Civil Society in Burma: The Development of Democracy amidst Conflict 9789812309051

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Acronyms
Executive Summary
Civil Society in Burma
Endnotes
Bibliography
Internal Conflicts and State-Building Challenges in Asia. Project Information

Citation preview

Civil Society in Burma: The Development of Democracy amidst Conflict

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Policy Studies 51

Civil Society in Burma: The Development of Democracy amidst Conflict Ashley South

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Copyright © 2008 by the East-West Center Civil Society in Burma: The Development of Democracy amidst Conflict by Ashley South East-West Center in Washington 1819 L Street, NW, Suite 200 Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel: 202-293-3995 Fax: 202-293-1402 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.eastwestcenter.org/washington Online at: www.eastwestcenter.org/policystudies This publication is a product of the project on Internal Conflicts and State-Building Challenges in Asia. For details, see pages 59–78. The project and this publication are supported by a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Center. Hardcopies of publications in the series are available through Amazon.com. In Asia, hardcopies of all titles, and electronic copies of Southeast Asia titles, co-published in Singapore, are available through: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Road Singapore 119614 E-mail: [email protected] Website: ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data South, Ashley. Civil society in Burma : the development of democracy amidst conflict. (East-West Center Washington policy studies ; PS51) 1. Civil society—Burma 2. Ethnic conflict—Burma. 3. Burma—Ethnic relations. 4. Democracy—Burma. I. Title. II. Series : Policy studies (East-West Center Washington) ; 51. DS51 E13P no. 51 2008 ISBN 978-981-230-904-4 (soft cover) ISBN 978-981-230-905-1 (PDF) ISSN 1547-1349 (soft cover) ISSN 1547-1330 (PDF) Typeset in Singapore by Superskill Graphics Pte Ltd Printed in Singapore by Seng Lee Press Pte Ltd

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Contents List of Acronyms

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Executive Summary

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Introduction

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The Burmese Political Scene and the Ceasefire Movement

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Civil Society: An Alternative Approach to Democratization

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Contested Concept, Contested Domain

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State-Society Relations in Burma

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Ethnic Nationality Civil Society Actors in Burma

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Zones of Ongoing Armed Conflict

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Ceasefire and Government-controlled Areas

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Karen Civil Society Networks

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Ashley South Post-ceasefire Developments in Kachin and Mon States

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Civil Society Responses to Cyclone Nargis

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State Attempts to Penetrate or Suppress Civil Society

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Ceasefires, Civil Society, and Sociopolitical Struggle The Limits of a Bottom-up Approach

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Foreign Aid and Civil Society

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Conclusion and Recommendations

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Endnotes

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Bibliography

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Project Information: Internal Conflicts and State-Building Challenges in Asia

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• Project Purpose and Outline

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• Project Participants List

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• Background on Burma/Myanmar’s Ethnic Conflicts

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• Pre-1989 and Post-1989 Names

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• Map of Burma/Myanmar: Ethnic Groups with Ceasefire Arrangements

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List of Acronyms BSPP CBO CPB DAB GONGO ICRC IDP KDC KDN KIO KNU KPMG MSF MWAA NDF NGO NLD NMSP SLORC SPDC UN

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Burma Socialist Programme Party community-based organization Communist Party of Burma Democratic Alliance of Burma government-organized NGO International Committee of the Red Cross internally displaced person Karen Development Committee Karen Development Network Kachin Independence Organization Karen National Union Karen Peace Mediator Group Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) Myanmar Women’s Affairs Association National Democratic Front nongovernmental organization National League for Democracy New Mon State Party State Law and Order Restoration Council State Peace and Development Council United Nations

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Ashley South UNA UNLD USDA UWSA

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United Nationalities Alliance United Nationalities League for Democracy Union Solidarity and Development Association United Wa State Army

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Executive Summary Burma faces a complex of interlinked humanitarian, social, and political crises. The situation has long been especially serious in areas populated by ethnic minorities, many of which are—or have recently been—affected by armed conflict. Humanitarian conditions are also particularly dire in areas of the Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon affected by Cyclone Nargis, which struck the country on May 2–3, 2008, killing an estimated 130,000 people and making another two million or more homeless and vulnerable to disease and hunger. Better governance on the part of state and nonstate authorities may begin to address some of these issues. However, the root causes are political and require more than just technical solutions. In order to address these structural problems, political and socioeconomic changes are required at both the local and national levels. Although the government is deeply unpopular with most sectors of society, and mass protests cannot be ruled out in the future, the strategic options for topdown, national elite-level transition are quite limited—and will probably remain so for some time. Therefore, national and international actors should focus on the limited opportunities available for democratization from the bottom-up. Approaches to political transition based on the need for regime change (i.e., removal of the State Peace and Development Council military regime) should be broadened to include community

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Ashley South participation and the promotion of civil society as an engine for democracy from below, especially in ethnic nationality areas. Yet civil society is a contested concept and means different things to different people. It is also a contested domain, within which various interest groups and actors seek to promote their agendas. This monograph examines community-based approaches to development and peace-building in the minority regions of Burma and the ways in which civil society networks can effect changes in governance structures. It argues that civil society networks can effect sociopolitical transition at both the local and national levels. Locally, the development of associational networks and human capital, through the activities of local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs), establishes patterns of empowerment and participation that can gradually change structures of governance on the part of local authorities (including ceasefire groups). At the national/elite level, the development of civil society is a prerequisite for significant and sustainable democratic change. The tentative reemergence of civil society networks within and between ethnic nationality communities has been one of the most significant— but underexamined, and underappreciated—aspects of the social and political situation in Burma over the past fifteen years. Partly as a result of the series of ceasefires agreed to since 1989 between the government and some twenty armed ethnic groups, civil society networks have reemerged among and between minority communities. Many of these— such as various ethnic literature and culture associations—date from the first decade of independence but had been dormant during the years of state socialist rule. The monograph analyzes the ceasefire and the impacts that agreements to end hostilities have had on state-society relations and day-to-day life in areas previously affected by armed conflict. It also examines the important roles played by local NGOs and individual Burmese citizens in the fields of humanitarian relief, community development, and peace-building—in zones of ongoing armed conflict and in areas devastated by Cyclone Nargis. The majority of local NGOs and CBOs in Burma—especially those working in government-controlled areas—are focused on welfare and local development activities and do not espouse explicitly political agendas. Nevertheless, civil society networks operating within and between minority

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Civil Society in Burma communities are building local capacities and can help drive political transition by promoting models of participation and accountability. Support for civil society in Burma is a win-win policy option: while responding to local needs, local civil society actors can help promote democratization. Mobilizing and strengthening civil society networks in Burma will help prepare communities to respond positively to political changes that may occur at the national/elite level. Indeed, strong local communities are necessary in order to achieve sustainable development and in order for any moves toward democratization at the national/elite level to actually impact the lives of ordinary villagers in remote areas. Furthermore, in many cases local agencies are the only ones with access to vulnerable, conflict-affected (and natural disaster-affected) communities. They therefore constitute important local partners for international organizations. Democratization from below must be complemented by action at the national/elite level. The potential power of the civil society sector was illustrated by the participation of monks and other civilian groups in the Saffron Revolution of August and September 2007, which was brutally suppressed by the military government. Since the protests, the Buddhist monks (Sangha) have come under close scrutiny by the regime, and large numbers of monks remain in detention. The participation of monks and other civil society actors, including several Burmese celebrities, in rescue and relief efforts following Cyclone Nargis was therefore significant politically—as was the government’s efforts to restrict those activities. Clearly, Burma’s civil society networks remain vulnerable to suppression by the state, which since the military takeover in 1962 has sought to penetrate, control, and mobilize autonomous social institutions. This is particularly the case in the context of the government’s promulgation of a new constitution and the holding of a national referendum in May 2008. The regime having engineered a “yes” vote on the constitution, elections are scheduled for 2010. Under conditions of political mobilization (and electoral fraud), it seems likely that the militarized state will seek to further penetrate and subdue autonomous civil society actors. The government is likely also to continue to closely monitor and restrict the activities of international organizations in the country. The challenge for the international community (especially donors) is to work in the constricted environment of military-ruled Burma in ways that promote positive change—but without exposing local partners to

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Ashley South unacceptable risks. In particular, more should be done to support the “ceasefire movement” and the governance capacities of nonstate local administrations. In helping to build the capacities of ethnic nationality para-state and civil society actors, donors can help the movement transition from peace-making (ceasefires) to peace-building (transformative sociopolitical settlements).

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Civil Society in Burma

Civil Society in Burma: The Development of Democracy amidst Conflict By any standards, the political, social, and humanitarian situation in Burma1 is dire. After four and a half decades of military misrule, large sections of the economy have collapsed or become criminalized; and many aspects of social and professional life have been co-opted or otherwise distorted by the militarized state. For many people, corrupt practices are necessary for dayto-day survival. Ethnic minority-populated areas on the periphery of the state have experienced profound humanitarian crises following a half-century of underdevelopment and mostly lowintensity armed conflict. Despite Ethnic minority-populated positive changes over the past areas…have experienced decade in some areas, needs are still especially acute in the areas of profound humanitarian crises food and employment security, education and health, and civilian protection from a range of human and civil rights abuses. Better governance may begin to address some of these issues— particularly if the military regime could be persuaded to allow professionals in the health, education, agriculture, and environmental sectors to carry out much-needed reforms. Civil servants and technocrats in these fields are

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Ashley South likely to remain in their positions regardless of the make-up of any future government. It is therefore appropriate for international actors to engage in policy discussions with the government in these sectors—and perhaps also on the issue of legal standards (the insecurity of land rights is a particular problem in many conflict-affected areas). Ultimately however, the root causes structuring Burma’s problem are political: the state—as it is currently configured—is the primary cause of the country’s malaise. Therefore, strengthening the state will not in itself solve Burma’s social, humanitarian, and development challenges. Change in the political regime (the structure of interests and institutions that shape policy and the practices of state and nonstate actors) is required in order to bring about substantial and sustained improvements in living conditions the people of Burma have a right to demand. Sociopolitical transition is necessary both at the national and local levels. In the case of state- and township-level authorities, and also of the civilian administration of armed ceasefire groups, there is a need for more accountable and effective systems of governance and for greater community participation in development and other processes. Unfortunately, the military government today controls the country more firmly than has any previous regime in Burma. The suppression of the September 2007 Saffron Revolution illustrated the degree to which the military is able and willing to impose its rule on Burmese society. Although this brutal crackdown was condemned by Western countries and international human rights groups, such indignation did not translate into concerted international pressure on the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The government’s response to Cyclone Nargis further illustrated its desire and ability to control Burmese society and to limit interactions with international actors. On October 11, 2007, the United Nations (UN) Security Council issued a critical—but nonbinding—presidential statement regarding the situation in Burma. However, neither China nor Russia was inclined to increase the pressure on the Burmese military regime by agreeing to impose sanctions.2 As the balance of global power shifts away from an economically troubled United States toward China and other emerging powers, it seems likely that strategically unimportant (to the West) client regimes—such as the SPDC—will continue to receive diplomatic cover from their patrons. The Burmese military government has become adept at playing regional

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Civil Society in Burma powers off against each other and buying patronage with its valuable natural gas and oil reserves. The SPDC junta does not acknowledge the possibility of loyal opposition and has ruthlessly suppressed dissent. The situation became particularly bleak following the October 2004 purge of then-prime minister and military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt and his relatively progressive—or at least modernizing—faction. This gloomy litany does not mean, however, that the prospects for change in Burma are entirely dismal—providing that international actors focus on the right places and have realistic expectations. As the 2007 protests indicated, the military regime is deeply unpopular—notwithstanding the fraudulent results of the 2008 the prospects of a popular constitutional referendum (in which, the uprising toppling the government announced, an incredible 92.4 percent of voters endorsed the militaryregime seem distant drafted charter). The crisis instigated by the cyclone resulted in some food and fuel shortages and rising prices, which might have ignited further antigovernment protests. However, the prospects of a popular uprising toppling the regime seem distant. Therefore, some observers have looked to internal disputes within the military as a vehicle for regime change. As long as Senior General Than Shwe remains in power, Burma is unlikely to see major changes in governance. However, the massive humanitarian, social, and political crises engendered by the cyclone may yet encourage ambitious but frustrated second-line leaders within the military to move against the dictator. Burma-watchers have long anticipated splits in the army. Yet since independence in 1948, the military has remained the most powerful and cohesive force in the country (Callahan 2003). Nevertheless, the events of 2007 and 2008 might yet precipitate the downfall of the ruling clique—if not necessarily the end of military rule. The possibilities of further popular protests or splits within the military notwithstanding, the openings for national/elite-level change3 in Burma are quite limited—and will probably remain so for some time. Given the lack of leverage of opposition groups and the ineffectiveness of international pressure, the military will probably continue to determine the course of events at the national/elite level of politics for some time to come.

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Ashley South Proponents of democratization have generally responded to the regime’s initiatives in one of two ways: either by seeking some room for maneuver within government-controlled forums (such as the drawn-out National Convention process that led to the drafting of the military-dominated constitution), or by boycotting these forums and therefore reinforcing a polarization of Burmese politics that began in the 1960s and has served the entrenched military government better than it has the increasingly marginalized opposition forces.4 The focus on elite-level regime change and the need to install a more accountable national government is based on assumptions regarding the nature of politics that are shared by the opposition and the military regime: that political transition must come from the top-down and be directed by the central government. This notion ignores the role of engaged citizens— who will be essential to any process of sustained democratization. Democratization is a process (McLean 1996), which means that although change at the national/elite level (revolutionary or gradual) is urgently required, sustained democratic transition can only be achieved if accompanied by local participation. In the current political climate, with only limited options available for national/elite-level transition, reemergent civil society networks represent an important vehicle for long-term, civil society networks bottom-up democratization in Burma, represent an important especially in ethnic nationality areas. This monograph argues that modest vehicle for…democratization progress in civil society-driven, grassroots democratization is already under way in the form of community development and relief activities (for example in cyclone-affected areas of the Irrawaddy Delta). Progress can also be seen in the limited reforms of governance in the ceasefire areas, and to a degree in the zones of remaining armed conflict and among refugee and exile communities. Another argument for supporting civil society actors is that they often have access to conflict- and disaster-affected areas that are out-of-bounds to international agencies. Local NGOs and CBOs can implement development and humanitarian projects in these remote areas in ways that build local capacities and human capital and promote conflict resolution. These organizations are therefore essential partners in international groups’ strategies of remote management in emergency relief situations.

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Civil Society in Burma The tentative reemergence of civil society networks within and between ethnic nationality communities has been one of the most significant—but underexamined—aspects of the social and political situation in Burma over the past decade. Efforts to build local participation are already underway— in government-controlled areas, in some ethnic nationality-populated ceasefire and war zones, and among exile and refugee communities in neighboring countries. Although these local initiatives may not bring about national/elite-level change in themselves, any centrally directed reforms are unlikely to succeed unless accompanied—or even preceded—by such grassroots participation. This monograph examines these issues from the strategic perspective of Burma’s ethnic nationality communities, which constitute 30 to 40 percent of the population. It also addresses the roles which foreign aid can play in supporting the reemergence of civil society and democracy from below in Burma. Civil society networks are better established in some geographic areas— and among some socioreligious communities—than others. The present study focuses in particular on the situation in Kachin, Karen, and Mon States—the areas where I conducted the majority of my fieldwork and where civil society initiatives are most advanced. The situation in other areas is less positive. Throughout the country, local capacities are quite limited, and large amounts of foreign support could overwhelm fledgling organizations unless donors are sensitive to such concerns. Furthermore, civil society organizations often reproduce the unequal power relations in Burmese society. However, the greatest constraint on the sector is the vulnerability to state suppression of local actors and initiatives. Following the fall of Khin Nyunt, the military regime has moved to restrict international humanitarian access— especially to sensitive border and other conflict-affected areas, where needs are greatest. Since 2007, the SPDC has also increased its suppression of autonomous community networks—thus signaling the seriousness with which the regime regards the civil society sector. Given this constrained environment, donors will have to proceed cautiously and consult widely before deciding to engage on the ground. Such caveats notwithstanding, the promotion of civil society should be a priority. Rather than sitting on the sidelines while the situation goes from bad to worse, the international community should engage with Burma in a constructive—if selective—manner.

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Ashley South Promoting civil society in Burma can be a win-win policy option— regardless of how political change might come about. Humanitarian and development aid are not substitutes for political intervention—but ways into political action. Of course, humanitarian principles demand that aid be given impartially and not to further political agendas. Nevertheless, all aid has political impacts, and these should be properly calculated.

The Burmese Political Scene and the Ceasefire Movement The “ethnic question” has long been at the heart of Burma’s protracted political, social, and humanitarian crises (Smith 1999, 2007; South 2005). However, since independence—and especially following the military takeover of 1962—ethnic nationality elites have been excluded from meaningful participation in politics, and minority-populated border areas have experienced chronic underdevelopment. Since 1991, the annual UN General Assembly resolutions regarding Burma have called for a tripartite solution to the country’s problems involving the government, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and other parties elected in 1990, and ethnic nationality representatives. The predominantly urban-based NLD and its allies derive their legitimacy from victory in the 1990 general election, the results of which were ignored by the government. Although Aung San Suu Kyi remains hugely popular, both domestically and abroad, she has spent thirteen of the last nineteen years under house arrest; other opposition leaders are also in jail or have been driven into exile. Most members of the opposition-in-exile fled the country between 1988 and 1990 and have since grown out-of-touch with life in Burma. Nevertheless, many exile groups are well-funded (by the United States and other Western governments) and tend to dominate discourse on Burma in a manner disproportionate to their limited relevance inside the country. Exile politicians have used their voice to argue for the military government’s international isolation by means of economic sanctions. However, such policies have achieved little in terms of regime change. The third sector of Burma’s opposition mosaic consists of elites composed of three broad groups within Burma’s ethnic minority communities: 1. The United Nationalities Alliance (UNA), representing sixty-five ethnic nationality candidates elected in 1990, most of which are

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Civil Society in Burma members of the United Nationalities League for Democracy (UNLD) and cooperate closely with the NLD; 2. Armed ethnic organizations which have agreed to ceasefires since 1989; and 3. Insurgent groups still at war with the government, most of which support exile political formations. Although the above-ground ethnic parties (the UNLD/UNA) have placed important historic roles, their influence has been mostly limited to the sidelines of national/elite-level politics, as described below. For half a century, armed groups have dominated Burma’s ethnic nationalist and other political movements. Following independence in 1948, government forces engaged in mostly low-intensity armed conflict with two sets of armed opponents: 1. the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), which collapsed in early 1989 and disintegrated into four ethnic militias and 2. a historically loose alliance of noncommunist ethnonationalist insurgents, centered on the National Democratic Front (NDF, established in 1976), and a handful of democracy groups which emerged in 1988 and together with the NDF formed the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB). Although they had previously been active across much of the country, by the late 1980s the insurgents had been mostly confined to remote border areas (South 2005: 293–99). In its largely successful campaigns against these myriad ethnic and communist insurgent organizations, the state extended militarized control into previously semiautonomous areas, causing massive social, economic, and human disruption—and greatly weakening the armed opposition. As the Burmese Army (Tatmadaw) gained the upper hand against the rebels, the “liberated zones” under insurgent control began to shrink, and increasing numbers of civilians became displaced, especially in eastern and northern Burma. Unable any longer to retreat to relative safety behind the front lines of the conflict, civilians fled across the border to Thailand (and China and India). By 2008, more than two million people of Burmese origin were displaced outside the country, including more than 150,000 refugees in Thailand. In addition, over half a million people remained internally displaced within Burma (South 2007a, 2008).

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Ashley South As a result of these challenges—and under pressure from national security and business interests in China and Thailand—between 1989 and 1995 the government negotiated ceasefire arrangements with some twentyfive insurgent organizations, including a dozen local militias that agreed to unofficial truces with the Tatmadaw. The first of these were the ex-CPB militias—including the 20,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA)— which were thereby prevented from uniting with the National Democratic Front. (On the Wa ceasefire and since, see Kramer 2007.) From 1991, the government struck agreements with several NDF member groups (Smith 1999, 2007). At least a dozen local militias also agreed to unofficial truces with the Tatmadaw during this period. These militias rarely had political agendas beyond the maintenance of local autonomy.5 The ceasefires are not peace treaties and generally lack all but the most rudimentary accommodation of the ex-insurgents’ political and development demands. As Jake Sherman notes, “The ceasefires have improved physical security in some former combat zones. Still, promised political dialogue and economic development have not been forthcoming, and thus the deeper causes of conflict remain unaddressed” (in Sherman and Ballentine 2003: 241–42, 245). However, Sherman acknowledges that “the ceasefires have provided…space for engaging in economic activities, the initiation of health and development schemes…. In the last ten years a growing number of ethnic minority organizations have come to see the provision of basic economic development as a priority equal to that of democracy, and only achievable if they make peace with the government” (Ibid.). In most cases, the ex-insurgents have been allowed to retain their arms and have been granted de facto autonomy and control of sometimes extensive blocks of territory (in recognition of the military situation on the ground). As Martin Smith has observed, the situation on the ground varies from district to district (Burma Centre Netherlands and Transnational Institute 1999: 46–48). There is an important distinction between ceasefire zones (more-orless firmly controlled by nonstate groups and usually recognized by the government as a Special Region), and adjacent areas, which may be formally controlled by the state and Tatmadaw or may be subject to a form of “mixed administration,” influenced by both the state and nonstate forces (ceasefire groups or active insurgent organizations). These latter ceasefire frontier areas are often the sites of continued conflict and

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Civil Society in Burma contests for power, and in consequence their residents may be subjected to a range of abuses.6 The ceasefire zones have seen a decrease in the most serious forms of human rights abuse—at least in those areas where the agreements have held (South 2007b). However, following several of the ceasefires, the Tatmadaw expanded into previously contested zones (on the frontiers of demarcated ceasefire areas), leading to increased militarization and widespread forced labor and land confiscation. The truces also often have led to environmentally damaging and unsustainable natural resource extraction by companies associated with government and ceasefire groups (Ibid 2007a). Many armed ethnic ceasefire and insurgent groups are characterized by top-down political structures, which are often predatory upon the local population. Particularly for some ex-CPB ceasefire group leaders, the truces have facilitated the expansion of their business networks. Such problems are particularly acute and prevalent in areas where more than one (often predatory) ceasefire group has claims over the populace (e.g., parts of Shan State).7 Despite their often contested legitimacy8—and the lack of progress on the national political stage—several of Burma’s armed ethnic groups retain considerable support within their constituencies. Since 1989, the ex-CPB groups have been largely devoid of political ideology. Most were considered close to former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt and have generally not challenged the government politically. In return for their compliance, the ex-communists gained access to limited state (and some for their compliance, the international) development assistance (especially in those areas ex-communists gained access subject to opium eradication). Most to…development assistance of the ex-CPB groups have been prepared to endorse the SPDC’s Roadmap to Democracy, but without much genuine enthusiasm. In doing so, they expect to see the status of their autonomous (or at least semiautonomous) special regions formally recognized and regularized under a new constitutional arrangement. Furthermore, many ceasefire group leaders are pessimistic (or realistic) regarding their very limited ability to engage with the government on issues of national-level politics.

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Ashley South Some ex-NDF groups, such as the Pao National Organization, have sought to cooperate with rather than challenge the SPDC in exchange for political, economic, and community development opportunities. In comparison, most other ex-NDF groups have sought dialogue with the government in order to bring about political change (but without much success). The majority of ex-NDF groups demonstrate broad support for the National League for Democracy. In general, the more politically active ceasefire groups accept the strategic advantage of supporting initial talks between the SPDC and NLD before these are broadened to include the participation of ethnic nationality groups. After it was reconvened in May 2004, the National Convention was boycotted by the NLD and its allies elected in 1990—including the UNA. However, each ceasefire group sent five delegates to the convention,9 where they played an important role as the only semi-independent voices at this government-controlled forum. In particular, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO—1994 ceasefire) and New Mon State Party (NMSP—1995 ceasefire) worked to coordinate the ceasefire groups’ demands at the convention. In June 2004, representatives from thirteen ceasefire groups made a joint submission calling for the promulgation of state constitutions, proposing that all residual powers lie at the state level, and demanding the formation of local ethnic security forces (a new role for the ceasefire armies). Although rather vague in parts, the ceasefire groups’ demands included formation of a federal union under the rubric of “ethnic or national democracy.” Since the purge of Khin Nyunt and colleagues in October 2004, Tatmadaw commanders in border areas have inherited from Military Intelligence responsibility for relations with the ceasefire groups. Observers and actors are concerned that the positive (albeit limited) developments associated with the ceasefires are under threat following the demise of their architect and chief patron. The ceasefire groups were among Khin Nyunt’s major clients; the existence of these agreements lent the ex-prime minister considerable kudos and political power. Since the fall of the Khin Nyunt, there has been a widespread expectation that the government will eventually order the ceasefire groups to give up their weapons—probably on promulgation of the new constitution (which would come into effect in 2010). If and when the government forces the issue of disarmament (as it has already with two small ceasefire groups in

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Shan State in 2004), some organizations might reinvent themselves as government-oriented militias or local police forces—in which case any surrender of arms would be largely symbolic. However, the NMSP, KIO, [Many ceasefire] groups have UWSA, and other groups have indicated that they would indicated that they would not accept disarmament by the military not accept disarmament government. If they were ordered to disarm, elements of most ceasefire groups would probably comply, but other units (in some cases, the majority of the ceasefire group’s forces) would resume armed conflict. In the meantime, the government continues to woo selected ceasefire groups by offering concessions to several relatively small groups at the substate level.10 According to actors who have participated in the governmentcontrolled constitution drafting process, any charter is better than continued direct rule by the military: Although the space available to ethnic nationality and other parties under the new constitution will be very limited, it will at least allow them to participate in above-ground politics from within the “legal fold”. At the level of national/elite politics, policymakers, development and humanitarian practitioners, and those working on conflict management and reconciliation in Burma have limited access to objective information or analysis regarding the conditions in ceasefire areas. Literature on the ceasefires and the prospects for peace-building is often loaded with assumptions regarding the nature of conflict and underdevelopment in the country (South 2008). Assessments of the ceasefires—and of prospects for peace in Karen, Karenni, and southern Shan States—produced by opposition groups in exile and the international human rights and advocacy communities generally underestimate positive developments, focusing instead on the many ongoing problems in these troubled regions. In general, those who have benefited most from the ceasefires (villagers and community workers) have the least ability to influence advocacy agendas—in other words, they are denied voice. Relatively well-educated urban elites are more likely to resent the lack of political progress since 1990 and often underappreciate the benefits of peace and expanded civil society to which they may have become accustomed—especially those too young to remember the period of armed

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Ashley South conflict. Among communities affected by ceasefires, politicians (often in exile) have been able to mobilize support around hard-line, anti-ceasefire positions (e.g., in Kachin State, the roles of, and financial and sociopolitical benefits derived by, ceasefire mediators have been much criticized). In response to criticism from the ethnic communities they seek to represent, a few ceasefire groups have grappled with internal reform. The NMSP and KIO in particular have demonstrated a degree of democratic political culture, reflecting the experience gained during their twenty years of participation in prodemocracy alliances such as the NDF and DAB— and more recently through informal contacts with the exile-based Ethnic Nationalities Council. Policymaking within NMSP and KIO leadership circles usually involves a degree of debate and disagreement—which has sometimes resulted in damaging schisms and splits. However, both organizations have proved responsive to pressure from their constituencies inside Burma and from overseas-based exile and activist groups. (As noted, the latter are disproportionately represented in the public advocacy.) Both the NMSP and KIO deserve credit for eliciting limited public participation in decision-making by consulting with villagers and religious and civil society leaders from their communities regarding whether and how to engage with the government.

Civil Society: An Alternative Approach to Democratization Given the limited options for top-down political reform in Burma, new approaches to political transition are required. This is where civil society and democracy from below can play important roles in the process of democratization. Contested Concept, Contested Domain Civil society is a contested concept in at least two ways. First, there are a number of definitions of the term used in different ideological traditions (primarily the liberal-Tocquevillean and Marxist-Gramscian).11 The notion of civil society is of course rooted in European and U.S. political thought, making its application to non-Western contexts such as Burma potentially problematic. Second, the sector itself may be contested—that is, there are multiple civil society actors, which may be in competition (either implicitly or explicitly) and subject to diverse pressures—including from a militarized

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Civil Society in Burma state that prioritizes control of the population above most other considerations. The use of “civil society” as a descriptive term in this monograph is derived from de Tocqueville (1994) and denotes voluntary, autonomous associations and networks that are intermediate between the state and the family and concerned with public ends. These include a broad range of CBOs and NGOs, media and social welfare organizations, as well as religious and cultural groups (traditional and modern), and more overtly political organizations. However, commercial companies and political parties seeking to assume state power are not part of civil society—although they may promote or inhibit its development. From a Gramscian (1971), political-strategic perspective, civil society is conceived of as a contested realm in which competing forces and interest groups seek to establish positions in a protracted struggle for power. Whereas some actors aim to influence (or even overturn) government policy, others are more concerned to carve out areas of relative autonomy—while the forces of state power may seek to subvert and co-opt the wider (civil) society.12 Another definition is useful here concerning the distinction between NGOs and CBOs. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, important conceptual and practical differences exist between the two types of organization. A CBO is used here to mean a grassroots membership organization based in the community that is locally managed and—crucially—whose members are its main beneficiaries. CBOs usually exist in just one community or a group of adjacent communities. In contrast, NGOs are service providers that work for the benefit of the community. Staff may be local, national, or international—but are not necessarily from the community. Although NGOs often employ participatory, “grassroots” approaches, they usually work in broader thematic and geographic areas than do CBOs. In the long term, CBOs may be transformed (or aggregated) into regional or thematic associations or “people’s organizations” (which might also be considered local or national NGOs in their own right). A number of scholars and activists have commented on the roles played by civil society actors in the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s (see International Crisis Group 2001; Lorch 2006). According to Muthiah Alagappa, under conditions of tyranny

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Ashley South Civil society is the only available space in which oppressed segments can organize (formally, informally, or in the underground), inculcate values, construct counternarratives, and develop assets to recover their dignity and ensure their cultural, political and economic survival. [However, and in contrast] for those seeking to entrench their domination, civil society is the last remaining space to be won. (Alagappa 2004: 469)

As both Alagappa and Lorch13 warn, it is important to acknowledge the potentially “dark side of civil society”: the sector may have significant discontents (“uncivil society”). Civil society is not inherently progressive but can be reactionary and repressive, or at least unaccountable (see International Crisis Group 2001). Indeed, civil society in Burma tends to be dominated by local elites, and as such may reproduce the inequalities of society at large. Nevertheless, functioning civil society networks are essential for the achievement of social and political transition developed from the grassroots in Burma and for conflict resolution at both the national and local levels. In order for democratic change to be sustainable, the country’s diverse social and ethnic communities must enjoy a sense of ownership in any transitional process and equip themselves to fill the power vacuum that may emerge, either as a result of abrupt shifts in national politics or of a more gradual withdrawal of the military from state and local power. The ability of people to organize and reassume control over aspects of their lives, which since the 1960s has been abrogated by the military (including insurgent armies), will depend on such grassroots mobilization and practices of local governance.14 At the local level, the development of civil society networks and human capital establishes patterns of empowerment, trust, and participation that can gradually change structures of governance by local authorities (including ceasefire groups). The creation of social civil society networks… capital, and the related concepts of can…change structures reciprocity and political trust, through voluntary cooperation in the mutually of governance accountable activities of civil society, is one of the hallmarks of citizen engagement in liberal democracy.15 In the Burmese context, this is related to a shift in

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Civil Society in Burma power relations from a power over form (the mode of military government, reflected in much of the wider society) to an empowering, innately democratic power with form of participatory social organization. As Larry Diamond notes, The more their organizational practices are based on political equality, reciprocal communication, mutual respect, and the rule of law, the more civil society organizations will socialize members into these democratic norms and the more they will generate the social trust, tolerance, cooperativeness, and civic competence that undergird a vibrant and liberal democracy…. A long-term, developmental view of democracy stresses the importance of systematic, grass roots efforts to build social capital and cultivate democratic networks, norm and expectations. (Diamond 1999: 228, 238)

A useful distinction should be made regarding types of democracy promotion. A recent survey of Democracy as Development in Asia (Ottaway and Carothers 2000: 136–44) notes that “assistance geared towards formal systems of governance—‘democracy with a Big D’—attempts to make elections, judiciaries, legislatures…and other core democratic institutions and practices.” Such activities are clearly not on the agenda in contemporary Burma. In contrast, assistance intended to foster “democracy with a small ‘d’ aims in part at socio-economic progress of disadvantaged people…[but] it differs from much mainstream development work…in the means it employs—community mobilisation.” Although not mutually exclusive, “many [big ‘D’] democracy efforts build on mainstream [little ‘d’] work in health, livelihoods, education.”16 The roles that civil society actors can play in the development of at least limited community self-governance—as well as some of the pitfalls—are illustrated by the examples of two countries from the region: Cambodia and Vietnam. Local and international NGOs have played important roles in promoting local democratization in Cambodia in the context of the economic and political reforms of the 1990s, which saw the opening up of new sectors of socioeconomic activity but also resulted in an unequal distribution of resources (including foreign aid and investment). These imbalances often served to strengthen central state agencies and reinforce existing, usually inequitable, patron-client relations. Caroline Hughes (2003)

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Ashley South argues that this process has in fact inhibited the development of civil society in some parts of Cambodia (especially in peripheral areas). The lesson to be learned for transition in Burma would seem to be that donors should prioritize support to the grassroots civil society sector. In Vietnam, local (commune level) changes in governance have resulted from “pressure to change from ‘below,’ for example from different civic organizations,” including those working on HIV/AIDS. However, unlike its Burmese counterpart, “the Vietnamese bureaucracy is very well-acquainted with the principles of a rules and regulations bound, professionally-oriented [Weberian] execution of power” (Wischermann 2006: 16, 22). Therefore, another priority for democratization is the reform of local government and delegation of authority to a decentralized administration. State-Society Relations in Burma The contest for power within and over Burma’s civil society sector is not a new phenomenon. For half a century, the state has sought to penetrate and mobilize the country’s diverse social groups.17 Following the military takeover of 1958, and especially after the 1962 coup d’état, the government began extending its control over previously autonomous aspects of social life. Kyaw Yin Hlaing (2007: 155) notes especially the significance of the 1964 National Security Act, which “outlawed all existing political organizations, and…allowed only the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) and its affiliated organizations to exist…. Furthermore, the state authorities also created” a number of government-organized NGOs (GONGOs—social organizations controlled by the state), “claiming they were more formal channels for the public to make their needs and problems known to the higher levels of government.” Many civil society networks could no longer operate independently, and opposition to the regime led by General Ne Win was either eliminated, driven underground, or forced into open revolt. The existence of renewed armed opposition to the military government provided a pretext for the further extension of state control and suppression of diverse social groups deemed antithetic to the modernizing state-socialist project. The military regime’s suppression of non-Burman cultural and political identities, epitomized by the banning of minority languages from state schools, drove a new wave of disaffected ethnic minority citizens into rebellion.

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Civil Society in Burma According to David Steinberg, “Civil society died under the BSPP; perhaps, more accurately, it was murdered” (Steinberg 1999: 8). Under the 1974 constitution, all political activity beyond the strict control of the state was outlawed (Taylor 1987: 303–09). By 1980, even the previously independent Buddhist monkhood (Sangha)—members of which played key roles in Burma’s struggle for independence during the 1920s— had been brought under at least partial state control (Ibid.: 112).18 Nevertheless, Burma’s 250,000 monks and novices retained a prestige and influence which extended across all strata of society. Among the few institutions in Burma not directly controlled by the state, the Sangha— and Christian churches—remained among the potentially most powerful sectors of civil society. Of course, popular participation may be mobilized either for or against an authoritarian regime, and it seemed for a few weeks in the summer of 1988 that “people’s power” might prevail in Burma as it had two years previously in the Philippines (see Hedman 2006). The failure of the 1988 Democracy Uprising in Burma, like that of the May–June 1989 Democracy Spring in China, was in part due to the underdeveloped nature of civil society in these countries.19 A lack of democratic culture prevented powerful gestures of political theater from initiating sustained change. Although the events of August 1988 involved the mobilization of large sectors of Burmese society, this political participation did not translate into substantial and sustained political transition. Unlike those in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, in the Philippines in 1986, or in Thailand in 1992, the Burmese and Chinese democracy activists had little social space within which to operate, or inter- and intra-group networks with which to build on the people’s evident desire for fundamental change. In particular, Burma and China had no counterpart to the Catholic Church or trades unions, which played important roles in the Polish and Filipino democracy movements.20 The Ne Win regime had succeeded in denying social groups a foothold in mainstream politics or the economy except under strict state control. Potential opposition was thereby marginalized and forced underground (or into informal networks21), and could emerge only in times of crisis and upheaval, presenting the military with a pretext to clamp-down on “anarchy” and “chaos” (thus the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC).

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Ashley South Under the SLORC, the government further centralized state-society relations and attempted to penetrate and mobilize the country’s diverse social groups. Particularly following the ascension of General Than Shwe in 1992, social control was reinforced by the reformation of local militias Under the SLORC, the and mass organizations and the indoctrination of civil servants. The government further centralized police and even the Fire Brigade state-society relations were brought under military control, and the SLORC established a number of new GONGOs, the formation of which is intended “to pre-empt the formation of a genuine civil society” (Rudland and Pedersen 2000: 4). By 2007, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA)— established in September 1993 along the lines of the promilitary GOLKAR Party in Indonesia—had a membership of more than 20 million (Callahan 2007: 8; see also Tin Maung 2005: 95), many of whom had been pressured into joining. The USDA’s objectives include upholding the regime’s Three National Causes (nondisintegration of the union, nondisintegration of national solidarity, and perpetuation of national solidarity)—which may be seen as a “muscular” affirmation of the Burmese Army’s self-appointed state- and nation-building role. Indeed, the USDA and the paramilitary People’s Vigorous Association (Sorn Arr Shin) were heavily involved in the brutal suppression of the September 2007 protests.

Ethnic Nationality Civil Society Actors in Burma Over the past decade-plus, the civil society sector has undergone a gradual reemergence. According to Jasmin Lorch, the spaces within which civil society actors operate include three specific areas: Firstly, within the ambit of changes within the state itself; secondly, in various sectors of the weak welfare state; and thirdly, within some of the negotiated spaces of relative ethnic autonomy in ceasefire areas. While these rooms for manoeuvre are always relational to the authoritarian nature of the military regime, civil society actors use every space available in order to tackle the welfare needs of their respective communities.22 (Lorch 2006: abstract)

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Civil Society in Burma This monograph focuses particularly on the third of Lorch’s three relational types of civil society activity. However, there is obviously a good deal of overlap with her second (and to a degree, first) category. Zones of Ongoing Armed Conflict Following the wave of ceasefires between 1989 and the mid-1990s, Burma’s insurgencies were severely depleted. Three main armed ethnic groups—the Karen National Union (KNU—which took up arms in 1949), Karen National Progressive Party, and Shan State Army-South—continued to wage an increasingly desperate guerrilla-style war against the military government from jungle bases along the border with Thailand. Although they once controlled extensive “liberated zones,” very loosely administered by rebel civilian governments, since the mid-1980s Burma’s remaining insurgent groups have lost control of all but a few jungle strongholds. Although militarily much weakened, the remaining non-ceasefire insurgent groups continue to enjoy significant symbolic weight, in part as a result of their long struggles for self-determination. Furthermore, following the suppression of the 1988 democracy uprising and the government’s failure to recognize the results of the 1990 election, opposition groups along the Chinese and Thai borders were reinforced by the arrival of large numbers of urban (predominantly ethnic Burman) political activists and refugees. With significant political and material support from Western governments and donors, the opposition-in-exile encouraged the KNU and its allies to continue the armed conflict. This strategy was reinforced by the KNU’s ability to fall back to the refugee camps in Thailand—an option that was not available to the KIO or other groups not based on the Thai border. Like most ceasefire groups (especially the ex-NDF members), the KNU and other ethnic insurgent organizations continue to promote a federalist solution to Burma’s political/constitutional crisis.23 They also share in common with most other political actors in Burma (including the military government) a conception of ethnic self-determination being equivalent to territorial autonomy and independence. To this end, most armed ethnic opposition groups have participated in drafting a Federal Constitution of the Union of Burma. Although unlikely to be implemented in anything like its present form, this exercise has served to develop the capacities of the individuals and organizations involved.

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Ashley South Although most insurgent groups, especially since 1988, have claimed to be fighting for democracy in Burma, this ideal has not always been reflected in their practices. Many aspects of life in the “liberated zones” have been characterized by a top-down tributary system, aspects of which recall precolonial forms of sociopolitical organization (South 2005). Insurgent leaderships have tended to discourage the expression of diverse opinions, and civil society initiatives beyond the direct control of militarized opposition hierarchies have often been suppressed. These practices of sociopolitical control have sometimes been reinforced and legitimized by Western aid agencies and activist groups (South 2008). However, in recent years, civil society networks have begun to expand in non-government-controlled areas. As their Cold War patrons, China and Thailand, withdrew support from Burma’s ethnic insurgents in the 1980s and 1990s, the rebel armies declined in military—and thus political— significance. Somewhat ironically, the decline of the old insurgent paradigm opened the space for the emergence of new and more participatory forms of social and political organization among opposition-oriented ethnic nationality communities. In the 1990s, a number of local NGOs were organized by Chin, Kachin, Shan, Lahu, Karenni, Karen, Tavoyan, Mon, and all-Burma student and youth, women’s, environmental, and human rights groups in the border areas. These began to occupy the political space created by the declining influence of mainstream armed groups. Representing new models of organization, these networks constituted a dynamic aspect of an otherwise bleak political scene. As a result of their activities, those engaged in the struggle for ethnic rights and self-determination in Burma have been obliged to acknowledge the importance of women’s rights, community-level participation, and democratic practices—not just as distant goals but as ongoing processes. In a parallel development, the refugee and other relief and welfare organizations along the Thai border also grew in interesting ways. Like the women’s and youth wings associated with most insurgent groups, the Karen, Karenni, and Mon refugee committees were originally controlled by dominant factions within the insurgent hierarchy. As the latter lost ground to the Tatmadaw throughout the 1990s, the number of refugees in Thailand grew annually and assumed a new importance as a civilian support base, source of recruits, and safe haven for the armed groups. However, as the refugee situation along the Thai border was gradually

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internationalized with the presence of more international NGOs—and since 1998, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees—the refugee committees were obliged to become more responsive to (if not more representative of ) their clients, the refugees. A particularly dynamic subsector was composed of local relief and development groups, which worked cross-border with displaced communities inside Burma. Since the early 1990s, Karen—and later Chin, Shan, Karenni, and Mon—teams have provided humanitarian relief (food and medicines) and undertaken community development and educational work among internally displaced communities in what had once been the “liberated zones” (behind the front-lines of war) but were now mostly zones of ongoing armed conflict. In doing so, they have helped to build new community networks of trust and support. For example, a network of more than 900 community schools (including ten high schools) teaching some 60,000 pupils existed across Karen areas of Burma in 2007, in the KNU “liberated zones.” (Several schools were also linked to the government system.) In many areas, schools, which consisted of little more than bamboo benches under trees, moved repeatedly as villagers were displaced more than 900 community by armed conflict. In the face of such schools…existed across difficulties, communities attempted to provide their children with some form of Karen areas…in 2007 basic education. In partnership with local teachers, the KNU’s Education Department attempted to support this underfunded system. The main local NGO supporting education in areas of ongoing armed conflict was the Karen Teacher Working Group, which provided students with basic school materials and teachers with stipends and training (both on-the-job and at a Karen Teacher Training College on the border). Meanwhile, over the past five years, several NGOs working in the refugee camps in Thailand have focused on building the capacity of opposition-oriented CBOs—especially those working in the fields of human rights, environmental and gender issues, and education. In late 2005, the Thai authorities reversed longstanding policies and allowed international organizations working with refugees to expand education and vocational services (and income generation schemes) in the camps. Important progress

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Ashley South has indeed been made in the field of curriculum design—one largely unintended consequence of which has been the creation of a Karen education system that diverges from the government’s to a degree that makes it almost impossible for Karen and Karenni high school graduates to reintegrate into the state school system. Regarding educational reform in Burma and among exile communities, Rosalie Metro notes that “history curricula impact students’ ethnic prejudices…[and] are tied to political goals.” She discusses the benefits of designing multiethnic curricula in order to develop constituencies for peace-building in contested societies such as Burma. As Metro states, “Educational reform can create a social space in which conflict transformation [as opposed to mere ceasefire] is possible” (Metro 2006). Meanwhile, in those areas contested between the state and the KNU and other insurgent groups, the civilian population has continued to be subjected to a wide range of abuses. In addition to serious and systematic violations of their basic human rights, communities have been liable to be caught up in the state’s draconian development enterprises and mobilized as a pool of “free labor.” The Karen Human Rights Group has described a systematic programme of military expansionism with which the junta aims to establish control over all aspects of civilian life. In the name of development, the regime’s agenda in Karen State has involved multifarious infrastructure and regimentation projects that restrict travel and trade and facilitate increased extortion of funds, food, supplies and labour from the civilian population, thereby exacerbating poverty, malnutrition and the overall humanitarian crisis…. The SPDC’s “development” agenda has…brought increased military control over civilian lives, undermined villagers’ rights and delivered deleterious humanitarian outcomes contradictory to the very rhetoric the junta has used to justify its actions. (Karen Human Rights Group 2007)

Ceasefire and Government-controlled Areas By early 2008, some fifty registered international NGOs were operating in Yangon with memoranda of understanding with the government, as were two branches of the International Red Cross (ICRC) and various UN agencies. Following the removal of Khin Nyunt, their activities came under close scrutiny.

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Civil Society in Burma In addition to international agencies, a variety of domestic organizations and networks exist in Burma. These include Christian and Buddhist organizations and many traditional village associations (e.g., funeral service and other self-help societies), as well as more formally established local a variety of domestic NGOs (e.g., literature and culture associations and business-support organizations and networks groups). Examples of CBOs include exist in Burma farmer field schools, farmer interest groups, village development groups, villager organizations, community savings groups, early childhood center committees, and local parent teacher associations.24 Many are staffed by retired state officials (see Lorch 2006, 2007). A groundbreaking survey conducted in 2003–04 by Brian Heidel of Save the Children UK found that large numbers of new CBOs and local NGOs had been established during and since the 1990s and that Burma “might be on verge of [an] NGO/CBO explosion”25 (Heidel 2006). The last time the country saw such a marked increase in civil society activity was during the relatively politically open 1948–62 parliamentary era. Heidel’s survey calculated that there were some 214,000 CBOs throughout Burma and a total of 270 local NGOs (120 in Yangon). Of the CBOs, 48 percent were affiliated with religious groups, 24 percent were parent teacher associations, and 21 percent social organizations (Ibid.: 42). Less than half of surveyed NGOs were legally registered with the government (mostly under the 1988 Organization of Association law).26 The survey found that 63 percent of local NGOs (of the 64 organizations surveyed) classified themselves as “religious”: of these, 43.2 percent were associated with the Buddhist community and an equal number with Christian churches (in a population that is estimated to be 90 percent Buddhist and 5 percent Christian); 6.6 percent were Muslim, and 4.5 percent Hindu. Several of these organizations were involved in impressive efforts at interfaith dialogue (Ibid.: 8–17). The most common sectors for local NGO involvement were education, health, and social welfare; the least common were conflict resolution, nutrition, and emergency response. Most NGOs and CBOs were working at the “primary” level (welfare activities), with a few NGOs expanding to the “secondary” level (community development), but almost none at the “tertiary” level (rights-based). According to Heidel, the “poorest households

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Ashley South seemed to be excluded by civil society social welfare organizations…, [which] could indicate that members of the poorest households were particularly mobile” and therefore difficult to reach (Ibid.: 49–50). Despite some problems regarding the strictly quantitative sampling methodology (which may have missed some low-profile but more politically engaged groups, including those working in conflict-affected border areas), this survey was of considerable importance: it is no longer possible for pundits to claim that civil society does not exist in Burma. The reemergence of civil society networks within and between ethnic nationality communities inside Burma—beyond the zones of ongoing armed conflict—is a complex phenomenon that owes much to the political space created by the ceasefire process since 1989. Civil society networks certainly existed before ceasefires of the 1990s but were often semi-dormant during the BSPP era. The ceasefire movement gave some elements of civil society within some ethnic communities a major a boost. As noted above, the ceasefires are not peace treaties and generally lack all but the most rudimentary accommodation of the ex-insurgents’ political and developmental demands. Furthermore, ethnic nationalist cadres are generally more familiar with the top-down approaches used in military and political campaigns than with bottom-up development and conflict resolution methods. As elsewhere in the country, local initiatives are frequently undermined by poor governance, parallel exploitative practices, and a lack of strategic planning and implementation capacities. Nevertheless, the ceasefires have created some opportunities for the reconstruction of war-torn communities and the development of (at least limited) selfgovernance in some sectors. However, few indigenous Burmese NGOs have been allowed to register legally with the authorities in Yangon. This is why religious—and particularly church-based—groups play such important roles. Because they are legal entities, the churches (and the Buddhist Sangha) often provide the “umbrella” under which local civil society networks Shalom Foundation… can operate. [works] on mediation and The two most well-known “above ground” local NGOs in Burma were conflict resolution issues established after the ceasefire with the KIO. One, the Shalom Foundation, was founded in 2001 by the Reverend Saboi Jum, a key figure in the ceasefire

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Civil Society in Burma process. By 2007 it employed twelve full-time staff and worked on mediation and conflict resolution issues, building capacity in these key sectors. Another well-known local NGO, the Metta Development Foundation, was established in 1998 and by 2007 had a budget of well over US$500,000. Although its importance to the broader development initiatives in Burma should not be overestimated, Metta is often viewed as a success story that other fledgling local NGOs might emulate. Metta has projects in Shan, Karenni, Karen, and Mon States and the Irrawaddy Delta that employ participatory methods and have led to the creation of CBOs, action plans, and project proposals. Metta also implements income-generation projects, health worker training, water and sanitation projects, and a number of successful rural development schemes. Despite losing several staff to Cyclone Nargis, Metta played an important role in assessing and responding to the needs of victims of the natural disaster. However, Metta director Daw Seng Raw, has complained that many ethnic groups feel extremely disappointed that in general foreign governments are not responding to the progress of these ceasefires or indeed even understand their significance or context. Rather, it seems that certain sectors of the international community have the fixed idea that none of the country’s deep problems, including ethnic minority issues, can be addressed until there is an over-arching political solution based upon developments in Rangoon. (Taylor 2001: 161–62)

New organizations like Metta and Shalom are not countrywide institutions or membership groups but often act as facilitators and innovators for longer-established associations. In many cases these are religious bodies— among the few non-government-controlled social institutions allowed to exist in Burma. The Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, and other churches in Burma have well over two million members. Although most of their activities are religious-pastoral, the churches devote considerable energy and resources (including some international funds) to education, social welfare, and community development projects, including in armed conflict-affected areas. These are significant, countrywide organizations, the majority of whose members come from minority communities (see Lorch 2007). However, they also face considerable skills shortages and capacity constraints.

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Ashley South Many Buddhist voluntary associations exist too. Although many senior monks have been co-opted by the military regime, the Sangha still has great potential as a catalyst in civil and political affairs. However, Buddhist and other traditional networks tend to be localized and centered on individual monks, who may not conceptualize or present their aims in a manner readily intelligible to Western agencies. Such informal approaches are therefore often invisible to Western (and Western-trained) staff. Various business-oriented organizations, including chambers of commerce, constitute another important sector of Burmese civil society. Many of these actors also played key roles in cyclone response efforts.

Karen Civil Society Networks Within the Karen community, political leaders have been active in government-controlled areas of Burma throughout the period of military rule (South 2007c). In most cases, these “Union Karen” networks operate under the patronage and umbrella of protection of a small handful of mostly elderly politicians, many of whom are retired state officials or politicians who “returned to the legal fold” (to use the government’s preferred phrase) in the 1950s and 1960s. In most cases, these elites subscribe to a broad Christian-oriented Karen identity similar to that held by border-based groups. However, they do not perceive a fundamental contradiction between citizenship in a centrally governed state and the pursuit of greater economic, social, cultural, and linguistic autonomy (Ibid.). They may therefore be designated as broadly pro-Union Karen nationalists. Karen actors inside Burma operate in a very constricted and shifting political space. In general, this diverse community has sought to engage with Karen actors inside Burma the government, to win concessions, and to create the social and political space …[have] sought to engage within which CBOs may operate. The with the government wide range of activities carried out by affiliates of this loose network demonstrate that it is possible to forge space for autonomous community organization, at least at the local level, in Burma.

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Civil Society in Burma As Alan Saw U, a senior Karen civil society actor in Burma, has stated, Many Karen people in Myanmar…are of the opinion that it is imperative…to direct their energies to mobilizing their cultural wisdom, [interfaith] religious knowledge and social understanding so as to constructively work towards a better future. Since the beginning of the 1990s, various Karen groups in Myanmar have been trying…to build confidence and strengthen capacities of the various elements in the Karen community and to foster cooperation between them. The Karen leaders in Myanmar have projected the idea of transferring the “armed struggle in the battle field” to the “political struggle around the table.” (Saw U 2007)

Alan Saw U goes on to provide a surprisingly frank account of civil society and low-profile political developments within the Karen community over the past decade (the details of which are corroborated by my experience). He describes activities in the field of peace-making, including various initiatives to resolve the armed conflict, undertaken by Karen community leaders (mostly religious) from within Burma, who established a Karen Peace Mediator Group (KPMG) in early 1994 (Ibid.: 222–25). He also describes various development and humanitarian activities undertaken by Karen civil society groups (Ibid.: 226–34). These include establishment of the Karen Development Committee (KDC) in June 1994 under the patronage of members of the KPMG. Over the past decade, Simon Tha, the prime mover of the KDC, has overseen the implementation of a successful healthcare delivery program. The initial Kwe Ka Baw clinic at Insein has been followed by outlets elsewhere in Yangon and in other towns across the country. Dr. Simon’s team has also undertaken regular mobile outreach trips to remote parts of the country, including to armed-conflict-affected areas of Karen State and elsewhere. Other KDC projects include the Karen Women’s Action Group and the Rising Sun youth group. In April 2002, KPMG convened the first Karen Forum on Development at the Karen State capital of Pa’an. This gathering was addressed by (among others), Htun Aung Chein, the retired director of the Myanmar Historical Commission and a leading member of the “Union Karen” community.

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Ashley South Among the other results of this revival in community activity was the formation of the Karen Development Network (KDN), which emerged out of the KDC Education Subcommittee in 2002 and was formally established in 2004. Originally a loose network of individuals drawn from a number of Karen (and later Karenni and Mon Christian) organizations, the KDN has focused particularly on networking and training at the leadership and community levels. The KDN has established an internationally accredited distance-learning Community Management Program, implemented at centers in Yangon, Moulmein, Pa’an, Bathein, Toungoo, Lashio, and elsewhere. It has also convened a series of meetings that have resulted in a coordinated approach to documenting and analyzing the situation and the vulnerabilities and needs of displaced populations. These considerable achievements notwithstanding, there has been a lack of participation by women members of the community in the KDN, perhaps reflecting the danger associated with development—and especially humanitarian—work in Burma. There also remains a perception that the KDN is rather Christian-orientated—although representatives of the Buddhist community have participated in the network’s activities. Karen community development and mobilization activities have not been limited to Christians. Indeed, Karen Buddhist monks have been among the most influential in the country. These include the well-known abbot of a monastery near Pa’an, a patron of a number of local development and relief initiatives, some of which have been implemented in partnership with the state or local churches. More famous nationally was the late Thamanya Sayadaw, who provided food every day to some 10,000 forced migrants who had settled in and around his hilltop monastery east of Pa’an. Post-ceasefire Developments in Kachin and Mon States Over the past fifteen years, extensive community networks have reemerged within the clan-based Kachin society in the political space created by the relatively stable Kachin ceasefires. Following a ceasefire agreement with the government in 1994, the KIO organized the return of 10,000 refugees from China and helped to resettle about 60,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Kachin State. Although the resettlement and reconstruction activities of the KIO and local Kachin NGOs generally exhibited poor strategic and site planning (due to limited human and financial resources), they nevertheless implemented an impressive range of infrastructure and community development projects (South 2007a).

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Civil Society in Burma Kachin State has enjoyed a limited “peace dividend”: the post-ceasefire reemergence of civil-society networks is particularly encouraging. Many community-based organizations and local NGOs have come into existence in the state since the ceasefire. However, the KIO remains ambivalent regarding the roles of civil society groups and has sometimes moved to suppress local NGOs associated with certain Kachin politicians. Such local associations grow out of a war-ravaged population and provide services to resettled IDPs and others while slowly building local capacity. Discussing Kachin society, Mandy Sadan describes how “nonBurman [language] communities…are able to manipulate the state’s censorship of cultural output in small but politically significant ways…Cultural and historical counter-narratives in minority nationality languages can be developed through networks that function beyond the tight grasp of the official censorship board” (Sadan 2005).27 In addition to low-profile cultural initiatives, which help to build community cohesiveness (human capital), more explicitly political activities are undertaken by the political activities are growing number of local NGOs in undertaken by…local NGOs Kachin State and elsewhere in Burma. A number of these organizations focus Kachin State and elsewhere on environmental issues. According to Zao Noam, Especially since many ceasefire agreements [have been reached]…there has been a remarkable emergence of local NGOs, CBOs and (mainly Christian) faith-based organizations. Some have been working quietly with local communities in ethnic areas on projects directly or indirectly related to the environment for the past decade. Activities include capacitybuilding, small-scale sustainable development projects, environmental education and awareness, farmer-to-farmer exchange programs, indigenous seed cultivar preservation and exchange, sustainable agriculture demonstration plots, community forestry, agroforestry, and documentation of environmental threats, among many others. Some INGOs [international NGOs] have also been supporting grassroots environmentalism through small-scale projects carried out by local field staff, usually of the same ethnicity as their target group, working out of provincial and township offices. (Noam 2007)

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Ashley South Elsewhere, Noam notes, The Kachin activists take advantage of the seemingly apolitical environment arena by becoming involved in environmental activism that focuses on environmental-human rights—a window into social justice and local capacity building. Environment, then, acts as a politically less threatening cover to engage in socio-political resistances precisely because of the apolitical tone of global environmentalism, the lack of political concern by the international conservation organizations working in Burma, and the apolitical presentation of environment by the Burmese government…. Ethnic resistance in Kachin State is converging into an emerging panKachin “ethno-ecological movement.” (Noam 2004)

Among other local organizations, both the Kachin Baptist Convention and Myanmar Baptist Convention have implemented environmental awareness, research, and conservation programs. These “eco-Christian networks” (to use Noam’s phrase) are complemented by the low-profile environmental conservation activities of some Buddhist laypeople and monks and a growing number of secular environmental NGOs (Ibid.). (Members of the Sangha have played key roles in the environmental movements in neighboring Thailand and in Cambodia.) Overall, the post-ceasefire situation in Kachin State presents a mixed picture. The government’s attitude toward the Kachin and other ceasefire areas has been one of neglect—or active obstruction. Kachin leaders claim that the SPDC wants to keep their area underdeveloped and undermine the KIO’s standing within Kachin communities. If international donors had done more to support the KIO and other ceasefire groups, more could have been achieved. Meanwhile, further to the south, positive developments also occurred following the 1995 ceasefire between the New Mon State Party and the SLORC. An end to the armed conflict generally improved conditions of human security—at least in the ceasefire zones. As in Kachin State, the ceasefires have brought new opportunities to develop agriculture and for travel and local trade (especially important to villagers; less highly valued by exiles and political elites). According to the Human Rights Foundation of Monland’s Mon Forum, “Although there have been many negative developments after the 1995 ceasefire between the NMSP and SPDC…the people in Mon areas could

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travel and communicate easily and could launch the community’s practices [i.e., initiate community development projects] more than before the ceasefire” (Human Rights Foundation of Monland 2005). In many villages, employment opportunities have improved considerably over the past decade, in part because of the activities of pioneering local NGOs. For example, since the 1995 NMSP-SLORC ceasefire, the Mon Women’s Organization has succeeded in extending its community development, income generation, and adult literacy activities beyond the NMSP-controlled zones and refugee camps (to which the organization was restricted during the prolonged conflict) to Mon communities across lower Burma. Particularly impressive achievements have been recorded in Mon State in the education sector. Mon civilization was among the most distinctive and influential in precolonial Southeast Asia. Significant aspects of the language, art and architecture, political and legal arrangements, and above all the religion of the great Thai and Burman civilizations were derived from impressive achievements have the earlier Mon society, which acted as a vector in the transmission of been recorded in Mon State Theravada Buddhism and Indianized in the education sector culture to the region (South 2005). Mon nationalists have looked back to the classical era—and especially to the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries—as a golden age, a source of inspiration and legitimacy. They have struggled to defend the historical Mon identity from assimilation into that of the Burman and Thai majorities. Culture therefore is of great significance in the Mon nationalist agenda. One of the most rapidly growing sectors of Mon civil society over the past decade has been among artists and traditional performance troupes. Explicitly ethnonationalist activities have been conducted by Mon National Day celebration committees—although the authorities continue to restrict the celebration of this lunar event (held every February) beyond the boundaries of Mon State. Like the KIO and other armed ethnic groups, the NMSP administers an education system, which relies on both community and donor support. Despite some serious setbacks, during the 2006–07 school year the party managed to run 186 Mon National Schools and 189 “mixed” schools (shared with the state system) attended by more than 58,000 pupils (South

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Ashley South 2008: 195), 70 percent of whom lived in government-controlled areas. Like graduates of the Kachin National School system, students who passed through the NMSP-run high schools were able to sit for government matriculation exams and enter the state higher education system. The success of the NMSP education system served to bolster the party’s standing and perceived legitimacy within the Mon community. It was therefore not surprising that local Tatmadaw commanders and government officials often moved to close down Mon National Schools. Although this suppression was well-documented (e.g., in The Mon Forum, January and December 2005), most of these schools reopened after a short hiatus or were replaced by new Mon National Schools opening elsewhere. The continued expansion of the Mon education system was generally ignored by Thailand-based human rights activists, who preferred in their advocacy to focus on the bad news coming out of Burma rather than on positive developments. Since 2005, however, the NMSP schools have come under renewed and concerted pressure by the state authorities. Although the NMSP and other ceasefire groups provided the political and military space within which civil society reemerged after the ceasefires, the key actors often came from religious and social welfare networks. These included ethnic minority literature and culture promotion groups, many of which had been established in the 1950s only to be suppressed after 1962. Since the early 1990s, the Chin, Karen, Kachin, Mon, Pao, Shan, and other Literature and Culture Committees have been among the few specifically ethnic-oriented, nonreligious organizations tolerated by the government. As the state school system has deteriorated, such networks have pioneered alternative community education approaches.28 For example, long before the NMSP ceasefire, Mon literacy training and cultural education had been organized on an ad hoc basis, by individual monasteries across Mon State. The year after the truce, in April and May 1996, about 10,000 students received training under the auspices of a new Mon Literature and Buddhist Culture Association and the Mon Literature and Culture Committee. The eager trainees studied Mon language, culture, and ethnohistory and took competitive exams in each of these subjects. By 1997, nearly 27,000 students had participated, and by 2000 the number had risen to 46,435 (Mon State-wide Mon Literature and Buddhist Culture Association 2005). Despite some attempts by the government and military authorities to restrict their activities (by asking monks and parents not to participate or by setting up rival, Burmese language courses), over the next few years the

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Civil Society in Burma literacy trainings were extended from the countryside to several towns across Mon State. By 2008, over 60,000 state school students (60 percent of them girls) studied Mon in over one hundred monasteries and schools in fourteen townships across lower Burma, including in Mon and Karen States and Tenasserim Division.29 Only a small proportion of the funds for this major initiative came from foreign donors, the rest being raised within the community at pagoda festivals and other occasions. Members of the Sangha in particular were able to mobilize the Mon community to support the literacy program while at the same time negotiating with the military authorities to allow the trainings to go ahead. However, in June 2007 reports began to emerge that the township authorities in Mon State—and elsewhere, including Shan State30—were refusing to allow Literature and Culture Associations to renew their official registration.31 The government was moving to suppress autonomous civil society (and potential political) actors in the run-up to the 2008 referendum on the constitution and elections scheduled for 2010.32 As noted, suppression of civil society actors increased dramatically following the events of August– October 2007 when the Buddhist Sangha was at the forefront of popular protests against the military regime. Civil Society Responses to Cyclone Nargis Tropical Cyclone Nargis struck southwest Burma on May 2–3, 2008, killing some 130,000 people. Despite the utter devastation in areas affected by this natural disaster and the obvious need for state officials and army personnel to be deployed in relief activities, the government went ahead with a nationwide referendum on May 10—although in the forty-seven most cyclone-affected townships, the poll was delayed for two weeks. The results were clearly engineered to produce a fraudulent endorsement of the military-drafted constitution. An incredible 99 percent of eligible voters were said to have participated in the referendum, with 92.4 percent voting in favor of the constitution. Incredibly, the government announced that exactly the same proportion of voters in the cycloneaffected Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon areas endorsed the constitution as in the rest of the country. The most serious impacts of the cyclone were experienced in the villages of the southern Irrawaddy Delta. This is Burma’s main rice-growing area, populated by ethnic Karen, Burman, and Indian communities.

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Ashley South In the weeks following Cyclone Nargis, international aid began to trickle into Burma. However, the military regime insisted on strictly controlling the relief operation. The army and local government were accused of distributing assistance through military-controlled patronage networks, directing much-needed food, water, medicines, and shelter toward their own supporters. The government’s response also displayed an ethnic dimension. In a bungled 1991 operation, the KNU had tried to infiltrate forces into the Irrawaddy Delta region. The Tatmadaw responded with extreme brutality, and had since suspected the population of being insurgent The government’s response [to sympathizers who were therefore unlikely to receive benevolent Cyclone Nargis] also displayed treatment. an ethnic dimension Following the cyclone, in the absence of an effective government or international response, local communities took the initiative in responding to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis. In Yangon and across the delta, monks helped to clear debris, undertook emergency rescues and repairs, and provided shelter to the destitute. This was a politically significant development, given the government’s violent suppression of the Sangha-led “Saffron Revolution” the previous year. Furthermore, a broad array of formal and informal local associations and groups of Burmese citizens, including several prominent celebrities, participated in an impressive range of relief activities. Church and other civil society organizations mobilized to deliver assistance, including money and material donated by international organizations. However, the very scale of these achievements increased the risk that large-scale foreign assistance could overwhelm the limited capacities of local organizations. Meanwhile, the government was reluctant to let nonstate local or international actors gain credit (or merit) through such activities. The state-controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper ran stories attacking foreign media that reported “negative stories” about the cyclone. Government officials and propaganda outlets also issued warnings to Burmese citizens not to engage in cyclone relief work other than through official channels. The suppression of autonomous relief activities was epitomized by the arrest on June 4, 2008, of the famous comedian and prodemocracy activist Zarganar after he had organized the donation of relief items to cyclone survivors.33

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Civil Society in Burma Following the UN Secretary General’s visit to Burma in late May, the government began to allow some foreign aid workers into the cycloneaffected areas. Although this was obviously a welcome development, for many thousands of people the regime’s delay was probably deadly. Within two months of the cyclone striking, international access to and assistance in the Delta was “normalized,” and approximated what might be expected in relief operations in other parts of the world. However, international access to other parts of the country (particularly the armed conflict-affected eastern borderlands) remained highly restricted. The government did, however, allow a number of well-connected business groups to participate in relief activities, in some cases in partnership with international NGOs. Several of these companies did so with the understanding that they would in the future be granted lucrative concessions to reconstruct cyclone-affected areas. Sectors of the Irrawaddy Delta were portioned out to individual companies, raising the prospect of disputes between powerless local farmers (many of whom would have difficulty documenting their long-standing land ownership) and powerful vested interests. At the time of the cyclone, approximately forty-eight international NGOs and ten UN agencies were already operating in Burma, and some of these were working in the Irrawaddy Delta. These agencies responded quickly, providing much-needed relief. Their Burmese national staff deserve particular credit for their selfless and life-saving actions. However, as civil society groups and local staff strove to address the needs of affected communities, the international officers of officially registered organizations were for several weeks denied access to the delta as the Tatmadaw moved to cordon off the area. The government seemed unwilling to expose its own paltry relief efforts, and more generally the repressive and brutal nature of militarized rule in Burma, to international scrutiny. In the aftermath of the cyclone, international NGOs proved quite flexible in their approach to Burmese civil society groups, recognizing their significant achievements, establishing a forum for coordinating with local organizations, and providing significant funding. Unfortunately however, the UN system was slow to appreciate the value of local NGOs and CBOs in assisting the victims of Cyclone Nargis. Indeed, the UN response and advocacy operation seemed purposefully to sideline the roles of local actors.34

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State Attempts to Penetrate or Suppress Civil Society Until 2005, with the partial exception of the ICRC, the great majority of international agencies operated only in government-controlled areas and some approved ceasefire zones (such as in the Special Region ceasefire zones of Shan State to work on opium eradication). Many international NGOs were alarmed by the government’s January 2006 publication of Guidelines for UN Agencies, International Organizations and NGO/INGOs on Cooperation Program in Myanmar (Government of Myanmar 2006). Among the more worrying proposals included in these guidelines were that state officials should accompany UN and international NGO staff on all field trips; the proposed supervisory roles to be played by Central, State-Divisional, and Township Coordinating Committees (including a prominent role for the Union Solidarity and Development Association); and the government’s plan to vet all new Burmese staff of the UN and international NGOs. It seemed likely that, should these regulations be implemented systematically, some international agencies would withdraw from the country. Already the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis had ceased operations in Burma in August 2005—although in this case there were additional, politically driven considerations for leaving (related to pressure to withdraw from Burma, mobilized primarily by activist groups in the United States). In February 2006, MSF-France (Médecins Sans Frontières) also withdrew, claiming that increased government restrictions imposed since 2005 had made its operations in Mon and Karen States untenable. As MSF avoids working with local (state or nonstate) structures, and thus does little to build local capacities, it was ill-prepared to operate in an increasingly constricted humanitarian environment. By early 2008, most international NGOs and UN agencies in Burma were reportedly restricting their activities and imposing self-censorship by keeping a low profile. However, the guidelines did not have much immediate impact on the work of local NGOs and CBOs. Nevertheless, the SPDC was clearly intent on controlling or the SPDC was clearly intent on suppressing all autonomous social controlling…all autonomous (and, by implication, political) activities. social…activities In 2006, reports emerged that the USDA was seeking to take over the Free Funeral Services Society (founded in 2001), which ran a clinic in

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Civil Society in Burma Yangon providing free health care for the poor.35 In May 2007, the Ministry of Home Affairs moved to restrict the activities of a number of other charitable organizations in Yangon and other urban areas, including the Chinese Traders Association (founded in 1909). At the same time, the USDA opened a number of free medical clinics in Yangon and promoted these as alternatives to more independent health initiatives.36 Furthermore, numerous reports emerged following Cyclone Nargis of the government harassing and suppressing the voluntary activities of Burmese citizens who sought to respond charitably to the impacts of the natural disaster.37 Similar trends had been reported for several years in Mon State and other ethnic nationality-populated areas, where the USDA coerced villagers into attending various training courses and began to organize local militias, reportedly in order to resist “foreign invasion” (presumably by the United States and its allies).38 Since 2005, the Tatmadaw in Mon State had also conscripted large numbers of villagers into the paramilitary Sorn Arr Shin, which was armed with batons and rubber bullets. Sorn Arr Shin membership was drawn from the Myanmar Red Cross Society, Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association, Myanmar Women’s Affairs Association (MWAA), USDA, fire brigades, and veterans’ groups. According to Mon sources, “the intention of the organization is to stand up to any movement for democracy or uprising.”39 State-sponsored community mobilization was also stepped-up in Karen State, where the MWAA reportedly compelled young women to join its ranks and extorted funds from villagers.40 Also in Karen State, a number of Village Peace and Development Councils were reportedly instructed to send twenty to thirty trainees each to be inducted into local progovernment militias.41 The government’s suspicion of autonomous local networks was probably reinforced by the interest some overseas-based political activists showed in civil society. For example, after representatives of a prominent U.S.-based antigovernment group visited the Yangon offices of a local NGO in early 2007, members of this community development network received a visit from the Special Branch and were told not to include any foreign resource people in their future activities. It should also be noted that not all ceasefire groups have been supportive of civil society initiatives. Even leaders of some of the more progressive armed ethnic groups, such as the KIO and NMSP, have at times expressed frustration with the openly critical and campaigning approach of local

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Ashley South NGOs operating in their areas and have seemed to be jealous of civil society groups’ ability to mobilize communities. For those who view politics as a zero-sum game, the growth of civil society has been viewed as a threat to the sociopolitical monopoly of the ceasefire groups (South 2008). The suspicion of autonomous, community-based organizations is particularly widespread in ex-communist areas such as those controlled by the United Way State Army (see Kramer 2007).

Ceasefires, Civil Society, and Sociopolitical Struggle

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Ceasefires in ethnic nationality-populated areas are an essential first step toward addressing the needs of rural communities and building networks of local participation in order to foster processes of democratization from below. However, conflict resolution must go beyond the first stage of ceasefire negotiation (peace-making) to address the underlying issues that structure conflict in Burma (peace-building).42 As Tin Maung Maung Than observes, “Though state-centric ‘national security’ has been greatly enhanced by the peace agreements in Myanmar, the ‘human security’ of those inhabiting the border lands…is yet to be assured” (Tin Maung Maung Than 2007: 195). Many of the problems faced in armed conflict-affected areas are common across the country—as was illustrated in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. However, the stakes in the ceasefire zones and adjacent areas are higher because the breakdown of the ceasefire process would undermine actual and potential peace-building and development initiatives. Although the impact of the ceasefires has been mixed, the consequences of their failure would be devastating. In addition to the costs in human suffering, a return return to civil war would to civil war would jeopardize local efforts at political reform, better jeopardize local efforts at governance, and economic political reform development. However, if the ceasefires can be turned into vehicles for the longterm reconstruction of local communities and economies, they may promote reconciliation and reform in Burma and perhaps over time foster the emergence of genuine peace. For such transition to be effective, it must include local-level reform of ceasefiregroup governance structures, political culture, and practices.

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Civil Society in Burma In the meantime, change is still urgently required at the national level. Some activists assume that a repeat of the 1988 democracy uprising is likely and that change will come abruptly. However, the events of August and September 2007 would seem to indicate that popular protests in Burma are unlikely to achieve sustainable political change in and of themselves. Although the government’s inadequate response to Cyclone Nargis has further alienated significant sectors of the population, a more gradual realignment, with less bloodshed, is probably the most likely scenario. The arguments for promoting democracy from below are relevant in each of these scenarios. Promoting civil society in Burma is therefore a “win-win” policy option. Civil society and national political actors (such as ceasefire groups) may yet play key roles in breaking the deadlock at the national/elite level. With appropriate international support—particularly from the UN at the Country Team and international levels—and from the SPDC’s patrons in China and elsewhere—the military government might be persuaded to engage on relatively (or seemingly) apolitical issues such as social welfare and a range of humanitarian concerns made all the more urgent by the recent natural disaster. In addressing issues such as displacement (of refugees and IDPs), land rights, education, or HIV/AIDS, the government could engage stakeholders in needs analysis, planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation activities, which could be used to foster models of collaboration and dialogue. Cooperation in the humanitarian sector might later be expanded and developed into broader, more explicitly political discussions of state-society and center-periphery relations. A focus on land rights and related issues of displacement in particular would help to ensure ethnic nationality participation in such processes, as most of Burma’s estimated one to two million displaced people come from ethnic minority communities. Furthermore, in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, large numbers of displaced villagers are vulnerable to land rights abuses at the hands of powerful vested interests in the Irrawaddy Delta.43 However, such an engaged approach on humanitarian issues is not without considerable risks. The dangers are illustrated by the November 2007 expulsion of the previous UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, Charles Petrie. The government ordered Petrie to leave following publication of an October 24 appeal from the UN Country Team that called on the “Government of Myanmar to take all necessary

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Ashley South measures to address the political, economic, humanitarian, and human rights issues that are the concern of its people.” This setback for international engagement was exacerbated by the government’s restrictions on international access to cyclone-affected populations in May the following year. However, there seem to be few other options to promote change in Burma.44 What is required is more—and, above all, better-quality—engagement between international organizations, state agencies (including especially ceasefire groups), and local communities (including local NGOs and CBOs). This approach may be termed “selective engagement” (or targeted engagement). The Limits of a Bottom-Up Approach As Khin Zaw Win has remarked, “Present-day politics is characterized by elite failure.” This ex-political prisoner and tireless campaigner for development and reform in his country has also warned that “as things stand it is very difficult to envisage ‘change from below’” (Khin 2006: 84, 82). Nevertheless, since the early 1990s, the civil society sector has undergone a significant regeneration. Elements that had been suppressed, gone underground, or remained dormant during the Ne Win period have begun to reemerge as key actors in the gradual transformation of state-society relations in contemporary Burma. However, it must be noted that other aspects of civil society have been thoroughly uprooted by the state and are still largely absent—especially in the field of public advocacy. One must therefore look to the remaining opposition-controlled border areas and refugee-exile communities to find elements of a free media, human rights organizations, or trades unions. Civil society networks are relatively better established in some geographic areas than others (e.g., in Kachin, Karen, Mon, and some parts of Shan State, but not in Rakhine or other parts of Shan State). As noted above, a disproportionate number of local NGOs exist among Christian communities, as the churches have relatively coherent national structures and often enjoy well-established international contacts. Nevertheless, a variety of socially oriented traditional associations exist among non-Christian communities. However, such informal local associations are often unfamiliar with the rational-bureaucratic frameworks employed by donors, which may lead to informal CBOs “falling beneath

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Civil Society in Burma the radar” of international observers because they are not established to be responsive to donor’s bureaucratic requirements. It is important that donors engage, in culturally appropriate ways, with such local associations. As Ottaway and Carothers note, Professionalized NGOs…have, or can be trained to have, the administrative capabilities donors need for their own bureaucratic requirements. They can produce grant proposals (usually in English)…and all the other documents donors ask of beneficiaries. In contrast, many…especially informal associations, social movements, and other types of social networks are not set up to be administratively responsive to donor needs. (Ottaway and Carothers 2000: 13)

Although technical skills are improving in some areas, many local civil society groups still demonstrate poor project and strategic planning skills and limited accountability—to beneficiaries and donors. Indeed, CBOs (in particular) often do not understand the technical or cultural aspects of donors’ demands for and assumptions regarding accountability. Such limitations were exposed during assessments of the response to Cyclone Nargis. Furthermore, civil society organizations often reproduce the unequal power relations in Burmese society (e.g., lack of gender awareness and balance). Donors have therefore insisted that CBOs demonstrate impartiality and inclusiveness in their activities. Although this requirement may be appropriate for some membershipbased organizations, it may not always civil society organizations be reasonable to ask religious and other often reproduce…unequal membership-based groups to extend activities equally to all members of the power relations community. The civil society sector is also not immune to rivalries, opportunism, rent-seeking, or corruption. However, the greatest constraint on the sector has been—and will remain for the foreseeable future—government distrust and suppression. Furthermore, ceasefire groups also distrust autonomous associations. As noted, state attempts to penetrate and mobilize society have been ongoing since the Ne Win era and are exemplified by the USDA and the activities of a range of GONGOs.

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Ashley South Considering such constraints, critics of a civil society-based approach to democratization in Burma may accuse local networks of being compromised and co-opted by the regime, or at least naively apolitical (sometimes referred to as a “subaltern civil society”). However, many local NGOs and CBOs have forged the space within which to work in a modest way for “development from below,” building networks of trust and community-level participation. These locally rooted associations undermine the ideological and practical basis of military rule, creating autonomous spaces for social change, at least in limited spheres. Efforts to empower civil society and support grassroots democratization in Burma have been hostage to other political agendas—in particular, the struggle for national-level political change. A number of opposition political actors have wanted to see a national, elite-level political settlement in place before they are willing to endorse local development activities. It has been argued that relief and development work inside the country will let the SPDC off the hook by providing goods and services that are the responsibility of government. Although such caveats should be taken seriously, local NGOs and CBOs are able to deliver humanitarian and other forms of assistance in ways that build local capacities, strengthen protection, and contribute toward longer-term reconstruction efforts—results that cannot be depicted as strengthening the SPDC. Meanwhile, with the fall of Khin Nyunt, many prominent civil society actors in Burma (particularly from the Kachin community) lost their chief patron and thus became more vulnerable to suppression. Initially, the main impact of the purges was on international humanitarian and development agencies, which found their access to remote communities increasingly restricted (thus reinforcing the argument for working through local NGOs and CBOs in these areas). However, the government’s moves to suppress the efforts of individual and community organizations to provide relief to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in 2008 illustrated the dangers faced by local civil society actors in Burma.

Foreign Aid and Civil Society In June 2001, the heads of mission of eight UN agencies in Yangon publicly expressed their concern over the “silent humanitarian crisis in the making” in Burma (UN Office of the Resident Coordinator 2001). The situation is particularly acute in minority-populated and armed-conflict-

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Civil Society in Burma affected areas and has not improved since 2001. Indeed, across much of the southern Irrawaddy Delta, the situation for many civilians deteriorated massively in 2008. Seven years ago, UN agency heads also stated that “assistance to Burma is a moral and ethical necessity” and further noted that “strengthening human capital, developing leadership capacity, and encouraging a more dynamic civil society will contribute to laying the foundations for democratic processes.” Their argument was that, in fostering the development of civil society, a “nexus” between development and democracy may gradually emerge. Donors have another good reason to support CBOs and local NGOs in Burma—access. Due to physical danger and government restrictions, international organizations cannot work directly with the neediest people in many natural disaster and armed conflict-affected zones. However, important humanitarian and community development work is being carried out by local NGOs and CBOs operating in these areas (for example in Karen State and the Irrawaddy Delta). It is important that outside aid interventions in such contexts be conducted in partnership with these local actors and that opportunities to empower civil society are not overlooked. International humanitarian agencies have developed a language of partnership with affected communities and generally try to elicit local participation in their programs (as codified for the emergency sector in the Sphere Project, initiated in 1997). On the Thailand border in particular, such doctrines have helped to create the space for more responsive and participatory community organizations to emerge among refugees. However, few international NGOs along the border employ local people in senior decision-making positions, and their programs sometimes inadvertently undermine local initiatives (e.g., foreign-funded refugee camp education and health projects can draw local teachers and medics away from underresourced indigenous health and school systems). As noted, a number of Burma-specific NGOs and donors along the border have been rather uncritical in sustaining organizations and individuals within the opposition. Foreign aid has sometimes supported elements within ethnic nationality and Burmese democracy groups without considering the degree to which these are accountable to the communities they claim to represent (South 2008). International agencies based in Yangon also have a mixed record in their relationships with civil society groups (South 2004). Most concentrate

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Ashley South on humanitarian needs, although some international NGOs and UN agencies implement a broader range of development-oriented programs. Although many international agencies would like to develop deeper partnerships with civil society groups in Burma, the great majority of international projects are implemented directly at the village level, bypassing local NGOs. In this respect, Cyclone Nargis represented an opportunity to reassess relations between international and local NGOs in Burma. As noted above, international NGOs should endeavor to employ local staff in decision-making positions—but this can create problems. As has been the case along the Thai border, international agencies in Burma have sometimes recruited staff from CBOs and local NGOs, contributing to a brain drain of individuals away from indigenous to international organizations, which offer higher salaries and more opportunities for skills development (Heidel 2006: 30).

Conclusion and Recommendations Civil society is a contested concept, and also a contested domain, within which different interest groups seek to promote their agendas. Civil society actors can be engines for change—but are also liable to suppression or cooptation by the militarized state (and by nonstate actors, such as some ceasefire groups). In the current political climate, with only limited options available for national-level democratic transition, reemergent civil society networks represent an important vehicle for long-term, bottom-up democratization in Burma. Many local NGOs and CBOs promote grassroots social mobilization and political participation, especially within ethnic nationality communities. Along with their intrinsic value, these local networks can form the base for democratization at the national/elite level and help to ensure that political transition is sustained and takes root in local communities. The promotion of civil society therefore relates to the constitutional concept of countervailance, in which sovereignty resides in plural points of power, with checks and balances to preclude the centralization of authority. Community-based approaches to development and peace-building in the minority regions of Burma can effect changes in governance structures— including elements of political transition. Incremental social and economic change can lead to new forms of civic engagement, which in turn can

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Civil Society in Burma produce political transitions and ultimately reform state (and para-state) structures—at both the local and national levels. Although the promotion of civil society is not sufficient in itself to bring about elite-level change in Burma, any centrally directed reforms are unlikely to succeed unless accompanied—or even preceded—by grassroots participation. Regime change from above will only result in genuine and sustainable transitions if accompanied by democratization from below.45 This is true both at the national/elite level and at the level of local (e.g., ceasefire group) administration. The reform of local governance structures and political cultures— especially in the ceasefire zones of Burma—is of real value in itself. Improvements in the human rights situation and development The reform of local governance options for civilians in remote areas are dependent on more structures and political effective and accountable decisioncultures…is of real value making by local authorities and on the empowerment of local communities. The incremental reformation of state-society relations in ceasefire areas (where armed groups act as de facto state authorities) is particularly important for the sustainable rehabilitation of armed conflict-affected communities. International support for local (ethnic) communities can also help to promote national reconciliation initiatives. This approach requires international agencies to recognize the often-contested legitimacy of armed ceasefire groups such as the KIO and NMSP. As Mary Callahan has observed, “in areas of political coexistence [ceasefire zones], the international community has far greater opportunity to support…the work of local or national community organizations and NGOs in the service, development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding sectors” (Callahan 2007: 52). Civil society in Burma is still underdeveloped, and changes coming from the sector will be gradual.46 Furthermore, the military government seems determined to further penetrate and suppress civil society. The prospects for rapid and dramatic democratization are therefore limited, and it will take decades to reshape state-society relations in Burma, regardless of changes at the national/elite level.

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Ashley South The international community, including the United States and the United Nations, have a number of options for supporting civil society and democratization in Burma. These include: Developing participatory research programs: Governments and international NGOs can identify specific information gaps and humanitarian and development needs and conduct research in partnership with—and provide appropriate training to—local populations and NGOs and CBOs. They can also undertake needs and vulnerability assessments in order to mainstream humanitarian protection, environmental and gender issues, and pro-poor approaches; and incorporate peace and conflict impact assessments into the planning and evaluation phase of all projects. In these activities, the international community should emphasize rights-based research—but also adopt an “appreciative inquiry” approach, identifying examples of positive deviance that may be reinforced and modeled elsewhere. Such action research can be the basis for creating positive change programs. Directing assistance through—and building capacities of—civil society groups and networks: International actors can foster the emergence of communitybased organizations and local NGOs, especially among underrepresented groups (e.g., non-Christians, minorities within ethnic states, and women). Donors should avoid working only with elites, and should not just concentrate on a narrow set of professional (Westernized) NGOs. They can also develop local partners’ strategic planning, assessment, monitoring, and evaluation skills. CBOs and local NGOs need to develop accountability (to donors and beneficiaries) in an atmosphere of mutual trust. These groups need to work in an environment of impartiality and inclusiveness (especially for non-membership-based organizations) and gender awareness. Funding arrangements need to be simple. Donors should coordinate their reporting and evaluation requirements and demonstrate flexibility in relations with civil society groups, especially regarding monitoring in remote areas and in emergency contexts. If local NGOs demonstrate accountability, expatriate staff do not always need to visit all project sites. Local NGOs also need to develop sustainable programs and relations with multiple donors in support of local fundraising activities. Donors need to be prepared to respond to small-scale project proposals in order to nurture the development of fledgling CBOs and consider

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Civil Society in Burma providing core funding to local NGOs. Additionally, international governments and organizations need to foster increased coordination among local NGOs and CBOs and between civil society groups and international agencies. They also should provide more strategic planning and organizational development services to local NGOs and CBOs, in Yangon and throughout the country. Engaging with ceasefire groups as de facto local government authorities: Governments and aid agencies can work with local governing bodies (especially ceasefire groups) in remote areas to promote reform, develop governance capacities, and create space for civil society. They can also engage in policy discussions regarding education, the environment, agriculture, livelihoods, and legal standards (e.g., land rights). Engagement with nonstate actors should include negotiation of humanitarian access and interaction at different levels in peace-building processes. Local government (including ceasefire group) staffs need to develop strategic planning skills and accountability. In this training effort, international groups should emphasize participatory regional planning. In addition to local governments, community, social, and business leaders need to be engaged to develop sustainable commercial activities: for example, eco-tourism, community forestry, and agriculture projects. Ceasefire groups should be encouraged to make explicit their expectations and aspirations regarding international engagement. Advocating with central and local governments (including ceasefire groups) on behalf of civil society to allow: • • •

registration of local and national NGOs; donor access to remote project sites; unhindered access to natural disaster-affected communities.

In all activities, international actors should avoid advocating or acting in ways that could endanger vulnerable groups, individuals, or initiatives. They should also be careful not to facilitate the expansion of militarized or predatory forms of governance.

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Endnotes In addition to published studies and unpublished documents (cited in the text and bibliography), the monograph is based on fifty-seven volumes of field notes collected in Burma, China, Thailand, and Europe between 1994 and 2008. I would like to thank Martin Smith, Mary Callahan, and Tom Kramer for their invaluable friendship and advice. Thanks also to Alan Smith, Glen Hill, Susanne Kempel, and Monique Skidmore—and to many friends in and from Burma, who sadly must remain anonymous. 1. In June 1989, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) military government renamed the country Myanmar Naing-ngan. Opposition politicians and activists dispute the legitimacy of the military regime and reject the new name. For a discussion of the Burma-Myanmar debate, see Callahan 2007. 2. The European Union did announce some new measures against the SPDC, and on October 19, 2007, further U.S. government sanctions came into affect, freezing the bank accounts of an additional twenty-five military officials and twelve businessmen associated with the regime. 3. The phrase “national/elite” is used to refer to leadership circles at the level of the central government and national-level opposition movements. 4. Mary Callahan (2003: 224–25) notes that “the removal of the handful of top generals and colonels…and their replacement with elected officials, will not transform overnight the century-old command relationship between state and society. Breaking the political deadlock between the opposition and the SPDC will be only the first tiny step in the direction of demilitarizing this polity. [Furthermore,] the difficulty of ensuring minority rights within a sovereign national state would not go away if a democratically elected government were to take over.” 5. In 2007, the government continued to engineer the fragmentation of insurgent groups, reorienting these away from the opposition, and encouraging their reformation as (often deeply compromised) clients of the militarized state. In January,

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7.

8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

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the Karen National Union’s Seventh Brigade Commander was persuaded to make a separate ceasefire with the SPDC under the influence of a small group of political advisors and Karen leaders from inside Burma. The defection of Brigadier-General Htein Maung was ultimately a surface phenomenon, symptomatic of a deeper malaise within the Karen nationalist movement, and as such was less significant than the rebellion of the ex-KNU Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) in late 1994, which related more profoundly to state-society tensions within the Karen nationalist community (see South 2008). In April 2007, Htein Maung’s troops joined with the DKBA and Tatmadaw to overrun a number of KNU bases along the Thai border. Mary Callahan (2007: xiii–xiv) identifies three “patterns of relationship between the national state and locally based, often nonstate actors [that] have emerged since 1988: near devolution, military occupation, and coexistence. The first pattern of authority can be seen in the Wa regions and to a lesser degree in the Kokang territory in Shan State, [where] the authority of the SPDC is limited, and there appears to be a near devolution of power to networks of former insurgent leaders, traditional leaders, businesspeople, and traders. In northern Rakhine State, Kayah and Karen States, the SPDC, the tatmadaw…and other state agencies constitute dominant and oppressive occupying authorities. Third, in parts of the border states where there have been ceasefire agreements, a range of strategic partners— including ceasefire group leaders, business operators, USDA leaders, traders, religious leaders, NGO personnel, and government officials—have achieved to varying degrees a kind of coexistence.” For more details and typology of the ceasefires, see South (2008). As Callahan notes (2007: xiii): “Citizens in the ethnic minority states of Burma live under the authority of multiple ‘states’ or ‘state-like authorities’ that extract from citizens, both mediate and cause conflict, and provide some services for residents and commercial interests. The range of competing systems of authority sometimes creates ambiguity…[which also] generates opportunities for personal advancement and wealth generation for some, but much of the population is left with limited strategies for survival or improvement.” On political legitimacy in Burma, see Steinberg 2007. After December 2005, the NMSP sent only observers to the National Convention. The basic territorial division of the country into seven ethnic states and seven predominantly (but not exclusively) Burman-dominated divisions is retained in the SPDC’s constitution, which creates semiautonomous, subprovincial administrations for some ethnic nationality groups (five in Shan State, plus a Naga autonomous region in Sagaing Division). On the relational approach to civil society, focusing on types of action and interaction within the sector in Burma, see Lorch 2006. Lotta Hedman (2006: 2–9) provides an interesting comparison of Tocquevillean and Gramscian analyses of the political roles of civil society in the Philippines. Lorch (2006: 31) notes that “the prerequisite for a healthy and independent civil society—one that adheres to democratic norms such as flat hierarchies, pluralistic tolerance and dialogue—is the existence of a democratic constitutional state. As this prerequisite has not been fulfilled in the authoritarian context of Myanmar, civil society has taken on a different form and mirrors many of the dark sides of

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14.

15. 16.

17.

18. 19.

20.

21. 22.

23.

24.

25. 26.

the context of action it is operating in. For example, civil society groups in Myanmar are sometimes exclusive bodies, with membership and benefits confined to a specific ethnic or religious group. Furthermore, their internal structure is often hierarchical, they don’t favour active participation by their members with respect to decision making, and they sometimes lack transparency.” For a survey of the extensive literature on civil society and democratization, see Diamond 1999. For regional assessments, see Lee Hock Guan (2004), and especially Muthiah Alagappa (2004), who provides a theoretical and comparative survey of civil society and democratization. (See also Kyaw 2004.) Helen James’s Governance and Civil Society in Myanmar (2005) is gushingly enthusiastic regarding the SPDC’s “development efforts.” On the history and strategic significance of the civil society sector in Burma, see South 2004. For an analysis of Robert Putnam’s notions of “civicness” and “social capital,” see Diamond 1999: 225–26. See also Steinberg 2007. With particular relevance for Burma, it may be argued that the case “for civil society is that it supports groups that are making the best of a bad situation” (Ottaway and Carothers 2000: 144). For surveys of civil society in precolonial and colonial era Burma, during the 1948–62 parliamentary era, and since, see Kyaw 2007; Heidel 2006: 4–5; and International Crisis Group 2001. See Liddell 1999. As Alagappa (2004: 13) notes, “The rise and failure of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement … is attributed by [some] scholars to the weakness of the incipient civil society.” Furthermore, capital markets and outside forces (e.g., U.S. pressure) played more important roles in determining the course of events in the Philippines and Thailand than they did in isolated Burma and China with their relatively closed societies. On informal “social movement organizations” in 1988 and since (including overseas-based groups), see Kyaw 2004. Elsewhere, Lorch (2007) describes how “civil-society-based self-help groups in the education sector [provide a] specific example of a larger trend…the military regime has started to tolerate certain civil society activities in areas of tremendous welfare needs that the government is unable or unwilling to deal with itself.” However, both the Karen National Progressive Party and Shan State Army have historically been ambivalent about federalism, preferring to keep open the option of outright independence for Karenni and Shan States in the future. Perhaps the largest segment of the civil society sector in Burma, Parent Teacher Associations were sometimes penetrated by the state or its proxies (e.g., the USDA). Although the CBO survey covered all states and divisions, local NGOs were only surveyed in Yangon. Among those organizations excluded from the survey were the USDA, Myanmar Red Cross Society, Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association, Myanmar National Committee for Women’s Affairs, and writers, publishers, theater, art, and sports groups, plus government agencies, militias and the Auxiliary Fire Brigade, cooperatives (which were regarded as thoroughly state-penetrated), and any group not considered “nonpolitical.”

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Ashley South 27. Mai Ni Ni Aung (2006: 106) states, “Small, localized cultural heritage preservation projects…represent an initial step in community building, a necessity for any future democratization in Myanmar/Burma.” 28. Mandy Sadan (2007: 63) notes that since the KIO ceasefire, each of the six main Kachin subgroups has established a literature and culture committee. The registration of these bodies “offers distinct advantages….Only by affiliation to officially recognized committees is it possible to organize cultural activities or to make group presentations through publication.” Several of the committees have undertaken the codification and standardization of “national” dress and other cultural products. 29. Independent Mon News Agency, May 26, 2008. 30. As Takatani (2007: 195) notes, the activities of Shan Literature and Culture Promotion Committees expanded in the 1990s—presumably as a result of the ceasefires in Shan State. However, in 2006 branches of the Shan Literature and Culture Committee experienced problems renewing their registration. “Junta Clamps Down on Ethnic Culture Groups,” The Irrawaddy, June 8, 2007. 31. “Junta Embarks on Fresh Round of Ethnic Cleansing,” Independent Mon News Agency, June 6, 2007. 32. Following the announcement in February that a referendum to endorse the constitution would be held in May 2008, reports emerged from several ethnic nationality areas of state and USDA-led efforts to organize communities to vote “Yes.” See, for example, “Vote ‘No’ and Wait a Decade for Elections: Referendum Commission,” Independent Mon News Agency, April 9, 2008. 33. “Junta Attacks Media’s Cyclone Coverage,” Associated Press, June 6, 2008. 34. Author’s interview with humanitarian worker in Burma, June 8, 2008. 35. “Junta Hijacks Social Group Donation,” The Irrawaddy, March 23, 2007. 36. “Free USDA Clinics Open in Rangoon Division Townships,” The Irrawaddy, May 17, 2007. 37. “Authorities Tighten Restrictions on Private Aid Efforts,” The Irrawaddy, May 23, 2008. 38. “Villages Flee USDA Course by Local Authorities,” Kao Wao News Group, September 23, 2006. 39. “Military Restructuring ‘Sorn Arr Shin,’ ” Independent Mon News Agency, August 30, 2006. 40. “MWAF Collects Money and Forces Young Women to Join,” Independent Mon News Agency, April 3, 2007. 41. “Burmese Army Strengthens Militia by Forcibly Training Locals,” Independent Mon News Agency, May 31, 2007. 42. “Peace-making” aims to reduce and control levels of violence without necessarily addressing root-causes. In contrast, “peace-building” goes beyond conflict management to address underlying structural issues and inequalities. Peace-building involves a commitment to political transformation. 43. For analysis and recommendations regarding housing, land, and property rights in Burma, see Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions 2007. 44. As Neil Englehart (2005) notes, “Most strategies for advancing the cause of democracy in Burma today do not look very far past a change of leadership.” He argues that sustained and substantial political change is unlikely to come without addressing issues of limited state capacity “that impede a transition to democracy

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Civil Society in Burma and would plague any transitional regime. Engagement with the current regime on issues of state capacity would improve the chances for a transition.” This argument may be extended to suggest that enhancing the administrative capacity of ceasefire groups and other nonstate actors could help to “create new possibilities by restoring some normalcy to the relations between state and society.” 45. Among other findings, Muthiah Alagappa (2004: xi) concludes that civil society in Asia “is a necessary but not sufficient condition for democratic development.” 46. For Larry Diamond (1999: 20), “In contrast to those who see the emergence of stable democracy as a relatively rapid and decisive occurrence crafted by elites, I emphasize…the generally extended nature of democratic consolidation and its close relationship to developing the institutional, behavioural, and cultural components of democracy.”

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Bibliography Alagappa, Muthiah, ed. 2004. Civil Society and Political Change in Asia: Expanding and Contracting Democratic Space. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Burma Centre Netherlands and Transnational Institute, eds. 1999. Strengthening Civil Society in Burma: Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Callahan, Mary. 2003. Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 2007. Political Authority in Burma’s Ethnic Minority States: Devolution, Occupation, and Coexistence. Policy Studies 31. Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington. Diamond, Larry. 1999. Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Englehart, Neil A. 2005. “Is Regime Change Enough for Burma? The Problem of State Capacity.” Asian Survey 45(4): 622–44. Ganesan, N., and Kyaw Yin Hlaing, eds. 2007. Myanmar: State, Society and Ethnicity. Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies. Government of Myanmar. 2006. Guidelines for UN Agencies, International Organizations and NGO/INGOs on Cooperation Program in Myanmar. Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers. Gravers, Mikael, ed. 2007. Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. Copenhagen: NIAS Press. Guan Lee Hock, ed. 2004. Civil Society in Southeast Asia. Copenhagen: NIAS Press; and Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Hedman, Lotta. 2006. In the Name of Civil Society: From Free Election Movements to People Power in the Philippines. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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Ashley South Heidel, Brian. 2006. The Growth of Civil Society in Myanmar. Bangalore: Books for Change. Heinrich Boll Foundation. 2006. Active Citizens Under Political Wraps: Experiences from Myanmar/Burma and Vietnam. Chiang Mai: Heinrich Boll Foundation. Hughes, Caroline. 2003. The Political Economy of Cambodia’s Transition: 1991–2001. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Human Rights Foundation of Monland, The Mon Forum [journal]. Bangkok. International Crisis Group. 2001. Myanmar: The Role of Civil Society. Bangkok/Brussels: Asia Report No. 27. ———. 2006. Myanmar: New Threats to Humanitarian Aid. Bangkok/Brussels: Asia Briefing No. 58. December 8. James, Helen. 2005. Governance and Civil Society in Myanmar: Education, Health, and Environment. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Karen Human Rights Group. 2007. Development by Decree: The Politics of Poverty and Control in Karen State. April. Khin Zaw Win. 2006. “Transition in a Time of Siege: The Pluralism of Societal and Political Practices at Ward/Village Level in Myanmar/Burma.” In Heinrich Boll Foundation, ed. 2006. Active Citizens Under Political Wraps: Experiences from Myanmar/Burma and Vietnam. Chiang Mai: Heinrich Boll Foundation. Kramer, Tom. 2007. The United Wa State Party: Narco-army or Ethnic Nationalist Party? Policy Studies 38. Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington. Kyaw Yin Hlaing. 2004. “Burma: Civil Society Skirting Regime Rules.” In Alagappa, Muthiah, ed. 2004. Civil Society and Political Change in Asia: Expanding and Contracting Democratic Space. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ———. 2007. “Associational Life in Myanmar: Past and Present.” In Ganesan, N., and Kyaw Yin Hlaing, eds. 2007. Myanmar: State, Society and Ethnicity. Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies. Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Tin Maung Maung Than, and Robert Taylor, eds. 2005. Myanmar: Beyond Politics to Societal Imperatives. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Liddell, Zunetta. 1999. “No Room to Move: Legal Constraints on Civil Society in Burma.” In Burma Centre Netherlands and Transnational Institute, ed. 1999. Strengthening Civil Society in Burma: Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Lorch, Jasmin. 2006. “Civil Society under Authoritarian Rule: The Case of Myanmar.” SÜDOSTASIEN /aktuell (Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs). No. 2. ———. 2007. “Myanmar’s Civil Society—A Patch for the National Education System? The Emergence of Civil Society in Areas of State Weakness.” SÜDOSTASIEN / aktuell (Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs). No. 3. Mai Ni Ni Aung. 2006. “Creating Space in Myanmar/Burma. Preserving the Traditions of Ethnic Minority Groups: A Catalyst for Community Building.” In Heinrich Boll Foundation, ed. 2006. Active Citizens Under Political Wraps: Experiences from Myanmar/Burma and Vietnam. Chiang Mai: Heinrich Boll Foundation. McLean, Iain, ed. 1996. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Metro, Rosalie. 2006. Developing History Curricula to Support Multi-ethnic Civil Society Among Burmese Refugees and Migrants. New Issues in Refugee Research Paper No. 139. UNHCR. December.

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Civil Society in Burma Mon State-wide Mon Literature and Buddhist Culture Association. 2005. Mon Language Literacy Training Course 2005 Report (manuscript). August. Noam, Zao. 2004. “Greening the Burmese Dictatorship.” The Irrawaddy. November. ———. 2007. “Nature-Making in War: Eco-Authoritarian Conservation and Ethnic Conflict in Burma.” IUCN Policy Matters Journal (Special Issue on Human Rights and Conservation). July. Ottaway, Marina, and Thomas Carothers, eds. 2000. Funding Virtue: Civil Society Aid and Democracy Promotion. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Rudland, Emily, and Morten Pedersen, eds. 2000. Burma/Myanmar: Strong Regime, Weak State? Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing. Sadan, Mandy. 2005. History and Ethnicity in Burma: Cultural Contexts of the Ethnic Category “Kachin” in the Colonial and Post-colonial State, 1824–2004. PhD diss. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. ———. 2007. “Constructing and Contesting the Category ‘Kachin’ in the Colonial and post-Colonial Burmese State.” In Gravers, Mikael, ed. 2007. Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. Copenhagen: NIAS Press. Saw U, Alan. 2007. “Reflections on Confidence-building and Cooperation among Ethnic Groups in Myanmar: A Karen Case Study.” In Ganesan, N., and Kyaw Yin Hlaing, eds. 2007. Myanmar: State, Society and Ethnicity. Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies. Sherman, Jake. 2003. Burma: Lessons from the Ceasefires. In Sherman, Jake, and Karen Ballentine, eds. 2003. The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Smith, Martin. 1999. Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity. 2nd ed. London: Zed Books. ———. 2007. State of Strife: The Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict in Burma. Policy Studies 36. Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington. Snitwongse, Kusuma, and W. Scott Thompson. 2005. Ethnic Conflicts in Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. South, Ashley. 2004. “Political Transition in Burma: A New Model for Democratization.” Contemporary Southeast Asia 26. ———. 2005. Mon Nationalism and Civil War in Burma: The Golden Sheldrake. reprint edition. London: RoutledgeCurzon. ———. 2007a. Burma: The Changing Nature of Displacement Crises. Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University, Working Paper 39. February. ———. 2007b. Displacement and Dispossession: Forced Migration and Land Rights in Burma. Geneva: Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions. ———. 2007c. “Karen Nationalist Communities: The ‘Problem’ of Diversity.” Contemporary Southeast Asia 29 (1). ———. 2008. Ethnic Politics in Burma: States of Conflict. New York: Routledge. Sphere Project. 1998. The Sphere Project: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response. 1st ed. London: Sphere Project. Steinberg, David. 1999. “A Void in Myanmar: Civil Society in Burma.” In Burma Centre Netherlands and Transnational Institute, eds. 1991. Strengthening Civil Society: Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.

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Ashley South ———. 2007. Turmoil in Burma: Contested Legitimacies in Myanmar. Norwalk, CT: EastBridge. Takatani Michio. 2007. “Who Are the Shan? A Technological Perspective.” In Gravers, Mikael, ed. 2007. Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. Copenhagen: NIAS Press. Taylor, Robert. 1987. The State in Burma. London: C. Hurst & Company. Taylor, Robert, ed. 2001. Burma: Political Economy Under Military Rule. London: C. Hurst & Company. Tin Maung Maung Than, 2005. “Dreams and Nightmares: State Building and Ethnic Conflict in Myanmar (Burma).” In Snitwongse, Kusuma, and W. Scott Thompson. 2005. Ethnic Conflicts in Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. ———. 2007. “Mapping the Contours of Human Security Challenges in Myanmar.” In Ganesan, N., and Kyaw Yin Hlaing, eds. 2007. Myanmar: State, Society and Ethnicity. Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies. de Tocqueville, Alexis. 1994. Democracy in America. New York: Knopf. UN Office of the Resident Coordinator. 2001. Statement. May 30. Wischermann, Joerg. 2006. “Societal and Political Change in Vietnam. An Instructive Example for Myanmar/Burma? Introductory and Conceptual Reflections.” In Heinrich Boll Foundation, ed. 2006. Active Citizens Under Political Wraps: Experiences from Myanmar/Burma and Vietnam. Chiang Mai: Heinrich Boll Foundation. Newspapers and News Organizations: Associated Press Independent Mon News Agency The Irrawaddy Kao Wao News Group Shan Herald Agency for News

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Internal Conflicts and State-Building Challenges in Asia Project Information

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Project Rationale, Purpose, and Outline Project Director: Muthiah Alagappa Principal Researchers: Morten Pedersen (Burma/Myanmar) Saroja Dorairajoo (southern Thailand) Mahendra Lawoti (Nepal) Samir Kumar Das (northeast India) Neil DeVotta (Sri Lanka) Rationale Internal Conflicts and State-Building Challenges in Asia is part of a larger East-West Center project on state building and governance in Asia that investigates political legitimacy of governments, the relationship of the military to the state, the development of political and civil societies and their roles in democratic development, the role of military force in state formation, and the dynamics and management of internal conflicts arising from nation- and state-building processes. An earlier project investigating internal conflicts arising from nation- and state-building processes focused on conflicts arising from the political consciousness of minority communities in China (Tibet and Xinjiang), Indonesia (Aceh and Papua), and southern Philippines (the Moro Muslims). Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, that highly successful project was completed in March 2005. The present project, which began in July 2005, investigates the causes and consequences of internal conflicts arising from state- and nation-building processes in Burma/Myanmar, southern Thailand, Nepal, northeast India, and Sri Lanka, and explores strategies and solutions for their peaceful management and eventual settlement. Internal conflicts have been a prominent feature of the Asian political landscape since 1945. Asia has witnessed numerous civil wars, armed insurgencies, coups d’état, regional rebellions, and revolutions. Many have been protracted; several have far-reaching domestic and international consequences. The civil war in Pakistan led to the break up of that country in 1971; separatist struggles challenge the political and territorial integrity of China, India, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines, Thailand, and Sri Lanka; political uprisings in Thailand (1973 and 1991), the Philippines (1986), South Korea (1986), Taiwan (1991) Bangladesh (1991), and Indonesia (1998) resulted in dramatic political change in those countries.

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62 Although the political uprisings in Burma (1988) and China (1989) were suppressed, the political systems in those countries, as well as in Vietnam, continue to confront problems of legitimacy that could become acute; and radical Islam poses serious challenges to stability in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The Thai military ousted the democratically-elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006. In all, millions of people have been killed in the internal conflicts, and tens of millions have been displaced. Moreover, the involvement of external powers in a competitive manner (especially during the Cold War) in several of these conflicts had negative consequences for domestic and regional security. Internal conflicts in Asia can be traced to contestations over political legitimacy (the title to rule), national identity, state building, and distributive justice––that are often interconnected. With the bankruptcy of the socialist model and transitions to democracy in several countries, the number of internal conflicts over political legitimacy has declined in Asia. However, the legitimacy of certain governments continues to be contested from time to time, and the remaining communist and authoritarian systems are likely to confront challenges to their legitimacy in due course. Internal conflicts also arise from the process of constructing modern nation-states, and the unequal distribution of material and status benefits. Although many Asian states have made considerable progress in constructing national communities and viable states, several countries, including some major ones, still confront serious problems that have degenerated into violent conflict. By affecting the political and territorial integrity of the state as well as the physical, cultural, economic, and political security of individuals and groups, these conflicts have great potential to affect domestic and international stability. Purpose Internal Conflicts and State-Building Challenges in Asia examines internal conflicts arising from the political consciousness of minority communities in Burma/Myanmar, southern Thailand, northeast India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Except for Nepal, these states are not in danger of collapse. However, they do face serious challenges at the regional and local levels which, if not addressed, can negatively affect the vitality of the national state in these countries. Specifically, the project has a threefold purpose: (1) to develop an in-depth understanding of the domestic, transnational, and international dynamics of internal conflicts in these countries in the context of nationand state-building strategies; (2) to examine how such conflicts have affected

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63 the vitality of the state; and (3) to explore strategies and solutions for the peaceful management and eventual settlement of these conflicts. Design A study group has been organized for each of the five conflicts investigated in the study. With a principal researcher for each, the study groups comprise practitioners and scholars from the respective Asian countries, including the region or province that is the focus of the conflict, as well as from Australia, Britain, Belgium, Sweden, and the United States. The participants list that follows shows the composition of the study groups. All five study groups met jointly for the first time in Washington, D.C., on October 30–November 3, 2005. Over a period of five days, participants engaged in intensive discussion of a wide range of issues pertaining to the conflicts investigated in the project. In addition to identifying key issues for research and publication, the meeting facilitated the development of cross-country perspectives and interaction among scholars who had not previously worked together. Based on discussion at the meeting, twenty-five policy papers were commissioned. The study groups met separately in the summer of 2006 for the second set of meetings, which were organized in collaboration with respected policy-oriented think tanks in each host country. The Burma and southern Thailand study group meetings were held in Bangkok, July 10–11 and July 12–13, respectively. These meetings were cosponsored by The Institute of Security and International Studies, Chulalongkorn University. The Nepal study group was held in Kathmandu, Nepal, July 17–19, and was cosponsored by the Social Science Baha. The northeast India study group met in New Delhi, India, August 9–10. This meeting was cosponsored by the Centre for Policy Research. The Sri Lanka meeting was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 14–16, and cosponsored by the Centre for Policy Alternatives. In each of these meetings, scholars and practitioners reviewed and critiqued papers produced for the meetings and made suggestions for revision. Publications This project will result in twenty to twenty-five policy papers providing a detailed examination of particular aspects of each conflict. Subject to satisfactory peer review, these 18,000- to 24,000-word essays will be published in the East-West Center Washington Policy Studies series, and

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64 will be circulated widely to key personnel and institutions in the policy and intellectual communities and the media in the respective Asian countries, the United States, and other relevant countries. Some studies will be published in the East-West Center Washington Working Papers series. Public Forums To engage the informed public and to disseminate the findings of the project to a wide audience, public forums have been organized in conjunction with study group meetings. Five public forums were organized in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the first study group meeting. The first forum, cosponsored by The Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, discussed the conflict in southern Thailand. The second, cosponsored by The Sigur Center for Asian Studies of The George Washington University, discussed the conflict in Burma. The conflicts in Nepal were the focus of the third forum, which was cosponsored by the Asia Program at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The fourth public meeting, cosponsored by the Foreign Policy Studies program at The Brookings Institution, discussed the conflicts in northeast India. The fifth forum, cosponsored by the South Asia Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, focused on the conflict in Sri Lanka. Funding Support The Carnegie Corporation of New York is once again providing generous funding support for the project.

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Project Participants Project Director Muthiah Alagappa Director, East-West Center Washington (from February 2001 to January 2007) Distinguished Senior Fellow, East-West Center (from February 1, 2007)

Burma/Myanmar Study Group Morten Pedersen United Nations University Principal Researcher Mary Callahan University of Washington

Martin Smith Independent Analyst, London David I. Steinberg Georgetown University

Christina Fink Chiang Mai University

David Tegenfeldt Hope International Development Agency, Yangon

Saboi Jum Shalom Foundation, Yangon

Mya Than Chulalongkorn University

Kyi May Kaung Freelance Writer/Analyst, Washington, D.C.

Tin Maung Maung Than Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Tom Kramer Transnational Institute, Amsterdam

Ardeth Thawnghmung University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Curtis Lambrecht Yale University

Meredith Weiss East-West Center Washington

David Scott Mathieson Australian National University

Khin Zaw Win Independent Researcher, Yangon

Win Min Chiang Mai University

Harn Yawnghwe Euro-Burma Office, Brussels

Zaw Oo American University

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Southern Thailand Study Group Saroja Dorairajoo National University of Singapore Principal Researcher

Chandra-nuj Mahakanjana National Institute of Development Administration, Bangkok

Thanet Aphornsuvan Thammasat University

Duncan McCargo University of Leeds

Marc Askew Victoria University, Melbourne

Celakhan (Don) Pathan The Nation Newspaper, Bangkok

Suchit Bunbongkarn Chulalongkorn University

Surin Pitsuwan MP, Thai House of Representatives

Kavi Chongkittavorn Nation Multimedia Group, Bangkok

Thitinan Pongsudhirak Chulalongkorn University

Neil John Funston Australian National University

Chaiwat Satha-Anand Thammasat University

Surat Horachaikul Chulalongkorn University

Vaipot Srinual Supreme Command Headquarters, Thailand

Srisompob Jitpiromsri Prince of Songkla University, Pattani Campus Joseph Chinyong Liow Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Wattana Sugunnasil Prince of Songkla University, Pattani Campus Panitan Wattanayagorn Chulalongkorn University Imtiyaz Yusuf Assumption University, Bangkok

Nepal Study Group

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Mahendra Lawoti Western Michigan University Principal Researcher

Lok Raj Baral Nepal Center for Contemporary Studies, Kathmandu

Itty Abraham East-West Center Washington

Surendra Raj Bhandari Law Associates Nepal, Kathmandu

Meena Acharya Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation, Kathmandu

Chandra Dev Bhatta London School of Economics

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Krishna Bhattachan Tribhuvan University

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67 Sumitra Manandhar-Gurung Lumanthi and National Coalition Against Racial Discrimination, Kathmandu Harka Gurung (deceased) Transparency International, Nepal Dipak Gyawali Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, Kathmandu Krishna Hacchethu Tribhuvan University Susan Hangen Ramapo College, New Jersey Lauren Leve University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Prakash Chandra Lohani Former Finance Minister, Nepal

Anup Pahari Foreign Service Institute, Arlington Rajendra Pradhan Social Science Baha, Kathmandu Shree Govind Shah Environmental Resources Planning and Monitoring/Academy of Social Justice & Human Rights, Kathmandu Saubhagya Shah Tribhuvan University Hari Sharma Social Science Baha, Kathmandu Sudhindra Sharma Interdisciplinary Analyst (IDA), Kathmandu Dhruba Kumar Shrestha Tribhuvan University

Pancha Narayan Maharjan Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur

Seira Tamang Centre for Social Research and Development, Kathmandu

Sukh Deo Muni Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi

Bishnu Raj Upreti National Centre of Competence in Research, Kathmandu

Northeast India Study Group Samir Kumar Das University of Calcutta Principal Researcher

Dipankar Banerjee Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi

Sanjay Barbara North Eastern Social Research Centre, Assam

Kalyan Barooah Assam Tribune

Sanjib Baruah Center for Policy Research, New Delhi Bard College, New York

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M.P. Bezbaruah UN – WTO (World Tourism Organization), New Delhi Pinaki Bhattacharya The Mathrubhumi, Kerala

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68 Subir Bhaumik British Broadcasting Corporation, Kolkata

Sukh Deo Muni Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi

Bejoy Das Gupta Institute of International Finance, Inc., Washington, D.C.

Bhagat Oinam Jawaharlal Nehru University

Partha S. Ghosh Jawaharlal Nehru University Uddipana Goswami Center for Studies in Social Science, Kolkata Sanjoy Hazarika Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, New Delhi Anil Kamboj Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi Bengt Karlsson Uppsala University, Sweden Dolly Kikon Stanford University Ved Marwah Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi Pratap Bhanu Mehta Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Pradip Phanjoubam Imphal Free Press, Manipur V.R. Raghavan Delhi Policy Group Rajesh Rajagopalan Jawaharlal Nehru University Swarna Rajagopalan Chaitanya––The Policy Consultancy, Chennai E.N. Rammohan National Security Council, New Delhi Bibhu Prasad Routray Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi Ronojoy Sen The Times of India, New Delhi Prakash Singh Border Security Force (Ret’d.) George Verghese Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Sri Lanka Study Group

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Neil DeVotta Hartwick College Principal Researcher

Sunanda Deshapriya Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo

Ravinatha P. Aryasinha American University

Rohan Edrisinha Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo

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69 Nimalka Fernando International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination & Racism, Colombo Bhavani Fonseka Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo Mario Gomez Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies, Colombo Air Vice Marshall Harry Goonetileke Colombo Anberiya Hanifa Muslim Women’s Research and Action Forum, Colombo Dayan Jayatilleka University of Colombo N. Kandasamy Center for Human Rights and Development in Colombo S.I. Keethaponcalan University of Colombo

Darini Rajasingham Centre for Poverty Analysis, Colombo John Richardson, Jr. American University Norbert Ropers Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies, Colombo Kanchana N. Ruwanpura Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York P. Sahadevan Jawaharlal Nehru University Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo Muttukrishna Sarvananthan Point Pedro Institute of Development, Sri Lanka Peter Schalk Uppsala University, Sweden Asanga Tilakaratne University of Kelaniya

N. Manoharan Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi

Jayadeva Uyangoda University of Colombo

Dennis McGilvray University of Colorado at Boulder

Asanga Welikala Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo

Jehan Perera National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, Colombo Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam MP, Sri Lanka

Jayampathy Wickramaratne Ministry of Constitutional Affairs, Sri Lanka Javid Yusuf Attorney-at-Law, Colombo

Mirak Raheem Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo

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Background on Burma/Myanmar’s Ethnic Conflicts One of the ethnically most diverse countries in the world, Burma (Myanmar) has suffered continuous armed ethnic conflict since independence in 1948. A series of ceasefires since the late 1980s has significantly reduced the levels of fighting across the country, but the legacies of hostility run deep, and the achievement of sustainable peace remains a major challenge in the twentyfirst century. The lands constituting the modern union-state of Burma have a turbulent history. From the foundation of Anawrahta’s empire at Pagan in the eleventh century, political authority often fluctuated in wars between different Burman, Mon, Rakhine, and Shan rulers in Buddhist city-states on the plains. Meanwhile Chin, Kachin, Karen, and other ethnic groups in the hills were only nominally brought under control of the various dynasties and kingdoms. On a major crossroads in Asia, a diversity of cultures proliferated and survived. Colonization by the British in the nineteenth century temporarily imposed external authority over this complex ethnic mosaic, but at the same time exacerbated existing ethnic cleavages. While Central Burma was subjected to British administrative and legal institutions, the non-Burman Frontier Areas were mostly left under the traditional rulers. This division compounded political and economic differences during a time of rapid social change. The British policy of recruiting hill peoples into the colonial army and the conversion of many to Christianity only fuelled interethnic suspicions. During the Second World War, Burman nationalist forces in the Burma Independence Army initially fought on the side of Imperial Japan, but eventually turned against the Japanese and cooperated with the returning British Army. However, atrocities committed during the early months of the war by Burmans against Karen and other minority groups loyal to the British had dangerously increased ethnic tensions. At the 1947 Panglong Conference, Chin, Kachin, and Shan representatives agreed to join a new Union of Burma in return for the promise of full autonomy. However the leaders of other ethnic groups were not included in these discussions, and the Karen national union boycotted the 1947 elections. Burma’s first constitution deepened these emerging

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72 fault lines by granting unequal rights to different ethnic groups and territories. During the hurried British departure, conditions were being created for conflicts that would endure for decades to come. The first major group to take up arms against the government after independence was the Communist Party of Burma in March 1948. As violence escalated, armed struggle rapidly spread to the Karen, Mon, Karenni, Pao, Rakhine, and other nationality groups. The invasion by Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang remnants into the Shan State in late 1949 aggravated the breakdown of the embattled central government. By the late 1950s, the mood of rebellion had spread to the Shan, Kachin, and other ethnic groups, frustrated by what they perceived as governmental neglect. In 1960, Shan and other nationality leaders organized a Federal Movement that sought, by constitutional reform, to replace the centralized system of government with a genuinely federal structure. Their efforts were aborted though, when the national armed forces under General Ne Win seized power in March 1962. Parliamentary democracy was brought to a complete end. For a quarter of a century, Ne Win attempted to impose his isolationist “Burmese Way to Socialism” on the country. Confronting intensive counterinsurgency operations, armed opposition groups were gradually pushed out of the central plains into the surrounding borderlands. Here, however, insurgent forces were able to maintain control of their own “liberated zones,” financing their struggles out of taxes on Burma’s flourishing black markets that included illicit opium. Against this unending backdrop of war, Burma became one of the world’s poorest countries. The post-Cold War period has brought major changes to Burma, but no definitive solutions. The new military government, which took power after quelling pro-democracy protests in 1988, refused to hand over power to the newly-formed National League for Democracy (NLD) that won the 1990 general election by a landslide. Instead, following the collapse of the insurgent CPB, the regime forged ceasefires with a relatively large number of armed ethnic opposition groups, while massively expanding the national armed forces. In these endeavors, the military government was helped by neighboring countries that change their policies of de facto support for opposition groups to close economic relations with the post-Ne Win regime. This decisively shifted the military balance in favor of the central government,

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73 which continued to be largely boycotted by Western nations. New infrastructure and economic projects were started in many areas previously contested by insurgent groups, with central government authority extending further than ever before. In contrast, opposition groups became steadily weakened, divided over tactics between militant forces, ceasefire groups, pro-electoral organizations, and those that sought broader alliances. In the twenty-first century, Burma’s future remains delicately poised. A few insurgent groups have continued largely defensive guerilla warfare, but with little apparent hope of reasserting their authority by military means. However, the ceasefire groups similarly fear that the country’s new constitution will provide few concessions to ethnic aspirations. Additionally, ethnic parties that stood in the 1990 election have been excluded—like the NLD—from constitutional discussions. Against this backdrop, conflict and human rights abuses have continued in several border regions, sustaining ethnic anger and resentment. The desire is widespread for peace through dialogue. But the sentiment that future generations will take up arms again to continue the cycles of political violence cannot be discounted.

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Pre- and Post-1989 Names

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State/Division Names Pre-1989

State/Division Names Post-1989

Chin State Irrawady Division Kachin State Karen State Karenni State (pre-1951) Magwe Division Mandalay Division Mon State Pegu Division Arakan Division Rangoon Division Sagaing Division Shan State Tenasserim Division

Same Ayeyarwady Division Same Kayin State Kayah State Magway Division Same Same Bago Division Rakhine Division Yangon Division Same Same Tanintharyi Division

City/Town Names Pre-1989

City/Town Names Post-1989

Bassein Myitkyina Bhamo Paan Pagan Moulmein Taungoo Prome Pegu Akyab Rangoon Lashio Taunggyi Pangsang Tavoy Mergui

Pathein Same Same Hpa-an Bagan Mawlamyine Toungoo Pyay Bago Sittwe Yangon Same Same Panghsang Dawei Myeik

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Map of Burma/Myanmar

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Ethnic Groups with Ceasefire Arrangements (2006)* 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Communist Party of Burma (Arakan) New Democratic Army––Kachin Kachin Independence Organization Palaung State Liberation Party Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (Kokang) Kachin Defense Army United Wa State Army National Democratic Alliance Army (eastern Shan state) Shan State Army Shan State National Army Pao National Organization Shan State Nationalities People’s Liberation Organization Mong Tai Army Kayan National Guard Karenni National Democratic Party (Dragon Group) Kayan New Land Party Karenni Nationalities People’s Liberation Front Democratic Karen Buddhist Army New Mon State Party Mon Peace Group Chaungchi Region

*The locations marked are the headquarter bases of the main ceasefire groups recognized by the government. However there are great differences in the sizes and territories of the various organizations. Some forces are organized in extensive rural areas (e.g. the Kachin Independence Organization, Pao National Organization, and United Wa State Army), whereas a number of smaller breakaway factions exist in only a few villages (e.g. Kayan National Guard).

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