The chair of the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA) visited individuals undergoing basic military training in Langkhur District, southern Shan State.

RCSS announced a conscription law days after the regime introduced its own following multiple defeats against resistance groups across the country.

RCSS’s Col Sai Kham San told SHAN that people can free themselves from the Military Council’s national conscription law by pledging their service to the Shan armed group

According to RCSS’s law, which was officially drafted in 1996, all men and women between 18 to 45 from all ethnicities in Shan State must serve six years in the RCSS’s army. Training for new recruits started in mid-February.

The RCSS chair Gen Yawd Serk travelled to Mawkmai, Langkhur, Mongnai, and Namsang townships. In Langkhur Township, he talked about the RCSS’s policy and maintaining unity among Shan nationalities. Tai Freedom, an RCSS mouthpiece, posted photos of thousands welcoming Yawd Serk in Mongnai and Mawkmai townships.

In February, he traveled to villages in Mongpan, Keng Tawng, Karli, and Kunhing townships.

RCSS and six signatories of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement recently formed an alliance (7 EAO Alliance) after meeting in Thailand’s Chiang Mai.

Yawd Serk told SHAN that the 7 EAO Alliance would start its administration in controlled areas. Alliance representatives met with regime officials in Naypyidaw, Burma’s capital.

Representatives of the 7 EAO Alliance, including Sao Sawng Harn, central executive committee of RCSS, met with representatives of the military council’s National Solidarity and Peacemaking Negotiation Committee at the end of March.