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Irregularities taint military draft lottery in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady

March 19, 2024/in News

Residents say not all of those eligible for service are being entered in selection pools. Authorities in southwestern Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region have commenced lotteries to select who will be drafted into the military from among lists of draft-eligible youths, but residents say the process is tainted by irregularities. The announcement last month of a conscription […]

Myanmar prison gets ‘notorious’ reputation following deaths

March 18, 2024/in News

Abuse and lack of medical treatment have left 15 political prisoners dead since last May. At least 15 political prisoners have died at Daik-U Prison in central Myanmar since last May, earning the prison in a remote area of Bago region a notorious reputation for abuse and neglect, aid workers and former prisoners told Radio […]

Irregularities taint military draft lottery in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady

March 19, 2024/in News

Myanmar prison gets ‘notorious’ reputation following deaths

March 18, 2024/in News

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Irregularities taint military draft lottery in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady

March 19, 2024/in News

Residents say not all of those eligible for service are being entered in selection pools.

Authorities in southwestern Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region have commenced lotteries to select who will be drafted into the military from among lists of draft-eligible youths, but residents say the process is tainted by irregularities.

The announcement last month of a conscription law, prompting youths of fighting age to flee to areas controlled by rebel groups or leave the country to avoid service. While the military regime says it will not begin drafting people until April, RFA Burmese has received reports indicating that forced recruitment is already underway.

The draft comes as the military tries to replenish its ranks after suffering a series of battlefield defeats to rebel forces, including the surrender of hundreds of soldiers.

Residents of Ayeyarwady region told RFA that authorities in the townships of Pyapon, Myaungmya, and Hinthada began instituting lotteries for the draft at the village level on Saturday, after compiling lists of residents aged 20-30. The selection process is being supervised by relevant administrators, officials and community elders, they said.

But the lotteries have raised hackles in communities where residents say not everyone on lists of the draft-eligible are being added to the selection pool.

“When the neighborhood elders compile a list, those included are required to attend the [lottery] meeting,” said one resident of Hinthada who was among those selected for service. “However … some people on the list are not called upon … They are neither employed nor studying. So why are these people being left out?”

The resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said that “only a minority are included” in the lottery.

Some who have taken part in the draft lottery accused authorities of “administrative dishonesty,” although they were unable to provide details or evidence of their claims.

RFA has reported that amid forced recruitment drives in other parts of the country, some residents have been able to avoid service by paying “fines” to authorities.

Another resident of Hinthada told RFA that in some neighborhoods in the township, those selected in the draft lottery were immediately taken away by authorities.

“After the draw, the person who was chosen must go,” said the resident. “In a nearby neighborhood, people said they were taken at once.”

A resident of Pyapon told RFA that lotteries for military service were held on Sunday in some of the township’s villages, but said some of those chosen had managed to “avoid participation.”

Attempts by RFA to ascertain why some draft-eligible residents were omitted from lotteries remain inconclusive.

Tragedy following lottery

Reports of conscription irregularities came as RFA learned that one young man in Ayeyarwady’s Kangyidaunt township took his own life after being selected to serve in the military.

The entrance to the Ayeyarwady region’s Kangyidaunt township is seen in an undated photo. (Ayeyarwaddy Times)

Residents of Kangyidaunt’s Pathein district said that on Saturday, a lottery was held and three young men from Yae Twin Chaung village were chosen for service.

A 20-year-old from among the three men, who was known to be against the draft, died by suicide the following day, said one of the residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

“I learned that he died that evening after receiving emergency medical treatment at the Pathein Public Hospital,” said the resident. “His family has been summoned by the local police station for interrogation.”

A source who lives in proximity to Yae Twin Chaung also confirmed to RFA that the man had taken his own life after being selected for service in a lottery overseen by village elders.

Although there is no positive proof that the man’s death and his selection in the draft lottery are related, it highlights the tensions young Burmese men are facing due to conscription.

Young adults aged 20-30 are eligible for conscription in Ayeyarwady region through lotteries, residents told RFA. Typically, two or three people are chosen from each village or ward.

Youths in Ayeyarwady region have told RFA they are reluctant to serve in the military.

Attempts by RFA to contact Khin Maung Kyi, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesperson for Ayeyarwady region, for comment on the recruitment process went unanswered Monday.

Junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun announced on Feb. 15 that 50,000 people would be recruited annually under the country’s draft law.

Based on Myanmar’s 2019 transit census, at least 13 million people are eligible to serve, he said.

RFA News

Myanmar prison gets ‘notorious’ reputation following deaths

March 18, 2024/in News

Abuse and lack of medical treatment have left 15 political prisoners dead since last May.

At least 15 political prisoners have died at Daik-U Prison in central Myanmar since last May, earning the prison in a remote area of Bago region a notorious reputation for abuse and neglect, aid workers and former prisoners told Radio Free Asia.

The 15 deaths include two since early February, according to sources close to family members. Those two men – 64-year-old Khin Soe and 68-year-old Aye Win – were serving long-term sentences and didn’t have access to health care at the prison, the sources told Radio Free Asia.

Aye Win died on Feb. 9 and had been serving an eight-year sentence that included a conviction under Section 505 (a), which was added to the penal code after the Feb. 1, 2021, military coup d’etat to punish comments or implications that the coup or the military is illegitimate. The cause of his death was unknown.

Junta authorities arrested Khin Soe when they were unable to capture his son, a person close to the family said. His health had worsened in the months before his March 6 death, the family friend said.

ENG_BUR_DaikUDeaths_03182024.1 (2).jpg — Daik-U Central Prison in Bago region is seen in this undated photo. (Citizen journalist)

“We couldn’t do anything,” the friend said. “One of my friends advised us to voice the lack of medical treatment for him through the news media. But we were afraid his family would be made to suffer if we did.”

The junta’s Ministry of Information on Saturday said Khin Soe died from a longtime stomach illness while being transferred from the prison’s hospital to the Daik-U township People’s Hospital. It denied that the prison lacks medical treatment.

‘Abruptly changed’

Daik-U Prison was built to hold about 1,000 inmates. The first set of prisoners were transferred into the facility in 2017 during a time when the country was led by a civilian government.

After the 2021 coup, prison authorities stopped providing adequate treatment and refused to allow inmates to receive shipments of medicine from outside the prison, former inmates told RFA.

Former prisoners also said that political inmates suffered physically from frequent interrogation sessions and were malnourished from not getting enough food and water.

They also weren’t allowed to do physical exercise because authorities suspected the exercises would help prisoners flee.

Daik-U Prison has earned a reputation since the coup for being particularly harsh, said Thaik Tun Oo, a member of the Leading Committee for Political Prisoners Network-Myanmar, or PPNM.

“The situation has abruptly changed,” he said. “The prisoners are being kept in a strict and oppressive manner.”

A legal expert in Yangon said the prison is being run in an illegal manner, and should be examined by government officials.

“This type of repression on political prisoners is also not acceptable in terms of social justice,” he said.

RFA contacted Naing Win, deputy director general of the junta’s Prisons Department, for his comment on the deaths at Daik-U Prison, but he didn’t answer his phone.

In 2023, a total of 34 political prisoners died in prisons nationwide. Among them, 18 were killed in prison and 16 died after not receiving full medical treatment, according to PPNM.

As of March 14, some 26,242 people have been arrested for political reasons since the coup, according to a report from the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners. Nearly 9,000 of those arrestees are currently serving prison terms, the group said.

RFA News

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ND Burma

ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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