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Myanmar junta takes census despite conflict, boycott calls
Teams of enumerators accompanied by soldiers and armed police went door to door in Yangon to fill in the 68-question survey
A census enumerator collects information during a national census in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, on October 1, 2024. — AFP
Census takers guarded by police and soldiers took to the streets of Myanmar on Wednesday for a national survey that anti-junta groups have urged people to boycott.
The ruling junta is pressing ahead with the census even though it has lost control of large areas of the country to armed groups opposed to its rule.
Bloody conflict rages across much of Myanmar but the junta says the survey is needed to update voter lists ahead of promised elections in 2025.
Teams of enumerators accompanied by soldiers and armed police went door to door in Yangon to fill in the 68-question survey.
"School teachers, local authorities, police and local militia members are taking the census. Militias who attended basic military training are helping for security in their area," a military officer told AFP, speaking anonymously because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
"We have tightened security when taking census because of the threats by terrorists."
The census comes as the junta led by General Min Aung Hlaing reels from battlefield defeats to ethnic minority armed groups and pro-democracy 'People's Defence Forces' (PDFs) that rose up to oppose the military's coup d'etat in 2021.
The military has designated many of those groups as "terrorists" but issued an unprecedented invitation to its enemies last week for talks on the country's civil war.
Min Aung Hlaing and other senior junta cadres were among the first to be surveyed as data collection began on Tuesday. The census is scheduled to go on until October 15.
The survey includes questions about family members living away from home — which critics say is a way for the junta to identify who has joined armed groups or fled the country to avoid conscription into the army.
"They mainly focused on a list of family members in the household and they also asked about family members who are living away," Wai Wai, a mother of three in Lewe township near the military-built capital of Naypyidaw, told AFP.
The census also includes questions about householders' ethnicity and the language they speak at home.
These are hugely sensitive issues in Myanmar, which is a complex mosaic of different cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups.
Different ethnic groups have sought for decades to assert their identity and compete with each other for influence and resources while resisting the military, which is dominated by the ethnic Bamar majority.
More than 20 ethnic minority armed groups have battled for decades against the army to hold on to their home areas — and control the lucrative trade in drugs, timber and jade.
A number of those groups condemned the census and urged people not to take part.
The Chin Brotherhood Alliance, a group of ethnic armed groups in western Chin state, said the census was "only aimed at prolonging the power of the military council" and warned people against cooperating.
"Chin Brotherhood hereby issues a warning that effective action will be taken against anyone who participates in the military council's census in our area," it said in a statement.
The Karen National Union (KNU), which has been battling the military for decades for more autonomy along the border with Thailand, also came out against the census.
Saw Thamain Tun, a KNU leader, said the junta was trying to create political legitimacy for its coup through the census.
In eastern Mon state, the New Mon State Party (Anti-Dictatorship) also urged people not to answer the survey.
"We will not accept their census," Nai Banya Mon, a spokesperson from the group, told AFP.
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