NAYPYITAW, 05 September 2021, (TON): Hsaw Reh, a young Karenni man, said, who has joined the armed resistance against Myanmar’s military regime “we’re happy when we’re at war, but it’s not because we enjoy killing people.”

As a member of the Karenni Generation Z Army (KGZA), 22-year-old Hsaw Reh (not his real name) is part of a new movement that has emerged since the February 1 coup.

The KGZA, which operates as a unit of the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), consists mostly of younger people who had never even considered engaging in armed conflict before this year, despite growing up under military rule.

Before the army seized power, Hsaw Reh was happily pursuing a career as a teacher. He was studying at a college of education and working as a tutor when the tanks rolled into the capital Naypyitaw, crushing his generation’s hopes of a more democratic future.

I am fighting now with the intention of preventing this from happening again to the kids to come – Hsaw Reh, a Karenni resistance fighter

As much as that event changed everything for him and others who came of age during Myanmar’s decade-long era of relative freedom, his goal remains the same: to ensure that today’s children have better lives than those who came before them.