Irrawaddy-March 15
Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations U Kyaw Moe Tun has urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to take concrete action to stop the forced recruitment of Myanmar youths as junta soldiers under the conscription law. During a UNSC event titled Open Debate Promoting Conflict Prevention – Empowering All Actors Including Women and Youth held on March 13, the ambassador said Myanmar youth are now at extreme risk due to the unlawful military conscription being forced on the people by the illegal junta. “Now they [the military dictators] are forcing Myanmar youth into mandatory military service, not to defend the country, but to use them as human shields and porters against the growing anti-coup revolutionary forces,” the ambassador told the UNSC. “This military draft together with the worsening humanitarian crisis is creating a serious regional problem.” Since early February, the people of Myanmar and the civilian National Unity Government have called for the international community to take necessary action to stop forced conscription by the military junta, he said, adding that he now reiterated that call.
The Myanmar military junta has been moving quickly to conscript the country’s young people into its armed forces since announcing the enforcement of the long-standing People’s Military Service Law on Feb. 10. It has also begun registering eligible individuals, with detailed data-collection processes now under way in Naypyitaw and Yangon, particularly. The junta has also detained and forcibly recruited hundreds of Rohingya men from villages and camps for internally displaced persons in Rakhine State. In a joint statement released on Thursday, the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) and the National League for Democracy (NLD) party urged the international community not to wait for another atrocity but to take immediate, effective, legal and legislative actions against the junta. Read more at:
