According to the 1974 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Burma, the term “citizen” was afforded a new definition (all people born of parents who are both nationals and all people who, up to that point in Burmese history, were granted citizenship). However, the legal framework of the 1948 citizenship provisions remained intact (Arraiza & Vonk, 2017). It was not until passage of the 1982 Citizenship Law that citizenship became blatantly intertwined with military coercion and control tactics. The new law (still in effect under the current NLD-led government) is a prime example of the way in which post-independence laws have been used by the Tatmadaw to legitimize totalitarian control tactics. Under the influence of a failing socialist government ideology, this legislation established a three-tiered citizenship apparatus (Ullah, 2017). That allowed the ruling military generals to micro-manage the populace far more efficiently than ever before. According to the 1982 system, there are three levels of citizenship in Burma: full citizen, associate citizen, and naturalized citizen. It should be noted that this citizenship law fully embraced an institutional, government-wide principle of discrimination via categorization in Burma—an instrument of oppression crafted directly by the militarystate, aimed at Burma’s non-indigenous ethnic groups (Ullah, 2017). The 1982 citizenship law is an example of one of the many ways the Tatmadaw strategically embedded its power in the legal framework of the country. Written in a conflict-ridden era, General Ne Win and the military regime he led wrote the 1982 law in an attempt to further delineate the indigenous groups of Burma—with an undertone of Burman nationalism. As Arraiza & Vonk (2017) clarify: 66