The Dynamics and Consequences of Internal Displacement in Burma’s Ethnic Civil Wars: Focus on the Eastern Borderlands

1. Introduction

1.1 Internal displacement in Eastern Burma

Armed conflict, its effects, and militarisation are the proximate causes of internal displacement in Eastern Burma (Myanmar), which for the purposes of this case study comprises five politico-geographical areas bordering Thailand—Karen, Karenni, and Mon States, Tenasserim Division, parts of Eastern Pegu Division,[1] and Eastern/Central Shan State.[2] But such a wielding of Ockham’s razor for causality’s sake must not serve to obscure the complexities involved, since any effective conflict transformation must address those very complexities. For example, ceasefires in several areas have not diminished displacement but rather added to it.

Since independence in 1948, political and ethnic insurgencies have challenged both the nature and existence of the Burmese State. The ultimate response by that State has been to institutionalise militarism, with baleful consequences. Autarky, and after 1988 continued gross mismanagement despite some economic liberalisation, have fostered poverty, another element propelling population movements. Also, for 40 years the Burmese military, the Tatmadaw, have employed an extensive counter-insurgency programme known as the Four Cuts, which directly targets rural populations in contested areas. Forced relocations, extortions, and land confiscations have been part and parcel of that strategy and have swelled the numbers of displaced. Insurgent groups themselves, as well as sharing measures of responsibility for the cycles of violence, have often factionalised into splinter groups, with the elites of some more devoted to personal power maintenance and resource control than to any coherent or creative political agenda. Such multiple threats to personal security and livelihoods in eastern Burma have been pervasive and unrelenting.

The numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Eastern Burma range in estimates from 600,000 to over 1 million.[3] When displacement is considered as a whole, to these numbers should be added some 130,000 registered displaced persons across the Thai border in refugee camps, as many as 200,000 others unregistered in the camps and elsewhere,[4] and several hundred thousand more who have fled poverty, becoming economic migrants in Thailand.

Pressure to deal with the central issue of conflict by means of ceasefires with remaining armed opponents and with the related crisis of displaced Burmese on both sides of the Thai-Burma border is mounting and has drawn an initial amount of international institutional attention. Unfortunately, while war weariness on the part of combatants may be a welcome factor in this, significant pressure for resolution is based upon the Burmese military state’s desire to separate ethnic from political opponents and on the perceived economic interests of Thai elites. It does not proceed from a bottom-up approach that prioritises the needs of the displaced victims of civil war. Whether concerned local, regional, and international actors can—should conditions dictate return migrations—create enough time, space, resources and political will to ensure a modicum of secure and successful return, resettlement and reintegration for the multitudes of displaced in the eastern borderlands is uncertain.

1.2 Internal displacement defined

Defining the internally displaced, a prerequisite for analysis, has become something of a disputed semantic exercise.[5] A 1992 definition, issued under UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali’s name,[6] is now seen by many as too narrow, while broader terminology runs into arguments as to what extent development-induced displacement can be included.[7] There is no universally agreed upon definition, in part due to the critical overlap of internal displacement with staunchly defended considerations of state sovereignty.

For the purposes of this paper, the working definition will be the one developed by Dr. Francis Deng, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on internal displacement. He and his colleagues defined the internally displaced as:

“…persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid armed conflict, situations of generalized conflict, violations of human rights or natural or manmade disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.”[8]

1.3 Institutional/normative frameworks on internal displacement

Internal displacement, whether in Burma or elsewhere, is not a new phenomenon. What is new is the prominence the issue has received in recent years where it has, according to Deng, ‘emerged…as one of the most pressing humanitarian, human rights, and political issues facing the international community’.[9]

The so-called new wars of the 1990s, with their shifting or indiscernible front lines, underground economies, paramilitary excesses, and confused politics, showed that whatever frameworks existed in the way of statutory regimes, conventions and norms for refugee populations—and however weak those proved to be at times—there was nothing at the international level specifically designed for internal displacement. Sovereignty was a clear inhibiting factor here, particularly as the United Nations was and is an organization of states and does not typically include sub-state actors in its councils. But with state sovereignty dissolving in some conflict zones, and the numbers of internally displaced rising worldwide, it was felt something had to be done.

The last two decades have seen a number of practical steps taken, as well as an attempt to establish an internationally acceptable set of normative principles. Beginning in the 1980s, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) such as the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) studied the issue and lobbied for its inclusion on UN agendas. In 1992, Dr. Francis Deng, a Sudanese diplomat, was appointed by UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali as his special representative on internal displacement.[10]

Despite the limitations of sovereignty there has been significant institutional movement on the issue. On December 19, 1991, the General Assembly set up the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), composed of UN agencies considered relevant for helping displaced persons, as well as outside invitees such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). A coordinating secretariat was also set up which, after several name changes, is now known as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). By resolution, this latter organization is mandated to ‘coordinate humanitarian and protection efforts on behalf of internally displaced persons’. Within the OCHA, a separate Internal Displacement Unit was established in 1992. Currently, the larger organisations prefer to act operationally in collaborative frameworks, with one agency or unit designated the lead one.[11]

Working with a team of international lawyers, Dr. Deng developed what are known as the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.[12] This document, published in 1998 and widely disseminated, was not meant as a legal proposal but was posed as a potential normative framework that comprehensively addressed gaps in international human rights and humanitarian law, insofar as those gaps related to internal displacement. The 30 Principles were carefully worded and covered a broad range of concerns such as protection, humanitarian assistance, and return, resettlement and reintegration.

Burma (Myanmar) presents particular challenges to these developments.[13] Until the present—and only within limited contexts even now—the regime has not acknowledged that an internal displacement problem even existed. The OCHA is barred from the country. Other international agencies and NGOs are carefully monitored by intelligence agents, as well as severely restricted as to access and work. Thus, those who promote the Guiding Principles may face the dilemma of squaring involvement in a future return migration process where many of those principles will not be observed, either in part or in full.

1.4 Delineation of the research topic

The main body of this thesis will commence, in Section 2, with a further elaboration of the opening paragraphs. A macro-level descriptive analysis will be offered concerning the historical background of colonial legacies, questions of identity, conflict, and displacement in Burma. At the micro-level, military force dispositions and tactics, especially those that induce displacement, will be placed in context. Types of internal displacement will be noted. Then, the Burmese military government’s own method of conflict management, consisting of separately negotiated deals with armed opponents who then ‘return to the legal fold’ as ceasefire groups, will be assessed as to rhetoric and reality. This section will conclude with a discussion of border dynamics.

Section 3 will begin with issues of governance[14]—specifically the sweeping militarisation of society. Then, the strategies the internally displaced use for survival will be highlighted. This will include patterns of movement and the work of cross-border groups who try, in the face of great difficulties, to provide succour for IDPs. One activity of many cross-border groups is to conduct assessments, some of which are used for advocacy purposes, others to fine tune and render more effective the limited aid possibilities. In recent years, both aid to and assessments of IDPs have come under methodological criticism. According to a 1998 report specific to ethnic Karen IDPs in Burma, ‘cross-border assistance to internally displaced persons along the Thai-Burma border over the years by international NGOs and international organisations (IOs) has been largely ‘ad hoc, partisan and lacking general transparency.’[15]

As for assessment, and viewing more generally the context of forced migration, Jacobsen and Landau ‘…argue that much of the current research on forced migration is based on unsound methodology, and that the data and subsequent policy conclusions are often flawed or ethically suspect.’[16] This paper will attempt to meet, to counter, or at least to gauge the relevance of such criticisms insofar as they apply to the subject at hand.

Section 4 discusses the current level of contingency planning by international agencies and NGOs. This topic is of particular relevance as local and regional political maneuvering may dictate the return of some of the displaced populations. Currently, representatives of two groups, the Karen and Karenni armed opposition forces, have made informal ceasefires with the Burmese military, a status that may be formally regularised through negotiation. These groups represent, or claim to, large numbers of displaced, internally as well as in Thai refugee camps.

One reason for framing the topic to cover the eastern borderlands, as opposed to limiting it to one ethnic area, is that while displacement scenarios are broadly similar throughout those borderlands, political situations and possibilities vary. For example, aside from the Karen[17] and Karenni[18] armed opposition groups just noted, the major Mon militia group[19] is already in a ceasefire relationship, while the Burmese government, or State Peace and Development Council (SPDC),[20] is not including the last major insurgent Shan militia[21] in these negotiations. These factors will likely impact on both planning and outcomes.

Several well-placed key informants provided valuable opinions and perspectives as to both the possibilities and the drawbacks involved in any planning and/or return process. These will be touched on. Most requested varying levels of confidentiality and some desired complete anonymity. This was assured.

This paper will conclude that, given the nature of the pressures and politics involved, a real settlement that comprehensively meets the security, livelihood, and aspiration needs of the internally displaced is unlikely. Many of the displaced, should there be a large-scale population return, may well see improvement in their lives but barring a full peace agreement that addresses Burma’s lack of both a civil society and ethnic concord, such improvement will be limited in scope and possibly in duration.

1.5 Caveats

This thesis does not attempt to systematically cover all forms of internal displacement throughout Burma nor consider refugee movements to other neighbouring countries besides Thailand, with one exception. Major reasons why involve both ease of access to information in the eastern borderlands, particularly concerning the Karen, as well as the sheer scale of the problems there.

There is no doubt that displacement has occurred on a massive scale elsewhere though. After 1988, squatters’ areas of Rangoon and other urban centres were displaced for both regime security purposes and for infrastructural development projects. Notably, entire villages were ordered away from the Pagan historical region as part of making that area more visually attractive to foreign tourists spending hard currency.[22]

Displacement also took place, and still does, in other minority areas and in particular in Arakan State, bordering Bangladesh. That latter involved a particularly stigmatized minority, the Muslim Burmese who fled across the border in large numbers, becoming refugees. Some reference will be made to their plight in this thesis, especially as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had become involved with them—and controversially so—and that agency will likely also be involved in any return migration of refugees from Thailand and of internally displaced in the eastern borderlands.[23]

Finally, while this thesis is focused on internal displacement, it certainly recognizes that such a phenomenon is not an easily isolated one and typically, as it does in Burma, occurs together with other types of population movements.

2. Background dynamics

2.1 Contested histories, identities, and political spaces

A full treatment of Burma’s complex history, ethnic mosaic,[24] innumerable conflict-related flashpoints, and lost opportunities is beyond the scope of this thesis. Martin Smith’s account of these issues, though, is by far the best, covering them in immense detail.[25] Still, considering the scale of conflict and associated displacement, some salient background features, events, and interpretations require mention here despite the risks of over-simplification.

Before 1824, when British colonial rule first impinged, the region was characterized by dynastic feudal monarchies, based on tributary relationships. Actual rule was more certain in the centre than in the peripheries and ethnicity was certainly not politicised in the way it would come to be. To say these Burmese monarchies were exclusively ethnic-Burman in nature would be a mistake.[26]

Geography is an important concern here as hilly border regions and a series of north-south great rivers characterize what is now Burma. Borders with neighbours, to the extent borders even existed, were ill defined. This has facilitated both in-migration of assorted groups over the centuries, and, at least until recently, extensive sanctuary from lowland control by those who then moved into the hills.[27]

Colonial rule, which began in 1824, ended the Burmese monarchy by 1885 and lasted until 1948, proved the critical factor in developing or sharpening contentious issues of identity, territory and power, all of which remain unresolved. For reasons that include divide-and-rule tactics, cost efficiencies and administrative convenience the British overlords divided the colony. Lowland Burma, where Burmans predominated, was Ministerial Burma and the border hill tracts—where varying degrees of local, traditional rule continued—became the Frontier or Excluded Areas. The British constituted the ruling caste; Indians and Chinese were allowed some measure of commercial influence, and several of the minorities, though not Burmans, received preferment in the colonial army. This provided a recipe for nationalist awakening and agitation and, although for many groups nationalist movements began as cultural ones,[28] the political positions they would eventually assume reflected the differing experiences and opportunities received under British rule.[29]

The Japanese WWII occupation exacerbated tensions, particularly between Karens and Burmans, into communal violence.[30] Such violence continues today. By no means is and would violence be only a cross-ethnic phenomenon as communist Burmans continued to fight the Tatmadaw as late as 1989, and a student-based force still does.[31] Nevertheless, nationalists of varying stripes and ethnicities, in the run up to independence, recognized dangers in the ethnic divide. A concerted attempt was made to broker a resolution of that question at Panglong in February 1947.[32] Today, Shan and Karenni nationalists still refer to the terms of that agreement and speak of its unfulfilled promise.[33]

The Burmese government, in 1949, controlled little more than Rangoon and over the years would face a bewildering array of armed enemies.[34] Of the ethnic nationalist movements, the Karens were the first to revolt in 1949. They also helped a Mon insurrection take hold while, by the late 1950s, Shan, Karenni, and a number of other ethnic militias formed insurgencies as well. The various ethnic movements have made several attempts at coordination, even forming united fronts, and in doing so most have moderated their demands from outright secession to some form of federalism. Nonetheless, factionalism has divided all minority nationalist movements and armed conflict between minorities has not been uncommon either.[35]

The strains of civil war and contentious, factionalised, patron-client party politics changed the nature of the Burmese state. The Tatmadaw took power provisionally in 1958 for 18 months, but with finality in 1962.[36] The net results of 40 years of military rule have been dismal for the country as a whole and particularly so since 1988, when a challenge to the legitimacy of military rule by emergent democratic forces was crushed and a subsequent general election, won by a democratic party in a landslide, was ignored. The current military junta rules by decree with the help of a vast intelligence apparatus and sizable armed forces. Its officer corps, mostly Burmans,[37] comprise a privileged caste. Justice is notional, forced labour widespread, a free press nonexistent and dissent quickly suppressed, often violently. While proclaiming an anti-colonial formative identity, the ruling stratum in Burma has replicated and intensified the worst features of those colonial predecessors.

Ostensibly, the reason for the 1962 coup was a perceived threat to the country’s unity.[38] From 1963, after negotiations with some ethnic representatives failed, the Burmese government has pursued a gradual, but largely successful campaign against ethnic and political opponents, albeit at immense cost to civilians in lives and livelihoods. Lowland areas were cleared of rebellion by the mid-1970s and opponents pushed back to mountainous border regions. Border gates, controlled by minorities and used to finance insurgencies by income from taxed smuggling,[39] were captured one after the other along the Thai-Burma border in the 1980s and 1990s. It was during this latter period that displacement, internal and cross-border, gradually assumed its current massive form. Guerrilla warfare continues in the eastern borderlands and the junta has the upper hand, though at least one observer sees the ethnic armies still scoring important battlefield successes.[40]

It is also useful to consider ethno-nationalism more broadly. Many researchers fall into two schools of theory: modernisation and ethno-symbolist.[41] Although much can be said in the way of ‘imagined history’[42] in Burma as a means of identity formation and maintenance, and modernisation theorists do make interesting points, this thesis observes interesting elements in both. Following Anthony Smith, ethno-symbolism (and what he calls ethnies) revolves around‘…the ability of groups to survive over la longue duree through the use of symbolic boundary mechanisms, including distinctive codes and myths of territory and destiny’.[43] Ananda Rajah, however, disagrees with Anthony Smith on the validity of significantly intact ethnies, and claims—in a work on Karen nationalism—that: ‘Ethnic identification, however, requires a transformation in modes of consciousness and atavistic ethno-histories before ethno-nationalism and then full-blooded nationalisms can come into being.’[44]

Michael Mann notes the affect of macro-identity aggregation,[45] something that no doubt occurred as disparate micro-groups such as communities, clans, and sub-groups were given, by educated elites, broader ethnic labels, especially for what are today known as Burmans and Karens.

Anthony Smith sees nationalism as something more than political ideology, in fact a ‘language of culture and human association.’[46] Religion is a key factor here, though it is not the ultimate fault line in Burma’s ethnic divide. Gravers also considers cosmological perspectives, such as the organic relationship in pre-modern Burma between Buddhism and state power,[47] sundered by the British colonialists but reconsidered to a limited degree by Burman nationalists,[48] and the role of foreign Christian missionaries in crystallizing minority, especially Karen, nationalist identity. The result of such cosmological disputation was competing nationalisms—union state versus ethnicism.[49]

Martin Smith, more generally, sees ethnic relations in Burma as being in a constant state of flux: politically, socially, and culturally.[50] And Hazel Lang, in succinctly highlighting the politicisation of ethnicity, appears to have identified the central issue facing Burma:

“Certainly, the modern state as a single geopolitical entity was unable satisfactorily to accommodate the manifold layers of political, identity, and territorial claims[51] and grievances of the various ethnic groups and their representatives.”[52]

2.2 Counter-insurgency and displacement: the ‘Four Cuts’

Until the late 1960s, the Tatmadaw’s usual battlefield strategy against its armed opponents consisted of positional warfare and strategic denial.[53] Some insurgents responded in kind, notably at their lucrative border gates or, as the Communist Party of Burma’s (CPB) armed wing often did, with human wave attacks on Tatmadaw garrisons.[54] But more often than not insurgents resorted, and still do, to traditional guerrilla tactics of harassment and interdiction, particularly as their areas of territorial control diminished.

Military rule after 1962 meant the Burmese Army was much freer to expand and to adopt a more aggressive counter-insurgency strategy. Since guerrilla warfare relied on civilian support for finance, intelligence, food, and recruits, the Tatmadaw would target those four elements in what became known as the Pya Lei Pya, or Four Cuts, a policy probably adopted in 1968. It drew upon antecedents developed by Sir Robert Thompson for use during the 1950s Malaysian ‘emergency’, and with some modification, in the ‘strategic hamlets’ programme employed by American and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War.[55]

In applying the Four Cuts, Tatmadaw mapmakers gave the country a coded colouring as to parameters of control. White meant government control, brown that control was contested and black that insurgents held sway. The full thrust of counter-insurgency tactics would be brought to bear on the brown and black areas, which were sometimes divided into grids and dealt with one by one. Black areas were designated free-fire, shoot-on-sight zones. Since guerrilla forces can ‘win’ by not losing, the Four Cuts was meant to crush such opposition entirely. Lowland and central areas, as noted, were cleared by the 1970s but hillier border regions were harder, both to enter and to hold, especially as insurgents benefited from Thailand’s border buffer policy.[56] To be effective there required considerable expansion and re-organization of the Tatmadaw. Even more so, upgrading of intelligence, equipment and logistical capability[57] was needed. After 1989, and with massive arms purchases from China, negotiated ceasefires that divided the opposition, and changes in Thai border policy, the Tatmadaw was able to make dramatic inroads into brown and black areas.

Today the size of the Tatmadaw is estimated at over 400,000. Army strength is divided between 12 Regional Military Commands (RMCs),[58] which usually correspond to political divisions on the map. Much of the campaigning in border areas is carried out by Light Infantry Battalions (LIBs)[59], most of which are assigned to those commands, or increasingly by proxy militias from ceasefire groups. Remaining insurgent armies number in the few hundreds or thousands but still possess some advantages as to motivation and knowledge of terrain. And within the Tatmadaw there have been reports of serious morale problems,[60] especially over the way lower ranks are treated, as well as an extensive resort to the use of child soldiers.[61]

The results for villagers in the eastern borderlands have been catastrophic. Whatever one can argue about insurgent goals and tactics—as the very nature of guerrilla warfare puts civilians at risk, and ethnic armed groups have been accused of human rights abuses as well—the implementation of the Four Cuts strategy by government forces has been accompanied by massive and pervasive human rights violations, deprivation of livelihoods, and burgeoning displacement.

Displacement first received limited international notice after a 1983/4 government offensive in which some 9,000 Karen fled to Thailand and were organized into refugee camps.[62] Since then, the scale of fighting and of displacement, both internal and external, has risen dramatically. For example, between 1996 and 1999, some 1,500 villages, comprising 300,000 people, were forcibly relocated in Shan State.[63] Since 1997 some 200 villages have been targeted in Karenni State, and also 100 villages in Tenasserim between 1996 and 1997. In Karen State, significant displacement occurred after large-scale military offensives against the KNLA in 1995 and 1997.[64] Over 200 villages were displaced alone in two northern districts of that state. Countless other operations, involving smaller units and actions as well as larger force concentrations, have occurred and still do.[65]

An increasing characteristic of what can now be termed low-intensity conflict in the eastern borderlands is the use of anti-personnel (and anti-vehicle by some ethnic forces) landmines. All sides use these weapons and no side routinely maps landmine locations for future removal. For insurgents, these weapons are seen as force multipliers and a means of guarding tenuous supply routes. In a few instances they are used to protect access to areas where internally displaced hide. For government and proxy forces they are used to protect garrisons, to surround relocation areas, and to prevent the displaced from returning to their original homes.[66] Most of the inevitable victims of landmines in Eastern Burma, an estimated 1,500 per year, are civilians.[67]

Only now, with ceasefire negotiations with the KNU/KNLA underway, has the SPDC begun to admit the existence of such a concerted campaign against villagers,[68] although previous evidence had been overwhelming. Other counter-insurgency strategists have sometimes tried to include elements of a hearts-and-mind campaign, but this does not appear to have been a Four Cuts concern, whatever lip service there was in official statements. In September 1998, there was the disturbing news that the Tatmadaw—by means of Dam Byan Byaut Kya, or ‘Guerrilla Retaliation Squads’—was embarking on something reminiscent of America’s Phoenix Program in Vietnam—targeted assassinations.[69]By 2003 these squads had expanded in size and range, with some given specific unit names such as Wei Za (Wisdom) or Ba La (Strength).[70]

In contested areas, villagers face demands from both insurgent forces, and from the government and its proxies. Insurgents tend to be much more moderate in their demands since—following Maoist conceptions of people’s war—the guerrillas, as fish, need a sea in which to swim. Consequently, a Four Cuts’ goal is to drain or poison the sea and villagers are caught in the middle, whatever their sympathies.

There are numerous cases of villages attacked without warning and burned down during operations or on punitive expeditions but often villagers’ initial contact with government authority is through specially issued ‘orders’. These documents are usually signed and then stamped by frontline battalion commanders or under the authority of junta representatives in white area townships, and are typically addressed to village heads. They consist of demands for intelligence, to relocate, to come ‘without fail’ to meetings, or to provide gratis food or labour. The language is peremptory and often warns of harsh consequences—for which responsibility is placed upon the recipient—should there be any non-compliance for whatever reason.[71]

Persistent human rights violations in the villages, both in contested areas and in those under government control, and largely committed by government soldiers, include—but are not limited to—torture, false imprisonment, extra-judicial executions and rape. Overwhelming indications of the latter has led to published reports by border area advocacy groups. One such report, ‘License to Rape: The Burmese military regime’s use of sexual violence in the ongoing war in Shan State,’[72] was highlighted by the US State Department in a stinging critique of Burma’s human rights record.[73]

2.3 Types of internal displacement

Chris Cusano identifies three primary types of internal displacement in Burma—forced relocation, jungle displacement, and social dislocation. The first two reflect government coercion and war while the third is also motivated by chronic poverty, and features those who ‘leave their homes and try to survive on the fringes of existing communities’.[74] There are persons who move between these differing types of displacement, often multiple times.

The Burmese Border Consortium (BBC), in a 2002 report, has come up with population figures on forced relocation sites and of those who are hiding from government control. It believes there are some 176 relocation sites in the eastern borderlands with 364, 911 persons forced to live in them. That figure represents some 2,536 villages destroyed, abandoned, or relocated. Concurrently, the number of IDPs hiding or in temporary settlements is given as 268,067. Several of these figures come from extrapolated data and probably represent extremely conservative estimates.[75]

In describing the relocation sites further, the BBC report notes that it is a varied and shifting phenomenon. Many represent the classic ‘strategic hamlets’ type, with fences, armed guards, curfews and limited opportunities for movement, but not all. In some, passes are given for daylight farming nearby, while others are more restrictive.

Nevertheless, the report notes that there are generally three types. These are ‘relocation centres’, ‘relocation villages’, as well as several sites in Southeastern Shan State where, since the end of 1999, a ceasefire group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), has forcibly moved approximately 126,000 of its own people from the Chinese border to the Thai border area, and in doing so displaced some 48,000 Shan, Lahu, Akha, and other original inhabitants.[76]

The relocation centres tend to be large. These are often near roads where infrastructure work is done, or even at army bases. Villagers sent there get little state assistance—there are clinics at some—while work, other than forced labour, is usually not available. Often, those villagers are forced to hand over rice stocks, which are then rationed or sold back to them. A repeated criticism concerns the vulnerability of women at those centres.

Relocation villages are smaller and one type comprises outlying villages compelled to move into a town centre.[77] One report, on displacement in Karenni State, calls variations on this type ‘gathering villages’ and notes that often SPDC officials will ignore them after relocation, making such villages dependent on host populations, a source of tension.[78] This is the most common type found in Tenasserim and, despite the smaller size, there is often overcrowding in those villages. Some of these relocation sites have become so-called Nyein Chan Yay, or ‘peace villages’. Inhabitants in those have informally given the SPDC assurances that they will not aid the insurgents in any way, will provide any intelligence they hear as to insurgent movements, and comply with other Tatmadaw requests. In return, the military is supposed to let the villagers remain in situ, not burn their homes, or subject them to torture or other extra-judicial punishment.[79]

Jungle displacement varies in size and duration. Sometimes, villagers will hide in the forests for short periods, hoping to wait out the government or proxy soldiers so as to return home. When this is not possible they may hide for years, in large or small groups, and, if the security situation warrants, establish temporary settlements. Some larger IDP settlements, very close to the Thai border, have thousands of displaced, while others may consist of single families or clans. Evacuations are frequent and these groups are regularly targeted, particularly in black free-fire zones. Yet however parlous this existence is—and survival strategies will be explored in more detail in Section 3.2—many villagers, upon receiving orders to relocate to government controlled centres, first try to ignore the summons, hoping the threat will pass, and then when the soldiers come flee and take their chances in the forests. For those closer to the Thai border, fleeing in that direction is an option, albeit a diminishing one in some areas.

There are also Mon resettlement camps, such as Halochanee with 5,369 inhabitants,[80] located just inside Burma. As the New Mon State Party (NMSP) entered into a ceasefire arrangement with the SLORC/SPDC in 1995, these are now called ‘resettlement’ sites. However, there was some controversy surrounding Halochanee and two other Mon camps in the 1990s. Several thousand Mon refugees entered in Thailand in the early 1990s. The Thais ordered them to relocate to these camps, saying those camps were ‘on the border’ which admittedly was ill demarcated. This was meant to finesse charges of refoulement, and aid blockage was used to insure that those Mon either went or stayed there. In some sense this could be read as another type of internal displacement.[81]

2.4 Ceasefires as conflict management

For the Tatmadaw, offensive military tactics have twice been combined with what could be termed, following Ananda Rajah, a large-scale ‘conflict management’ strategy.[82] In the 1960s, the method used was called Ka Kwe Ye, and involved extending permission to certain insurgent units and narcotics forces to re-designate themselves as pro-government militias. In return for not attacking the Tatmadaw, or otherwise challenging the State, such groups were allowed to maintain arms, to control territory and to engage in business without too much scrutiny.[83] This proved a boon to the careers of opium warlords Lo Hsing-han and Khun Sa, although both would fall out of favour with the State and the programme was soon abandoned.[84]

In the period from 1989 to 1997, this style of conflict management was reprised, and with much greater success from a regime-security viewpoint. In 1988/9 the new junta was facing the greatest threat to its survival from massive civil opposition in urban centres and, in order to lessen the number of enemies, made a series of military ceasefires with armed ethnic groups beginning with those that formed once the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) had imploded. The current SPDC Prime Minister, and intelligence chief, Lt. General Khin Nyunt, was the driving force behind these agreements, the first of which was completed on 21 May 1989 with an armed group in the Kokang region of Shan State. As of January 2004, the regime had made 23 such agreements, although one with the Karenni National Progress Party (KNPP) broke down after three months in 1995 over disputes that included the right-of-passage for Tatmadaw soldiers and revenues from logging operations.[85]

These agreements have been largely ad hoc. The regime has negotiated with ethnic movements and narcotics militias one by one, and terms have varied.[86] Several, in Shan, Kachin and Karenni States, have been given land—usually a portion of that which they had de facto control of—as ‘Special Regions’. A large well-armed group, such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA), received very favourable terms,[87] a large swath of territory, and relative impunity as to the types of businesses it wished to engage in. The New Mon State Party (NMSP), on the other hand, received much smaller and disparate territorial units, and has faced difficulties in maintaining the limited terms it got. Such agreements have been relatively durable, as Karen Ballentine notes, but seen in terms of political economy most represent collusive economic deals for opportunistic leaderships and far less, if anything, for rank-and-file members of ceasefire organisations,[88] something that does not augur well for the future.[89]

Following some ceasefire agreements, such as with the NMSP or Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army (MTA), splinter groups have emerged.[90] Some of these groups— either distressed at what they saw as surrender or dissatisfied with available opportunities in the new ceasefire environment—continue to challenge the government or even attack the groups they once belonged to. Generally, the junta has followed a consistent pattern. It has been willing to strike ceasefire deals with groups that break away from insurgent movements, but less so with those that have hived off from ceasefire groups.

At a time of military expansion, this lessening of potential enemies allowed for a significantly greater concentration of forces against those that remained.[91] And some of the ceasefire groups have proved willing to commit their forces against remaining insurgent groups. The UWSA is often in frontline battles between the Tatmadaw and the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), and even more complicit in this type of activity has been the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which broke away from the Karen National Union (KNU) in 1994.[92]

These ceasefires have been accompanied by government border development projects and plans. Today, within the framework of the SPDC there is a separate ministry, the Ministry for Progress of Border Areas and National Races and Development Affairs, supported by various committees: central, regional, and work ones, as well as 18 sub-committees, tasked with developing:

‘…the economic and social works and roads and communications of the national races at border areas, in accordance with the aims, which are non-disintegration of the Union, non-disintegration of the national solidarity and perpetuation of the sovereignty of the State.’[93]

Opium eradication is also given as a goal,[94] as is the improvement of various agrarian and energy-related sectors. Government statistics list the total amount spent in border development between 1989 and 2001 as ‘kyats 20,348.15 million’.[95] A 1994 article in the state-controlled newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar, claimed that with such border development projects, ‘National races who had lived in darkness in the past are now enjoying the fruits of progress.’[96] On the plus side there is the very strong argument that an end to killing was both beneficial in its own right and has given time and space should there be motivation to address core conflict issues.[97] And certainly many people have been able to return home from displacement or exile. But behind the lofty and patronizing regime rhetoric, it is also necessary to look at some realities on the ground.

All too often, infrastructure projects involving the construction of roads and rail lines have involved the use of corvée labour. The Ye-Tavoy railway line,[98] built between 1993 and 1996, involved each year as many as 300,000 forced labourers of whom hundreds died through illness or exhaustion.[99]

The NMSP, despite having entered a ceasefire arrangement with the SPDC, have been limited as to development possibilities and international contacts.[100] An attempt by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to go from Rangoon to the Mon ceasefire areas was once rebuffed by the regime with the excuse, ‘the weather isn’t suitable’. Road building is only permitted between areas of SPDC control and the Mon ceasefire areas, and not from those areas into Thailand.[101] Extension of control appears to be the reason why as such transportation links often have distinct military connotations. When combined with the logging roads built in remote border areas, and largely by Thai companies, this type of infrastructure work has given the Tatmadaw strategic mobility.[102] It has used such ceasefires well. Formerly contested areas are now white zones with expanded army garrisons. Against remaining armed enemies, the army is now able to campaign during the monsoon season, to enter more areas, and to transport arms and equipment much faster.

A 2003 report critical of border area development in Shan State noted some of its salient features: inequitable and unsustainable development; lack of consultation with local communities; ceasefire and other business leaders profiting from ‘unbridled’ resource exploitation and; the building of gambling casinos in regions of chronic poverty.[103]

Sadly, the splintering of ceasefire groups, the use of ethnic proxies in battles against insurgent armies, forced labor and infrastructure projects that allow for increased penetration into the borderlands by the Tamadaw have served to increase insecurity and consequently expand, rather than diminish, levels of internal displacement in much of the eastern borderlands. And while development is certainly needed in both ceasefire and non-ceasefire areas, what type of development would be appropriate is a debatable topic.

2.5 Border issues and Royal Thai Government (RTG) policies

As IDPs are defined by remaining within their national borders, and as the access policies of countries astride those national borders affect displacement dynamics, it will be necessary to consider, for this case study, Thai border policies. Yet this is by no means an easy task. Borders can elude categorisation and Thai policy has both evolved and changed in recent decades, while remaining in many ways ambiguous or opaque.

Considering the nature of both the Burmese and Siamese kingdoms, as well as those states in the modern period up to the 1990s, it may be wise not to think of linear borders so much as borderlands.[104] Borderlands are zones that allow for more fluid population movements, and for the conduct of affairs that often contravene the prescribed laws of the polities in which those borderlands notionally are. Analysis is complicated as, according to Hazel Lang, the Thai-Burma borderlands,

‘…involve a multi-layered array of actors and relationships, operating across a variety of political, military, and economic dimensions, and occurring at various local, national, regional, and transnational levels’.[105]

In essence, border arrangements have not been under the control of a single Thai entity, reflecting something of the old centre-periphery tension. The RTG, and especially its National Security Council (NSC),[106] have had to contend with regional and local army commands, paramilitary forces such as the Border Patrol Police and the Thahan Phrahn Rangers,[107] who share influence with important and often shadowy business figures.

However, despite the seeming chaos pertinent observations can be made. Until the late 1980s, Thailand pursued what was termed a buffer policy towards its conflict-ridden eastern neighbour. Insurgent forces kept the Tatmadaw from establishing too much of a presence on the border; they provided useful intelligence; and most importantly they helped Thailand to subdue a serious internal communist rebellion. And there were useful business arrangements. Opium trafficking from Shan State enriched some business people, military men, and public officials, and Thai border towns further south benefited from proximity to KNU and NMSP border gates.[108]

However, by 1988, the Thai communists had surrendered; the Tatmadaw was in the process of rolling up the border gates and; combined Thai business and military elites gleaned that more immediate profits could be gained through dealing with the Burmese military government. An exemplar of this ‘money politics’ was (and is) General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh who, in return for extending a helping hand to the junta at the height of its 1988/9 troubles, and for arranging the ‘voluntary’ deportation of dissenting Burmese students, received an array of lucrative logging concessions and fishing rights, many for military-associated companies.[109] Logging companies then built roads that bisected insurgent areas and significantly aided Tatmadaw movements.

A critical problem for insurgent movements was that, as their power waned, they became more dependent upon Thailand for obtaining supplies, for safe houses for movement leaderships, and for sanctuary for the ever-increasing numbers of refugees. Consequently, Thai military and business figures—operating from the perspective of future and lucrative business possibilities—have on several occasions, exerted significant pressure upon ethnic movements to make ceasefire deals with the SPDC. Such pressure has included at times, arrests of, and movement restrictions for, insurgent personnel within Thailand.

As long as the various insurgent groups controlled significant borderland territories, a common option for displaced persons was to move to or within those zones of control. As the border gates and fortresses fell and territories came under state control larger numbers have fled across the Thai border. Still, for many displaced, fleeing to Thailand did not appear to be a first choice. One large settlement, Mae La Pho Ta, grew right on the Burmese side of the border. Many there, it seemed, wanted the option of returning home if conditions allowed.[110]

Thailand is not a signatory to either the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees or the subsequent 1967 Protocol. The rationale often offered by Thai authorities concerns difficulties associated with the massive influx of Indochinese refugees after 1975. Not signing the refugee instruments was believed to offer the RTG flexibility in dealing with population movements.[111] Its definition of refugees, however, conveys negative legality. These people are ‘displaced persons fleeing fighting’ who have become ‘illegal immigrants’.

That said, in practice the country offered significant levels of sanctuary for refugee populations fleeing Burma. It continues to do so. However, several qualifications need be added to this. Such generosity did (and does not) include Shan State populations who continue to cross the border in large numbers.[112] And while large-scale refoulement has not been a feature, small-scale incidents have occurred often enough, particularly in areas controlled by the Army’s Ninth Division, long considered one of the ‘least refugee friendly’ Thai military units.[113]

The recognized Karen/Karenni camps are run, in many respects, by refugee committees associated with insurgent movements and are largely supported, in terms of food, shelter, health and education, by international and local NGOs. Several of the camps have been moved and/or consolidated in recent years in the wake of concerted cross-border attacks on refugee populations by the Tamadaw and especially by a surrogate force, the DKBA. With sanctuary itself under threat—and despite the implications for sovereignty—some Thai units stood by or fled during several attacks. At length, the RTG felt compelled to allow the UNHCR to establish a presence in July 1998, something it had heretofore resisted.[114]

Since 2001, the new Shinawatra government in Bangkok has tightened refugee and border policy significantly wherever it could, and has generally, despite occasional muffled misgivings intended to impress Western critics, strongly supported the SPDC in regional and international councils.[115] Access to or from refugee camps has become much more restricted and, from early 2004, new applications for ‘Person of Concern’ (PoC) status were for several months no longer the purview of the UNHCR[116] until, it seems, the American government announced a large resettlement programme.[117] As for ‘displaced persons fleeing fighting’ such fighting must now be ‘visible from the border’ or ‘well documented’ by the Thai military.[118]

Therefore, in some ways the earlier ‘permissive environment’ on the Thai side of the Thai-Burma border appears to be contracting. This may of course affect decisions of some displaced groups whether to remain in Burma or try to cross but that is hard to gauge in any systematic manner, especially as groups still cross the border, not least the huge numbers of economic migrants. The biggest change involves further pressure on the KNU, KNPP, and SSA-S to accommodate Thai business diplomacy and, in the case if the first two groups, to enter into ceasefire talks with the SPDC. A formal ceasefire agreement would likely start some kind of repatriation process of both Thai-based refugees and of internally displaced inside Burma. But for now enough of the ‘permissive environment’ remains—at least as far as local authorities (rather than Bangkok elites) allow, overlook, or are unaware of—for some level of cross-border aid to reach a proportion of the internally displaced.

3. Consequences and assessments

3.1 Militarised society and economy

Militarisation in Burma is omnipresent and profound. Billboards countrywide demand discipline and promote the ‘eternal unity’ of the Tatmadaw and the people, combined with the need for them to crush all enemies.[119] State media and schools must promote a positive image of the military’s role in society and university teachers must sign loyalty oaths. Television news programs are replete with uniformed junta leaders visiting factories and ‘giving guidance’. The intelligence services watch all institutions, including the military of which they are part.[120] According to Andrew Selth, the Tatmadaw ‘…has dominated all levels of government, civil administration, and commerce since 1962’.[121] Within the junta, transparency and accountability—reflective of good governance—are virtually non-existent.

Included, if not always publicly, within regime security considerations are such diverse bodies as the police, the Auxiliary Fire Brigades, the 250,000 strong Myanmar Red Cross,[122] and even the innocuous sounding Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association.[123] The junta has created a ‘mass support’ organisation, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), which claims millions of members. One of its tasks is to act as a ‘counterforce’ to Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).[124] Within those ‘millions’ are schoolchildren, obliged to join.[125]

Through two bodies, the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings (UMEH) and the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), the regime controls important sectors of the economy, and dominates foreign investment.[126] Corruption is endemic. It is, as Selth states, ‘…difficult to establish any major business in Burma without the support of senior military officers’.[127]

It is also difficult to be optimistic that military influence in politics, economic life and society will be curtailed to any great extent in the near future. Damien Kingsbury defines Burma’s state model as ‘organicist’ or ‘proto-fascist’, in essence one in which ‘the citizen is regarded as an integral part of the state and without an independent political existence’.[128]

To be sure, there are political parties not under direct military control,[129] as well as professional and business associations, informal networks, and most notably religious organisations,[130] but a 2001 International Crisis Group (ICG) report concluded that civil society is ‘very weak and heavily controlled’ and ‘holds out little prospect of playing a big role in fostering eventual democratisation’.[131]

Central administrative styles and institutions are also reflected downward, creating a nationwide uniformed ‘service aristocracy’.[132] Peace and Development Councils (PDCs) exist at the state/divisional, district, township and village levels. SPDC regional military commanders also chair PDCs at the state/divisional level, and military officers are also found in charge at the district and township levels.[133] Forced labour, despite the regimes having decreed it illegal in 2001, is rife in border areas where authority is, in general, harsher than in major urban areas. During military campaigns, villagers are often dragooned into serving as porters for military units[134] and at times have been compelled to be human minesweepers.

Forced labour and the lack of personal security are elements that have increased displacement but one of the biggest contributors has been the lack of food security.[135] Food insecurity in Burma is caused by several factors, of which natural disaster is but one, though a minor one when compared to ‘inimical government policies’. Land confiscation,[136] crop destruction, seizure—or extortion of a part—of paddy and other food sources, all play a role—as does forced labour—but particularly insidious has been the junta’s paddy (rice) procurement program.

Paddy procurement is basically a tax in kind. Farmers have been compelled to sell a percentage of their crop at well below market prices. The government has then used the rice sales to enrich military officers, to generate export profits, and to feed lowly paid civil servants and military personnel.[137] Where necessary in the borderlands, the military has handled the procurement process and used force to do so. Additionally, in Shan State for 2003, the regime dictated that only a certain strain of rice could be cultivated. Those who had planted other strains were forced to replant or face having their lands confiscated.[138]

The net effect, according to the Burmese Border Consortium, has placed villagers in a desperate vise, especially as, since 1998, frontline battalions have been told to live off the land and not to rely on rations.[139] Crop burning and/or food seizure is widespread in contested areas and is part of forcing many people into relocation areas. On the other hand paddy procurement, forced labour and land confiscation drive people back into those contested areas to hide.[140]

Officially, the government announced an end to the paddy procurement program on 23 April 2003. But as with similar protestations about forced labour that policy, or variations of it, certainly continues parts of the eastern borderlands.[141]

Militarisation is not limited to government–controlled areas. Both ceasefire and insurgent-controlled regions exhibit some of the same features. It is hard to employ a portmanteau framework to explain the multiplicity of ethnic movements though one can usually distinguish between those of long standing and with a decided, serious political intent, such as the KNU, and those more predatory in nature. Those latter comprise a major factor in insecurity and can increase displacement, while limiting geographical areas for people to hide. This is particularly true when ceasefire armies have acted as proxy militias for the SPDC. In a general sense most insurgent and ceasefire movements are characterized by personalised, top-down command structures (whether from a central authority or elaborated into fiefdoms), and an emphasis on military authority trumping that of any existing parallel civilian structures.

Given the exigencies of war, and the strategies such groups follow or once did, civil society development has been limited in both ceasefire and insurgent areas. In Eastern Burma both the insurgents and ceasefire groups make demands upon villagers. They recruit soldiers, collect rice taxes, teach—where possible and when willing—a nationalistic agenda in schools that extols the movement, and use civilians to gain intelligence and carry equipment or food. The more politically astute ones do so with significant moderation compared to the government, have varying levels of local support, and insist they are defending their people’s interests.

Still, at least two ceasefire groups, the NMSP and in northern Burma the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)[142] have made some steps in the direction of allowing more participatory and autonomous institutions. And in Thailand, where large numbers of Burmese ethnic minorities (as well as Burmans) currently are, the relatively freer political atmosphere of that country has led to the formation of something of a nascent civil society for Burma’s peoples, if mostly in exile. This phenomenon comprises an array of community-based organizations (CBOs), and NGOs, concerned with relief, development, advocacy, media, and networking. Several do have, admittedly, a direct or semi-autonomous relationship with insurgent political movements. Many CBOs receive outside donor support and training from larger Thai-based or international organizations and a few are working directly with the internally displaced across the border.[143]

3.2 Survival strategies of the internally displaced

In the face of consistent threats to their security, health, and livelihoods, the internally displaced in Eastern Burma deploy a wide range of strategies aimed at increasing their survival chances. The type, duration, and effectiveness of those strategies are dependent upon situational factors, such as location, terrain,[144] forewarning, military presence, and the background skills of IDPs. Some regions are relatively safer and more resource rich than others.[145] And, for example, those more used to a lowland style of town life will typically have more difficulty surviving in mountainous forests than agrarian hill-folk will.

The relocation centres provide a harsh existence. Coping mechanisms there include: complying with military demands to the extent possible; using short-term passes—or otherwise sneaking out—to reach former fields if those fields are not too distant and; if the relocation centre is in a relatively populated area, hiring out to locals when work is available.[146] For many at those centres the principle survival strategy seems to be to flee. In a few instances, such as in Karenni State between 1999 and 2002, the authorities have looked the other way when large groups have left.[147]

Those displaced outside the relocation centres need resilience and a full range of survival techniques. Chris Cusano divides such IDP responses in Karen State into five categories: protection, subsistence, access to education, public participation, and a cultural subset (religion, identity, and language).[148]

Protection issues begin from the moment a threat appears, whether one is already displaced or about to be for the first time. One Karen woman, a medic and mother, described her experiences:

‘When we hear the SPDC is coming we go quickly, about three or four hours walk into the mountains. We break up into small groups—maybe 20 people, maybe less—and we try to stay near streams to get water. Cooked rice is brought. We usually have no time to bury any possessions and the SPDC might find them anyway so we bring what is most needed with us. Sometimes the SPDC comes into the forest and we have to move two or three times a day. The little children cry and say, ”We’re tired, can we stop now?” And I have to tell them that no they must keep going.’[149]

Sometimes, IDPs will stay near their original villages and try to return, or at least retrieve whatever might be left of their possessions, once the soldiers have left.[150] If they suspect landmines have been placed in or around the village, they may try to send in livestock first.[151] In areas where small groups hide in the forests, shelters are often small bamboo lean-tos having no floors, and with roofs of leaves.[152] In dry seasons these may be open-air split-bamboo platforms. Such structures are easily made and less visible to military patrols than larger shelters. IDPs need to be ready to leave quickly—essentially to always have any valuables or necessities packed to go. In places where insurgent forces can offer some protection, larger numbers of IDPs can come together and more durable shelters can be built. This also applies to some ceasefire areas, such as to NMSP ones in Mon State, to which some 40,000 persons have fled from elsewhere in Mon State and Tenasserim.[153] Of course, fleeing cross-border, when that is possible and desired, remains a survival strategy.

Subsistence issues are crucial. Food can be hidden as a temporary measure but there are dangers. If in or close to their original villages, the Tatmadaw or its proxies might find it; if hidden in the forests, animals such as insects, rats, and wild boar will often devour and, in the case of rats, ruin any food they don’t consume. The use of multiple hiding places is one alternative tactic. Food sharing between groups and people is also possible, especially where previous village lifestyles were largely communal in nature. Covert, swidden agriculture is also employed, depending on location suitability, but also risks depleting the soil rapidly, because of the sheer scale of the displacement problem.[154] Nonetheless it can allow for basic survival and, if there is a small surplus, for clandestine trade with people in the relocation centres or with mobile traders.[155]

As rice alone, while alleviating hunger, does not in the long term promote nutrition,[156] IDPs also resort to foraging and hunting, skill-sets already possessed by many. Wild yams, bananas, bamboos shoots, tapioca, various herbs, as well as game, are still found in many eastern forests.[157] Foraging does bring severe risks though, such as the dangers of stepping on hidden landmines and the increased possibility of contact with soldiers. For women, the latter increases the danger they will be abused.

Even without factoring in internal displacement, health care in Burma is poor. Burmese from central Burma are known to travel great distances to a refugee-run clinic in Thailand, just to receive adequate care.[158] Hospitals and clinics do exist in the country but are usually of low standard, poorly equipped, and fee-based beyond the means of many citizens.[159] Recourse, especially in the borderlands, is made to alternative practitioners such as traditional birth assistants (TBAs)[160] and, where knowledge exists and materials are available, to local remedies for illnesses and diseases.[161] Internal displacement exacerbates general health conditions in many ways, especially when food security is problematic, where adequate nutrition is unavailable, and where vulnerable populations such as infants, pregnant women, and the elderly are in large numbers. Many have died of treatable conditions such as diarrhoea, malaria, other fevers, and respiratory tract infections.[162]

Coping mechanisms for the psychological effects of displacement are harder to measure.[163] Cusano, in studying the Karen, suggests that having a mythology or folk history in which displacement is a recurrent theme (as the Karen do) is helpful as is ‘talking about it’. An introverted sense of nationalism is also seen. He further notes that in Karen society war and displacement have often produced a religious response.[164] This can mean, for example, a tendency to view events in Biblical terms for Christians,[165] or a recourse to forms of millenarianism[166] for both Christians and followers of Buddhism and Animism.

Given the circumstances of displacement, education—something highly valued in many minority societies—is extraordinarily difficult. Nonetheless, some headway is being made in several eastern districts by recourse to what has become an important survival strategy and one that also impacts upon food security and health as well—access to cross-border aid.

3.3 Cross-border aid and information gathering

**This section, a sensitive topic, has not been included in the online version at this time. Please contact the author for details if required. For acronyms refer to acronym list at beginning of essay.

3.4 Statistical findings on displacement numbers and health

Previously cited in this paper, the 2002 report, Internally Displaced People and Relocation Sites in Eastern Burma, represented a major effort at compiling a demographic profile. In preparing this document, the Burmese Border Consortium was assisted by several community-based organisations (CBOs) who collected the data. The joint BBC/CBOs effort was able to reach some 98,914 IDPs living in 268 separate locations, though none of these were in Shan State.

Aside from the extrapolated total IDP population figures mentioned earlier, the survey explored other areas. It found that the male/female ration among IDPs was roughly equivalent but that the number of children under 15 was, at 41 percent, higher than Burma’s estimated average of 33 percent. Conversely, the percentage of over-65s was, at 2.6 percent, much lower than the national average of 4.6. Taken as a whole, though there were significant differences from region to region, each IDP had to evacuate on average three times during 2002. Distressingly, some 250 temporary IDP settlements had their paddy confiscated or destroyed during 2002, representing an estimated loss of over 3,600 metric tons of rice.[167]

The Burmese Border Consortium is currently conducting a large-scale qualitative baseline survey, again using indigenous partners for the fieldwork. It is scheduled for publication in October 2004 and should become an important reference point for future assistance programmes whether or not any repatriation or return migration takes place. Data is being collected across six political regions: Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan States plus Pegu and Tenasserim Divisions. One aspect of this survey is that it will try to include, where possible, data from ‘dual administration’ areas. These are where both government and ethnic opposition forces are active but where neither completely predominates. Intended categories for this survey include: shelter, clothing, age, gender, water, access to social welfare, health, food, trade and livelihoods. The researchers plan to employ ArcView software with a view to upgrading mapping capabilities and improving the final product.[168]

The Backpack Health Workers Team Programme (BPWHT) surveys have uncovered several disturbing findings. Giving birth is much more difficult as some 9 percent of deliveries occur during IDP evacuations. The BPWHTs believe that the maternal mortality for internally displaced areas approaches 1,000 per 100,000 births, while for Burma several sources list the national average as 517.[169] For comparison, in Thailand the same figure has been reduced from an estimated 200[170] in 1990 to 44 after 2000. The BPHWTs also claim that under-5 mortality rate is very high at 300~350 per 1000 births, though this figure may be cautionary.[171]

Between June and December 2000, the BPWHTs conducted a dietary intake survey of 625 displaced mothers (including each mother’s youngest child under five years of age) in Karen and Mon States, and Tenaserrim and Pegu Divisions. It found that mothers resorted to longer and exclusive breastfeeding cycles, with a corresponding loss of nutrition. Additionally, protein intake for children under five was poor and the BPHWTs noticed that a correlation existed between lower protein levels and more frequent evacuations.

Using a technique that gauges malnutrition levels by measuring a child’s mid-upper arm circumference, they found that malnutrition levels were, by UNHCR standards, serious. The average rate was 11.4 percent. By comparison, the same rate in Thai refugee camps, where food support is donated and monitored by the Burmese Border Consortium, the same rate was 1.23 percent. The survey also found anaemia among pregnant women and, for children, serious levels of vitamin A deficiency. Since 2000, the BPHWTs have added vitamin A supplements to the supplies they bring to the areas they reach.[172]

3.5 Assessment of primary sources/methodologies

Karen Jacobsen, in a 2003 working paper co-authored with Loren Landau,[173] as well as in a previous conference report she wrote, has raised serious issues of methodological fault and of ethics[174] in internal displacement research.[175] Acknowledging the practical difficulties of studying such a complex and dynamic phenomenon in what are often hostile environments, she nonetheless identified several problematic elements she felt needed to be addressed. These include: an overemphasis on interviews combined with a corresponding lack of data sets; the lack of sufficient control groups for comparative measure; and over-reliance on snowball sampling and on local researchers/translators, leading to bias; lack of adequate construct validity and; difficulties in exactly quantifying total population numbers.[176]

With reference to some of the sources used in this paper, at several observations can be made in mitigation of, or to counter, the issues Jacobsen has raised. Firstly, data sets reflecting health and population demographics have been collected for several years and are subject to both review and revision. The Burmese Border Consortium, active in the Thai-Burma border area since 1984, is a highly professional aid agency with a long record of statistical analysis and data collection in order to support its primary function, feeding refugee populations, as well as to be accountable to its significant list of donors[177]. It employs strict performance criteria, means of verification, and cross-correlations in measuring its work in refugee camps and where data is incomplete, such with regard to internal displacement areas, issues appropriate caveats.[178] Their population statistics on internal displacement in Eastern Burma, for example, are used by UN agencies, by advocacy groups, and by internal displacement think tanks as representing the best available.

The BPHWT programme is newer but conducts data gathering with a view to improving the impact of the programme. Jacobsen evidently feels there is a need for independent academic research to make for clearer policy choices and perhaps that it so. However, the BPHWTs represent a health project dedicated to saving and improving lives, and whose collected data is analyzed and vetted by trained physicians within the programme, in order to best allocate the limited resources available.

As for control groups, the Thai-based refugee population can, in some sense, be considered one although a better one would be of populations within Burma and adjacent to internally displaced areas. That such surveys are limited is really no fault of Thai-Burma border-based groups. Some 40 UN agencies and international NGOs are registered in Burma but are limited by severe government restrictions, and to an extent by a lack of institutional initiative in pressing the point.[179]

Bias is, to be sure, a difficult subject. Both Jacobsen, discussing the subject in general, and the authors of the 1998 Burma Ethnic Research Group (BERG) report, Forgotten Victims of a Hidden War: Internally Displaced Karen in Burma[180] (with the Thai-Burma border NGOs and political movements directly in mind), stress the problem of bias. In answer, some concession is necessary. Some (though not all) of the border organisations that collect information do have their origin in, or are to some extent reliant upon, movements opposed to the current military government in Rangoon. Bias does suggest alternative agendas but does not necessarily invalidate findings, something inaccuracy does. And academic researchers themselves, while usually claiming impartiality, are certainly not immune from framing research within pre-ordained paradigms. But, that said, it is necessary to consider the context of when the BERG report was written.

The period 1995 through 1997 saw a series of major military border offensives by the Tatmadaw from Tenaserrim Division in the south up to and including Shan State. Opposition minority groups lost much of their remaining territory and refugee numbers, as well as those of the internally displaced, dramatically increased. 1996, for example, witnessed the beginning of the massive population displacements in Shan State as well. That some community-based groups, as well as any international NGOs that supported them, may have acted in an ad hoc manner and shown partisanship when feeling their backs were against the wall, may—if that claim has validity—have shown a lack of methodological rigor but is more understandable as a particular response in extremely difficult times.[181]

And while independent outside researchers have their uses, there is no reason why stakeholders cannot be a party to exploring in depth the needs and concerns of their very communities.

** Note: the next 5 paragraphs have been deleted for this online version of the essay.

4. Contingency Planning

4.1 Return, resettlement, and reintegration needs

There is little doubt that successful transformation of the internal displacement crisis in Eastern Burma demands confronting both causes and effects, and not just the immediate ones. Simply ending the most visible factor—war— is insufficient. Internal displacement and war are part of larger political, social and economic crises in Burma that cannot be wished away or simply factored out. Political governance issues are crucial. Writing in somewhat general terms about war-torn societies, Krishna Kumar makes the salient observation that: ‘There is little doubt that in the absence of an effective and legitimate political authority, economic and social rehabilitation cannot occur, nor can further conflict and disintegration be prevented.’[182]

One can define effectiveness in many ways but an honest appraisal would conclude the SPDC is most effective in maintaining a draconian style of authority, in benefiting from a shadow economy, and in meeting other perceived self-interests. Real legitimacy for the SPDC does not yet exist[183] and it is doubtful the current National Convention will change that.[184] And it is an uncomfortable thought that large-scale displaced population returns may well occur, or at least be attempted, in this bleak environment.

As for the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Burma is a depressing example of the chasm between the normative ideals of the 30 Principles and the unedifying realities on the ground. Were these ideals legal strictures—and admittedly they are not meant to be—the SPDC government would be in clear breach of the first 23 principles covering general issues, protection from internal displacement, and protection during internal displacement. This leaves seven principles relating to humanitarian assistance, also being ignored by that government, and those concerned with return, resettlement and reintegration.

Nonetheless, with the prospect of reverse migrations of displaced populations looming in the medium future, issues of how this will or may be conducted requires consideration. Areas of concern for the internally displaced in Eastern Burma include a plethora of difficult issues, only a few of which can be mentioned here, and in the form of questions.

Firstly, there are issues of land tenure. Will SPDC decrees on land tenure and its military land confiscations be abrogated? Will those in relocation centres have full freedom to leave? Where are the displaced actually returning too? How much of when they return and where they return to will be voluntary or even done in consultation with the affected populations? Who will conduct landmine impact assessments, preliminary surveys and then remove the large numbers of those weapons? Will groups of IDPs try to return spontaneously before landmines are removed?

Even more importantly, there is an overwhelming need for security—for people, for property, and especially for vulnerable populations such as women and children. Will basic human rights be monitored and effectively enforced? This need will exist both during any return process and after. Will there be any demilitarisation and demobilisation of armed groups—government, ceasefire and insurgent? Will there be real peace, and serious attention to ethnic minority concerns, or simply more ceasefires?

How broad will any process be in Burma? Will it also deal with Shan areas, with Mon State, where other ceasefire arrangements have failed to deliver, and elsewhere in the country? Will anything be done at the national level about the underlying issues of state legitimacy, ethnic discontent, and the almost total lack of public participation in decision making?

Moreover, for returning or resettling displaced, there are issues of agricultural sustainability, of long-term support and access to both markets and credit. Who, if anyone, will guarantee freedom from crop procurement, whatever form it takes, and from forced labour? Will other legitimate forms of livelihood be supported?

And then, how will the immense health problems, and not just the immediate physical ones, be dealt with? Will there be allowances for psychosocial healing?[185] What about potential tensions between IDPs, returning refugees from Thailand, and other populations who may occupy the lands IDPs and refugees return to or resettle upon?

Additionally, will there be access to education and what values will any educational system promote? Will the former displaced be able to participate in local governing institutions? Will they have any say in what form those institutions take? Will civil society take on real meaning? Will humanitarian access and aid bring real benefits or will it feed into shadow economies and either simply benefit current elites or create new parasitical ones? Will cross-border aid groups be supported or marginalised in any process? Any realistic list of concerns would, sadly, be much broader and far longer than this.

International organisations and NGOs have, for other conflict zones, considered questions such as those above, and developed manuals that attempt to incorporate the Guiding Principles into field practice. For example, in 1998, and in association with UNHCR, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) developed five training modules[186] that encourage using the Principles in operational planning. These modules provide some key definitions—such as what is meant by return,[187] resettlement,[188] and reintegration[189]—and backgrounders in the legal foundations (and gaps) of the Principles, as well as lists of practical planning issues and themes for workshop discussion.

Module 4, Return, Resettlement and Reintegration, defines, elaborates and stresses the importance of the following for successful process: voluntary return in conditions of safety and dignity, participation and management of return/resettlement by the internally displaced themselves, non-discrimination, recovery of property or compensation and access by humanitarian organizations. Since 1999 the NRC has conducted 17 workshops on the Principles in Africa, Asia, and the Caucasus.

According to the NRC, ‘The workshops are generally co-organized by the national government agency charged with the protection and assistance of IDPs which ensures government participation and commitment to the objectives of the workshops…’

However, the 2000 workshop on Burma differed from the others in secretiveness. Exact dates were not listed and neither were the participants, except for the fact the Government of Burma was pointedly not invited due to its persistent denial of humanitarian access to internally displaced populations. Unspoken was the likelihood that security for workshop’s participants from the SPDC security apparatus—even if Thailand was the likely workshop venue—would be problematic.

Several other organisations or institutes have worked on operational training manuals for use in workshops and similar venues, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM).[190] Of particular interest is the Manual on Field Practice in Internal Displacement, jointly published in 1999 by the Brookings Institute and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the one UN agency mandated to deal with IDP issues. This document features a list of 68 fieldwork examples supporting the Guiding Principles, from countries as diverse as Sri Lanka, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Colombia.[191]

Aside from practical recommendations for fieldwork, the document ended with several conclusions such as: the need for collaborative frameworks; the need to combine protection with assistance interventions; the need to recognise the gender aspects of displacement and; the need to consider the displaced as key actors. As far as dealing with the responsibilities of national authorities, it offered that when those authorities lacked the resources or the will to assume their share of responsibility, then ‘sound practice might suggest support of, or advocacy with, those authorities as an appropriate first step.[192] However, the efficacy of such an approach with the Burmese government is open to question.

And finally, Kumar sounds a cautionary note about the involvement of larger institutions in rebuilding societies. Plans, timetables and frameworks are all well and good, he notes, but seldom are they made with the ‘direct involvement of the intended beneficiaries’.[193] All too often they are top-down and prescriptive in nature, demonstrating donor financial interests as well as the organisational cultures and logistical styles of the implementing agencies.[194]

4.2 Ceasefire talks and the current military status

Since December 2003, representatives of the Karen National Union (KNU) have met with their SPDC counterparts for three rounds of talks with the stated goal of achieving a formal cessation of hostilities. These talks came about due to sustained Thai pressure on the KNU, the desire by a faction close to the KNU Vice-President General Bo Mya to negotiate, and through an initial promise by an SPDC Ministry of Defense spokesman that such negotiations would be without preconditions. Since the first meeting ended on 8 December 2003, there has been an informal ceasefire. Although the latest round of talks ended on 25 February 2004, there are now indications that these will resume in late August 2004.[195] A formally signed ceasefire may well trigger Thai insistence on a prompt refugee return.[196] At least partial return migrations of the internally displaced might commence before a refugee return is organised.

** One paragraph here deleted for online version, as it is a currently sensitive topic.

Getting to a formal ceasefire has proved somewhat slow despite initial expectations. The KNU Vice-President has since fallen ill,[197] there have been numerous violations of the informal ceasefire, and the junta’s gaze has been dominated by concerns over its National Convention.[198]

Although at least one violation can be ascribed to the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), and this did take place at a particularly sensitive time,[199] most incidents have resulted from actions by the Tatmadaw. The informal ceasefire has given the Tatmadaw several advantages. Some of its forces in Karen districts have been diverted to other areas[200] while those that stayed have been able to establish much more of a forward presence and enter villages they had heretofore avoided. Human rights violations by the Tatmadaw have continued.[201] Also, the Burmese Army has been able to stockpile weapons should the talks prove inconclusive and offensive operations resume.

The precise form a formalised ceasefire would take appears to be a stumbling block. The Tatamadaw has asked for a list of KNLA unit strengths and locations[202] and seems to be insisting upon something of a ceasefire-in-place mechanism, which would very much minimise KNU territorial influence. The KNU, on the other hand, would prefer the withdrawal of forward Tatmadaw units into town or city garrisons, something the SPDC rejects. It is still too early, as of this writing (July 2004), to see how this drama will play out.[203]

** Note: following four sentences deleted in online version.

4.3 Current state of assessment and contingency planning

** Note: following two paragraphs, related to contingency planning by ethnic groups, currently deleted in online version.

UN agencies, other INGOs, and NGOs have also become more active in terms of planning as well although most will insist that these are only initial steps, given future uncertainties. After three days of meetings in February,[204] the UNHCR secured permission from the SPDC to evaluate areas where refugees and IDPs might return and to begin providing basic assistance. However, in announcing the agreement on 12 March 2004, UNHCR-Geneva press spokesman Ron Redmond did caution that:

“…the current situation in the states along the Myanmar-Thailand border, Karen State, Mon State and Tenassarim Division is not conducive to refugee returns. While discussions are currently taking place between the Myanmar authorities and insurgent groups, an acceptable settlement is an essential pre-requisite to refugee repatriation to this area.”[205]

He also referred to the ‘estimated 600,000 internally displaced people in this area of Myanmar’[206] so this cautionary no doubt applies to IDPs as well. Of course acceptable, and to whom that applies, will need clear defining by those involved.

In March, UNHCR-Myanmar undertook a preparatory field trip to Mon State to look at access to land, water rights, education and other local conditions. UNHCR staffers were ‘accompanied’[207] but able to change their itinerary at short notice.[208] According to someone not from UNHCR but with knowledge of the agreement, that organisation is supposed to have access to 11 townships in the eastern borderlands, though none of those are in Karenni or Shan States.[209] UNHCR-Myanmar’s operational plans, according to Redmond, are to establish ‘roving protection teams’ based in Rangoon.[210] These will be used, it is assumed, to pry access from the government bit by bit.

On April 30, 2004, the UNHCR, again via their office in Geneva, initiated the process of developing a conceptual framework for repatriation, or, as one UNHCR-Thailand field representative put it, ‘planning to plan’.[211] Three working groups were set up consisting of donors, intergovernmental organisations, and NGOs.[212] Many of the latter are based or active in Thailand. Originally, UNHCR-Geneva proposed 36 bullet points for discussion, though these were whittled down to 18 with a few more to be added as needed. The planning is intended to range over four stages—preparation, pre-movement, movement, and arrival. Interested parties and stakeholders have been requested to submit short working, or ‘food for thought’ papers during the summer of 2004.[213]

The main forum for several of these groups to meet is the Coordinating Committee for Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand (CCSDPT). Established by the Thai Ministry of the Interior in 1975, it is also the body authorised with coordinating and implementing relief programmes for refugees in that country. Monthly meetings are held in Bangkok and the current chair is also Director of the Burmese Border Consortium. It is at these gatherings (and at other ones to be held in border areas or in Rangoon), where the conceptual framework is being and will be considered.

The Burma Distance Education Project – Thailand (BDEPT), is facilitating the NGO Working Group, to the extent of gathering papers. In a 28 May 2004 letter to members and other interested parties, it requested brief, easy-to-read papers that could serve as educational materials or awareness raising tools for those who would be involved in any future process of repatriation. The author of the letter noted that the Group was particularly interested in receiving input from community-based organizations (CBOs) that either represented or worked directly with, refugees and IDPs, so that those groups could highlight their ‘areas of concern’.[214]

At first limited to considering the preparation stage, the topics for current papers include the following: definition of target/beneficiary populations, vulnerable groups, key stakeholders, border development, Mon ceasefire, Shan, certification,[215] landmines and Shan.[216] The author of the letter also noted that not all larger organizations and agencies were aware of the differing concerns among ethnic groups and hoped these papers would help alleviate that lack. The stated position of the NGO Working Group is that refugees should ‘should be the ones to decide when to return’.[217]

paragraph deleted by request

4.4 Possible types of pressure upon any process

An optimistic, if exceedingly narrow, scenario would have the current ceasefire talks end in a signed agreement, followed then by consultation with the displaced, by contingency planning frameworks carefully constructed, by implementation regimes using carefully coordinated humanitarian relief and finally by long-term development leading to socio-economic transformation. But any process won’t be that easy, that comprehensive, or especially that unobstructed.

*** This paragraph deleted in online version.

There is a broad range of local, regional and international actors—aside from the displaced themselves—who will influence, or at least try to, any process involving not just the return of displaced populations, but also anything of a political or economic nature that is concerned with Burma. There is already a larger debate over humanitarian aid and whether such aid is biased, or politically neutral and, in the current jargon, capable of creating political space for dialogue. The motives of the varied actors range from legitimate concerns to blatant self-interest and the tactics they have used in the past or may use in the future include everything from moral suasion and diplomacy to outright bribery and main force. This subject is immense, so only a few linkages and possibilities can be covered.

For convenience of analysis this paper will group a partial list of actors into several notional categories. One could place the SPDC, the ceasefire and splinter groups, the insurgent movements, and the Government of Thailand and its border military and business elites in the first. The second could comprise UN agencies, INGOs, NGOs, journalists, academics and diaspora movements. Governments, regional government associations such as ASEAN[219] and the EU,[220] the National League for Democracy (NLD), and multi-national business interests could make up the third.

Examples of potential pressure points abound in all categories. For many armed groups inside Burma, just one concern will, to be frank, be over the physical control of returning populations, something that can rank in desirability with territorial sway. One way this could be expressed is by pressuring relief programmes to locate their relief projects within areas the armed groups control, thus creating ‘aid magnets’ for returning displaced. The SPDC is likely to try this. Thailand, on the other hand, is focused on economic profits,[221] such as in creating so-called ‘corridors of prosperity’[222] and its leadership believes that all Burma’s problems can be solved through development. Shadowy Thai business networks are almost certain to have a continued and major influence in the border region’s political economy—whether there is a return/resettlement process or not— though this influence is typically hidden from view. Additionally, Thailand could easily upset any timetables for the return of displaced peoples by insisting on early deadlines.

The varied UN agencies, INGOs, and NGOs are by no means a policy monolith when it comes to the dilemmas of humanitarian involvement when dealing with totalitarian regimes. Still, those already registered in Burma have made some decision in that respect. Some consider their projects as being above politics[223] while others, answering to discomfort from donors and criticism from advocacy groups and influential states such as the U.S., include some elements of conditionality in their project decisions, trying, as they say, to nudge the regime to more transparency and better standards of behaviour.

The linkages between border advocacy and human rights groups with better-placed counterparts in developed countries represent concerted attempts to deploy moral suasion, public opinion, and even legal systems in order to influence policy. These groups often publish reports related to displacement, and at least one, the Shan rape report, produced direct results with international ramifications. Very often such reports end with ‘recommendations’ addressed to various key players such as the SPDC, the Thai government, ASEAN, UNHCR, the United States and the rather nebulous ‘international community’. Another feature of such networking is found in the various campaigns to ‘convince’ multinational companies to either avoid Burma or, if there, to disinvest. Notably, several displaced persons, supported by a noted representative of the Karen Diaspora,[224] are currently suing the American oil company UNOCAL[225] over claims that its Yandana gas pipeline in Burma[226] directly caused their displacement and attendant human rights violations.[227]

In considering the roles of larger agencies, governments, and regional associations, Zaw Oo’s use,[228] with reference to Burma, of Schmitter and Whitehead’s framework of international interaction with non-democracies, is pertinent. Schmitter and Whitehead saw four dynamics at work. The first, already mentioned, was conditionality. The others were control, contagion, and consent.[229]

Zaw Oo sees the United States, for example, as using control, which in the context of Burma means the coercive pressure tactic of promoting democratization through incentive/disincentive policies such as economic sanctions and visa restrictions and essentially confronting the regime. (one sentence deleted here in online version). The NLD, representing the pro-democracy movement, generally supports such an approach. It also emphasizes that aid programmes can have serious political implications but recognizes that the desire to provide humanitarian aid is a reality. The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), an exile organisation supportive of the NLD, has stated that:

‘It is of vital importance in crafting and implementing aid projects that there is genuine and official consultation and cooperation not just with the NLD but also with other political and ethnic nationality representatives, and local communities. All relevant political and ethnic groups must be consulted and treated as equal partners.’[230]

Contagion is defined as a non-coercive diffusion of experience and institutions, and Zaw Oo suggests that ASEAN’s policy of ‘constructive engagement’ falls into this category. To be sure, most ASEAN countries have been far more supportive than critical of their fellow member.[231] One could say, in partial explanation, that ASEAN nations such as Singapore[232] and Malaysia are prosperous, thinly-disguised authoritarian polities and that, through their example, those countries hope the SPDC will take the hint and use, as they do, more sophisticated institutions and tactics to perpetuate control. This in turn would allow for more cordiality between ASEAN and the EU in joint forums.

Japan’s relationship with Burma is ambivalent at times while with Burma’s main supporter, China, something akin to both strategic and constructive engagement[233] prevails. Chinese, and to a significant, extent Thai and ASEAN support will allow the regime to resist much pressure from external sources. So far, the SPDC regime has shown itself adept at finding friends—whether governments, organizations or individuals—in times of need.

4.5 Key informant opinions on actors and process

** Note: this section, reliant on confidentiality, is completely deleted in online version.

5. Conclusion

Decades of war, militarisation, economic mismanagement, odious political leadership, and outright repression have shattered Burma’s eastern borderlands and done no small amount of systematic, structural and psychological damage to the country as a whole. Huge numbers of displaced have fled to Thailand, or hide warily in Burma’s remaining rainforests, or languish as poverty-stricken helots in relocation centres. Even more have voted with their feet—the only voting permitted in Burma— and crossed into Thailand as economic migrants where they face severe exploitation yet survive better than they could at home.

For the internally displaced, food security is an immense struggle, educational levels are sub-standard, health care is insufficient, the ability to participate in public life is non-existent and even life itself is precarious. They are the forgotten people in a forgotten conflict. That so many displaced continue to survive is a testament both to the extraordinary levels of individual and group resilience these people possess as well as to the unsung, often heroic efforts of the cross-border groups who aid them when others do not.

Nicole Ball identifies the major characteristics of war-torn societies with a chart divided into political institutions, security sector, and economy and society. Applied to Burma it reads like the symptom list of a dying patient. Included are: ‘…lack of government legitimacy; high degree of centralisation; weak civil society; bloated state security forces; lack of accountability, transparency and civil control in the security sector; lack of security; regionalised conflict; corruption; weakened social fabric and; abysmal indicators of human well-being’.[234]

The ethnic armies, assorted business opportunists, ceasefire groups, and certainly the splinter militias and narcotics/resource forces bear varying degrees of responsibility for the cycles of violence. Often locked into ‘pre-modern, non-rational’[235] modes of thinking, with top-down, non-participatory leadership styles, ethnic opposition forces miss opportunities for more effective unity, both intra and inter-group, and for other forms of struggle besides armed force. Some ethnic forces, such as the UWSA and DKBA, verge on outright criminality, while smaller splinter militias often embrace predatory banditry.

But if the more politicised ethnic forces at times behave poorly, the junta is base; one should not attempt at too much moral equivalence. According to Freedom House International, ‘Burma continues to be ruled by one of the world's most repressive regimes. The junta rules by decree, controls the judiciary, suppresses nearly all basic rights, and commits human rights abuses with impunity’.[236] Burma’s competitors for the bottom rungs of governance include such paragons as North Korea, Sudan, and Turkmenistan.[237]

Addressing specifically the issue of Burma’s displaced, Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe,[238] a recently deceased Shan scholar, activist and one-time guerrilla leader, was dismissive of those who saw displacement as simply a humanitarian crisis to be addressed solely by aid programs. He said the real problem was, ‘…a deliberate war waged against the people by a brutal and desperate regime’,[239] a regime that was a great danger as well as a disgrace to its own people. And even in regions where ceasefires have stilled most of the guns, displacement continues as the army seizes land or forces people to work for free.

The domestic strategic goals of the SPDC are to establish a permanent military presence throughout the country, to acquire the economic wherewithal to do so, and in the long-term, to construct a façade or, as Selth puts it, ‘…a political and administrative structure which would permit the armed forces to exercise real power without actually having to run the country.’[240] At this point ceasefire groups would, theoretically, turn in their guns and lose what autonomy they had. This represents essentially a process of coercive state formation. The most egregious forms of corruption would be scaled down but a general climate of enrichment for the officer corps would continue. Some observers have compared these goals to Suharto’s now defunct New Order model, with the USDA as ersatz Golkar. It says much for issues of legitimacy when your goal is a political structure discredited and rejected by the nation that spawned it.

Such goals are not conducive to settling issues of displacement and ethnic disaffection— let alone do they promote national democratisation—yet it is into this arena that many voices are sounding calls for renewed investment and development, and for humanitarian aid divorced from politics. The central question is whether such investment or aid will promote better governance and alleviate suffering, or whether it will help the regime achieve its domestic goals and, if the latter, whether it matters.

Any effective amelioration of displacement in particular and Burma’s parlous circumstances in general will have to reverse the consequences and completely transform the dynamics covered in this paper. That will not be easy as all too often the issue is couched in an either/or debate. Some proponents of humanitarian relief stress that the catastrophe is so profound that notions of politics or governance can be put off, or ignored altogether, while others believe political change in Rangoon will suffice for all else to follow in its wake. In truth, both are needed but needed together. This paper is pessimistic that this will occur, in a truly effective way, any time in the near future.

The development/investment issue is complicated and to an extent depends on defining development. If one uses an investment-based version that depends on global capital movements, it is possible that elements of conditionality could be introduced, particularly if one wanted to use World Bank/IMF models. But how far would does conditionality go? Unfortunately, one eminent economist, Jeffrey Sachs, in calling for an immediate end to sanctions and for renewed investment in Burma, gives the game away when he says, “It is time for the West to look to Myanmar's next elections, not backward to 1990’.[241]

It would be far better to expand our definition of development—and Kingsbury says this may be happening—to include ‘…criteria of human dignity, religious freedom, cultural maintenance, political expression, participation and empowerment, which give meaning to the often abused term ‘democratization’ and other so-called civil and political rights. In this issues of governance have become paramount’.[242] Otherwise what is to keep the regime from negotiating the minimum of expedient accountability without attendant political and social improvements?

Aid and relief organizations face similar dilemmas. The SPDC spends over 35 percent of its budget on the military and less than one percent on national health. According to one activist report, manipulated exchange rates mean that UN agencies fund the junta to the tune of at least 40 cents for every dollar of aid.[243] Some organizations, admittedly, are using conditionality more effectively than others. But given the regime’s entrenched totalitarian aspects, are these conditionals important turning points towards better rule, or simply minor tactical retreats for the SPDC, easily reversed? To what extent does proffered aid—and there is absolutely no doubt that millions are suffering in Burma—become a means for the regime to gain legitimacy, to divert funds elsewhere, and to buttress regime-security goals? Sovereignty issues aside—and post 1989 these have mattered less—would it not be more preferable to work actively with and through cross-border groups that actively aid IDPs?[244] Or at the very least demand that such border groups have a continued and vital role in any post-ceasefire repatriation/return/resettlement scheme.

Currently, UN agencies, INGOs and NGOs and other interested parties or stakeholders are contributing position papers to better prepare for future repatriation/return and resettlement contingencies. But when push comes to shove, will there be enough time, enough political space, and enough careful coordination for this to make a difference, to reflect beneficiary needs and for reversing the consequences of displacement to have a chance? Will people be made to return to old or new homes only to be put at the mercy of the Tatmadaw or other armed groups? If so, improvement will be short-lived and displacement cycles will surely recur. Will other ethnic groups such as the Shan have to wait their turn? Also, there appear to be doubts over the role of UNHCR-Myanmar and whether international agencies will be able to maintain the very Guiding Principles whose existence they so promote. A quick perusal of those related to humanitarian aid and return migration suggests potentially serious difficulties with many of the principles, for example 24.2,[245] 25.2,[246] 25.3,[247] 28.2,[248] and 29.1.[249]

And yet, is much of the world losing interest or even moving the goalposts as regards acceptable standards of governance for Burma? Are we just assuming that improvement will happen or just hoping for the best? For example, Burma is often compared with South Africa during apartheid and Aung San Suu Kyi with Nelson Mandela. However, there is no De Klerk, the frontline States are typically on the wrong side of the front and Burma’s long-standing ethnic discontent is an added element to the combustible mix. And at times the world seems to be afflicted with outrage fatigue. Zaw Oo sees Burma as having missed out on the ‘third wave of democratisation’,[250] consequent upon the demise of Soviet-style regimes in Eastern Europe after 1989, and even the heyday of humanitarian intervention, in the 1990s, has left Burma behind. For Michael Ignatieff, Burma marks the borderline where human rights abuses should not propel military intervention[251]—a concept interesting for policy makers but of unknown utility for the people of Burma. For British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004, Saddam Hussein was someone we could oust, but—and as he described them—as for ‘the Burmese lot’, we can’t.[252]

This paper does not have the answers and is not meant to be prescriptive. Thus, it will only offer a few general suggestions. One can readily understand the need to redress suffering and how that can lead to uneasy compromises. Still in a broad sense this paper feels that political change and humanitarian aid need to go hand in hand. It believes that part of the necessary political change must include changing the nature of the state. Military rule has to end and end decisively—not in an expedient façade that disguises its continuance.

The needs and fears of the variegated ethnicities have to be addressed comprehensively and with their complete and active participation in any such a decision-making process. Perhaps an entirely new perspective is needed. Maroya, for example, sees a danger in viewing a state such as Burma as a ‘hermetically sealed geographical container’.[253] He suggests that instead of viewing the periphery from the centre, one might view the centre from the periphery. With that may come ‘more radically decentralized conceptions of the state that allow substantial autonomy on geographic, cultural or other bases’.[254]

When a regime feels more should be spent on guns than on food that doesn’t mean its people should starve. But international agencies and NGOs need to be very clear-headed about participation and fight tooth and nail for independence, transparency and above all for the involvement of intended beneficiaries in needs assessment, in implementation and especially in decision-making. Fostering and supporting a civil society must be an important goal, and not just a possible by-product, of any aid program

The best the SPDC has been able to achieve is the false quality of negative peace and the only unity a unity of distaste for its methods by the vast majority of a discontented citizenry. Almost two millennia ago the Roman historian Tacitus, in an often-quoted phrase from The Agricola, described how such a condition was viewed by those not impressed by the propaganda of an expanding militaristic state. Describing the Roman legions spreading through Britannia, he wrote ‘…they plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace’.[255] The displaced of Burma well know what a wasteland can be, having experienced it at close hand. What would increase their misery would be if outsiders insist that only they know what is best for the displaced and make the mistake of calling their condition a peace before it really becomes one.

Appendix 1 / SPDC-Tatmadaw orders

(A) Order to relocate

SLORC ORDERS TO VILLAGES: SET 96-B, Taungoo District

An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group February 23, 1996 / KHRG #96-09

Order #1

Stamp: No. XXX Infantry Battalion XXXX camp

To: Chairman (Village LORC) xxxx village Date: 1-7-1995

Subject: Relocation of mountain villages

1. Regarding the above subject, as soon as you receive this letter, the mountain villages must move to and settle in XXXX resettlement village within 10 days and not later than (10-7-1995).

2. If you fail to report before the deadline, the Tatmadaw will march into your village. The villages-in-hiding will be burned down and attacked with guns. The hill fields will be burnt and destroyed.

3. Each village has to report to XXXX camp and resettlement village by the deadline. If they fail to report, I warn you again that serious action will be taken.

[Sd.]

Camp Commander

XXXX Army Camp

Frontline #XXX Infantry Battalion

* Note: The 'resettlement village' and the army camp that issued [the previous] order are at the same place. This is a duplicated typed order with the name of the village and the deadline date written in; it was sent to several villages.

(B) Demand for Intelligence

SPDC & DKBA ORDERS TO VILLAGES: KHRG SET 2003-A

Papun, Pa’an, Thaton, Nyaunglebin, Toungoo, & Dooplaya Districts

Order #394 (Thaton)

To: Chairperson xxxx Village Tract Stamp:

#207 Light Infantry Battalion Battalion Office

Date- 13-7-02

Subject: Invitation to a meeting.

1. Frontline #44 Light Infantry Division Headquarters must hold a meeting with the village heads in the local villages at yyyy village on 18th of July 2002 at 09:00 hours, so the Elder yourself must report information without fail on 17th of July 2002 to arrive at 4 o’clock in the evening and if you fail, it is the responsibility of the elder, you are informed.

2. Reply whether this letter was received by the messenger who comes now.

[Sd.] Captain

Camp Commander

xxxx Army Camp

Frontline #207 Light Infantry Battalion

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* two sources deleted here in online version

Personal communications / Thailand, 2004

Names withheld in this online version but the author wishes to thank all those who spared their very valuable time to speak with him.

[2] The use of names is highly politicized. Myanmar, chosen by the junta as the country’s official name, is recognized by the UN but not universally and not by internal political opponents. Likewise, ethnic states (and their peoples), divisions, cities and towns were also renamed. Officially Karen, Karenni and Tennaserim are called Kayin, Kayah, and Thanintharyi. This paper will continue to use the older terms for the most part, for the sake of simplicity and for ease of distinction (Burman can refer to the Burman majority, while Burmese can refer to all peoples in the country in terms of citizenship). However, where dialogue or official usage is pertinent the name Myanmar may also be used.

[3] In Sections 2 and 3 there will be a fuller discussion of these numbers and what they are based upon.

[4] Burmese Border Consortium, Burmese Border Refugee Sites with Population Figures-May 2004, (Bangkok, BBC, May 2004). The total number of refugees is 140,960 in the camps. This counts new arrivals, births and deaths and is above Thai Interior Ministry (MOI) and UNHCR registered figures, which listed 128,999 in April 2004. The BBC also counts a further 12,326 at Mon resettlement camps inside Burma. The status of those latter camps will be discussed in Section 2.3. Shan refugees in Thailand, a considerable and ever increasing number, have not been allowed to register with UNHCR or with the Thai Ministry of the Interior (MOI).

[5] Roberta Cohen and Francis Deng, Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1999). pp. 16~19.

[6] “Persons who have been forced to flee their homes suddenly or unexpectedly in large numbers, as a result of armed conflict, internal strife, systematic violations of human rights or natural or manmade disasters, and who are within the territory of their own country.” David A. Korn, Exodus Within Borders: An Introduction to the Crisis of Internal Displacement (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1999). p. 11.

[7] Some estimates of development-induced displacement range as high as 90~100 million persons worldwide. Kathleen Newland, Erin Patrick, and Monette Zard, No Refuge: The Challenge of Internal Displacement (New York: UN/OCHA Internal Displacement Unit, 2003). p. 6.

[8] Marc Vincent, 'Introduction and Background', in Caught Between Borders: Response Strategies of the Internally Displaced, ed. by Birgitte Sorensen and Marc Vincent, (London: Pluto Press, 2001). pp. 6~7.

[9] Francis Deng, 'Foreword', in Caught Between Borders: Response Strategies of the Internally Displaced, ed. by Birgitte Sorensen and Marc Vincent, (London: Pluto Press, 2001). p. xiii.

[11] Ibid, pp. 20~31. Organisationally, the process sometimes commences when a UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) is called and identifies collaborative partners.

[12] See the OCHA webpage http://www.reliefweb.int/ocha_ol/pub/idp_gp/idp.html for the complete Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

[13] Cohen describes Burma, along with Turkey and Algeria as ‘hard cases’. Roberta Cohen, 'Hard Cases: Internal Displacement in Turkey, Burma, and Algeria', Forced Migration Review, 6, no. December (1999).

[14] Governance is variously defined, often from either political or economic perspectives. This paper prefers the formulation of Deakin University Professor Damien Kingsbury who locates good governance within ‘…the consistent, equal and impartial application of the rule of law, and of freedom of enquiry and expression, thus linking the idea of governance into the legal aspect of political development and into critical aspects of human rights’. See Damien Kingsbury, 'Political Development', in Key Issues in Development, ed. by Janet Hunt, and others, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004), p. 184.

[15] Brother Amoz and others, Forgotten Victims of a Hidden War: Internally Displaced Karen in Burma, (Chiang Mai, BERG/Friedrich Naumann Foundation, 2001). p. 9.

[16] Karen Jacobsen and Loren Landau, The Dual Imperative in Refugee Research: Some Methodological and Ethical Considerations in Social Science Research on Forced Migration (The Inter-University Committee on Internal Migration, 2003). Available: http://web.mit.edu/cis/www/migration/pubs/rrwp/19_jacobsen.html (Accessed on 25 April 2004). p. i.

[17] Karen Nation Union (KNU)/Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).

[18] Karenni National Progress Party (KNPP)/Karenni Army (KA).

[19] New Mon State Party (NMSP)/Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA).

[20] Until 1997 the SPDC was known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council or SLORC.

[22] Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity (Oxford: Zed Books, 1999). pp. 21~22. Upwards of 500,000 were moved in Rangoon, Mandalay, Taunggyi and other towns. The regime believed that those populations swelled street demonstrations, which challenged its rule.

[23] Human Right’s Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh: Still No Durable Solution, vol. 12, no. 3 (C). Available: http://hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/ (Accessed on 27 June, 2004).

[24] Burmans comprise perhaps two-thirds of the population and minorities the rest. There has been no real census for decades so actual numbers are conjectures and, in Burma, also politicized. The number of minority groups depends on definitions and self-perceptions. For example within the Karen family there are over 20 sub-groups (of which the Karenni are one) and within the Chin, who live near the Indian border, over forty. Martin Smith, Ethnic Groups in Burma: Development, Democracy and Human Rights, (London: Anti-Slavery International, 1994). pp. 36, 42.

[25] Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity (Oxford: Zed Books, 1999). Smith revised this volume from a first edition in 1991.

[26] Ibid, pp. 24~25. Mon kingdoms existed as late as the 18^th century, Shan principalities continued into the 20^th century, and other groups, particularly in the mountainous border regions were under at most nominal control, except when conscripted as levies or disturbed during the series of Burma-Siam wars. Fighting between Mon and Burmese principalities occasioned much displacement.

[28] Ibid, pp. 45, 49. The first such Karen movement the Karen National Association (KNA), was founded in 1881. A similar Burman organization, the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA), and clearly modelled on the YMCA, was established in 1906.

[29] Ibid, pp. 75~78. In the post-war years before independence, some British officials on the ground (notably H.N.C. Stevenson, director of the Frontier Areas) warned of the ethnic wars to come but Whitehall, anxious to divest itself of Burma, ignored them.

[30] Karen units such as Force 136 supported the British, while Burman nationalists pursued a more nuanced, self-serving policy of first clearly aligning with Japan but switching to the British side in early 1945 when it was clear Japan would lose. A number of wartime massacres, particularly of Karen elders at Papun, poisoned communal relations.

[31] Though by the latter date communist ideology had worn thin, and the foot soldiers were overwhelmingly from ethnic minorities who would mutiny against the Burman communist leadership and form ethnically based militias such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA). The student force is the All Burma Students Defence Force (ABSDF).

[32] Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, pp. 78~79. This agreement, between Aung San, Burma’s independence leader, and Shan, Kachin, and Chin representatives was meant to allow for limited autonomy in the Frontier Areas. It had shortcomings, wasn’t fully observed or integrated into law and completely disappeared when the 1947 constitution was torn up after the 1962 coup. But, at the time, Panglong was considered a good starting point by some ethno-nationalists. Perhaps the subsequent assassination of Aung San, who had gained some measure of trust from emergent ethnic nationalists, and had the personal power to make difficult decisions, was a critical event in the downhill spiral towards civil war.

[33] Panglong offered some tokens towards federalism and did have provisions for secession, after 10 years, by referendum for Shan and Karenni States. The KNU only sent observers to Panglong, but did not participate. No referendum was ever permitted, something that has rankled Shan and Karenni nationalists. Personal communication with KNPP Foreign Minister Abel Tweed (Mae Hong Song, Thailand, February 2001) and with the Restoration Council for Shan State (RCSS), political wing of the SSA-South, February 2001).

[34] These ranged from ethnic nationalist forces and the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), to narcotics militias. They also included two relict Kuomintang armies that had escaped Mao’s forces in 1949 across the Yunnan border and, though supported by Taiwan and the United States in attempts to destabilize China, would morph into narcotics militias, giving a spur to that trade which has yet to dissipate.

[35] In addition to Martin Smith, Desmond Ball and Hazel Lang provide a good analysis of ethnic factionalism. Desmond Ball, and Hazel Lang, Factionalism and the Ethnic Insurgent Organizations (Canberra, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU, 2001).

[36] There have been several permutations of this rule. A Revolutionary Council (RC) was superseded by one party rule. That party, the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) was run by retired military officers such as Ne Win, who ruled continuously from 1962 to 1988. In 1988 serving officers ‘seized’ power, calling themselves the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). That Orwellian sounding acronym was changed to the more palatable sounding SPDC in November 1997.

[37] David Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, (Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 516, 2^nd ed. 2000). p. 516. Horowitz goes further and labels the junta an ethnocracy.

[38] The military believed that a 1962 ‘Federal Seminar’, organised by U Nu, the country’s civilian prime minister, was such a threat. Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, pp. 195~196.

[39] Burma’s economic mismanagement meant many products were only obtainable via the black market. Gems, cattle and other primary products went to Thailand, and manufactured goods the other way.

[40] The Irrawaddy, 'Desmond Ball Unbound: An Interview with Desmond Ball', The Irrawaddy On-line Edition, 14 July 2004. Ball feels that while overall insurgent strength has declined, the adoption of mobile hit-and-run tactics has allowed those forces at times to wreak substantial damage upon the Tatmadaw. Available: http://www.irrawaddy.org/interview.html? (Accessed on 14 July 2004).

[41] Some would claim primordialism as a third theoretical framework.

[42] Ibid, p. 73. Horowitz labels some of those who engaged actively in this as ‘…ethnocentric cultural functionaries who rewrote grammars, histories and scriptures…’ Martin Smith [Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, p. 36] notes that ‘history books are increasingly being rewritten’ in Burma. Gustaaf Houtman sees the current Burmese junta as bring actively engaging in the ‘Myanmafication of archaeology’ so as to extend claims buttressing perceived legitimacy further into the past. Gustaaf Houtman, Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures, Tokyo University of Foreign Languages, 1999), pp. 1~166. Burmese intelligence officers are known to oversee some of these digs, eerily reminiscent of Himmler’s SS searching for Gothic runes in the Crimea during WW2. See Christina Fink, Living Silence: Burma Under Military Rule (London: Zed Books, 2001), p. 157.

[43] Anthony D. Smith, 'Nations and History', in Understanding Nationalism, ed. by Montserrat Guibernau and John Hutchinson, (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2001). P. 18.

[44] Ananda Rajah, 'A 'Nation of Intent' in Burma: Karen Ethno-Nationalism, Nationalism and the Narrations of Nation', The Pacific Review, 15, no. 4 (2002). p. 518. But this paper would seek to sail between the two theorists and note that while the missionary experience was certainly formative for Karen nationalism there had to be something there with which to work in terms of communal similarities and grievances.

[45] Michael. Mann, 'Explaining Murderous Ethnic Cleansing: The Macro Level' in Understanding Nationalism, ed. by Montserrat Guibernau and John Hutchinson, (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2001). P. 208.

[47] Mikael Gravers, Nationalism as Political Paranoia in Burma (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1999). pp. 13~18.

[48] Andrew Selth also notes, interesting, that the slogans with which the regime defines its national/regime security interests appear to be a ‘conscious imitation of the numerical ordering system favoured by Theravada Buddhism’. There are three ‘national causes’, twelve ‘national objectives’, and three ‘people’s desires’. Andrew Selth, Burma's Armed Forces: Power Without Glory (Norwalk, CT: Eastbridge Press, 2002), p. 30.

[50] Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, p. 39.

[51] In several cases is hard to see how any state could be when framed in terms of bounded territory. Karens, for example, are found throughout much of eastern Burma as well as in significant numbers in the Irrawaddy Delta where there is much intermingling with other populations. Also any independent Shan, Karenni or Mon State would have to be multi-ethnic as well.

[52] Hazel Lang, Fear and Sanctuary: Burmese Refugees in Thailand (Ithaca, New York: Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2002). p. 25.

[54] Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, pp. 374~383. The use of minority soldiers as ‘cannon fodder’ was one reason the Communist Party of Burma’s (CFBs) People’s Army disintegrated in 1989.

[55] Selth, op cit, p. 91. In Burmese the relocation concentrations were dubbed Byu-ha Kye Ywa, or ‘strategic villages’.

[57] One aspect of major improvement has been in Signal’s Intelligence, or SIGINT, ability. This development is extensively addressed in Desmond Ball, Burma's Military Secrets; Signals Intelligence from 1941 to Cyber Warfare (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1998).

[59] Karen Human Rights Group, Abuse Under Orders: The SPDC and DKBA Armies Through the Eyes of their Soldiers, (KHRG, #2001-01, 2001) Section II. 'The Burmese Army' Available: http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/khrg2001/khrg0101.html Accessed on 27 June 2004. The military currently has ten Light Infantry Divisions and each division is divided into ten battalions. Battalions are meant to have a fighting strength of 500 men. Other battalion formations, which see frontline service, come under what are called Military Operational Commands (MOCs).

[60] Ibid, Section IX. 'Desertion'. There is evidence that many battalions are undermanned and that desertion, despite the threat of execution, is frequent.

[61] Ibid, Section V. 'Child Soldiers'. Also, personal communication with a KNLA soldier, Karen State, January 2001. Ethnic insurgents also make recourse to the use of child soldiers, insisting sometimes that they have little choice, or that the Tatmadaw killed the child’s parents and that the child then insisted upon becoming a soldier. There are claims the Tatmadaw uses coercion in recruiting child soldiers, but it is also true that army service is sometimes seen as one of the few ways of social advancement for impoverished rural farmers. Still, Burma reportedly has the highest number of child soldiers in the world.

[62] Burmese Border Consortium (BBC), Program Report for the Period July to December 2000 (Bangkok BBC Relief Programme, 2001), p. 44.

[63] Shan Human Rights Foundation, Dispossessed: Forced Relocation and Extrajudicial Killings in Shan State (Chiang Mai, SHRF, 1998), pp. 2~4. The reason given for the systematic dislocation is that when ‘opium warlord’ Khun Sa surrendered to the junta, and his Mong Tai Army (MTA) went into a ceasefire arrangement with the Tatmadaw, a more nationalist faction refused to surrender and broke away, calling itself the Shan United Revolutionary Army (SURA) and later the Shan State Army-South. The Tatmadaw action was meant to block guerrilla access to central Shan State and force the breakaway faction to surrender.

[64] These actions included some of the last major set piece battles seen in the border region. The 1995 offensive saw the fall of the Karen headquarters, and by then anti-junta resistance centre, Manerplaw, as well as that of Kawmoorah, a major KNLA fortress and border gate further south. In 1997 most KNU/KNLA territory in southern Karen State and Tennaserim fell into government hands.

[65] Karen Human Rights Group, Understanding Burma, Available: http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/background.html (Accessed on 27 June 2004).

[66] Karen Human Rights Group, Photo Set 2002-A: V. Landmines (2002),

[67] Rafique al Islam and others, Impact of Landmines in Burma: 2002 (Bangkok, Nonviolence International, 2002). p. 4. Available: www.icbl.org/burma

[68] Apparently, during recent ceasefire negotiations, an intelligence officer from the SPDC admitted targeting villagers and forcing them into relocation centres in order to ‘cut their communications’ with the KNU/KNLA. (Personal communication with Karen official, name withheld in online version) 3 July 2004.

[69] Karen Human Rights Group, Nyaunglebin District: Internally Displaced People and SPDC Death Squads, (KHRG, #99-U, 1999). Available: http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/khrg99/khrg99u1.html (Accessed on 27 June 2004). Sympathisers, even suspected ones, were included in the eliminations. The groups were said to be handpicked from infantry battalions and to operate under the aegis of the Directorate of Defence Services Intelligence (DDSI), the intelligence service controlled by Burma’s Prime Minister Lt Gen. Khin Nyunt.

[70] Karen Human Rights Group, Expansion of the Guerrilla Retaliation Units and Food Shortages

in Toungoo District of Northern Karen State, (KHRG #2003-U1, 2003). Available: http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/khrg2003/khrg03u1.html (Accessed on 30 June 2004).

[71] See Appendix 1 for two sample ‘orders’ translated by the Karen Human Rights Group.

[72] Jointly published in May 2002 by the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) and the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The report detailed 173 rapes and other forms of sexual violence upon 625 girls and women in Shan State between 1992 and 2001. Military officers committed 83 per cent of those rapes and the crimes involved 52 different battalions. 61 percent of rapes were gang rapes. Another report, this time covering Karen populated areas, was published in April 2004 by the Karen Women’s Organisation (KWO) and detailed a further 125 rapes. See KWO, Shattering Silences: Karen Women Speak Out About the Burmese Military Regime’s Use of Rape as a Strategy of War in Karen State. Also available online at: http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/Shattering_Silences.htm.

[73] Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 'Burma' in Country Reports on Human Rights - 2002 (Washington D.C., U.S. Department of State, 2002). Burma called the accusations in the SWAN/SHRF report ‘ridiculous’ but an American investigation found them credible. Thailand, though, became concerned by the activities of advocacy groups within its borders.

[74] Chris Cusano, 'Burma. Displaced Karens: Like Water on the Khu Leaf.' in Caught Between Borders Response Strategies of the Internally Displaced, ed. by Birgitte Sorensen and Marc Vincent, (London: Pluto Press, 2001). p. 140.

[75] Burmese Border Consortium, Internally Displaced People and Relocation Sites in Eastern Burma (Bangkok, Burmese Border Consortium, 2002). p. 2.

[76] Ibid, pp. 2~3. Also, one community-based advocacy organisation has published an extensive report on this move from Northern Wa areas to ‘new’ Southern Wa areas. The complete motives for the move are still shrouded in secrecy although the SPDC likely offered the land in return for UWSA operations against Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army before 1995. One reason given was the need to reduce economic dependency on opium, but the Southern Wa leadership has been heavily implicated in narcotics traffic, particularly of yabaa, a type of methamphetamine. See Lahu National Development Organisation, Unsettling Moves: The Wa Forced Resettlement Program in Eastern Shan State (Chiang Mai, LNDO, 2002).

[77] Burmese Border Consortium, Internally Displaced People and Relocation Sites in Eastern Burma, pp. 9~13.

[78] Vicky Bamforth, Stephen Lanjouw and Graham Mortimer, Conflict and Displacement in Karenni: The Need for Considered Responses (Bangkok, BERG/UNHCR, 2000). p. 59.

[79] Karen Human Rights Group, Peace Villages and Hiding Villages: Roads, Relocations, and the Campaign for Control in Toungoo District ( KHRG #2000-05, 2000). Available: http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/humanrights/khrg/archive/khrg2000/khrg0005.html (Accessed on 6 July 2004).

[80] Burmese Border Consortium, Burmese Border Refugee Sites with Population Figures-May 2004.

[81] A good portion of Hazel’s Lang’s book, Fear and Sanctuary: Burmese Refugees in Thailand, is a case study on the Mon predicament and the Halochanee issue is covered in depth.

[82] Ananda Rajah, Burma: Protracted Conflict, Governance, and Non-Traditional Security Issues (Singapore,

Institute of Defence and Security Studies, 2001) pp. 2~7.

[83] David I. Steinberg, Burma: The State of Myanmar (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2001). p. 187.

[84] But times and interests have changed again. Lo Hsing-han helped broker the original 1989 ceasefires in Kokang and both he and Khun Sa live as wealthy businessmen in Burma. Khun Sa has a house in a military compound in Rangoon. Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, pp. 376, 428.

[85] The Irrawaddy, List of Ceasefire Agreements with the Junta (Chiang Mai, The Irrawaddy On-line Edition, 2004) Available: http://www.irrawaddy.org/res/ceasefire.html (Accessed on 7 July 2004). For information on the breakdown of the KNPP ceasefires and on various armed groups in Karenni State see Vicky Bamforth et al, op cit, pp. 34~36, 39, 45~47. The SPDC was to pass through KNPP areas, ostensibly to attack Khun Sa, who was an enemy at the time.

[86] But in all cases the armed groups accept they are ‘returning to the legal fold’ and recognising the junta’s right to rule. In theory, after a political settlement such as the current Constitutional Convention, the groups would disarm.

[87] Tatmadaw soldiers need permission to enter UWSA areas and if received, come disarmed.

[88] Karen Ballentine and Heiko Nitzsche, Beyond Greed and Grievance: Policy Lessons from Studies in the Political Economy of Armed Conflict (New York, International Peace Academy, 2003) Available: http://www.ipacademy.org/PDF_Reports/BGG_rpt.pdf (Accessed on 18 July 2004).

[89] Jake Sherman, 'Burma: Lessons from the Ceasefires', in The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance, ed. by Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman, (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2003), p. 227. Sherman offers a comprehensive analysis of the ceasefire phenomenon from a ‘political economy’ perspective. He says that: ‘As long as the underlying political and ethnic grievances remain unaddressed, Burma remains vulnerable to renewed cycles of conflict’.

[90] Tony Broadmoor, 'Precarious Peace in Monland', The Irrawaddy On-line Edition, Feb-Mar 2002 Available: http://www.irrawaddy.org/database/2002/vol10.2/cover4.html Accessed on 7 July 2004).

[91] It also meant that more soldiers could quickly be deployed to urban areas to quell popular disaffection.

Abstract

UWSA United Wa State Army