Taking stock of Burma's armed forces on its assumed 62nd birthday which falls today, the dissident group, Network for Democracy and Development (NDD) in exile says the burgeoning number of infantry battalions is yet to make the army a stronger and capable military power.
In 1990, the generals who had grabbed power in 1988 launched their five - five-year plans to beef up its Armed Services to 500,000 men.
Source: S.H.A.N.
The armed forces at that time, was about 186,000 strong with 168 infantry battalions, each with a strength of 400 to 500 men. By September 2006, the number had increased to 555. However, as Lt-Gen Thein Sein, the ruling military council's Secretary No.1, who also doubles as the army's adjutant-general, admitted at the second tri-annual meeting in 2005, 220 of them have between 200 to 300 men, while the other 284 have less than 200. Moreover, the army had also lost 9,497 men during the previous four months, most of them through desertions.
The meeting also took account of 3,022 offences committed by its personnel, 202 of them by officers. "One big headache is its persistent top heaviness," a former Burma Army officer told S.H.A.N., "as thousands of officers are being turned out each year by its training institutions. As a result, most of them are finding themselves out of work. Naturally many of them become bad eggs."
Senior General Than Shwe, who turns 75 this year, is unlikely to be sidetracked by such "trivialities", the NDD notes. "His speeches all boil down to one common theme: all problems must be dealt with by superior military power."
Source:Myanmaralin
The meeting also took account of 3,022 offences committed by its personnel, 202 of them by officers. "One big headache is its persistent top heaviness," a former Burma Army officer told S.H.A.N., "as thousands of officers are being turned out each year by its training institutions. As a result, most of them are finding themselves out of work. Naturally many of them become bad eggs."
Senior General Than Shwe, who turns 75 this year, is unlikely to be sidetracked by such "trivialities", the NDD notes. "His speeches all boil down to one common theme: all problems must be dealt with by superior military power."
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