The Myanmar military has come under heavy fire after its forced recruitment drive introduced in the wake of the February 2021 coup. In just one year, the military has drafted an estimated 60,000 new recruits, sending many of them into combat with minimal training. This reality has sent shockwaves across the country. The military has had difficulty retaking recaptured territories, with the loss of a recently recaptured regional command base in Rakhine state to rebel armies.
The new conscription drive is an attempt to strengthen the military as the government continues to face large-scale resistance from several armed groups. The against-the-clock training and deployment practices led to grave accusations. It’s a prevalent misconception that conscripts are treated as expendable resources rather than valued as trained soldiers. Eyewitness testimony shows that most people only receive three months of training. Yet they are soon rushed into combat situations where their lives may be lost.
Kyaw Htet Aung, a researcher at Myanmar’s Institute for Strategy and Policy, has spoken out publicly against the law. He is a high school English teacher, who had to flee the country to avoid conscription. Within this context, he amplifies the most troubling implications of these practices on the recruits themselves and the overall human cost of these wars.
Conscription and Its Consequences
After the coup, the Myanmar military reactivated a conscription law that had been largely ineffective for decades. This highly provocative strategy is meant to keep its adversaries off balance and tripping over themselves. One year ago, the initial wave of 5,000 conscripts began their training. This was a major new step in the military’s moves to increase its recruitment efforts in a time of increased turmoil from within.
Today, reports continue to suggest that the military has set up dozens of checkpoints around the country to force these conscription measures. Local officials have gone so far as to use extortion techniques, including coercing bribe payments from would-be conscripts in return for drafting them to the front lines. The stakes for those found are severe, with certain authorities observed as experiencing physical assault when trying to enforce draft summons.
Richard Horsey, a Myanmar-focused analyst, previously warned that the situation was worsening by the hour. As he explained, “Local officials have been pocketing bribe money from would-be conscripts to exempt them from military service draft. Many of these officials have been killed when they entered communities to try to put together draft lists or implement the terms of conscription orders. This dire situation underscores the military’s deep despair. It’s an indication too of how much people are willing to do to flee the draft.
The Training Dilemma
One major issue has been the speed at which conscripts are being recruited, causing many to allegedly lack the level of training needed before facing combat. Observers have documented a pattern where inexperienced recruits are deployed in frontline roles, often facing perilous tasks typically reserved for seasoned soldiers.
One source with direct knowledge of battlefield practices told us they’re using the conscripts as human shields. Or they send them to step on bombs or go diffuse, just that sort of thing. This disturbing trend paints a picture of the military’s strategy’s potential to disproportionately expose recruits to serious injury or death.
Aung amplified these worries, adding, “I feel like this [conscription] law definitely fits into that strategy. He elaborated on the military’s approach: “For example, when they [the military] enter the new … area, firstly they just [send in] these kinds of conscripted persons as the first troops, and then the actual soldiers could be later on, [as] the second line.” Perhaps more importantly, this tactic exposes the moral depravity of employing conscripts in such hazardous roles.
As Richard Horsey pointed out, conscripts are often assigned hard and hazardous tasks. These atrocious missions are notoriously shunned even by seasoned infantry. Conscripts tend to be put in the most difficult and dangerous positions. For example, from behind enemy lines they are airdropping, a mission that elite infantryman would refuse,” he explained. The results are deadly. Half succumb either to death or defection.
The Broader Impact on Society
The impact of conscription goes far beyond the battlefield. It has deepened a nationwide divide that has replaced faith and hope with fear and distrust across communities. Thousands more are escaping Myanmar or trying to find ways to escape mandatory enlistment.
Ko Ko, a former resident who escaped military scrutiny, explained his perspective: “That’s why no one wants to go to the military; they don’t want to serve … like slaves.” His declaration is the beginning of many like it, the movement among young men and women, longstanding but suppressed, to push back against suffocatingly retrograde military policy.
Even after some armed groups called for a truce in the wake of a horrific March 2023 earthquake, tensions are still palpable. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) offensive that took control of Lashio in northern Shan State just last week. This event highlights the persistent fragility on the ground where our military is still working to reestablish control.
“They are destroying the whole country, they are killing our people, our civilians. I don’t want to be part of the killers. That’s why I don’t want to enter the military and I don’t want to obey the conscription law,” – Kyaw Htet Aung
Meanwhile, families are still living in the shadow of losing their loved ones to draft conscription. Many are beginning to wonder if these policies really can bring us peace. The military’s efforts to recruit more drivers is not a long-term fix.
