Poor pay, little food, and heavy duty in the Tatmadaw
The following was written by Ma Tha Zin and translated to English by KZH.The story is made possible from the team behind Breaking Brainwashed.
“When I was young, I read stories that the old Burmese kings were served 12 dishes every meal. We cannot know it is true or not and only people of that time will know.
What I know about is the experience of soldiers in the Tatmadaw today. Lower ranking soldiers of the Burma Army cannot eat meals like that! Most of them must be very frugal because of their poor salary. The larger the family, the more frugality.
You see, there is this battalion fund and when the officer called ‘A Ba’ come to check, we have to serve him or whoever he is with him, with that fund. I was familiar with cooking and serving for them as my mother used to do this when I was young. She prepared such things as food decorations, refreshing foods, midnight meal, etc.
I became very tired seeing this as a girl, and you can only imagine how tired it must be for the ones who were serving for ‘A Ba.’ They have to serve and cook for the whole day! In the Tatmadaw, once you are an officer, you don’t have to pay anything back. When that officer comes to check a battalion, they eat what we serve with our own funds and if they feel unhappy, the battalion chief will get scolded. The more higher rank you have as an officer in the Tatmadaw, the more you are able to take bribes. Although the lower ranking soldiers have low salaries and some even have debts, there is even an official cookbook like ”Menu to serve the officers”. But even if the exact food on the menu might be changed, there is no change that will ever come in the lives of lower ranking soldiers, as these cooking teams exist until now.
They have to serve ‘A Ba’ the whole day from part of their own salary, the battalion fund, and even they cannot cook for their children at home sometimes as a result.
For the even higher ranking officers of Tatmadaw, they become served like kings. For the lower ranking soldiers, there is no bathroom and even no place to sleep when they are asked to travel. Think simply, is there justice? As for officers of Tatmadaw, if you complain about this system to them, they will say if you want to benefit from these higher levels, simply try to become promoted any way you can.
There are many soldiers who didn’t even get any retirement pension after they become 60 years old. So you can imagine how the ones called ‘A Ba’ in Tatmadaw take bribes and how they become even richer when other lower ranking soldiers have a difficult time simply for living with their small salary.”