In April mandatory army conscription will come into effect in Myanmar | DW News

We're going to Myanmar now, where the junta has started drafting civilians to fight in its military as it tries to squash persistent efforts by pro-democracy and armed ethnic resistance groups to overthrow it. The military took power in a coup in 2021 and imprisoned the country's former democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Conflict has been brewing since, and the resistance movement has been gaining momentum. The junta has now passed a law that forces all men between 18 and 35, and all women between 18 and 27, to serve at least two years in the armed forces. The law will come into effect in April, and it's pushing thousands to flee the country. Many of them are heading to neighbouring Thailand, but they are not necessarily safe there either. DW's Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief Georg Mattes met a group of men now living in a safehouse in the Thai city of Mae Sot. They crossed the border at a place like this. The casinos on the Burmese side of the river almost give enough light to navigate by and make it into Thailand. Five young men recently came here this way. One of them calls himself Aung Suu. He prefers to remain anonymous to protect his family back home from arrest. He's fled the draft, risking five years in prison and a fine if caught. I don't want to fight my own people. The military is killing people, arresting people. I was arrested as well for no reason and spent a few months in an overcrowded jail. When I heard about the draft, I decided to run. Tens of thousands of Burmese are already in Thailand. As the compulsory draft looms, increasing numbers of young people are coming. Driven by fear of their own military, which are in charge back home, and put Aung San Suu Kyi in prison. People are being snatched on the streets and forcibly recruited. Young people like us are afraid they might be kidnapped by the military. Rich people have sent their children abroad or paid bribes to get them off the lists. They got out of Myanmar at this official border crossing into Mae Sot, Thailand. Even though officials monitor men of fighting age trying to leave. Paul Greening, a former senior UN officer, says the junta's introduction of conscription reflects its recent losses against a coalition of resistance movements on the battlefield. He says the resistance is rapidly gaining ground but warns of what might happen if they take power. The military victory will overtake the political development and that's what I'm worried about. If that happens and there's not agreements in place, the draft constitution agreed and things like this, there could be internal conflict. At the moment they're fighting together and there's unity, they're common enemy. When common enemy is gone, there's old animosities, egos, personalities, this could come up again unless we have systems in place. The young men who have just fled their country suggest opposition to the military government is so strong that forcing people to fight for them will have the opposite effect. If the situation back home gets worse, I will go and join the resistance forces. I think it was a mistake of the junta to introduce this draft law. For now they'll stay here in Thailand, in this safe house provided by an NGO. They can only hope for peace and political change on the other side of the border river. Myanmar has already had 60 years worth of civil conflict with many insurgent groups in the borderlands, looking for succession from the state, so we already have a great situation of conflict. And then in 2021, when the junta took power, a new pro-democracy movement began or an old pro-democracy movement that began and re-established itself, I should say, and so we have this movement that has grown over the last three years and over the last couple of months we've seen that unify. Under the 1027 movement we saw ethnic armed insurgents move with the pro-democracy forces and take over large swathes of land in northern and central Myanmar. Now does the resistance movement have any chance of succeeding in their efforts to overthrow the military government? I think if we look historically, we can see the long-standing and sustained nature of the Myanmar military when it has faced opposition both from insurgency and from pro-democracy forces. However, what is different about what we're seeing in the last few years is the effectiveness of the alliances that have been built in opposition to the junta outside, and so we see this movement as a kind of national movement towards an alternative from military leadership, but also from within the movement, the military itself, we're seeing much higher levels of defection from the ground forces and also much more critique from the higher-ups in the military itself. So this could be a time of change for the military, but this is not easily won and there's a significant chance this will just lead to more fighting, even if the military isn't in control of the country. Do you expect, how do you expect this planned conscription to affect things? You've mentioned desertion, and will this turn things into the junta's favor? Are too many people actually fleeing? I think it has the big issue the military has right now, which is it's stretched extremely thin, unlike other years, other times when we've seen the military fighting one or two insurgent forces or engaging in one kind of action, it's currently engaging in conflict zones across the country and in central areas where it has historically had large levels of support and control, which it no longer has, and so we can see the limitations of it in the engagement of this conscription law, which has had for a very long time, but has only enacted this year. And I think what we can see here is what was made out in the report, which is there is this concern that actually with the amount of people fleeing, we're pushing what the conscription law is doing, it's pushing people to fight for the opposition and to fight pro-democracy movements rather than support the military. And even if they did support the military and came into the army, what training and what support would they have to really fulfill the gaps the military are facing in the movements it has right now? Now, Myanmar's junta has repeatedly pledged to hold new elections. Do you think this will happen any time soon or ever? I think we've had some very conflicting statements over the last week. We've had one that said that the elections are going ahead, which is a bastion point that the interim government that's currently in control in Myanmar have made, and that there will be elections in the future, and they've made that statement that this will happen. However, they've also made a statement that if elections were to happen, they would not be nationwide. Now, I think this is not an unusual thing. Many people in Myanmar's conflict zones have not experienced elections, have not been able to engage in elections in the past anyways. However, the scale of the violence in Myanmar right now, the escalations we're seeing, the controversies that Myanmar military are taking, I think we can say very clearly that there is not scope to run elections right now, and any elections that were being run would be heavily critiqued. And I think if we were to go ahead, it would be extremely limited in nature and would unlikely resolve any of the crises that Myanmar military or the Myanmar country itself are facing right now. Dr. Anna Plankert there from King's College, London. Thank you very much. I'm pleased to welcome Sein Vinh, a Burmese journalist in exile to the show. We have now seen three years of conflict in Myanmar since the military junta seized power. In your view, at this point, how big is the resistance movement? The resistance movement is gaining momentum, and they have been increasing holding of territory, white strip of land, and capture nearly half of the terminal military camps. And out of 469 towns in Myanmar, the resistance, anti-junta forces have been captured 50 towns. And they have been at large gaining the momentum. And are we seeing more collaboration between ethnic minority groups in Myanmar and the pro-democracy movement? Have we seen them increasingly joining forces here? Of course. And if you look at the Burmese structure, in terms of hard power structure, the military terminal and democratic force and ethnic minority, throughout the history, terminal and the democratic forces are somehow more aligned when it comes to the federalism and other political issues. But after the coup, it has changed dramatically. The democratic forces and the ethnic minority, which has been fighting for decades for their autonomy, for their self-determinations, these two groups have been, in terms of unity and the collaboration, cooperation, are getting more and more. We heard in our report concerns that these ethnic groups, which, as you say, have decades of differences and conflict, concerns about what would happen if they were able to take power together. How concerned are you about infighting breaking out among this cohort? This is just wishful thinking. You know, they are not stupid. They know that they need unity. They can't afford to miss this golden opportunity, a chance that may not come again. So discussions, informal talks are going on concerning the transitional government. What I could see is the modified version of the current opposition, National Unity Government, if they have ousted the SAC in the Nebido. I'm also curious, in this environment, with low morale, with people fleeing the country because they do not want to take part in military service, how much do you think that this will weaken the junta? Throughout the Burmese-Tamil Nadu history, this is the first time ever they faced such huge threat against them, especially among the majority Burmese. Of course, they had a threat in 1948 and the 1950s, and somehow, particularly from ethnic minority resistance forces. Now, what happened is, from Burmese-Tamil Nadu, that has never been before. Also, the Tamaraj, due to the corruption, even though they are in 38, 39, something in the high military ranking and in global status, but they are not that powerful. They became a paper tiger. So, the ground forces, they don't want to fight. They just want to live out. Also, the public dislike too much to them. That is the first time ever in Myanmar history. Well, thank you so much for joining us on DW News today. That is journalist Saint Vinh. We really appreciate your time. Thank you.