Junta orders civilians to guard villages on Naypyitaw-Bago border

The junta has recently started appointing civilians to act as overnight security guards in Naypyitaw’s Lewe Township, Myanmar Now has learned. Residents from around 20 villages along the old highway connecting Yangon and Mandalay—and largely along the Bago Region border—have been asked to take up the role since mid-February, supervised by local administrators. One such village administrator claimed that the order to set up a nightwatch came from the general administration department of the junta, which is overseeing the project. The guards are being paid between 3,000 and 7,000 kyat (around US$1.40 to $3.30) per shift, he said, and the number of people hired is dependent on the size of the village. “A person is selected from every four to five households to serve as a night guard,” a local from Lewe told Myanmar Now. “If you are not available for your shift, you have to take responsibility for everything your replacement does and you also have to pay [a fine to] the 100-household administrator.” The guard posts, built from wood and palm fronds, have been placed at the entrances to and exits from the villages in question, and up to give guards have been appointed to each “checkpoint.” All households were required to contribute a sum of between 2,000 and 5,000 kyat ($0.95 to $2.40) toward the construction of the structures. A resident who was selected to serve as a guard said that he is required to stay on alert during his shifts while the military patrols the surrounding area. “We can’t sleep for the whole night and they didn’t give us any weapons, but we have to wait on standby all night,” he explained. Map showing the location of Lewe Township in Naypyitaw, and neighbouring regions While another administrator claimed that this security system would be implemented in all eight of Naypyitaw’s townships, it reportedly had not expanded beyond Lewe at the time of reporting. He described the locals in Lewe as “happy” with the guards’ presence. “There are now less thefts as strangers used to be able to pass through the villages as they pleased and sometimes motorcycles got stolen,” he told Myanmar Now. The junta set up additional army outposts in the mountains around Naypyitaw—including in the Bago Yoma range in Lewe and Pyinmana townships—last November in an effort to prevent resistance forces from infiltrating the military-controlled capital. The anti-junta People’s Defence Force (PDF) under the publicly mandated National Unity Government started stopping and checking vehicles along a major road in Bago Region in mid-December 2023. Last week, village administrators allegedly destroyed rural roads through which one could previously travel from Bago to Naypyitaw. Naypyitaw borders southern Shan State to the east, Magway Region to the west, Mandalay to the north, and Bago Region and Karen State to the south. While guerrilla activity there has been limited, there are several resistance forces active in these neighbouring areas, including the PDF, the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force, and the Karen National Union.

Junta orders civilians to guard villages on Naypyitaw-Bago border

Village administrators are assigning unarmed local security guards to stand watch at night in Lewe Township

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