Becoming a Member of Burma's 'Triumphant Elite'

One of the first lessons I learned after entering the Defense Services Academy (DSA) in Maymyo was what it means to belong to an institution often described as “Burma's West Point.”

After passing a series of medical examinations during our first week at the DSA, my intake, or class, of freshmen cadets was ordered to go to a hall to attend a “fresher welcoming party”. The first thing I noticed when I entered was how dark it was. We could hardly see each other, but after several minutes of waiting, we saw more people enter the hall—a lot of them. Then, before we could even guess what was going on, the punching started.

We were punched in the stomach, chest and back, but not in the face. As hard as we tried to protect ourselves from the savage blows that our unknown assailants were raining down on us, there was nothing we could do to stop the barrage. We couldn't even think of helping each other: we were all completely on our own. Finally, after about 30 minutes of this, it was all over except for the pain.

The next day, our attackers—who turned out to be second- and third-year students of the three-year academy—explained that this ordeal was part of what they called our “brainwashing,” which was a necessary step before we began formal training. The idea was to make us more obedient to senior students, who played an important role in maintaining discipline. This “senior-junior” system helped to establish a hierarchy that would govern our lives for the duration of our stay at the DSA and beyond in our careers as military officers.

The “welcoming party” was just an introduction to the routine of physical abuse that was a major feature of life at the DSA, where thousands of young men aged 16 to 18 were trained each year to become “the triumphant elites of the future”.

Some time after I graduated, the rules changed and physical assault was deemed an “illegal punishment”. Even then, beatings were only prohibited in halls and barracks, but not on the assembly ground. And despite the official stance, physical abuse continues to be part of the culture of the DSA, where a punch can serve as either a friendly greeting between equals or as weapon to keep inferiors in their place.

I heard that the reason the academy no longer officially sanctions beatings as a means of maintaining control and instilling unquestioning obedience is that a third-year cadet from the 45th Intake named Yin Htwe killed a junior cadet from the 47th Intake several years ago. Yin Htwe went to prison for three years for this incident, which also forced the authorities to distance themselves from the longstanding practice of hazing.

Whatever the policy on beatings, however, one things remains unchanged, and that is the “no complaints, no democracy” rule, which made it an absolute taboo to complain about anything—from bad food to brutal beatings by fellow cadets. 

The DSA is just one of three military academies in Burma, and is generally regarded as the toughest. The other two—the Defense Services Medical Academy (DSMA) and the Defense Services Technological Academy (DSTA) are also governed by the senior-junior system, but rely less on violence as a tool to maintain control.

Of course, discipline is also taken very seriously at the other two academies, where cadets are often forced to do pushups, frog jumps or other exercises as a form of punishment if they fail to follow orders to the satisfaction of their seniors. We also did this at the DSA, but were pushed much harder than cadets at the other academies.

One time, a visiting cadet from the DSMA told me he heard some people counting—“1,414, 1,415, 1,416, 1,417 …”—so he asked me what they were doing. I told him that some cadets were being forced to do frog jumps. He was shocked, because he said DSMA cadets were never expected to do more than 50 repetitions of any exercise.

At the DSA, we did countless frog jumps, pushups, handstands and somersaults. But if we were too pressed for time—as we almost always were—we also had the option of being punched. Since doing exercises always took a minimum of 30 minutes, and getting punched rarely lasted more than 10, most cadets chose the latter.

Another problem with doing exercises is that we often ended up completely filthy by the time we were done. Sometimes we had to roll around on the ground for an hour, and when we were finished, we were covered with dust and vomit.