Colonel Ko Star, 42, leader of the Tanintharyi PDF, crosses a river by boat near the front lines in Tanintharyi region, Myanmar. Photo: Valeria Mongelli/The Telegraph
Sitting on flimsy plastic chairs in an old town hall with holes in the roof and peeling paint on the walls, a dozen young men wait patiently for their turn to join Myanmar's rebel army.
< p>Killing time , they compare information about the junta-controlled towns and villages from which they came.
Some are just a few miles from the rebel-held town of Tagu, one of several areas in southern Myanmar's Tanintharyi region that the rebel People's Defense Forces (PDF) have seized from the ruling military government over the past year.
“ I didn’t even know such a place existed,” said 18-year-old Jenny. She asked that her real name not be used for fear of repercussions on her family, as did all the people interviewed for this story.
Jenny has wanted to join the fight against the country's junta since they carried out a coup in February 2021 and jailed then-leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She watched in horror as the army launched a campaign of brutal repression, mass rape and bombing.
“I would never choose the Burmese army — they kill civilians,” she said. “I want to be a revolutionary.”
Jenny, 18, fled to join the rebels to avoid conscription . Photo: Valeria Mongelli/The Telegraph
Her parents always refused. That all changed when the Army announced it would introduce conscription in mid-April. The women were first included and then released.
But Jenny's family did not want to risk her conscription. They blessed her to escape to Taga.
“I would like to have my own small business, but we lost our dreams a long time ago,” she said. Instead, it now plans to create combat drones «to destroy military convoys.»
Jenny is one of hundreds of young people flocking to rebel-held territory to avoid conscription into the Burmese army as it tries to fill a serious troop shortage.
Since the 2021 coup, Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing and his troops have been doing doing everything in their power to suppress any opposition, from shooting peaceful protesters to merciless air strikes. strikes by burning villages.
But they continue to lose troops — through defections and deaths — as well as territory to a loose alliance of ethnic rebel groups and a civilian militia movement that has pushed the junta away from Myanmar's borders with Thailand, Bangladesh, China and India and turned it into the territory's heartland. .
The army began training conscripts in April after announcing the introduction of a law on compulsory military service for men aged 18–35, or 45 for professionals.
The regime wants 60,000 people to register in the first year, to nearly to double the current number of troops, estimated at 70,000, but this is not tempting.
Joy, 30, who defected from the government's interior department second months after the coup, said: «Thanks to the conscription law, the people they target may be more educated, younger people with more political awareness.»
New recruits will be stationed away from the ranks and «carefully screened to see who can be trusted,» he said.
«Those who can't be trusted can be used as porters or as human shields for crossing minefields.”
Lists of new recruits have already been compiled through a local lottery in the spirit of the Hunger Games. Some names were allegedly included by representatives of the local regime to settle disputes. Evaders face up to five years in prison.
The goal is to intensify military action, but so far this appears to be backfiring, instead causing a new exodus from the country.
New PDF recruits gather at a former school near the front line, Tanintharyi region, Myanmar Photo: Valeria Mongelli/The Telegraph 
Newly recruited PDF members train near the front lines in the Tanintharyi region of Myanmar. Photo: Valeria Mongelli/The Telegraph 
Recently recruited PDF members train near the front lines in Tanintharyi region, Myanmar. Photo: Valeria Mongelli/The Telegraph
In an attempt to escape, two women were crushed to death in line for Thai visas, and at least two men committed suicide after their names were drawn in a draft lottery.
In the western state of Rakhine, where the UN blamed the Burmese troops in a «mock genocide» against the stateless Muslim Rohingya minority, the same people who were once persecuted were now forcibly recruited to fight alongside their persecutor.
Bom, 31, said that the atmosphere in his hometown, which he did not want to name for security reasons, was “tense due to pressure from the dictatorship.”
He described soldiers plucking young men from the streets and families paying bribes of more than $100 to avoid conscription.
“We must unite and fight the dictatorship now,” Bohm said. “I am joining the PDF to fight.”
Htet, 20, said that like Jenny, he too was held back by his family until the draft order was announced.
< p>“The conscription law sucks,” he said. “This is just a way to get civilians to kill each other. After the coup, I wanted to join the SPO, but my parents were worried. When the call was announced, I was released.”
Yone Lay, 25, left his job at the bus station. “I don't want to fight the PDF, so I joined them instead. At the beginning I was afraid, but not now.”
Tun Myint Zaw, 51, a school director in Tagu, is responsible for registering new arrivals in rebel-held territory. He said he had signed up about 230 people in the past two weeks, 30 percent of whom were women.
The resistance's appeal among young people is helped by the fact that they appear to be winning at the moment. .
The PDF claimed responsibility for a bold and unprecedented barrage of drone attacks on an air base, airport and military generals' lair in the capital Naypyitaw in April. It is unclear how much damage, if any, was caused, but the rebels' ability to penetrate the heavily fortified town embarrassed the junta.
A combined force of ethnic Karen forces and the PDF captured Myawaddy, a key border town for much of the Myanmar's overland trade with Thailand.
Maintaining this momentum is a key challenge facing the resistance.
Not far from the front lines in the Tanintharyi region, 42-year-old Ko Star, nom de guerre, inspects a room filled with 69 recruits aged 16 to 35 who are about to undergo two months of training.
He was once a parliamentarian. , but was overthrown in a coup and is now the regional leader of the SPD.
Ko Star, 42, leader of the SPD Taninthari, pictured during an interview near the front lines in Tanintharyi region, Myanmar. Photo: Valeria Mongelli/The Telegraph 
PDF and fighters from other local resistance groups march in Taga, Tanintharyi region, Myanmar Photo: Valeria Mongelli/The Telegraph
Due to a shortage of weapons and ammunition, not all recruits will receive weapons, and none will receive a salary. he explained.
This makes the recruits' «strong will» even more important, Ko Star said.
«Recruits come to us based on their own decisions and their own feelings.»
He compared people who join the PDF of their own accord to people who are forced into the army and «trained without wanting to fight.»
That «definitely won't work,» he said.
< img src="/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/9b3bd2cd61241760165bbfefcd4649b9.jpg" /> PDF Militants ride through a market on the back of a truck in Tagu, Tanintharyi region, Myanmar Photo: Valeria Mongelli/The Telegraph
But not all come to Taga to fight the war.
Director Tun Myint Zaw said: “If they want to join the PDF, we can help them.
«If they don't, they can stay in the village and we can help them with food and shelter as best we can.»
New arrival Beau Payne, 27, is one the kind of guy who plans to stay away from the battlefield, at least for now.
Wearing a T-shirt that read “Life is Easy” over a picture of a cannabis leaf, he wasn't quite sure what he'd do instead this.
“I never liked the military,” he said. “If necessary, I am ready to join PDF. In the meantime, I’ll stay in the village.”
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