More than two years after it was founded as a shadow opposition to the military junta, Myanmar’s Government of National Unity continues to enjoy high levels of legitimacy. The broader Civil Disobedience Movement remains strong, while the military is vilified. So what explains the cohesion of the armed forces and what are the implications of the low number of desertions?
On April 2, the NUG Ministry of Defense issued his latest appeal to attract military and police deserters. Defections are a key part of the NUG’s military strategy, so the document is worth digging into.
The NUG stated that by the end of February 12,327 members of the security forces, 3,236 soldiers and 9,091 police officers had joined the programme.
These numbers are higher than People’s Embrace, an NGO that encourages defections and offers support to defectors, had previously recorded. The NUG Ministry of Defense did not provide any supporting evidence.
Additionally, 8,000 people had defected in 2021; the rate dropped dramatically in 2022. And when defections do occur, they tend to be individuals, not groups, let alone entire units. There have also been few senior officers who have defected.
While anecdotal evidence suggests that dropouts are increasing, there is no way to quantify them.
Deterrence of defections
Stopping the mass defections has arguably been the Tatmadaw’s most important military victory to date.
They have done this by keeping a close eye on soldiers, monitoring their social media posts, facilitated by subsidies or forcing them to use SIM cards sold by MyTel, the telecommunications company that is a joint venture between the Myanmar and Vietnamese militaries.
Soldiers and their families live in military cantonments and work in military-owned businesses. They have all their savings in one of two military-owned banks, Myawaddy and Innwa, allowing leaders to monitor large withdrawals.
There are also some financial costs to defecting. All soldiers are forced to purchase a minimum two-year life insurance policy, with an initial cost of K500,000 ($238), a princely sum for a soldier, and a monthly deduction of K8,400 ($4).
And there are reports that the insurance provider, Aung Myint Moh Min Insurance Co., which is owned by Min Aung Hlaing’s son and has had the contract since 2015, has not been paying benefits due to lack of cash, unit-level corruption, and/or fear of acknowledging the high casualty rate.
At the same time, all soldiers have a mandatory monthly deduction from their pay to buy shares in the military-owned conglomerate Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd. The rate is determined by their rank. All military personnel are supposed to receive an annual dividend, but none has been paid since the coup.
Foregoing these investments alone is not a sufficient disincentive, but in conjunction with the others, it is an additional deterrent.
And, of course, there is only old-fashioned indoctrination. The military has always been able to segregate soldiers from the population and brainwash them with a sense of superiority and responsibility that only they can hold the rebellious country together.
Given the use of war crimes as a deliberate strategy, including the torture and killing of prisoners of war, the intentional targeting of civilians, the arson destruction of more than 65,000 homes, beheadings, and desecration, many soldiers may feel that they are too guilty to be allowed to defect. without punishment
In normal times, desertion would carry a three-year prison sentence. But with fighting on multiple fronts and manpower depleted, the army has been executing deserters to set an example.
a recently passed firearms law criminalizes the sale or transfer of state-owned weapons or ammunition punishable by severe penalties and makes it, in some cases, a capital offense, another deterrent to would-be deserters.
insufficient support
There have been insufficient funds for the dropout program. For the NUG, it was an enigma. How could they finance defectors while their own supporters lived in poverty and were asked to support the fight against the junta?
The NUG has provided limited funding, particularly for those who defect with their weapons. In April, for example, three soldiers and four police officers deserted with their weapons and ammunition, receiving $3,500 each. That won’t go very far.
The international community deserves much of the blame. Unwilling to support armed resistance, funding defections is the epitome of non-lethal assistance. And yet, most donors see it as lethal assistance. It would be legal under the US BURMA Act, passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2023.
Defections are key to NUG’s strategy. While the NUG and its PDFs and affiliated ethnic resistance organizations have outperformed, they are not going to defeat the junta militarily, despite the regime’s admission that it lost control in 132 (42 percent) of the 330 municipalities and declared martial law in 47 municipalities. (14 percent).
The NUG claims some 30,000 junta members have been killed and more than 11,000 injured to date. Even if not confirmed, it is clear that the military has suffered high casualty rates among its 70,000 combat troops and that its units are understaffed and operating at unsustainable rates.
Morale, we know from the deserters, is very low. A recent BBC report discussed the demoralization felt by the rank and file because of public animosity. Battlefield losses, limited equipment and supplies have further eroded support.
The military has struggled to recruit, even at its two elite schools, the Defense Services Academy and the Defense Services Medical Academy, despite the anemic economy.
The NUG’s strategy is to hollow out the military to the point that it can no longer deploy and maintain its troops on multiple battlefronts.
Desertions not only deplete the military, but are essential to arming the NUG forces. Demand has increased black market prices for automatic weapons three to four times. While most Ethnic Resistance Organizations are able to make much of their own weapons and ammunition, the demand at the moment is increasing and depleting production capacities.
The NUG Ministry of Defense warned that the People’s Embrace program was not open-ended. While this is likely for financial reasons, they clearly need to encourage another round of defections, ahead of this year’s dry season offensive, especially since the military has given itself a 51 percent budget increase to $2.7 billion. for fiscal year 2023.
The NUG must make a decision on the scope of a general amnesty and send it clearly and directly to the troops. And the international community must have the foresight to support it.
But the opposition forces also have to put their own house in order. Recent videos have shown members of the NUG people’s defense forces mistreating captured pro-junta Pyu Saw Htwee militiamen. This conduct is not only illegal, but it is not strategic, and it will reinforce the military cohesion and the pro-junta militias.
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