Photo : Collected
Scores of youths have been arrested in Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar after Yangon, since the junta activated the conscription law early this month, according to news pouring in from war-torn Myanmar.
More than 80 people have been arrested by government soldiers since the second week of February in Chanmyathazi, Maha Aungmyay, and Aungmyaythazan townships in Mandalay, according to Myanmar’s dissident news media, The Irrawaddy.
Combined forces of junta soldiers, police, ward administration officials, and militia members have been taking headcounts and checking households for overnight guests in Mandalay since mid-February.
Migrants working in Mandalay or internally displaced people (IDPs) living in the town were arrested as junta troops searched houses, teashops, and restaurants in the ward on Sunday, allegedly to check for unregistered guests during the day as well as at night.
Streets in Mandalay have become almost deserted after evening hours following the activation of the conscription law and reports that young people are being abducted.
Unverified reports on Myanmar social media say abductions by the army have already begun, while potential conscripts speculate that bribery will be the only way to avoid being conscripted.
The national conscription law was implemented on February 10 by Min Aung Hlaing, a Myanmar army general who has ruled Myanmar as the chairman of the State Administration Council since seizing power in the February 2021 coup d'état. He additionally appointed himself Prime Minister in August 2021.
On the other hand, the regime has asked students to join the University Training Corps (UTC), which acts as a reserve for the military’s depleted ranks.
Junta newspapers boast that many generals, including regime boss Hlaing, were former UTC members.
Under the Conscription Law, students can defer service, but the regime wants students to join the UTC to recruit them as reserves in the meantime.
The first UTC was formed in 1922 at Rangoon University under colonial rule. It was modelled on the British Army’s University Officer’s Training Corps, which aims to recruit educated officers and expose civilians who will become future employers to aspects of military life.
There are three days of training a week during the academic year with a camp every October.
Junta newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar said the UTCs are commanded by the Directorate of Militias and Border Guard Forces, providing students with four years of training.
University staff and UTC students were quoted by junta newspapers saying the organization teaches basic skills and explains what the military does to protect the country.
In the wake of the 2021 coup, the regime revived a colonial-era law that allows authorities to conduct warrantless searches of private homes and requires all residents to register overnight houseguests. Previously, such searches were mainly conducted at night. But junta troops are also searching households in Mandalay during the day.
Myanmar’s military is aiming to recruit 5,000 able-bodied fighters every month from April under a conscription order, Myanmar watch groups say, revealing its weakness.
Meanwhile, junta soldiers are extorting money from people whom they detain under the pretext of overnight guest registration. The detainees are released after payment is made.
However, pro-junta Telegram channels claim that the young men detained are members of the anti-junta People’s Defence Force and that they possess weapons.
Fighters from the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) have a message for compatriots who have not yet directly supported their resistance against the junta but are now at risk of being pulled into the violent chaos that has engulfed the country since the 2021 coup.
This comes as a coalition of ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy rebels across the country has inflicted heavy losses on government forces, in a counteroffensive that poses an unprecedented – and possibly existential – threat to the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s vicious military is known, reports the South China Morning Post.
Reports from Yangon (formerly Rangoon) show queues of hundreds at the Thailand embassy as people seek a legal way out, while hundreds of mainly young men have been detained after sneaking over the border into Thailand to escape the draft – a warning of the potential for a larger exodus ahead.
Thailand, a country that does not have an asylum system for the protection of refugees, is under pressure to consider formalising entry ahead of the expected influx, writes SCMP.
Earlier in January, China brokered the Myanmar ceasefire, urging the junta and rebel militia to ‘exercise maximum restraint’. ‘The two sides agreed to an immediate ceasefire,’ the Chinese foreign ministry claimed, while pledging a continued ‘constructive role’ from Beijing.
The junta and rebel Three Brotherhood Alliance held two days of talks in the Chinese city of Kunming, the ministry spokeswoman reveals.
In another story on Al Jazeera, Myanmar’s military regime has admitted it is facing “heavy assaults” by anti-coup forces who began a coordinated offensive at the end of last month, claiming to have taken control of several towns in border areas and dozens of military outposts.
Spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told Al Jazeera that troops were under “heavy assaults from a significant number of armed rebel soldiers” in Shan State in the north, Kayah State in the east, and Rakhine State in the west.
Anti-coup fighters are using “hundreds” of drones to drop bombs on military posts, and some sites have had to be evacuated, he added.
Myanmar was plunged into crisis when the generals seized power from the elected government of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup in February 2021.
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