"I could no longer serve under such traitors" - a captain deserted and settled accounts with the coup plotters in Myanmar

The Myanmar captain Nyi Thuta no longer wants to serve “among such traitors”, as he describes the military around General Min Aung Hlaing.

The original article was written by Matthias Müller on 01 November 2021, and can be found here: https://www.nzz.ch/international/myanmar-ein-deserteur-ueber-seine-flucht-und-die-aengste-der-junta-ld.1652649#back-register.

Nyi Thuta could no longer reconcile it with his conscience that he was on the wrong side after the coup in Myanmar. "It was heartbreaking for me when the military began shooting innocent and peaceful demonstrators," says the captain. "As a soldier, I once took the oath to protect the people," he adds. The deserter accuses the generals headed by Min Aung Hlaing of having committed high treason when they overthrew the democratically elected government with their coup on February 1 of this year. "I could no longer serve among such traitors," added Nyi Thuta, who went into hiding.

From the underground he is now trying to convince other soldiers to also desert with the People's Soldiers organization . Thousands have already done the same, the captain emphasizes in the telephone conversation. "You want to be on the right side of history." Nyi Thuta pays a high price for his escape: He is wanted across the country. If caught, he faces the death penalty.

The military has miscalculated

According to the parallel government of national unity (NUG) , hundreds of police officers or soldiers are said to have deserted. The number cannot be checked independently. "We are witnessing a real propaganda battle," says an observer who is following the events in Myanmar from Bangkok. The junta as well as the NUG beautifulize the statistics in their respective sense.

However, there is a consensus among Myanmar observers that too few police officers and soldiers have deserted to break the military dominance of the coup plotters. It is estimated that the Myanmar military, officially called Tatmadaw, has around 350,000 soldiers, although it is unclear how many are operational; there are also said to be 85,000 police officers. Nyi Thuta is also aware that desertion is not the only way to solve the crisis. "But it's the only approach that has the least amount of blood flowing."

However, the growing number of deserters shows the problems General Min Aung Hlaing's junta is facing. "When the military seized power in February, many assumed it would consolidate quickly," says Igor Blazevic of the Prague Civil Society Center, a non-governmental organization. He had taught in Myanmar between 2011 and 2016 to help build civil society.

However, the military made miscalculations because they obviously misjudged the social and economic changes that took place during democratization. The people are no longer willing to forego freedom of expression and assembly, participation in political processes, access to the Internet and the right to education. “There are more and more people in Myanmar who have built an economic existence and have a lot to lose from the coup,” says Blazevic.

Nyi Thuta emphasizes that many soldiers and officers have followed the development of their country with great benevolence over the past ten years under a democratically legitimized government. «We soldiers are ordinary citizens who want to lead a peaceful life in a developing country. However, the generals have bad intentions and only want to strengthen their power and promote personal business interests, ”he says.

By fleeing, deserters like Nyi Thuta also put their own families in great danger of being tortured or even killed. He does not want to comment on the fate of his family members. Instead, he tells how difficult it was to escape. Even before the coup, soldiers and their families needed permission from officers to leave the barracks where they usually live. "Since the Coup d'État, it has become even more difficult for soldiers and their family members to escape," says the captain.

They would now be treated like prisoners. Soldiers are not allowed to leave the military compound to go shopping, and their wives cannot see a doctor outside the barracks. Nyi Thuta had lied to the guards on his escape and claimed to have permission to leave the barracks.

"We want to regain control of our life"

Soldiers and their family members give up large parts of their freedoms when they join the military and are sealed off from the rest of society. Even weddings among members of the armed forces are arranged. And the social media and websites they use are tightly controlled. The soldiers are not supposed to see any alternative information to indoctrine the military.

The army has driven the soldiers and their family members into such a relationship of dependency that everyone thinks carefully about deserting and exposing themselves to such great dangers, even if there are doubts about the brutal action against their own compatriots. The scientist Andrew Seth of the Griffith Asia Institute in Brisbane writes that there is a strict hierarchical structure in the armed forces and that loyalty is paramount: "Poor performance is often less severely punished than behavior that is viewed as disrespectful and disloyal."

And yet the fate of deserters like Nyi Thuta shows that the Tatmadaw system is reaching its limits. The doubts among the soldiers are growing. At the end of the conversation, the captain says that there are hardly any people in Myanmar who support the military. “It is the generals' worst nightmare that the people and the soldiers get together. We have had enough of them and do not want a single day of military rule. That is why we strike back to regain control of our lives. It is the right of the Myanmar people to stand up to the brutal regime in a defensive war. "