banana plantation. As the shells start to drop close by, people rush to some small trenches. The rounds, which are probably mortars, keep approaching, increasing nearer. There's a prolonged exchange of close-quarters automatic gunfire; it sounds like the troops are far closer than previously believed.
It's not long before we realize that some troops are navigating a minefield to get to our position. As we go, the bombardment continues, with a mortar hitting the road in front of our cars at a high speed.
Darthawr said, "They are shooting everywhere at random because their troops got injured."
KNDF Commencement
Rank after rank of new recruits march by in formation during a graduation ceremony held on a parade area stripped of jungle vegetation and baked hard with soil. With their rubber-soled canvas boots kicking up the dust, they praise the KNDF leadership. The English song "Warrior" is being marched to by the young men and women, many of whom have just turned eighteen. The lyrics:
Though I go last, I am the first to depart.
Lord, please let me die before you age me.
As a soldier, I'm moving forward.
This is my song and I am a fighter.
More than 500, a record number of recruits, are there. Due to a conscription edict issued by the junta, which sent hundreds of young people escaping to rebel territory in order to join the revolutionary cause, the ranks have swelled.
The soldiers were practicing with bamboo guns when I last saw them. They now own the actual item.
Maui, their leader, informs me that training time is limited. "Our plan is to organize a month of intense training before we go into battle."
After the ceremony, there's a raucous atmosphere. The newly recruited members go into a frenzy of dancing and rejoicing when they see MC Kayar Lay, a young rapper who also graduated that day.
It's hard to say where the rebellion will end. This is an existential conflict that is becoming more and more violent and resentful for both sides. It seems like there is no turning back.
We returned to Hpasang after a duration of three and a half weeks. The army base remained, albeit it had been on the verge of being overrun by the opposition when I departed.
After the military attempted to send in around 100 men as reinforcements, only 57 of them were caught after a confrontation with the rebels; the other troops either died or escaped.
Although the army was unable to replenish the base, there was an additional outcome from their meeting with the opposing troops. It indicated that the armed rebels had run out of ammunition and were unable to assault the outpost.
Three of the teenage fighters we had met previously had died and ten more had been injured when army warplanes blasted the mountaintop overlooking Hpasang the day before we arrived.
Previously, they had been singing and playing music from their locations along the expansive Salween River, demonstrating an almost carefree readiness to wait out their adversary.
But suddenly things felt gloomier; it didn't seem like there would be any more pleas for capitulation. From now on, it would be a fight to the death.
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