First, a shock. Then, a wave of panic across Myanmar, one that is gathering speed as it rises to defiance.
It is driven by those who learned last weekend that they, or their loved ones, will be forced to join and defend – with their lives – the military junta that has brutalized them for three years.
“I won’t give my life and soul to the coup regime,” Mandalay resident Alinn said furiously.
She’s a prime target for military conscription even though she has been jailed for protesting against the junta.
She’s in her 20s.
Alinn is among the 13 million young adults in Myanmar who are now eligible for conscription. That number was dangled by junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun on Tuesday after the 65-year-old People’s Military Service Law was dusted off and activated for the first time on Saturday.
From that day, all men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 in Myanmar are now required to serve in the armed forces for at least two years. The upper age limit rises to 45 for men and to 35 for women if they have specialist expertise (medical or engineering, for example). Specialists can also be conscripted for three years, and all conscripts can be forced to serve five years during a state of emergency, like the current one.
Panic attack
The announcement immediately sparked anxiety and fear among parents across Myanmar, including those in major cities like Yangon and Mandalay where military recruitment has been historically low compared to rural areas.
Even before the law was activated, junta troops often rounded up civilians, especially in rural areas, for use as porters or human shields. Frequent reports of civilians being forced to walk ahead of military troops in suspected minefields and areas where ambushes are likely, fueled the conscription panic.
Junta troops can now do nationally what they have been doing at the township level in some regions and states, people warned on social media. They said conscription also gives the regime an opportunity to extort money from wealthy families willing to pay bribes to keep their children from being sent to a front line.
Junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun told propaganda outlets on Monday that the law has been activated to fight People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) and ethnic armed organizations, and to defend national sovereignty.
On Tuesday, he told BBC Burmese that the junta plans to implement the law in April with an initial batch of 5,000 recruits. No details were provided.
Junta cornered
Since the coup on Feb. 1, 2021, the regime has tried to repress a defiant population. Its tactics have included arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, widespread bombing of civilians – from land, air and sea – torture and arson attacks.
Instead of muting the resistance, the junta’s war crimes have inflamed it.
Now, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing faces the toughest challenge yet to his authority, and he is trying to forcibly enlist support, critics say.
They point out that his military has suffered the largest number of casualties ever. Desertions are at historic highs. So, too, is the lack of public support.
He needs conscription to replenish troop levels, but at the same time he is further eroding public support, critics say.
State of terror
Reports emerged this week that conscription was already happening. Young men are being seized by junta troops around the country and in some areas junta troops and local administrators are compiling lists of young men and women from household registration records, the reports said.
“We live in fear now … I can’t even sleep,” a mother of six in Yangon’s South Dagon Township said. Three of her children are in the conscription age range.
Areas of Yangon and Mandalay that were usually busy during evening, this week feel haunted. Residents say shops are closing earlier, and even motorcycle taxi drivers are racing home to avoid being dragged off by junta forces after dusk.
A woman in Yangon’s Sanchaung Township said she worries her son, an office worker, and her grandchild, a student who joined the civil disobedience movement, will be force to join the junta’s military.
“Junta troops can seize young people at any time. Nothing is certain now … outside or at home,” she explained.
Conscripted to kill
Lin Htet Aung, a captain in the army who has defected to the resistance in 2021, said the junta’s activation of the conscription law aims to strengthen it and force people to kill each other.
“Inevitably, conscripted young people will be sent to the frontline to battle resistance forces. [They will also be] used in violence against civilians,” he said.
Young people now have a stark choice: join resistance forces or the junta, he added.
Those who fail to comply with the law face three to five years in prison.
No exit
Alinn, who was jailed for two years for participating in anti-coup protests, said nothing could force her to join the junta’s military.
“I will shoot them with their own guns,” she said, explaining what she would do if conscripted.
Lin Htet Aung said this way of thinking was unrealistic. The junta’s troops will keep a close eye on conscripts, he explained.
Alinn said her mother wants her to leave Myanmar as soon as possible to avoid conscription and that she is considering this. She also said a friend decided to join a People’s Defense Force (PDF) after the conscription announcement, referring to the armed wings of the civilian National Unity Government.
Flood of confusion
A few hours after the announcement, Facebook was flooded with posts and comments.
Some suggested that single women get married “quickly” to avoid conscription and that young men join the monkhood as the law exempts married women and monks from conscription.
These were false hopes. Young women who marry quickly could end up losing their husbands to conscription. Joining the Buddhist clergy may not be an option either. The junta can limit this exemption to those who have spent a specified number of years in the monkhood prior to the activation of the law.
Still, many youths are saying on social media that they will join armed resistance forces or flee to liberated areas or other countries to avoid joining the junta forces brutalizing Myanmar.
Some analysts say the regime’s conscription move could backfire and bolster resistance to the regime by encouraging more young people to voluntarily join PDFs and other armed groups fighting the junta.
Recruitment drive
The conscription announcement was followed by statements from numerous armed resistance groups saying they welcomed new, voluntary recruits.
The Yangon Command of the National Unity Government said thousands had applied to join its PDFs within 12 hours of inviting recruits on Sunday – a day after the conscription law was activated.
Yay Ba Wal, a leader of Octopus, an underground anti-junta youth organization in Yangon that has staged flash mob protests, said: “The reaction of parents, guardians of young people, and youths can be heard and seen clearly.”
“For sure, no one is going to accept to be used as a human shield of the terrorist junta troops,” he explained.
NUG spokesperson U Kyaw Zaw told The Irrawaddy that the junta has no authority to enact the law because it is illegal. It is just trying to force people to allow themselves to be used to retain power as its military suffers the heaviest losses ever in Myanmar’s history, he explained.
The only way to stop the junta is to eradicate it, U Kyaw Zaw said.
“Only after the military dictatorship is eradicated, will people be free,” he explained, urging people to support the Spring Revolution as much as they can and as soon as possible.
The civilian government and allied forces will try to reduce suffering by taking serious action against all people and institutions involved in the enforcement of the conscription law, he added.
Defiance
Social media users are asking whether the junta generals should send their sons and daughters to the frontline – as well as those of its supporters – instead of conscripting other families’ young people.
“Even their soldiers don’t want to fight and are running away, but now they plan to force young people to die for them,” one post read.
Some have dared to post on social media accounts that reveal their identities that they will never fight for Min Aung Hlaing’s regime to remain in power.
“We will never serve them or kill our own people,” one wrote.
