Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
03RANGOON1183
2003-09-23 07:58:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Rangoon
Cable title:  

BURMA: REGIME STEPS UP MILITIA TRAINING

Tags:  MARR PGOV PREL PHUM BM 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L RANGOON 001183 

SIPDIS

TREASURY FOR OASIA JEFF NEIL
USPACOM FOR FPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/21/2013
TAGS: MARR PGOV PREL PHUM BM
SUBJECT: BURMA: REGIME STEPS UP MILITIA TRAINING

REF: RANGOON 1025

Classified By: COM Carmen Martinez for Reasons 1.5 (B,D)

C O N F I D E N T I A L RANGOON 001183

SIPDIS

TREASURY FOR OASIA JEFF NEIL
USPACOM FOR FPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/21/2013
TAGS: MARR PGOV PREL PHUM BM
SUBJECT: BURMA: REGIME STEPS UP MILITIA TRAINING

REF: RANGOON 1025

Classified By: COM Carmen Martinez for Reasons 1.5 (B,D)


1. (C) SUMMARY: The SPDC is moving forward with its
country-wide militia training program, particularly in the
capital city of Rangoon (reftel). In early September,
ward-level Peace and Development Council bosses in Rangoon
began the process of ordering individual families to provide
one person and 5,000 kyat (5 USD) for a 45-day training
session. The SPDC is using this stepped-up militia training
partly as a psy-ops campaign to keep the population off
balance and focused toward an unidentified "external threat,"
and partly to develop an auxiliary force of the riot police
and regular military. Either way, militia service is an
additional, and unwelcome, burden on an already beleaguered
population. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) Since the beginning of September, ward-level SPDC
councils throughout Rangoon have circulated letters to all
families notifying them that they are ordered to provide one
person from the family between 18 to 60 years of age to
attend compulsory 45-day militia training. Each person
enrolling must pay 5,000 kyat (roughly 5 USD) for uniforms
and equipment, which is around two week's salary for an
average laborer in Rangoon. Families not able to send a
delegate are required to pay 1,500 kyat a day for 45 days,
with 500 kyat going to a "volunteer" who takes their place,
and 1,000 kyat going to the local SPDC fund. This scheme
should also allow wealthier families to buy their way out of
the requirement, while at the same time padding SPDC coffers.
Less-wealthy families are tending to send an older, near
retirement-age person to the training in order not to lose
the income of younger wage earners still in their prime.


3. (SBU) In addition to militia training for civilians, riot
police instructors are on a daily training regimen in
downtown ministry buildings to train civil servants in riot
control tactics. Local police and public service members are
provided with refresher and advanced courses in civil
defense, light arms use, riot control, surveillance,
communications relay, and property defense. Emboffs have
observed militia training in recent weeks, including basic
military drill instruction for civil servants on the upper
floors of two ministry buildings in downtown Rangoon. In
addition, high-level staff members are reportedly being given
weapons training.


4. (C) COMMENT: The SPDC officially says the militia
training is to fend off an "external attack," but it is also
perceived publicly as an attempt by the regime to distract
the population from their worsening economic situation.
Regardless of the motives, militia training is another
unwelcome SPDC burden for those forced to participate and a
potentially lethal weapon for use in suppressing opposition
to the regime. END COMMENT.
Martinez