Young defectors from the Burmese military who were taken from their parents and forced to serve in the army are telling a sordid tale of torture at the hands of the government, reports Radio Free Asia, or RFA.
The young men say they were routinely beaten and prevented from contacting their parents.
Cpl. Than Naing, who has deserted his military group to join the opposition Shan State Army, says government military personnel snatch young boys of 13 and 14 from local teashops to serve in the army.
“At the end of school, students would take pocket money from their parents and go to teashops,” he told RFA. “The SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] government was lying in wait for that. As soon as the classes were dismissed, they would run to snatch the students. They would go and drag them away.”
Children who didn’t have national registration cards on them would be beaten up before being sent away to the army and prevented from contacting their parents, Naing tells RFA. The man said he was conscripted at the age of 16 after being caught without identification.
Another deserter, Yan Paing Soe, said he was dragged away by soldiers in spite of having an identification card and a reference letter on him, saying his captors tore up the documents and accused him of not having them.
“They took me to the army camp in Tamwe and punched me,” Yan Paing Soe told the radio service. “There were about two people in front of me. They had also been punched that way. There was bleeding, so I got scared and said I would join them.”
Naing says conscripts were allowed to write to their parents, but they never received a response. He said it was seven years before his parents heard of his whereabouts.
Once in the military, the children were expected to shoulder the same tasks as grown men, Naing told RFA.
“They would beat or swear at children who are unmanageable when climbing mountains. There were children who couldn’t climb the mountains. They beat them and made them climb,” Naing said.
“Some died because of their health conditions. Some became ill and died. Some caught malaria. Malaria was really bad. They were buried when they died. … But what difference is it going to make for the parents? They’re already dead.”
The junta government claims it does not recruit children for the army. According to a 2003 report by New York-based Human Rights Watch, however, thousands of boys, some as young as 11, have been forced into Burma’s army, with soldiers under the age of 18 making up around 20 percent of troops, RFA reports. The army fights various opposition forces and ethnic minorities in Burma, also known as Myanmar, forcing soldiers to take part in a wide range of human-rights abuses.
The report says Naing and Soe were among two dozen deserters who killed their commanding officers and escaped the army on Nov. 24.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports the Burmese government said Monday it will hold a constitutional convention next year as the first step toward establishing democracy.
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