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The ruling junta in Myanmar made conscripts take drugs to stay sharp on the battlefield and reduce their sensitivity to violence, soldiers captured by rebel forces alleged.
Five captured soldiers, identified in a video released by the rebel Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, alleged that the junta supplied army stations with methamphetamines.
They were forcibly recruited by the military after clashes broke out between the junta and ethnic rebels following the February 2021 coup that wrested power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, the soldiers claimed.
The civil war intensified late last year after the Three Brotherhood Alliance, comprising the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, launched offensives against the army and quickly captured towns and military bases in border areas.
One of the soldiers, identified in the video as Private Poe Htoo, claimed they were given methamphetamines and told to torch “suspicious houses” in the eastern Kayah state.
“We had to torch houses that obstructed our field of vision as well as houses where uniforms were found,” another soldier said in the video, referring to the uniforms of rebel groups, The Irrawaddy reported.
Last year Amnesty International accused the military of perpetrating indiscriminate attacks on civilians and using banned cluster munitions in its fight against ethnic minority insurgents, calling for an investigation of suspected war crimes.
The soldiers alleged that they were given meth tablets, locally known as Ya ba, to combat sleepiness on sentry days.
“The major also sometimes uses drugs,” one of the soldiers said.
The Myanmar military has long been accused of involvement in the production and trade of drugs including methamphetamine and heroin.
The rebel forces reportedly seized 1,300 soap boxes filled with heroin during their takeover of Pinlebu town in Sagaing.
Instability and violence in the country has enabled the production of cheap Ya ba, and escalated the drug crisis in Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia and East Asia are awash in methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs, the UN office on drugs and crime said in a report earlier this year. It traced their source largely to the border region known as the Golden Triangle where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet.
Shan state in northern Myanmar in particular is reported to have a growing number of methamphetamine labs.
The UN report said the amount of methamphetamines seized across East and Southeast Asia reached a record 190 tonnes in 2023. Nearly 89 per cent of the drugs came from Southeast Asia and mainly the Golden Triangle.
The Independent has reached out to Myanmar’s defence ministry and the Kayah State administration for comment.
