As a court in Myanmar sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to four more years in prison, the army is struggling with a growing number of deserters
Mr Ange Lay had been dissatisfied with life in the army, or the Tatmadaw as it is known, for years. Officers treated low-ranking soldiers like their servants. Anyone who complained got a punch in the head or time in a cell. We “lived in fear”, he says. And after toiling in the notoriously corrupt army for 15 years, Mr Ange Lay had little to show for it. “The army is taking the country down with it,” he recalls telling a fellow soldier when he learnt that the Tatmadaw had seized power in a coup.
There are many others like Mr Ange Lay. Since the coup, some 2,000 soldiers and 6,000 police officers have fled to territory controlled by rebel forces, according to the National Unity Government , a shadow government made up of deposed parliamentarians which helps organise resistance to the junta. It is likely that other soldiers have gone into hiding or fled the country.
. The Tatmadaw closely monitors the rank and file. Contact with the world outside the barracks is heavily restricted. There are internet blackouts in some camps. Most soldiers are no longer allowed to leave the barracks without permission. Before the coup, deserters would get five years in prison. Now they would most likely be shot.remains upbeat. Tatmadaw troop numbers are misleading, says Kim Jolliffe, an analyst.
For every soldier who defects to the resistance, there are likely to be far more who desert. According to Ye Myo Hein of the Wilson Centre, an American think-tank, between 5,000 and 7,000 soldiers abandoned the army every year before the coup. The figure in 2021 was probably much higher. No matter why they run, fleeing soldiers will recognise how Mr Ange Lay felt when he drove out of the barracks. “I felt I was so free...
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