A-Infos (en) UK, AFEd: Organise - SONE MA A'POI: THE WITCH TEAM I. (1/2) (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A large cauldron bubbles on an open fire, steam rising from its round 
black base. In the corner a wooden broomstick leans against the wall, 
knobbly handle flowing down into a roughly tied collection of sticks 
poking out at odd angles. To the right of the cauldron a cluster of 
young women sprawl across the floor, surrounded by tape, wires and 
batteries. A bluetooth speaker blasts a rotating medley of Burmese pop, 
Chin alt-rock, and the worst American top-40 from ten years ago. To the 
left of the broomstick sits a fat, half empty sack of rice, and past 
that piled against the wall is a large stack of munitions, liberated 
from a nearby enemy base and reanimated with coat hangers and stripped 
copper wire. S., our munitions expert, sits cross-legged with her 
multimeter testing connectors, while our pilot shows one of the new 
girls how to connect antennas to the flying monkeys. I sit with a roll 
of packing tape, listening to it stretch and crackle over the music as I 
wrap drones, batteries and munitions together into a tight package, to 
be sent off tomorrow morning, express airmail. When we have finished 
prepping our drones for tomorrow I grab the broom from the corner and 
start sweeping up our workspace, while another girl checks the bubbling 
cauldron. The rice is almost ready, and the leftover curry from lunch is 
still warmish. We wash up and prepare to sit down for our evening meal.

After dinner the girls move into TikTok dances, a nightly ritual. They 
are a magnificent fusion of popular trends and traditional Chin and Mizo 
dances, flowing seamlessly into each other. The traditional Chin dance 
has a bird- like quality to it, a swooping and circling and flapping of 
arms that the girls tell me is meant to imitate the Great Hornbill, a 
sacred bird native to these mountains with deep cultural ties to the 
Chin and Mizo peoples. The Hornbill is everywhere here, on flags and 
patches and painted on buildings, and from the corner of your eye you 
can almost see it taking flight. I am much too old for TikTok dances, 
but I watch the girls as their laughter boils over, hotter than rice, 
and a warmth and softness settle in my chest. They are Sone Ma A'Poi, 
the Witch Team, casting spells from the mountaintops with a drone and a 
broomstick.

Sone Ma A'Poi is the first all-women's FPV drone team in Myanmar, and 
one of the first in the world. Though mostly Chin, women come from all 
over the country and even across the world to train and fight here. They 
are mostly in their late teens and early twenties, a selection bias 
probably related to the nature of the technology, and their fingertips 
crackle with what to my elder millennial eyes is clearly magic. "Sone Ma 
A'Poi," the Witch Team. Our youngest pilot chose the name. She loves to 
fly. It strikes me that the iconography associated with witches in the 
West-cauldrons, wooden brooms, etc.- is not only traditional tools of 
women's domestic labor, but also persistent technologies of indigenous 
daily life in many parts of the world. The demonization of "witches" has 
not only served to suppress women's traditional knowledge and power, it 
has also been one of many tools used to vilify and isolate indigenous 
lifeways, casting indigenous people as evil, uncivilized, ancient and 
frozen in time. The indigenous witches of the Chin hills are anything 
but ancient. They are explosive, burning with youth and life, drawing 
power from their sacred past and global present to forge new indigenous 
futures. They are the creators of indigenous modernity, and they are 
waging war against everything that stands in their way.

Every girl has a story that brought her here. Some came fleeing abusive 
homes, some were raised in families who have been in the revolution for 
generations, some are the sisters and daughters of martyrs, some spent 
years tortured in junta prisons, and some took to the streets of Yangon 
or Naypyidaw during the coup in 2021, and were driven to take up arms as 
they watched their comrades brutally gunned down at their sides. Their 
lives and stories are as diverse as the lands and cultures they come 
from, hailing from every corner of one of the most ethnically diverse 
countries in the world. Throughout time and across continents, mountains 
have been the destination of rebels, refugees, guerrillas, people 
escaping enslavement, repression, conscription and state violence, 
indigenous people resisting colonial encroachment, and those who refuse 
to be governed by state power. Even for those who remain in the 
lowlands, knowing that there are people living freely in the hills is a 
source of hope, a promise that another life is possible. From Nicaragua 
to Chiapas, Kurdistan to Zomia, the promise of a free life in the hills 
kindles a spark of resistance in the eyes of those who turn their gaze 
upward, to the horizon beyond the city.

Taking to the hills: shatter zones, EAOs and the Spring Revolution
On February 1, 2021, the world watched on Facebook as black vans rolled 
in behind Khing Hnin Wai as she recorded a fitness video in the streets 
of Naypyidaw. Behind the technopop and bouncing spandex, a military coup 
was under way that would displace the democratically elected National 
League for Democracy (NLD), restoring to power the military dictatorship 
that had ruled Burma/Myanmari for nearly 50 years before the NLD took 
office in 2011. Aung San Suu Kyi, charismatic figurehead and chairperson 
of the NLD, was arrested along with other key members of her cabinet, 
and remains in military detention at the time of writing in March 2026. 
ii A state of emergency was declared, curfews were imposed, dozens of 
ministers and deputies were deposed and detained, military generals 
reigned over the halls of parliament and tanks rolled through the 
streets of Naypyidaw.

The nation exploded. Within days, hundreds of thousands had taken to the 
streets of Naypyidaw, Yangon, Mandalay, and across the country. 
Industrial workers organized strikes, students led walkouts and 
boycotts, and community groups and organizations from every walk of life 
flooded the streets, rejecting the coup and refusing junta rule. 
Repression was swift and brutal. Civil protests were met with live fire, 
entire neighborhoods were placed under siege, internet and cell service 
were cut across the country, and raids and mass arrests terrorized 
protesters. Within the first two months over 700 protesters were 
killed,1 a number that would climb to over 7,000 over the coming years.2 
Popular resistance had less to do with love for the NLD and more to do 
with hatred for the military and its brutal repression. "Most of the 
people in the country knew[the NLD]wasn't real democracy," explains 
youth protester and photojournalist Andy in an interview with It Could 
Happen Here. "I think Aung San Suu Kyi used to be this hope that was the 
opposition against the military, but once she got power she couldn't do 
all the things she promised to do. Before we looked at her as hope for 
everyone, for all the ethnic groups in the country, but once she came to 
power she mainly focused on the Bamar people. The military was still 
killing people, killing ethnic groups, so for the ethnic groups, what's 
the difference?"3 But despite the NLD's failures, the Tatmadaw (Burmese 
military) was an unambiguous villain. The dictatorship's cruelty brought 
people into the streets, and the power of of collective solidarity kept 
them there. "I've never been to protests," Andy recounts, describing the 
early days of resistance after the coup. "When I went there, the first 
day I arrived there were 200,000 people on the street protesting. This 
big group of people walking street after street, and everyone coming out 
of their house and we have this symbol, three fingers, from Hunger Games 
I think, that's our symbol for democracy, for our movement, and everyone 
comes out of their house doing that, giving us water, food, everything. 
It was something else. From that day I was hooked. I was like ok, this 
is what I'm going to do now."4 The military dictatorship, which had 
oppressed and terrorized the people of Myanmar for decades, welcomed 
itself back to power with totalitarian fervor. In doing so, it stoked 
the fires of rebellion, and kindled solidarity among wildly diverse 
communities and sectors of society.

In the face of vicious repression, resistance escalated. What began 
mainly as strikes and peaceful protests evolved quickly into 
occupations, barricades, slingshots and molotovs. As the military used 
lethal force against unarmed protesters, the protesters began 
recognizing the need to arm themselves, to defend their comrades and 
communities against the junta's violence. Many young people started 
making homemade guns and building improvised explosive devices. The 
Tatmadaw eventually regained control of most major lowland cities, but 
resistance in the villages and countryside grew. Former leaders ousted 
during the February coup reconvened in April, forming the opposition 
National Unity Government (NUG) in exile, including its armed wing, the 
Peoples Defense Force (PDF). While many young people joined the PDF, the 
force was new, scattered, disorganized and inexperienced. Many more 
youth realized that if the budding resistance wanted to defeat the 
dictatorship, their best bet was to turn to the country's experts in 
revolution: the hundreds of indigenous ethnic minorities who have been 
waging war against Burmese colonization since before the creation of the 
Burmese state in 1948. Alex, a young Bamar revolutionary, explains in an 
interview with It Could Happen Here how most Bamar people are raised to 
see ethnic minorities, and especially the Ethnic Armed Organizations 
(EAOs) resisting in the mountains, as barbarians and terrorists. "Before 
this we had been brainwashed by the military pretty much our whole life. 
We always thought ethnic groups will kill us whenever they see us, they 
are just terrorists... and I was kind of scared to join them because I 
didn't know how to live there or if they were going to kill me just 
because I don't speak Karen."5 Yet despite these fears, he and hundreds 
of other Bamar youth went to train with the Karen National Union and 
other EAOs resisting in the mountains. "During my time there I did some 
observing of them," Alex explains. "It's not the Karen people fighting 
the military. The military has been invading Karen land, burning down 
their villages, raping the women, killing the people for many years. So 
they can't do anything except fight back. They have to fight back to 
protect their land."6

This shift in how Bamar youth understand the plight of ethnic minorities 
is transforming the landscape of the revolution. Like so many 
generations before them, young rebels and refugees are fleeing 
oppression in the lowlands, joining the barbarians in the shatter zones 
looming just beyond the horizon.

Zomia
In The Art of Not Being Governed, James C. Scott describes highland 
Southeast Asia as a shatter zone, a place of refuge where people have 
been fleeing states for thousands of years. He refers to the region as 
Zomia, the same Zo as in Zoland and Mizo, a native word used to refer to 
many of the peoples of this region, with "mi" meaning "people" in most 
local dialects. The geographic and social landscape of Zomia has made 
the territory virtually ungovernable, and for thousands of years native 
communities have resisted colonization by lowland paddy states, ancient 
empires, Burmese kings, British colonists, and now a brutal military 
dictatorship. The hundreds of ethnicities that have blossomed in these 
hills have not simply been a force outside of states. They have 
constructed themselves in direct opposition to statehood, creating 
social, agricultural, architectural, linguistic and political structures 
that resist colonization, reject statecraft and refuse state-formation.7 
I will not reiterate Scott's entire work here, but will direct readers 
to him for a more detailed historical analysis of these structures. His 
work is also available in audio, for those of us who prefer the medium.

Hidden in a bush with my eye pressed to a spotter scope, I can't help 
but conclude that Zomia remains as ungovernable as ever. I watch an 
enemy soldier struggling to figure out how he will carry his fat yellow 
water jug up a hill so steep it requires hands as well as feet to 
ascend. The zoom on this thing is so good I can see the sweat collecting 
on his brow. The enemy has sent over a thousand troops and spent 
millions of dollars to conquer this territory, yet a small and 
decentralized collection of guerrilla armies working in loose 
collaboration has held off the dictatorship for over a year now. The 
front line I am watching has not advanced in months, despite the 
unfathomable numeric and technical superiority of the enemy. We will do 
everything we can to prevent them from advancing, but even if they do, 
they will not be able to govern this land for long. They have never been 
able to.

The indigenous peoples of Zomia have not only resisted colonization for 
thousands of years, but have also been a refuge for lowlanders fleeing 
slavery, conscription, debt peonage, displacement, and state oppression. 
While Scott discusses this history in depth, I have the privilege of 
watching it in real time. After months learning the local indigenous 
dialect, a new wave of trainees has arrived, coming from as far as 
Yangon and Karen territory. Many are Bamar youth speaking Burmese, 
others are different indigenous groups speaking their own languages, but 
as Burmese is the shared second-language for most indigenous peoples, 
all our trainings and programming are now switching to Burmese. I feel 
like a baby, back at square one. There are new dishes being cooked now, 
and notably more fried foods. The banana fritters the Burmese comrades 
make go hard. Some of the comrades are simply here to be trained in 
sniping and FPV drones, and when finished will return to their own lands 
and armies. Others will undoubtedly stay. The communities of Zomia have 
for thousands of years been making and remaking themselves this way, 
absorbing refugees from the lowland states who have decided they are 
done being governed.

As Scott describes, ethnicity is a political construction. Ethnic 
categories are not static and eternal, but rather are constantly being 
created and recreated in relation to changing political circumstances. 
To be "ethnic" is itself a political positionality, an identity 
constructed in opposition to the dominant (non-ethnic) society. Scott 
describes the creation of the "tribe" as a schismogenic political 
position. The concept of "tribes" was created in contrast to its 
opposite, the "peasantry,"8 and in the context of 21st century 
urbanization increasingly to the urban "citizenry." While the 
peasant/citizen are state subjects entrenched in an agrarian or 
industrial economy, tribes exist at the fringes of civilization. They 
are the barbarians at the gates, or the terrorists in the mountains, and 
their existence gives dominant non- ethnic (read state subject) 
identities their unity and political coherence. To be ethnic is 
inherently a resistance positionality, a self-definition against the 
dominant society. It is, in a word, to be a terrorist. Nowhere is this 
clearer than in the case of the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs)iii 
that have been challenging Burmese state encroachment since the state's 
founding in 1948. Burma's formal independence from Britain and creation 
as a nation state coincided with the founding of the Karen National 
Union (KNU), an EAO demanding autonomy for Karen people in the mountains 
bordering Burma and Thailand. The KNU has been waging war against the 
Burmese government since 1949. The Kachin Independence Organization 
(KIO) in the Kachin territories bordering China and India has been 
fighting the Burmese state since 1961, and the Shan State Army was 
created in '64, a merger of several existing EAOs that had been fighting 
Burma since the '50s. There are 135 officially recognized ethnic groups 
in Myanmar, and 25 formally recognized EAOs, though in reality there are 
many more, especially since the coup in 2021.9 Many ethnic groups have 
multiple EAOs, some working in collaboration, others locked in conflict 
with each other as well as with the dictatorship. Within formally 
recognized EAOs there are many chapters and branches with varying 
degrees of autonomy, many operating independently on the scale of one or 
two villages with little coordination between local and centralized 
leadership.

The EAOs have been central players in Burmese politics for as long as 
the state has existed. They are not only crucial armed actors in the 
conflict, but also essential players in Burmese state narratives, and in 
the schismogenic construction of Burmese identity. They are the 
"terrorists in the hills," the barbarians against whom the "civilized" 
Burmese citizen can be imagined. Burmese identity has always been 
contested, especially given that ethnic minorities constitute a third of 
Myanmar's population. But the mythology of the "terrorists in the hills" 
has been under exceptional strain since the coup, as Bamar revolutionary 
youth and EAOs join forces against the dictatorship, and Bamar majority 
resistance groups take to the hills to train and fight.

Democratic Federalism
Framing the ongoing conflict in Myanmar as a "civil war" is a political 
move, one that presumes that the EAOs will eventually lose, and that 
their territories will be subsumed into the Burmese state. By framing 
the war as "civil," we naturalize the borders imposed by British 
colonists, and affirm the junta's claim to govern a singular, unified 
territory, invisiblizing its colonial expansionist aspirations. The 
resistance forces do not describe themselves as fighting in a civil war, 
but as waging revolution. While the political aspirations of EAOs are 
often reduced to "ethnonationalism" in public discourse, the reality is 
much more nuanced and complex. While some EAOs express explicit desire 
to establish a state, most emphasize broader ideas of independence, 
autonomy, self-governance, and democratic federalism.

While there are far too many EAOs to do a full textual analysis, a look 
at communications from some of the largest and most influential groups 
reveals both diversity and common themes. Shan State currently has more 
than 15 EAOs operating, representing a wide range of ethnicities and 
articulating many political platforms. Some collaborate, some are at war 
with each other, others both collaborate and wage war against each 
other, depending on the time, place and circumstance. Of all the 
different modes of engagement, this last one is probably the most 
common. Some are committed to full autonomy, others seek self-governance 
within some sort of democratic federation, others want a "two systems" 
model of dual governance with rival factions.10 The situation in 
Chinram, where I am fighting, is very similar. The Chin National Army 
(CNA), founded in 1988, has found itself in the company of over six new 
EAOs since the coup in 2021.11 These groups have shifted between various 
alliance formations, including the Chin Brotherhood (CB) in 2023 and the 
Chin People's Union (CPU) earlier this year (2026). While conflict 
between CNA and the newer EAOs formed since the coup has at times 
escalated to armed struggle, CNA and CB have been fighting together on 
the front line since the junta launched its renewed offensive in October 
of last year. The majority of my time here has been spent fighting side 
by side with both factions on the front line. Several of the witches 
with large social media followings have been working to help strengthen 
these alliances, posting joint CB/CNA selfies from the front and 
uplifting content advocating cooperation. While these developments are 
essential, it would be a mistake to dismiss the conflicts between Chin 
factions as simply "in-fighting." The divisions are rooted in 
contradictions that long predate any currently existing organizations. 
The war against the junta does not magically erase centuries of tribal 
politics, class conflict, and the myriad social contradictions that 
shape all human communities. There are wars within wars.

While the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) was once committed to 
the establishment of an independent state, its goals are now to "build a 
new union based on a federal system that ensures self-governance and 
self- determination, equality for all ethnic groups, and the right to 
share power and resources."12 While we could read this as a compromise 
or scaling back of ambition, to do so would be presumptive. We could 
just as easily read the shift away from statist aspirations as a 
reaction to the failures of 20th century state nationalism, and a desire 
to move toward more flexible and adaptive models. The former is only 
assumed because our current political paradigm assumes a priori the 
supremacy of the state form, and unquestioningly defines statehood as 
the goal of all independence movements. While the Karen National Union 
(KNU) explicitly calls for a state, it is demanded in the context of "a 
genuine Federal Union comprised of all the states of the nationalities 
in Burma on the basis of Liberty, Equality, Self-Determination and 
Social progress."13 Again we see self- determination and federalism as 
core tenets of the revolution's political aspirations, with an emphasis 
on communal autonomy and intercommunal cooperation.

Almost no EAO or other revolutionary group articulates a specific vision 
for what a federal system might look like. Western political 
commentators assume a priori that it will be a state formation, yet it 
is almost never explicitly described as such. While federalism is often 
understood to be a system of semi-autonomy united under a central 
federal government, decentralization and maximal autonomy are emphasized 
by every EAO I am aware of. Confederalism might be a better word for 
what most EAOs describe as their political goals. While similar in 
concept to federalism, confederalism generally emphasizes a greater 
degree of autonomy among federated members, and does not generally imply 
unity under a central governing body. While the idea of confederalism 
may be less accessible to most EAOs due to its relative global 
marginality, the concept more closely approximates the practical 
aspirations and expressed visions of indigenous revolutionaries across 
Myanmar. The Kurdish revolution, guided by the ideology of democratic 
confederalism as articulated by Abdullah Öcalan, has not missed this 
resonance, and has been actively cultivating solidarity with the 
revolution here. The solidarity flows both ways. Many of the 
revolutionaries here are deeply inspired by the Kurdish movement, and 
the works of Abdullah Öcalan have been translated into Burmese. The 
chant Amiudami Buah, Lu' Miau Jie, Burmese for Women, Life, Freedom, a 
central slogan of the Kurdish revolution, has become a daily incantation 
on the Witch Team.

This push against centralism and toward decentralized models that might 
be better understood as confederal becomes especially clear when we look 
at the differences between the EAO's articulations of federal democracy 
and the real structures and policies of the National League for 
Democracy over the course of their five years in power. The NLD also 
claimed to be building a federal democratic union, and yet its model for 
such a union was ultimately centralized governance under Bamar-majority 
rule, reinforcing policies and practices that infringed on the freedom, 
sovereignty and human rights of ethnic communities. As Alex and Andy 
discovered when they took to the hills to train with Karen 
revolutionaries, and as my Burmese comrades and I are learning here in 
Chinram, for ethnic communities, the NLD was mostly just more of the 
same. They continued the junta's policies of expansionism, land 
annexation, and resource confiscation, and the NLD's talk of 
self-determination for ethnic communities was mostly just that-talk. 
Because of this legacy, partnership between the EAOs and the National 
Unity Government has progressed cautiously. While the NUG's charter 
expresses commitment to ethnic self- determination under a federal 
democratic framework, the reality that the NUG is led primarily by NLD 
leaders in exile has caused many EAOs to approach collaboration 
carefully, forging utilitarian alliances while taking care to protect 
their autonomy.

Returning to the lowlands
We have discussed how lowlanders have been fleeing to the hills for 
centuries. A powerful development since 2021 is that the hills are also 
coming to the lowlands. The revolution has seen a blossoming of Bamar- 
majority revolutionary organizations going to the hills to train, and 
then bringing the war back home. Most of these organizations share 
similar demands to the EAOs: communal autonomy, self-determination, 
equality and federal democracy. Foremost among these is the Bamar 
People's Liberation Army (BPLA). BPLA is unique in describing itself as 
an EAO for Bamar people. In doing so it challenges the foundations of 
Bamar supremacy by situating Bamar people as one of many ethnic groups, 
indigenous to some but not all parts of Myanmar. According to Maung 
Saungkha, an activist, poet and chief commander of the BPLA, "among the 
objectives of the Bamar People's Liberation Army are to end the 
dominance of Bamar Buddhists over other ethnic groups and to strengthen 
the unity of Myanmar's diverse ethnic groups under a federal democratic 
union."14 Formed after the coup in 2021 in response to the brutal 
repression they faced as street protesters, Saungkha and 16 of his 
comrades went to the hills to train with the KNU. In doing so they 
gained not only military knowledge and experience but also a deeper 
understanding of the plight of ethnic minorities and the consequences of 
Bamar supremacy. The decision to found their own specifically Bamar EAO 
was an assertion of both self-determination and ethnic solidarity. "We 
established the BPLA as an ethnic Bamar armed group and not a group 
under the NUG's command," Saungkha explains. In doing so they sought to 
"prove that we Bamar are equal to other ethnic groups in Myanmar and 
ready to build a union in equality." After three years training and 
fighting in the mountains, they returned in 2024 to fight in Bamar 
majority areas in the lowlands of central Myanmar. "We are a Bamar armed 
group and we always wanted to be based in Bamar-majority territory," 
Saungkha asserted in a 2024 interview. "Some say that the BPLA is moving 
to central Myanmar but this is wrong: we are returning." 15

Another key player in the Bamar-majority resistance is the Student Armed 
Force (SAF). Students played a leading role in the 1988 uprisings, and 
have continued this legacy through the Spring Revolution, leading 
strikes, protests and street resistance. The first casualty of what 
would become the Spring Revolution was a 20-year-old student, shot by 
junta forces in Naypyidaw. The SAF was particularly active in Yangon, 
and after experiencing brutal military repression turned to the Arakan 
Army for support and training. While less focused on federalism and 
indigenous autonomy, they express a commitment to "fight[ing]in alliance 
with all oppressed people who are trying to create their own destiny," 
16 a softer echo of the same themes. Then there's the Buffalo Soldiers 
Freedom Force, iv operating in the lowland Bamar majority areas of 
Sagaing and Shwe Bo. Their trajectory was similar to the SAF, engaging 
in street protests until the military's violent repression led them to 
the hills to train with the KNU. "Our main goals are self-determination 
and federalism, which many ethnic groups have wanted for a long time," a 
spokesperson for the group explains in an interview with the Yangon 
Anarchist Association. "A lot of young revolutionaries, mostly working 
class, have traveled far to get military training from different rebel 
groups, including us." The interviewee goes on to assert that "we 
believe that in a democracy, power belongs to the people. That's 
fundamental. Personally, I prefer the grassroot participatory democracy, 
a more libertarian system."17 The Buffalo Soldiers emphasize that they 
are not affiliated with the NUG and do not support any one political 
party, but rather are focused on building their military capacity and 
defeating the dictatorship. There is also the communist People's 
Liberation Army, inactive for over 30 years, that has reactivated since 
the 2021 coup. They are currently fighting in the jungle alongside the 
EAOs, and are focused primarily on building alliances and strengthening 
their military capabilities, with far less emphasis on political 
ideology.18 In addition to these groups there are countless autonomous 
"People's Defense Forces" that use the name but are not actually under 
the command of the NUG. PDF Zoland here in the Chin hills is one such 
group. They are a local, youth-led, grassroots resistance force 
organizing autonomously to defend themselves against the dictatorship, 
in close collaboration with other local EAOs. There is no direct line of 
communication or chain of command with the NUG. Rather, the idea of the 
"PDF" is a symbol of the resistance born during the 2021 coup. This 
resistance has a life of its own, and its spirit reaches far beyond the 
control of the NUG or any other central governing body.

Coalitions ---- EAOs and Bamar-majority revolutionary organizations have 
formed a wide range of alliances. These formations have been diverse, 
complex and sometimes tumultuous, and are constantly shifting and 
evolving. While there have been significant challenges and sometimes 
bloody conflict within and between alliances, these coalitions have 
ultimately been the lifeblood of the revolution, giving shape, structure 
and power to a wildly diverse collection of resistance forces. Though 
practical and at times utilitarian, these coalitions are not just 
temporary tools to accomplish specific goals. They are a form of 
intercommunal praxis, creating a lived experience of federal cooperation 
that can set the stage for a functional federated union or other 
confederal structure.

One such coalitional is the General Strike Committee of Nationalities 
(GSCN), formed in 2021 in response to the coup. The GSCN is a coalition 
of 31 ethnic groups, and has played a leading role in street protests 
and the Civil Disobedience Movement. Their statements highlight for the 
broader anti-coup movement how ethnic minorities have been repressed by 
and have been resisting the government in Myanmar long before 2021. "For 
some, the nightmare has returned, but for ethnic people, the nightmare 
never stopped," declares Karen activist Esther Wah in a public statement 
on behalf of the GSCN. "But just as our nightmare did not start with the 
coup, neither did our struggle." She goes on to outline the demands of 
the GSCN: "release political detainees, abolish the dictatorship, 
abolish the 2008 Constitution, and build a federal democratic union 
based on equality and the right to self-determination."19 Among the 
EAOs, coalitions and alliances constitute the basic organizational 
structure of the revolution. Most EAOs are a member of several, with new 
ones forming every few months. While there are far too many to list 
here, one major one worth naming is the Three Brotherhood Alliance, 
comprised of three of the largest EAOs: Arakan Army, Myanmar National 
Democratic Alliance Army, and Ta'ang National Liberation Army. Formed in 
2019, its creation marked a significant development for the resistance. 
In October of 2023 they launched Operation 1027, a massive offensive 
against the Tatmadaw in northern Shan State. This offensive has made 
significant gains against the enemy, and has received overwhelming 
support from revolutionary organizations across Myanmar.

If the Three Brotherhood Alliance represents coordination between the 
largest resistance organizations, the Spring Revolution Alliance (SRA) 
represents the opposite side of the spectrum. Formed in December 2025, 
the SRA brings together 19 smaller armed resistance groups, operating 
independently of the NUG and the "Big Beasts," Myanmar's large and long- 
established EAOs. Among the members of this coalition are the Karenni 
Nationalities Defense Force, Bamar People's Liberation Army, Chin 
Brotherhood, Danu People's Liberation Front and Student Armed Force. 
"Now the junta is preparing to stage a sham election, and some major 
ethnic armies are entering ceasefire arrangements, so smaller, more 
scattered resistance groups like ours need a coordinated path forward," 
explained Khun Bedu, a prominent Karenni activist, KNDF leader and SRA 
spokesperson in an interview just before the 2025 sham election.20 
Through our partnerships our team is closely connected to this new 
formation. We are excited for the opportunity to share our skills and 
grow our work, and for the broader political possibilities this 
independent alliance opens. There may be some new witches in the making 
soon.

Fourth World Resistance: indigenous autonomy and intercommunalism on 
ungovernable lands
The conflict in Myanmar is viewed as chaotic and incomprehensible in the 
West because it does not fit into the paradigms of Western colonial 
politics. Neither liberalism nor Western leftism can grasp the conflict, 
because the Left/Right binary we imagine as universal and absolute does 
not meaningfully map onto the local political landscape. Attempts to 
superimpose the model obscure more than they clarify. But viewed through 
the lens of indigeneity and indigenous resistance, the conflict has 
remarkable political coherence and global resonance.

As discussed previously, ethnicity has always been a resistance 
positionality. But the history of 19th and 20th century ethnonationalist 
revolutions has reshaped our understanding of the term. While once 
synonymous with tribality, ethnicity is now almost always assumed to be 
nationalistic and striving towards statehood. Nationalism itself is 
assumed a priori to be statist, whether or not it articulates itself as 
such, and whether or not the lived realities of the societies involved 
are anything like a state. In this context, adopting the framework of 
indigeneity is useful because it rearticulates the terms of struggle. 
Indigeneity refuses the state's narrative of "minority separatism," and 
instead frames the conflict in terms of global anticolonial resistance. 
Indigeneity reframes the discourse to more accurately account for what 
is being contested: relationships to land, community, state and society.

Like ethnicity, indigeneity is a political positionality. It is a 
relationship to both land and social organization, and though invariably 
a resistance position, it is not simply schismogenic or oppositional. It 
is a critique, a proposal, and a lived reality, a collection of worlds 
within worlds locked in an ontological battle for the soul of humanity's 
future. Indigeneity rejects the entire colonial world order, including 
the limits of its political binaries and social imaginations. It 
proposes radically different political structures, forms of sociality, 
and relationships to land and life.

George Manuel describes indigeneity as the Fourth World, a world that 
already exists within and against the existing colonial world. Its 
foundation is self-determination, and its practice is intercommunality. 
Indigeneity centers cooperation without incorporation, and practices 
interdependence built on respect for the autonomy of diverse 
communities. It is by definition multitudinous, the living manifestation 
of the Zapatista demand for un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos, a world 
where many worlds can fit. "The route to be followed to the Fourth World 
will be as diverse and varied as are the Indian tribes," Manuel asserts. 
"The Fourth World is not, after all, a Final Solution. It is not even a 
destination. It is the right to travel freely, not only on our road but 
in our own vehicles."21

While not necessarily anti-nationalist, indigeneity is a position 
against the state. It is a critique of 20th century Third World 
movements that imagined victory as the mere establishment of independent 
states, modeled after colonial governments and understood through 
colonial political paradigms. As Vine Deloria Jr. describes in her 
forward to The Fourth World: An Indian Reality, "[Manuel]rebels at the 
thought of the national state which is so rigid and shortsighted as to 
attempt to substitute 'citizenship'... for the living cultural 
traditions of peoples."22 Manuel argues that "no contemporary political 
and economic structure has to be,"23 and that political structures must 
reflect and serve the communities they shape, rather than imitating 
models imposed by colonization. The Fourth World does not seek 
state-formation but self-determination, a project rooted in indigenous 
epistemologies and shaped by indigenous lifeways. In doing so, "the 
Third World will no longer need to imitate and compete with the European 
empires from which they have so recently escaped."24 The Fourth World 
critique of Third World politics comes from indigenous peoples excluded 
from Third World liberation movements due to their geographic location 
under the boot of settler colonies like the US and Canada. That said, 
its application in so-called Third World contexts sheds light on the 
perceived chaos and "civil wars" that followed formal decolonization in 
most of the world. The newly liberated Third World "nations" have never 
been singular, unified nations. Rather they are an amalgamation of 
indigenous communities with a diverse array of cultures and lifeways, 
and with their own histories of conflict, power, and colonial relations. 
The modern nation state of Burma (now Myanmar) was imposed on a 
territory already enmeshed in centuries of conflict and colonial 
struggle between lowland paddy states controlled by the Bamar majority 
(itself a politically constructed and contested category) and a wide 
range of mountain peoples whose land, resources and freedom were 
constantly encroached upon, and whose communities straddle the 
colonially imposed borders with India, China, Thailand and Bangladesh. 
To imagine that a Bamar nationalist project which had failed to conquer 
these mountains for hundreds of years could suddenly peacefully govern a 
unified Burmese ethnostate because the British sanctioned their 
"independence" is absurd and ahistorical.

A Fourth World framework allows us to understand this conflict within 
the context of its own colonial history and relations. Rather than 
imagining the peoples of Burma as a unified front against a monolithic 
Western imperialist enemy, we can situate them within a multifaceted 
matrix of colonial encroachment, class conflict, shifting regional 
alliances, intertribal relations, intercommunal cooperation, struggles 
for autonomy and competing visions of indigenous futures. The forces of 
indigenous resistance were fighting in these mountains long before 1948. 
They are alive and evolving, and are crafting indigenous modernity at 
the intersections of colonial violence and Fourth World resistance.

An essential intervention indigenous people are making in this 
revolution is a historical grounding in this longer history of 
colonization. In a statement on behalf of the General Strike Committee 
of Nationalities, Esther Wah, an indigenous Karen activist, describes 
how the war on indigenous peoples and theft of indigenous lands across 
Myanmar has not only been perpetrated by the junta, but also by the 
National League for Democracy, the elected government headed by Aun Sang 
Suu Kyi and disposed in the 2021 coup. The NLD spearheaded policies such 
as the Farmland Law and the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Land Management 
Law in 2012, authorizing mass annexation of indigenous lands and 
displacement of indigenous peoples. "Land confiscation by the government 
and private companies became legalised," Wah explains. "Land grabbing 
and natural resource extraction increased in ethnic areas that were 
subject to decades of brutal offensives by the military... Our customary 
lands were categorised as 'vacant,' as though we did not exist, and were 
subsequently handed out to private companies or local officials to 
control and exploit as they wished. Customary land tenure and rights, 
integral to our survival, have never been protected under Myanmar 
law."25 This story, familiar to indigenous peoples all over the world, 
is a trademark of settler colonialism. The use of "nationalization" laws 
to facilitate the transfer of indigenous land, waters, timber and 
mineral resources to state and private actors is a colonial strategy 
displacing Fourth World peoples across the so-called First and Third Worlds.

Much of the language used by Manuel to describe the Fourth World echoes 
language used by EAOs to describe their political platform. Manuel 
proposes "the principle of 'home rule' institutionalized through some 
form of federalism or treaty-relationship"26 and argues that "an 
integration of free communities and the free exchange of people between 
those communities according to their talents and temperaments is the 
only kind of confederation that is not an imperial domination."27 He 
uses the term "cooperative federalism"28 to describe such a 
relationship. This language echoes the language and practice of most 
EAOs, as discussed in the previous section. Their emphasis on 
self-governance, self-determination, autonomy and some form of federal 
democracy is a living manifestation of Manuel's "cooperative 
federalism," with all the messiness, conflict and complication involved 
in building such systems. The exact shape of these systems must, by 
definition, be created by the participants, through compromise, 
generative conflict and democratic collaboration.

The absence of a clearly articulated shared political vision is one of 
the main criticisms the revolution in Myanmar gets from the outside 
world, both from the liberal political establishment and from the Left. 
It is an old complaint "we know what you are against, but what are you 
for?" This criticism ignores the fact that negative solidarity may in 
fact be the strongest base for intercommunal resistance and Fourth World 
sovereignty. We are not fighting for a single, unified world in which we 
are all "for" the same thing. We are fighting for "a world where many 
worlds can fit," as the Zapatistas say. Many worlds, but not all of 
them. There are many worlds we stand firmly against-the worlds of the 
colonizer, the white supremacist, the homophobe, the patriarch. It is 
precisely our negative solidarity that unites us without unifying us, 
allowing us to cooperate across difference, creating a base for 
respectful inclusion while maintaining communal autonomy. Anti-politics 
is a common thread in many 21st century indigenous revolutions, and may 
be the strongest basis for indigenous modernity.

Whether or not visions for the future of these lands imagine themselves 
as existing under a central state, we must account for the more 
fundamental question of what is actually possible here. No central state 
has ever been able to effectively govern this territory. Non-state 
social organization has been the daily reality here for thousands of 
years, and this legacy shapes people's daily practices and political 
imaginations. In the West, non-state social forms are often described as 
utopian and unrealistic. Here, it may be that a singular, centralized 
state at peace with itself is the utopian and unrealistic fantasy. 
Regardless of intention, the revolution here is not creating a new state 
or states. It is creating a new framework for indigenous autonomy and 
intercommunalism, a world of many worlds. The revolutionary experiments 
unfolding in Myanmar are discovering what it could mean to build such a 
world. And where better to do so than in an ungovernable land?

/2

https://organisemagazine.org.uk/2026/08/19/sone-ma-apoi-the-witch-team/
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