Updated Oct. 01, 2024, 04:40 p.m. ET.
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Myanmar's military administration launched a census on Tuesday that will be used to draw up voter lists for an election due next year, a day after activists objecting to the junta's plans set off two bombs in the city of Yangon that wounded 11 people.
The junta that seized power in an early 2021 takeover has promised to restore democratic rule with a vote some time next yearbut its critics say polls under military rule, and while the most popular political leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is in detention along with hundreds of her colleagues and supporters, would be a sham.
The military’s opponents, including ethnic minority insurgents and pro-democracy fighters loyal to a shadow government set up by Suu Kyi's loyalists, control large parts of the country and have voiced opposition to the junta’s plans for the census and the vote to follow.
Citizens have also expressed concerns over divulging too much personal information to a military regime that targets critics of its rule.
“We disagree with the junta conducting this census," said an official with an anti-junta People's Defense Force, or PDF, group in Palaw township in the southern region of Tanintharyi.
"We oppose any activities that the junta is doing and will try to stop them," said the official, who declined to be identified for security reasons.
Meanwhile, security is tight in Myanmar's largest city Yangon, residents said, a day after bombs went off at two administrative offices in Kyimyindaing township in the city’s west and Mingala Taungnyunt in the east, wounding 11 people, according to a post on a pro-military social media account.
The wounded were people coming in to renew identification cards, the post said.
An urban guerrilla group known as Mission K said it had planted the bombs in buildings where junta administrators were meeting, adding that three people were killed and 13 were wounded.
"This operation was aimed at the junta administration's collaborators in conducting its illegal census," a Mission K spokesperson told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.
RFA was not able to confirm the group’s claim and telephone calls to junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered, as did efforts to reach the junta's Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population.
Yangon residents said junta troops and policemen were on guard at census offices and many troops were on the streets in plain clothes and at schools and religious buildings.
“They are conducting the census from house to house,” said one resident, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.
Use of data questioned
Officials in the commercial hub began collecting personal details from people at hotels on Monday, while city residents were reminded about the census through leaflets and loudspeaker announcements.
The census will be conducted from Oct. 1-15, based on an estimated population of 56 million and approximately 13 million households.
A resident of Yangon's Kamayut township, who also declined to be named, told RFA that census takers are working under the protection of "three to five junta soldiers or police" in each residential quarter.
"There were about 15 people in each group of census-takers ... making lists of each household," he said. "Meanwhile, the armed security forces are assembled in front of the apartment building. We felt anxious answering questions in front of them."
Residents said that the census includes 68 questions and worried that the junta will use the data for its own purposes, despite laws that restrict its use for anything aside from the census.
"They asked all about our family's business, including who does what job and what the husband does," said a woman from South Dagon township. "We aren't required to disclose personal information about our family, such as our economic affairs, so we lied for those questions."
In Mandalay, residents reported similar concerns about the use of their private data.
"Officials came to our house with a team of heads of hundred households, local administrative officials, and armed security forces," said one respondent. "We were worried about making any mistakes in our answers and feared arrest."
'A milestone'
The military's Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper published an editorial on the census on Tuesday but did not refer to areas of the country controlled by insurgents, or fighting between junta forces and their opponents, except to mention that authorities had taken "regional security measures."
"A key objective of this census is to ensure that the voter lists are accurate and up-to-date, which will help facilitate a free and fair multiparty democratic election — something the government prioritizes," said the newspaper, which has for years been regarded as a mouthpiece of the military.
"All citizens have to cooperate with the government in the census-taking process, which is a milestone for the nation," the newspaper said.
Residents of Rakhine state in the west and Shan state in the northeast told RFA that the junta would be unable to conduct the census in large areas controlled by ethnic minority forces and PDF fighters.
In Chin state in the northwest, the anti-junta Chin Brotherhood Alliance said the census was part of preparations for a “fake” election at a time of suffering for so many people because of the civil war and natural disasters such as Typhoon Yagi, which earlier this month caused flooding and landslides that killed more than 400 people. The group said it would not allow the census in areas under its control.
The military hopes that an election conducted under its rules will produce a parliament that will do its bidding -- as happened after a 2010 vote boycotted by the opposition -- and bolster its legitimacy both at home and abroad, analysts say.
Last week, the junta invited ethnic minority insurgent groups and PDF "terrorists" to abandon their opposition to military rule and join it in preparing for the election.
Anti-junta forces dismissed the invitation as a “bogus offer” aimed at burnishing the junta's international image.
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Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Joshua Lipes.
This story has been updated to include comments about the collection of census data in Yangon and Mandalay, as well as concerns over the junta's use of personal data.