Karen State, Myanmar – Thaw Hti was a tiny speck amid a march of hundreds of thousands that snaked its way through the streets of Yangon in 2021, demanding a return to democracy after the Myanmar military seized power.
“We had signboards and they had guns,” she said, recounting with bitterness the events of March 2021.
In the intervening four years, much has changed for Thaw Hti and her generation in Myanmar.
After the military slaughtered hundreds in bloody crackdowns on those pro-democracy protests, young people fled to territory controlled by ethnic armed groups in Myanmar’s border regions with Thailand, India and China.
Thaw Hti went, too.
Ethnically part Karen, her choice was obvious.
She sought refuge with 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 Myanmar’s eastern Karen State, also known as Kayin State.
Speaking during an interview with Al Jazeera in …