🇲🇲 Young people consider desperate measures for the junta's desperate conscription drive

Hello friends,

Dire one from Myanmar with the introduction of a horrible conscription law that the junta hopes will balance out massive losses of both territory and personnel. This will never work but it will be devastating and deadly before the junta admits it. 

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Erin Cook

What to do when there’s no choice?

The conscription will compel all men between 18 and 35 to serve and all women from 18 to 27 for at least two years. Professionals like doctors can be forced to serve longer terms and up to 45 years of age, the Guardian notes in its report. That period can also be extended during a state of emergency, which the junta has consistently extended since seizing power in February 2021. Refusal to serve can result in a jail sentence. 

While the law has been on the books since 2010, it is the first time the military has used it underscoring how desperate the situation has become since the launch of Operation 1027 by ethnic armed organisations. Don’t expect this to change the maths, rebel group Karen National Union said in a statement condemning the law. “[The law] was illegally declared by the junta’s military council. People do not need to comply with illegal laws. The junta’s forced recruitment is drawing the younger generation and labour resources into the mire of war,” the organisation said in a statement released Monday, as reported by the Irrawaddy.

One Yangon fish seller would “rather cut off a few fingers than serve the military,” Nikkei Asia reports in this excellent piece on the immediate response. The outlet spoke with 30 people and analysed posts online to get an overall view of how Myanmar feels about it and, unsurprisingly, it is not good: ‘Others said they were prepared to injure themselves to qualify for an exemption as disabled, while many single women said they were considering hasty weddings to qualify for the exemption for married women. For men, the alternatives include joining the monkhood, fleeing the country or paying bribes to the "right people," noted a Yangon-based independent analyst.’

The decision is revealing. “The military is clearly facing significant manpower shortages, which is why it is introducing a draft for the first time in its history,” Richard Horsey, the Crisis Group's senior Myanmar adviser, told Reuters. It is a point echoed by Ye Myo Hein, a senior advisor at the United States Institute of Peace. The military is falling short of the minimum 200-soldier troop strength: “There has been a notable decline in the number of officer enlistments as well. Additionally, the loss of officers, including Brigadier Generals … have been significantly higher due to shrinking battalion sizes and decreasing rank-and-file soldiers.”

Queues appeared at the Thai embassy in Yangon almost immediately, with those eligible to be conscripted searching for a way out, Radio Free Asia reports. Others are heading for the border or considering entering the Buddhist monkhood. 

A crackdown on dissenters is underway. Myanmar Now reported yesterday that police had detained six teenagers in Naypyitaw after the group were heard talking about the new law. “They were talking about how they didn’t want to be conscripted and how Min Aung Hlaing was wrong. The soldiers overheard, seized their phones, checked their group chats, and arrested them,” a witness told the outlet. This specific incident is a very, very worrying development. Crackdowns like this are surely to be expected, but so soon after the announcement of the law and with young men and boys between the ages of 16 and 18 in the capital is really frightening. 

Thailand is bracing. “They are welcome if they enter the country legally. But if they sneak into the country illegally, legal action will be taken against them. I already discussed the matter with security agencies,” Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said Monday, as per Bangkok Post. Thais are nervous that Myanmar nationals are coming to take jobs, but Srettha wisely stressed that an expected surge across the border is motivated strictly by the conscription laws. 

In Rakhine

A push against the junta in Rakhine State from the Arakan Army — a member of the Brotherhood Alliance — continues. Benar News reported at the top of the month that the militia had captured Minbya township with plans to launch an offensive on Sittwe, the state’s capital. In the week or so since the Benar report, Radio Free Asia reported the AA had picked up another two townships while eyeing off Sittwe. The junta has responded with a sickening focus on civilians, villagers told RFA, including shelling ‘nine villages with heavy artillery near Rathedaung city.’ 

An unidentified resident of Sittwe told RFA that the city was bracing: “There are reports that the Arakan Army is going to attack Sittwe city. Defensive forts at the battalions, nearby offices and outskirts of the city are built and prepared. I saw that the army’s family members are being moved out toward Yangon by military [personnel] and on civilian planes. I don’t know the exact number of people, and I can’t estimate it.”

Withdrawals and reprisals on local communities show the junta is running scared in Rakhine, the AA said in a statement, as per the Irrawaddy. “The junta’s military is sure to lose if they are defending against us, so it is withdrawing by burning down military outposts and hilltop [bases] in the townships we are attempting to seize,” the group said in a statement. “The junta’s military still cannot accept the reality of its failure in Rakhine State” and is turning to “fascist terror” to keep control, the AA said. 

For Fulcrum, Kyaw Hsan Hlaing looks at what the developments mean for Rakhine. He cautions that, like other Brotherhood Alliance pushes, the ‘wait and see’ approach is more realistic than the occasional argument that it is evidence of an imminent collapse of the junta and the military. This is an excellent piece and the only in-depth analysis I’ve found on Rakhine specifically this month, so please read it. “The AA’s victories could provide some forward momentum to armed resistance efforts in other parts of the country” in their battle against the junta, he concludes.

Oh yeah, that election?

Officials from the junta government and the Home Ministry met last week to get this election show on the road. No date has been set yet, but the Irrawaddy expects it to be slated for next year at some stage after a census is completed and voter rolls are updated. The census, planned for October, is going to be a nightmare for the junta with territory and participation both in doubt. “Observers say the loss of huge swaths of territory and ongoing resistance offensive make it difficult to conduct the census, adding that voter lists compiled under such circumstances will not be accurate,” the Irrawaddy reported.