Over 10 more junta officials and pro-junta militia members have been assassinated by anti-regime resistance groups across the country in the past two weeks for attempting to forcibly recruit civilians under the newly activated conscription law.
Since the activation of the law, People’s Defense Force groups (PDFs) and some ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) have strongly warned junta officials to halt forcible military recruitment or face severe consequences.
However, ignoring the warning, junta-appointed ward and village administrators and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia members have been calling up conscripts in large cities, including the junta’s administrative capital Naypyitaw, the commercial capital Yangon and the country’s second-largest city Mandalay.
Meanwhile, regime forces are arresting youths on roads and military checkpoints across the country, including in Yangon. Last week, junta soldiers arbitrarily arrested youths near a crowded market in Yangon’s Insein Township, residents told The Irrawaddy.
A young person who works in sales, and who escaped arrest by the junta in a Yangon township recently, said, “Luckily I was released by the soldiers, as I was able to show my staff ID card and my working hours. But they arrested many others on the road and took them away in military trucks.”
The Irrawaddy was unable to independently verify whether those arrested were released or recruited for military service.
Currently, the junta and its administrators are rushing to recruit civilians under the conscription law, which was activated on Feb. 10 to compensate for severe troop shortages in the Myanmar military. The military has suffered a string of humiliating defeats in a multi-front war with resistance groups nationwide, losing thousands of troops and several hundred miliary bases, including many command centers.
Resistance groups are stepping up assassinations of junta officials who are actively engaged in forcibly recruiting civilians. The Irrawaddy has learned that so far over 20 junta administrators and pro-junta militia leaders linked to forcible recruitment have been killed and around 10 others arrested since early March.
Anti-regime urban resistance group Project Home claimed it shot dead U Kyi Tun, a former police officer and a junta-appointed administrator for No. 30 Ward in Yangon’s North Dagon Township, on Sunday for forcibly recruiting civilians.
The administrator’s wife suffered serious injuries after being shot twice along with her husband.
Minhla Township People’s Defense Force said it shot dead pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia leader Myo Myint Aung at his house in Minhla town, Minhla Township, Bago Region on March 26 for forcibly recruiting conscripts.
The victim was notorious for persecuting and extorting civilians and reporting to the regime about the movement of revolutionary groups, the Minhla PDF said.
Numerous assassinations of junta administrators and pro-junta militia members linked to forcible recruitment have been reported in Bago, Magwe and Mandalay regions in the past few weeks.
On March 24, the local resistance group Bo Linn Yone said it arrested a 100-household junta administrator and two others from Chaung Gyi Village in Madaya Township. The group didn’t mention the fate of the three detainees.
Citing sources close to the PDF group, local media reported that the three detainees were killed for forcibly recruiting civilians for the regime.
Many parents and young people have expressed concern about forced recruitment, as 14 million people are eligible for military service under the junta’s conscription law.
Many young people are fleeing to liberated areas and abroad rather than serve in the junta’ military, which is widely reviled for its relentless atrocities against its own civilians. Many others have joined PDFs and EAOs and some are facing extortion by junta officials to evade conscription.
In March, the junta used Rohingya forced conscripts in clashes with the ethnic Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine State. Later, the AA released photos of Rohingya conscripts who were killed in AA attacks after being forced to defend three junta battalion headquarters in Rakhine’s Rathedaung Township.
The civilian National Unity Government (NUG), whose armed wing, the PDF, is fighting the regime alongside EAOs, said it has opened a Telegram channel that civilians can use to report or seek help when they face forcible recruitment by the junta.
