Myanmar’s democracy plunged into a stratocracy when Min Aung Hlaing and his military overthrew the democratically elected government led by President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021. As documented by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, over 6,348 people were killed by the junta and pro-military groups, and more than 28,600 people are currently illegally detained. Since this aggressive takeover, the military junta has instigated chaos and tyranny against people. This is on top of human rights atrocities grappling the landlocked Southeast Asian nation since the British colonisation.
On the brighter side, the junta is slowly losing its grip on Myanmar’s countryside and border areas. Pro-democracy groups and ethnic armed organisations continue to defeat subsequent clashes, leading to the surrender of hundreds of junta troops of the Tatmadaw, as the military is known, and their allies. At one instance, the junta chief divulged that several military outposts in Shan state were controlled by ethnic armed groups during Operation 1027 launched by the ‘Three Brotherhood’ Alliance of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army. At least 550 junta soldiers surrendered following the clash. Several junta troops have either defected or fled attacks by coursing through India’s Mizoram state. Spouses of junta soldiers, especially wives of low-ranking cadets, performed patrol duties and underwent military training under harsh conditions.
To replenish their embattled forces, the junta’s State Administration Council revived a law passed in 2010 called the People’s Military Service Law. The said law, which was loosely based on a similar measure promulgated in 1959, orders all men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 to serve for a minimum of two years, while specialists like doctors aged up to 45 must serve for three years. Anyone who refuses to comply with the measure will face a five-year jail term. This has resulted in a mass exodus of Myanmar people queuing up at embassies and passport offices to elude the junta’s clampdown on civil liberties. The re-introduction of the said law mirrors the junta’s desperation to hold onto power despite a raging movement for democracy and human rights.
Drawing vulnerable groups into the junta’s gambit
Young people, including activists of the Civil Disobedience Movement, were confronted with a dilemma as a result of the junta’s forced military conscription. A female peace practitioner in Myanmar, who spoke to the author of this blog on condition of anonymity for security reasons, mentioned that young people are sandwiched between the junta forces and resistance groups such as the People’s Defence Force (PDF) and ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) backed by the People’s Defence Force and the National Unity Government. ’Young people are not safe in their local areas. The junta invites young people to join them as do the PDF and EAOs,’ she said.
While young people from affluent families resorted to bribes to evade conscription, young human rights defenders from middle or low-income backgrounds are left to either drop out of school to join resistance groups or pursue scholarships abroad. Meanwhile, several trainees arbitrarily captured and detained by the junta struggled to scurry from the junta’s claws. It was reported that around 16 conscripted trainees who fled the junta’s barracks were recaptured in Pathein Township, Ayeyarwady Region, last December.
‘Gay’, a Karen activist who fled to neighbouring Thailand, also shared the same thoughts regarding the effects of compulsory military service on youth. ‘The State Administration Council knows the consequences of that order. This means the civilians who don’t accept that order will flee to the Ethnic Revolutionary Organisations or EAOs, who are taking care of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in their areas,’ Gay said.
Conscription not only pushed young people to flee Myanmar but incites fissures within communities. ‘The State Administration Council follows their old method of threatening civilians to hold their power,’ Gay added. ‘SAC filtered the civilians into two groups, those who accept that order and those who don’t accept that order. That became tension among community members and against each other.’
Aside from the youth, the regime preyed on women and ethnic and religious minorities to join their depleting forces. For instance, the impact of compulsory military conscription is evident in the western state of Rakhine, the site of ongoing clashes between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army (AA), which represents the interests of the Buddhist majority in the state. To expand their foothold in Rakhine and pulverise the AA, the Tatmadaw abducted and recruited men, some under legal age, from an ethnic and religious minority they persecuted in 2017 – the Rohingya. This is a clear violation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. ‘In some IDP camps in Rakhine State, names of young men were written in a piece of paper and placed in a bowl. If your name was picked, you join the military,’ the female peace practitioner divulged.
Lastly, women are susceptible to horrific abuse at the hands of the junta’s henchmen upon conscription. In Mon State, Kayin State, and Tanintharyi region, CSOs noticed that women have been recruited as of mid-2024, according to a survey. It was reported in 2023 that female inmates in Insein, Maubin and Thayarwady prisons were coerced into dehumanising strip searches. Prison guards forced them to expose their private parts during invasive physical inspections while menstruating inmates even have to remove their sanitary pads during the process. The same might be happening to female recruits. Since their forced enlistment in June 2024, adult women and LGBTQ+ community faced greater risk of rape, sexual assault, torture, and slavery within Tatmadaw barracks.
Deflecting militarisation through international solidarity
The forced military conscription was seen as the junta’s do-or-die chance to sustain its authoritarian rule. Over a year since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2669 and four years since the adoption of ASEAN’s abortive Five-Point Consensus, the military junta remains hostile towards calls for a ceasefire and humanitarian assistance. Human rights groups are clamouring for more concrete and feasible actions to end the junta’s reign of terror.
Annihilating armed conflict and restoring peace in Myanmar is not child’s play. However, for a country tormented with various human rights abuses before and during the coup, greater international cooperation and humanitarian assistance are needed beyond paying lip service through statements and false promises.
Like-minded democracies should step up their efforts in welcoming refugees and asylum seekers fleeing military conscription and other human rights abuses in Myanmar. To help distressed students at risk of forced military conscription, developed countries can provide scholarships for them with lenient requirements.
Above all, the international community must refrain from legitimising the junta through dialogues and defy the junta’s existence, just like how the people of Myanmar have defied the junta since the coup. ‘I don’t accept that law. I also don’t accept it as a law, it is just SAC’s order,’ Gay concluded. ‘If I accept that order as a law, it means I accept SAC as our country’s government.’
This week we are delighted to publish the second of a number of posts by Gianna Francesca Catolico, the blog’s regional correspondent for Asia Pacific. You can read her previous post here.
You can also read here a previous blog post on the Myanmar crisis in 2022 by Visalaakshi Annamalai, a GC alumna who once served as a regional correspondent.
The GCHRP Editorial Team
