In January, near the Thai border, General Saw Nerdah Mya stood before a small crowd to proclaim the birth of the Republic of Kawthoolei.
The son of the legendary commander Bo Mya claimed the presidency of this new sovereign state, describing it as the final sanctuary for a people who have endured eight decades of systemic violence.
However, the move has fundamentally fractured the Karen community, inciting a swift rebuke from the Karen National Union (KNU), which has long served as the primary political voice for the region.
Nerdah Mya now leads his own “Kawthoolei Army”: a force he established in 2022 after being ousted from the KNU for his role in a mass killing and maintains close ties with the Italian neo-fascist group CasaPound through a charity called Popoli Onlus.
Rome’s Newest Export
In Rome, CasaPound presents a persona as a modern movement, using a network of social programmes to fuel its aggressive street activism. Its members frequently occupy buildings and openly honour the memory of Benito Mussolini, adhering to an ideology that experts describe as a desire for the state to control every aspect of human life.
Gianluca Iannone, the movement’s leader, slipped into Myanmar in 2011 to tour the region with Nerdah Mya, a trip that paved the way for CasaPound militants to join aid missions under the name of Popoli Onlus.
The organisation claims its work has reached 30,000 residents through medical aid and local schooling.
Charity With a Hidden Message
The bond between the two groups deepened over a decade of humanitarian theatre as Popoli built clinics and agricultural projects across the territory. By using evocative language about “saving the land,” the group manages to appeal to an embattled minority while effectively masking its hard-right origins.
Franco Nerozzi, a co-founder of Popoli, was convicted in Italy for his activities abroad, and activists have warned that Karen leaders may not fully grasp the convictions held by their Italian partners.
Researchers note that CasaPound uses slogans about the poor to push a message of exclusion, using music and direct action to recruit young followers: a strategy they are now replicating in foreign conflicts.
A Commander Goes Rogue
Nerdah Mya, who spent years studying in the United States and travelling across Europe, eventually returned to join his father’s struggle. His tenure ended in 2022 when the KNU fired him after his troops were accused of executing 25 construction workers.
Though Nerdah Mya claimed the victims were military spies, the KNU leadership decided they could no longer overlook his actions. For years, the union had tolerated his unauthorised travel and independent fundraising out of respect for his family name, but his subsequent creation of the Kawthoolei Army signalled a final break.
KNU officials have dismissed his new government, stating that legitimate statehood requires the tangible administration of territory and a population that recognises its laws.
Pipeline Politics and the Cost of Chaos
The Kawthoolei Army now holds land near a vital gas pipeline to Thailand, a position that turns a local rift into a regional security risk. In 2023, the group attacked border guards, forcing 10,000 people to seek safety in Thailand and making life even more precarious for the thousands of refugees already living there.
The move complicates an already messy resistance map, and analysts view Nerdah Mya’s declaration as a unilateral departure from the KNU’s goal of federal autonomy within a united Myanmar.
What Europe Leaves Unsaid
There is a striking contradiction in how European groups operate abroad, as official agencies fund democratic projects while CasaPound brings aid to a commander tied to civilian killings. These radicals romanticise the preservation of an ancient culture in Myanmar, even as they push to exclude foreigners from their own soil in Italy.
While the KNU coordination works to unite various groups against the military junta, Nerdah Mya’s breakaway movement hurts that effort at a moment when collective action is most needed. His “one-man” approach has drawn criticism from across the country as the war enters its sixth year.
Historical wounds risk turning the fight against the generals into a series of small, messy conflicts, as European groups prioritising their own dreams of identity over the gritty work of finding a way to stop the violence.
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