Resistance Chinland
Words and photography
by Ivan Ogilvie.
2024-2026.
“This revolution will be successful — where we will live in a country ruled by a new government, a good and fair constitution where truth and justice prevail. Where there is no discrimination among people, whether they are rich or poor,” Gideon told me, standing in the first of five battalions he now commands in the mountains of Chin State, western Myanmar.
Gideon is the Chief Commander of the People’s Defence Forces Zoland (PDF Zoland), a revolutionary militia which he formed in 2021 following a military coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government and led to the ongoing chaos that has engulfed the country.
In 2024, as I spent time embedded with his newly formed army, Gideon vowed: “We will fight to the end to win freedom for our people and our land… Chinland.”
I had come to Chin State to document the liberation of Tedim, one of the state’s seven townships and a crucial trade route between Myanmar and India.
PDF Zoland had seized control of half of Tedim Town, while the junta’s 269th Light Infantry Battalion was besieged within their base atop a small hill on the town’s outskirts.
For more than half a century, Myanmar’s Bamar-dominated military has ruled through repression and war.
In Chin State, Gideon and his fellow revolutionaries are closer than ever to making the dream of self-determination a reality.
That idea of self-determination is inseparable from Chin history itself.
The Chin people have long maintained a distinct identity from the Burman majority in Myanmar’s lowlands. After Britain annexed Upper Burma in 1885 and extended colonial rule into the frontier hills, these upland communities were placed under separate colonial administrations. Today they remain divided across western Myanmar, India’s Mizoram state and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of southern Bangladesh.
Gideon is from the Myanmar side, Chin State, a remote, mountainous region that rises sharply from the lowlands and runs westward to the Indian border. Chin State is Myanmar’s poorest region, shaped by its isolation, limited infrastructure and lack of natural resources. Its people are predominantly Christian, a rarity in the Buddhist-majority country, and their distinct identity has long set them apart politically and culturally.
Like many ethnic groups in Myanmar’s borderlands, the Chin were converted to Christianity by missionaries throughout the 1800s. Gideon is keen to stress that religion plays no part in the current revolution.
“We are not fighting based on religion, ethnicity, region or political party. Our fight is against a system that is not serving the needs of the over 50 million people of Myanmar. We are striving for the freedom and rights of everyone,” he told me. The same vision is reflected in PDF Zoland’s alliances with several non-Christian revolutionary groups.
The coup of 2021 shattered Myanmar’s brief democratic opening. When soldiers opened fire on protesters in Yangon and Mandalay, many of the country’s young democracy activists fled to the borderlands. There, in the hills and jungles long home to ethnic insurgencies, they picked up weapons and formed the People’s Defence Forces — a loose but determined network of militias united by a single goal: removal of the military regime.
In many ways, they were following a familiar path. Myanmar has a long and turbulent history of uprisings and armed conflict between the military junta and a patchwork of ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) that control much of its borderlands. To many outside observers, the current fighting appears to be a continuation of this decades-old struggle. But in Chin State, the revolutionaries I met speak of something fundamentally different.
Most are young, often university educated. Many had tasted a few short years of relative freedom and prosperity under Aung San Suu Kyi’s government before the coup slammed the door shut. Unlike previous generations of fighters, they are not driven by ethnic nationalism, nor are they seeking to join the ranks of Myanmar’s traditional EAOs. Most are of mixed ethnicity and united by a political, rather than ethnic vision.
Historically, Myanmar’s traditional EAOs have often fought within fixed boundaries, coexisting uneasily with the junta for decades.
While some still uphold revolutionary ideals and have played important roles in the current uprising, others have engaged in a vision of federalism that includes the junta. Over time, several have shifted away from political struggle altogether, evolving into organisations driven more by profit than ideology, sustained by Myanmar’s sprawling illicit trade in narcotics, jade, and timber, among other resources.
The Chin National Army (CNA), the oldest EAO in Chin State, has long advocated for self-determination. Yet despite its decades-long presence, the group’s influence has remained limited.
After signing ceasefire agreements with the junta in 2012 and 2015, CNA has taken little territory from the military, including in the years since the 2021 coup. For Gideon and others, that record raises questions about CNA’s revolutionary commitment.
For many like Gideon, this revolution is not just another chapter in a protracted civil war — it is a break from the past, an opportunity for real change. “We, PDF Zoland, are waging a war on a rotten system; we are not fighting because we hate them or simply want war. We are fighting for the future of our Zogam (Chinland), Zomi (Zo People), for the future of our next generation.”
Before the coup, Gideon lived as an undocumented migrant worker in Malaysia, cooking in restaurant kitchens and sending his earnings home to support his impoverished family in Tedim. Now, for Gideon, the revolution is everything. His humble beginnings are etched into his quiet determination — a deep-rooted commitment to lifting his people and building a better future for the next generation.
“Instead of just saying ‘federal democracy,’ I hope for a system that best suits the people and nature of Myanmar, a system that benefits from good governance. A system that does not create a massive division among the rich and the poor. One that guarantees the rights to free education and health care provided by the government,” Gideon stressed.
The rise of the People’s Defence Forces, including PDF Zoland in Tedim and the Chin National Defence Force (CNDF) in nearby Falam, was swift. The lack of presence of the CNA in this part of northern Chin meant they were quickly able to establish themselves as the dominant resistance to the junta, with unwavering support from their communities.
Historically, Chin communities lived under independent chiefdoms structured around village units, with individual villages often speaking their own dialect. PDFs across Chin formed along township lines, mirroring this historic social structure.
It was in Chin State that the first ambush against the military junta took place after the coup, when resistance fighters attacked a supply convoy, opening new fronts across the country and stretching the regime’s resources.
These new revolutionary militias have swiftly grown into formidable fighting forces and have now built alliances which can match the numbers and political strength of the CNA. This has led to bitter infighting within Chin State, which again mirrors the junta’s historical use of tactics, learned from the British, such as divide and rule.
PDF Zoland now has five battalions in these hills, with hundreds joining their ranks every year. Their confidence has grown with each victory over the military junta. First at Thaingyen, a strategic town on the Kalay–Tedim road, followed by PDF Zoland’s capture of Kennedy’s Peak, the highest mountain in the region and a crucial vantage point over the surrounding hills.
The CNDF’s victory at Falam last year was another serious blow to the junta’s control over Chin State, with each victory bringing a new cache of confiscated weaponry to the PDF.
“We started off with 6 hunting rifles and have now acquired automatic weapons. We patrol our township and control two-thirds of Tedim town,” Gideon said. “We started with guerrilla tactics but are now capable of organising major offensive operations and capturing military bases.”
In the hills of Chin State, the revolution depends entirely on the support of the people, both at home and abroad.
Much of the funding for the revolution comes from the large Chin diaspora around the world, who directly support groups that represent their tribe or home village.
In Tedim in 2024, I watched villagers line up to buy tickets for a fundraising lottery. Families abroad sent money from Malaysia, the United States and across the border in India. By the end of the night, hundreds of thousands of dollars had been pledged.
Later, in a dimly lit room, Gideon sat cross-legged on the floor, counting stacks of cash stuffed into plastic bags. “What we need are surface-to-air weapons to stop the airstrikes,” he told me. “If we had that, this war would already be over.”
Ingenuity fills the gap where the revolution lacks heavy weapons.
Former engineering students in PDF Zoland have learned to make their own 40-millimetre launchers and rocket-propelled grenades, sometimes trading them with other PDFs. While there in 2024, I accompanied a PDF Zoland expedition down in neighbouring Sagaing State and witnessed the trade of a 40-millimetre mortar and RPG to Kalay PDF.
Across the country, resistance fighters use 3D printers to fashion parts for drones; Zoland’s drone wing, nicknamed Freedom Wings, recently raised $2,200 on Instagram to replace gear lost in the Falam offensive.
Such improvisation has helped to blunt the junta’s advantage in the air.
In 2025 I returned to Chin State to continue documenting the revolutionary efforts of PDF Zoland and its ally the CNDF, two of the major forces behind a new alliance known as the Chin Brotherhood (CB).
In April of that year, the CNDF and Chin Brotherhood allies captured the city of Falam following a gruelling five-month battle, leaving just two remaining junta strongholds — one in Tedim and the other in the state capital, Hakha.
Two months earlier, while I was in Falam witnessing the final stages of the siege, I met fighters from various People’s Defence Force groups — including the Gen Z Army, the Bamar People’s Liberation Army, the Mandalay PDF, and the Kalay PDF. Some had travelled from as far as Shan State, on Myanmar’s eastern frontier, to support the CNDF in their fight.
In contrast to the entrenched EAOs that were long confined to their own territories, these new young revolutionaries have evolved into a dynamic network, with a fluid exchange of critical intelligence, resources and manpower that has led to a sharp increase in territorial control.
Revolutionary alliances are key to the ongoing success of groups such as PDF Zoland and the CNDF.
Following the victory at Falam, Chin Brotherhood members were invited to Laiza — the headquarters of one of the country’s most formidable EAOs, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which operates in Myanmar’s northernmost Kachin State.
The KIA have their own ammunition factories in Kachin State, as well as heavier weaponry. They’ve demonstrated the ability to down aircraft — the junta’s main advantage over the revolutionary forces.
Lt. General Gun Maw of the KIA recently stated that “the affairs of Chin State and the revolution cannot move forward without the Chin Brotherhood,” marking the huge efforts that the Chin Brotherhood has made towards the nationwide struggle.
PDF Zoland’s newfound relationship with the KIA has paid dividends with shipments of weaponry arriving from the north.
At their headquarters, Camp Rhili, a large clearing between the hills and the river that forms the border with India, the CNDF are now holding hundreds of junta soldiers following the battle for Falam. While there earlier this year, I spoke with CNDF Vice Chairman Salai Peter, who stressed the importance of the local population’s support for the revolution.
The Chin Brotherhood’s rise to prominence hasn’t come without challenges. The young revolutionaries who join their ranks are motivated to fight the regime but often struggle to adjust to the reality of revolutionary warfare — one that demands discipline and organisation in the face of a well-equipped, experienced opponent.
“Some of our youths have this mindset. They are not willing to be an army,” Salai Peter, second in command of the CNDF, explained, while showing me around the prison facilities at Camp Rhili, which included a working farm and a volleyball court. “They want to fight, but they think being an army is the same as being like them, the junta. We must teach them that it’s not like that.”
“When we teach the army system, some people don’t want to accept it, because in the army obedience is everything, but they don’t want to obey. They feel that when they give orders, we are like the dictatorship. They don’t like orders or dictatorship, which is why they came here. We don’t have the spirit of an army yet. In our minds we are sure that we will remove this dictatorship from the roots, but still yet we are not a professional army.”
Given the grassroots nature of this revolutionary movement, their achievements seem even more impressive. Prior to the coup, senior members of PDF Zoland and CNDF Falam were classmates at Kalay Technical University. He was keen to stress the importance of his local heritage.
“The support of the people is everything — because we are from the people. We weren’t soldiers before; we rose up together to fight this dictatorship. Even our recruits come from the villages. We don’t receive any money from the U.S. or support from any country. We survive because of the people. They are everything to us,” he said.
“We don’t want to simply kill people, but when we capture them alive, it is our duty to keep them as prisoners of war. We follow the international law of the Geneva Convention,” Peter told me, as prisoners worked the extensive vegetable fields in the camp.
Around the same time as my reporting, a video surfaced from Rakhine State showing Arakan Army soldiers torturing and killing junta soldiers, highlighting the brutal realities on both sides of the conflict. “We give them lectures now and then, telling them the purpose and why we are fighting, and we remind them all the time that personally they are not our enemy, but we are fighting against a bad system,” Peter told me when asked about the video. “Since they are fighting against us we might kill, but after the fighting finished if you kill this is murder.”
The junta hasn’t been so forgiving. Various videos have surfaced showing SAC soldiers torturing and murdering anti-junta fighters with horrific violence. In one, young men are seen being decapitated in public, while another shows two revolutionaries being dragged through the streets before being burned alive.
The junta’s brutal tactics aren’t reserved only for its enemies. Some of the captives I met at Camp Rhili had themselves been victims of the junta’s ruthlessness, such as Moe Naing, former Chief of Police in Falam District.
Moe Naing was arrested early in the battle for the city by the CNDF. While held in rebel captivity, he and his fellow prisoners were targeted by a junta airstrike, killing eight of his friends and former police colleagues.
“When I experienced and faced the airstrike bombing where my colleagues were injured and some died, I felt like we were in boiling hell… I have sympathy for the resistance groups and the innocent civilians who were killed and injured by the airstrikes and bombings from the SAC (Junta), and how much they worried and suffered.”
Salai Peter explained to me that it’s commonplace for the junta to attack soldiers who’ve surrendered to the revolution. “When we capture them, we have to be very careful that the SAC doesn’t know where we keep them. If they know, they bomb. Maybe they want to give a lesson to those who may be captured by us. If you get captured you will not be kept alive,” he added.
The following morning, I was put into a pickup truck for the journey up to Falam Town, which was also loaded with roughly 15 POWs, each handcuffed to a fellow soldier, most wearing flip-flops. They were given a ration of cigarettes and Burmese cheroots for the seven-hour journey through rough mountain roads of Chin State.
In darkness, we arrived at a small roadside village where the prisoners were unloaded and led into the courtyard of a thatched house and fed by locals, mostly teenage girls, while heavily armed CNDF soldiers watched on. The POWs were left in the care of these villagers, highlighting the scope of the revolution in these hills.
A positive peace agreement between the Chin Brotherhood and the Chinland Council was brokered in February 2025 as the two groups met in the Indian state of Mizoram, in what is hoped to be the beginning of a more collaborative future for the resistance in Chin State.
In reality, the two groups continue along their own paths but see the benefits of a more unified front. Skirmishes continue.
Towards the end of the year, the Chin Brotherhood and its political wing, the ICNCC, held a conference in the Mizoram capital of Aizawl to elect a new Chief Commander of their combined forces. Of the six candidates from different PDFs, Gideon was chosen. From his humble beginnings on a windy hilltop with old Second World War rifles, he now commands thousands of dedicated revolutionary soldiers in their struggle.
Following the fall of Falam, preparations are underway for ‘Operation Tedim’, targeting the town that is home to Gideon and his PDF Zoland, as well as the last regional base belonging to the junta’s 125th Light Infantry Battalion.
The complete liberation of Chin State would be a huge blow to the regime, while providing the wider revolution with renewed motivation following recent junta gains and their sham election.
For the people of Chin State, this would be the realisation of a long-standing dream of self-determination and freedom from military oppression.
The path to liberating Chinland remains perilous, but here, in these rugged hills, the revolution endures. In this modern David and Goliath struggle, David is still holding his ground.
The advance destabilised detention sites holding ISIS prisoners. Hundreds escaped from facilities including al-Aktan prison in Raqqa, while al-Hol camp, once holding thousands of ISIS families, largely emptied. Damascus and Kurdish forces blame each other. ISIS activity has since resurged. During my 2023 visit to al-Hol, ISIS-aligned children threw stones at me, shouting “kafir” and “kalb.”
Fearing further escapes, the US transferred more than 5,700 ISIS detainees from Kurdish prisons in Syria to Iraq at Baghdad’s request. Those accused of crimes there will face Iraqi courts.
A US-brokered ceasefire in January outlined SDF integration into the Syrian military, widely viewed by Kurds as a betrayal. The deal also transferred control of Rojava’s oil fields, once the backbone of Kurdish finances, to Damascus. Most of the region now lies under government control, with only two Kurdish enclaves remaining, including besieged Kobanê.
Some Kurdish officials remain cautiously optimistic. Hebûn, a YPG internationalist I met in Qamişlo, told me narratives that “Rojava is over” do not match realities on the ground, even as Kurds face what he described as a choice between Turkish military pressure and uneasy accommodation with Damascus. Even if integration holds, Kurdish autonomy will likely shrink. Security forces such as the Asayish may persist locally, but an independent SDF and its women’s wing, the YPJ, are unlikely to survive in their current form.
Syria’s future looks less like renewal than rearrangement. Damascus’s new rulers did not rise by promising democracy, whatever they now claim. Western governments will adapt, regional powers will recalibrate and attention will drift elsewhere. For Syria’s minorities, Shiites, Alawites, Druze, Christians and Kurds, the calculation remains stark: survive the new order or risk being crushed beneath it.
