(Rangoon) The Burmese junta announced it would apply a law requiring men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 to serve in the army for at least two years, as it struggles to quell resistance army for his 2021 coup.
It decided “the entry into force of the law on popular military service from February 10, 2024”, announced its information service in a press release.
The law, dating from 2010 and the previous military power, had never been implemented.
Saturday’s statement did not provide further details, but said the Defense Ministry would “issue the necessary regulations, procedures, orders, notifications and instructions.”
The 2010 law, adopted in the midst of a state of emergency, provides that the duration of military service can be extended to five years and that people who ignore their summons can be imprisoned for an identical period.
Burma has been torn by violent conflict since the 2021 military putsch that toppled leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ended a ten-year democratic parenthesis.
No peaceful outcome seems to be in sight while the fighting has caused, according to the UN, the displacement of more than two million civilians. The crackdown has left more than 4,400 dead, according to a local monitoring group.
The ruling generals decreed at the end of January the extension of the state of emergency for another six months, de facto once again postponing the elections promised since the coup d’état of 1er February 2021.