Myanmar junta initiates conscription lotteries to select young people for training, frontline combat

Civilians in major cities, including Yangon and Myanmar’s administrative capital of Naypyitaw, are already receiving summons letters for mandatory military service, which is scheduled to begin next month. Aung Paing Min—a member of the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in Lewe Township, Naypyitaw—posted a copy of a conscription summons letter on his social media page last week. Regime officials have been distributing the letter to eligible young people through the ward-level administration in the cities, and threatening to arrest those evading service or target their family members for forced enlistment. Junta officials plan to send young people of eligible age to basic military training followed by rotation to the frontlines for combat duty, some of the letter’s recipients said. Medical examinations, lotteries, and threats In urban wards and five outlying villages of the Naypyitaw Union Territory’s Zabuthiri and Pyinmana townships, young people and their family members were summoned to appointments at junta administrative offices on March 15 and asked to sign an agreement pledging not to make any attempt to evade or resist compulsory service. A 30-year-old conscript, who asked that his identity be withheld, said that around 10 uniformed and fully armed soldiers and policemen were present at the meeting. “They gave us blood tests and other kinds of medical checks. I passed the physical examination. They told us we must not attempt to flee and if we do, they will summon two other remaining family members for military service. They made these threats and forced us to sign the form,” he said. The man who was summoned added that the medical test was apparently just for show. The ward administrators who had delivered the summons to his home said that even those who failed to meet the medical criteria for combat duty would receive assignments as desk personnel. “We have to enter the rotation for frontline service. When we’re not at the frontlines we will still have do security duty as backroom staff or stay at home to be called up,” he said. One family member of a man summoned for service from Zabuthiri Township said they were intimidated into complying with the recruiters. “There was a feeling of animosity. At the meeting, the soldiers were carrying guns so that parents or other people accompanying [the conscripts] didn’t dare complain to the officials. They returned with their heads down,” said one young recruit’s parents. An administrator in Zabuthiri Township said that a list of civilians in the eligible age range for conscription was compiled and notices were then sent to people who qualified for service. “People in their 30s started responding to the summons. A hundred people from our area underwent medical check-ups today,” he said. In Yangon Region, young people have been selected for military service by random lottery from the eligible pool. According to residents of Kawhmu, Kungyangon, Kayan and Thongwa townships in Yangon Region’s southern district, the village administration offices selected two people per village through a random drawing. According to a 29-year-old woman living in Kawhmu Township, men between the ages of 24 and 30—whose names had been added to a list—were called to the local administration offices on March 14 and told to draw lots. Anyone selected by this process was required to go to a second appointment at 9am the next morning, she said. "The local elder drew up a list of the people on each street and then two of them from each list were randomly selected. Today, the administration office took those two people to fill out forms, take pictures, and get a medical check-up,” she said on March 15. She added that the lists of young men’s names were drawn up from villages on the western side of Kawhmu Township such as Hnget Aw San, Ma Sei Seik, Rakhine Su, Myauk Chaung, and Nyaung Htauk. As the listed men drew lots, the administrators ensured some were selected from each village, the woman added. “We don’t know exactly where they were taken. We will know the details only after they come back,” she said. “Their parents can only cry, and for now we can't do anything about it.” According to locals, young people have also been made to draw lots after receiving summons in the towns of Thaketa, Dawbon and Tamwe, Yangon Region, and not only in the outlying areas of the region. In Ward 7 of Thaketa Township, a local woman said that around 250 people on the summons list were made to draw lots on March 14. "I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard that the administrators drew lots to select a ward first, and then people from the ward were summoned based on a lottery," she said. In one village in Yangon’s Htantabin Township, a 28-year-old resident said not all young people between the ages of 18 and 35 were summoned; the number was only a little more than 10 people. "The forms were given to the young people. The officials said that action would be taken if they refused to fill out the forms. They said they wouldn’t shoot or kill anyone but didn’t specify under what legal section they would bring charges,” the local man said. The recruitment committee When Myanmar Now contacted the central servicemember recruitment committee—which the junta set up in February to oversee the implementation of conscription throughout Myanmar—they confirmed that they had already begun to issue summons and hold lotteries to select people for service. “Of course we carried out the random selections. Some people have been assigned priority for service. If the number is insufficient, we will arrange lotteries again to select from among those within the eligible age range,” a committee official said. After being added to the recruitment lists, eligible people are required to fill out a conscription form, after which some will be selected to undergo medical examinations and report for service if they pass. “If you don't pass the medical examination once, you still remain eligible and may be summoned again,” the committee official added. “In some cases, the parents or siblings of a selected person may provide a valid cause for their whereabouts or other relevant reasons why they cannot answer the summons. If not, the selected person will be considered guilty of evading service,” he said. The rules for responding to and penalising evasion are still being drafted, according to the official. A former army officer noted that many citizens eligible for mandatory military service will not wish to serve and will file appeals or request exemptions. He added that corrupt local administrators or doctors assigned to conduct medical examinations may be willing to remove people from the selection pool for a bribe. “That is the consequence of power without real influence,” the former army officer remarked. According to a central recruitment committee statement, the number of eligible people summoned will depend partly on the capacity of nearby military training facilities. The salary for conscripted servicemembers is 470,000 kyat (US $220) per month according to rumours circulating on online social networks, but the recruitment committee would not confirm this figure, saying only that it would be equal to the current salary of enlisted soldiers. In Zabuthiri Township, Naypyitaw, administrators promised there would be support for the families of eligible recruits responding to the military service summons but did not disclose the salary and benefits a conscripted soldier would receive. According to an army recruitment website, new recruits are paid 144,000 kyat (US $68) a month. The National Service Law—the conscription law being enforced by the junta—was originally drafted and enacted in 2010 under the former military dictatorship of Sen-Gen Than Shwe, requiring every able-bodied citizen of eligible age to serve in the military. The currently ruling military regime decided to reactivate and enforce the decade-old mandatory conscription law in February of this year, following a series of recent battlefield defeats by anti-junta resistance groups and ethnic armed organisations on multiple fronts throughout the country. Throughout Myanmar, ordinary civilians are reluctant to serve—or are actively against serving—in the military, which seized power in a coup three years ago and fired on people protesting peacefully against military rule. In the wake of the coup and violent crackdown by the military, many young civilians joined armed resistance groups and sought combat training from ethnic armed organisations that had been fighting against Myanmar’s armed forces for decades.

Myanmar junta initiates conscription lotteries to select young people for training, frontline combat

The forced recruitment drive, announced in February, appears to be underway as regime administrators call up eligible civilians for medical examinations and threaten consequences for those who evade the summons

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