by SYEDA NOSHIN SHARMILY
Junta offering rice, salaries and ID cards to internally displaced Rohingya to join the military in failing regime’s latest sign of desperation
Faced with a decline in authority and mounting territorial losses, Myanmar’s beleaguered junta has resorted to a controversial new war-fighting strategy: conscripting Rohingya Muslims under the auspices of a new People’s Military Service Law.
Enacted on February 10, the legislation has elicited widespread discontent among eligible citizens, leading some to consider emigration or affiliation with armed anti-junta groups or ethnic armies.
The junta’s recent defeats against the Arakan Army in Rakhine state, including the loss of significant territories including Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon, and Taung Pyo townships, as well as Paletwa Township in Chin state, are driving the regime’s desperate bid to recruit new fighters – even among those the military has historically abused and oppressed.
The junta has announced that if Rohingya men serve in the military, then each will receive a sack of rice, a citizenship identity card and a monthly salary of 150,000 kyats (US$41).
In a particularly contentious action, the military has issued a directive under the People’s Military Service Law to recruit new soldiers directly from Rohingya internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe.
The order instructs camp management committees to select individuals from each camp to bolster military ranks and operations against the insurgent Arakan Army, which recently ended a ceasefire with the military and has announced its intent to seize control of the entirety of Rakhine state.
The Rohingya community has condemned the junta’s conscription drive, which many view as a reprehensible bid to use Rohingya recruits as human shields. The regime’s cynicism is blatant in light of the military’s 2017 “area clearance operation” that drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya into Bangladesh and sparked international outcries of genocide.
The new law mandates the conscription of men aged 18 to 45 and women aged 18 to 35 into the armed forces for a two-year period, extendable to five years during national emergencies, which the nation now clearly faces.
The Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, is empowered to issue regulations, procedures, announcements, orders, notifications and instructions necessary for the law’s implementation. Failure to comply with conscription carries penalties of imprisonment ranging from three to five years and heavy fines.
The junta is extending a pseudo-olive branch to Rohingya confined to displacement camps in Rakhine state, a legacy of the recent brutal campaign against the group. This narrative revolves around offering them freedom of movement as inducement to enlist and fight ethnic Rakhine Arakan Army rebels.
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