With its effort to conscript young people for military service in Myanmar facing intense resistance from young people, their families, and the local administrators who help select conscripts, the military is turning to a foolproof method of replenishing its ranks: recruitment at gunpoint.
In Magwe Region’s Aunglan town, the military forcibly has recruited about 140 young men since late last month, but about 60 of them escaped or bribed their way out, according to residents and resistance fighters in the township.
Junta troops began rounding up men between 18 and 35 years in Aunglan town and nearby villages in late April to meet their target for the second batch of recruits.
The junta’s move to forcibly recruit new soldiers occurred after many of those whose names were put on a list to select conscripts via a random draw fled the town, a spokesperson for a resistance group based in Aunglan said.
Residents of the town said most arrests were made at checkpoints leading into the town. Those arrested were sent to the town’s No.1 Basic Education High School and subsequently transferred to Magwe town.
“In Aunglan, almost 140 [conscripts] have been arrested since April 25, but some paid bribes and some ran away to escape. The military sent a total of 80 draftees to Magwe on May 8,” the spokesperson for the resistance group said, adding that they were sent to a military training school in the region’s capital.
The regime activated the conscription law on Feb. 10. It allows the junta to recruit anyone between 18 and 35 years of age to serve in the military for at least two years. The law’s activation introduced mandatory military service in Myanmar for the first time.
The law is widely seen as an attempt to circumvent the loathing most people in Myanmar feel for the junta’s military, which is facing a recruitment crisis at the same time it is attempting to cope with escalating military offensives by ethnic armed groups and allied revolutionary forces throughout the country.
The first batch of 5,000 conscripts was sent to more than 150 military centers across the country starting March 27, according to Burma Affairs and Conflict Study, a non-profit that monitors junta war crimes.
For the second batch, the regime started rounding up new recruits in late April in all seven of Myanmar’s regions and three of the seven ethnic states, sources said. (Junta recruitment officials in Naypyitaw and Yangon, however, told The Irrawaddy last week that recruitment for the second batch officially began in May.)
The owner of a transport company in Aunglan said two of his workers were abducted by junta troops in late April for the second batch of conscripts. They tried to bribe military officers by offering to pay US$ 2,400 each to be released but were refused.
Regime soldiers called owners of all transport companies in Aunglan to a meeting where they ordered them to send vehicles and drivers to their bases when they asked to use them, the transport company owner said.
“We heard they will abduct more people in Aunglan,” a resident of the town told The Irrawaddy.
According to the spokesperson of the Aunglan resistance force, the military junta aims to round up 250 young men in Aunglan for the second batch of conscripts. Sources in Aunglan say 80 young men have been sent to Magwe for training, but junta officials said they want 250 for the second batch.
Most ward administrators are reluctant to participate in the military’s recruiting drive because they face assassination by local People’s Defense Forces if they do, sources in Aunglan said.
Potential recruits whose names were on the list for the second batch of conscripts escaped before the random draw was held to determine who on the lists would be selected because some ward administrators delayed the process, the spokesperson for the resistance force said.
“Most residents of the town do not go outside their homes now. Some people joined the local resistance forces … I want to tell Aunglan residents that we won’t leave them alone,” the spokesperson added.
The junta began basic training for conscripts at military bases and training schools across the country in April with an initial batch of 5,000 young men.
