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II. Background

Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD, and the SPDC’s failed national dialogue

After a quarter-century of one-party military rule, hundreds of thousands of student and other demonstrators took to the streets across Burma in 1988, calling for democracy and the rule of law. The ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) brutally crushed the movement, killing thousands of civilians. Over the next few years, the SLORC further consolidated its control, establishing its own mass organizations. However, despite severe restrictions on freedom of speech, association, and assembly, many brave individuals and groups have continued to speak out and work for democracy and development at both the community and national levels.

In a reaction to widespread protests, the SLORC held elections in May 1990. The highly popular and outspoken Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been placed under house arrest in 1989, and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won 82 percent of the seats. However, the generals refused to allow the NLD and its allies to form a government, instead imprisoning several hundred more political opponents the following year. Since that time, the junta has insisted on maintaining military rule, changing only its name in 1997 to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Since its refusal to recognize the results of the May 1990 election, the military government has resisted all options but a managed transition––by the military–– to a vaguely described military-led “democracy.”

Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her nonviolent resistance to the government, Aung San Suu Kyi has been in and out of house arrest since 1989. Many NLD leaders and party activists have also spent a great deal of time arbitrarily detained under house arrest or imprisoned under horrendous conditions. In the mid-1990s, and again in May 2003, Suu Kyi was briefly released, but her efforts to peacefully mobilize supporters were met again with violent military suppression when on May 30, 2003, an SPDC-organized mob at Depayin killed at least four of her bodyguards and possibly dozens of onlookers.

For decades across Burma, human rights abuses, many of them committed by the Burmese army, or Tatmadaw, have been rampant. Common tools of state control include torture, rape, and forced conscription of child soldiers. By mid-November 2004 there were more than 1,400 political prisoners in Burma, and although the SPDC announced at the same time it would release 3,937 prisoners, including a handful of prominent political prisoners, there has been no commensurate political liberalization.

In August 2003, Burma’s newly appointed Prime Minister and Chief of Military Intelligence, General Khin Nyunt, announced a reconvening of the National Convention (NC) to draft a new constitution, one of seven steps in the government’s “roadmap to democracy.”⁹ Although this process was clearly dominated by the military, it was effectively the only national-level discussion about about instituting a democratically elected government and dealing with the concerns of Burma’s many ethnic groups. Yet, three days before the National Convention reconvened, Burma’s two main opposition parties announced that they would not join the convention. The government had failed to meet demands to release Suu Kyi and reopen NLD offices across the country, or to demonstrate to the NLD and the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA), a coalition of ethnic nationality partieselected in 1990, that it would permit genuine debate over key issues. The National Convention has therefore been widely perceived as illegitimate, both inside Burma and abroad.

Internal divisions within the SPDC boiled over when on October 19, 2004, Khin Nyunt––regarded as the second or third most powerful person in the country––was arrested. The fall of Khin Nyunt was preceded and accompanied by the closing down of his powerful military intelligence apparatus and the arrest of many of his associates. Khin Nyunt was replaced as prime minister by Lt-General Soe Win, the man responsible for orchestrating the attack on Aung San Suu Kyi’s motorcade at Depayin on May 30, 2003.

To most observers, these events signaled the consolidation of power by the hard-line junta Chairman and Vice-Chairman, Generals Than Shwe and General Maung Aye. The government was careful to portray the move as a change of personnel, rather than of policy. A week later, Than Shwe made the first trip by a Burmese head of state to India in more than twenty years. With continued political and economic support from China and an ever-close relationship with India, the generals remained in a strong position to try to ride out western sanctions and any unease among its Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partners.

Fifty years of ethnic conflict

While the world’s attention has been focused on national-level politics and the fate of Aung San Suu Kyi, much less attention has been paid to the highly complex and brutal abuses of ethnic minorities in more remote parts of the country. The situation is particularly acute in areas of ongoing armed conflict.

Ethnic minorities constitute at least 35 percent, or eighteen million, of Burma’s estimated fifty-two million people. Historically, the “ethnic question” has been at the heart of Burma’s protracted political, social and humanitarian crises. Ethnic insurgent armies have operated along Burma’s borders for decades in several areas since independence in 1948. However, by the early 1980s, the Tatmadaw had gained the upper hand against the ethnic rebels, and the areas under their control began to shrink. Increasing numbers of civilians became displaced by the fighting in eastern and northern Burma, and were no longer able to retreat to relative safety behind the “front lines” of the conflict and rebuild their villages. Instead, many had to flee across the border to Thailand, China, India, or Bangladesh.

Much recent political science literature has focused on the “opportunity motives” for insurgency. However, Burma’s rebellions have long been driven by a mixture of genuine grievances and political-military-economic opportunism. Especially following the military take-over by General Ne Win in 1962, ethnic nationality elites have been excluded from meaningful participation in politics, while minority-populated border areas have experienced chronic underdevelopment, combined with often unsustainable natural resource extraction. Meanwhile, in its largely successful campaigns against a myriad of ethnic and communist insurgent organizations, the SPDC and its precursors have extended militarized control into previously semi-autonomous border areas, causing massive social, economic and human disruption––and greatly weakening the armed opposition.

Every Burmese regime since the establishment of military rule in 1962 has sought to suppress ethnic minorities and bring previously insurgent-dominated border areas under Rangoon’s control. The strategy has had military and ethnic dimensions: not only would ethnic minority communities be broken up and their ability to resist weakened, but it would also allow for the spread of state-sponsored “Burmanization,” in which minority cultures, histories, and political aspirations would be eliminated in favor of a “national” identity. The Burmese regimes in essence view all ethnic minorities as a potential security threat¹⁰, and, as a result, have “allowed security issues to come to dominate all aspects of government policymaking.”¹¹

The Tatmadaw’s often brutal counter-insurgency strategies set the tone for coercive methods of dealing with dissent––whether armed revolt, nonviolent political dissent, or apolitical civilians––over the following decades.¹² The Tatmadaw’s “Four Cuts” (pya ley pya) counter-insurgency strategy, used since 1963, best embodies the state’s approach to suppressing ethnic minorities. A rebel group has been fully “cut” if it no longer has access to new recruits, intelligence, food, or finances. This approach aims to transform “black” (rebel-held) areas into “brown” (contested/free fire) areas, and then into “white” (government-held) areas.

In response, ethnic insurgent groups have positioned themselves as the defenders of minority populations, adopting guerrilla-style tactics. This has invited retaliation against the civilian population, against which the insurgents have been unable to defend villagers. As a result, rural Burma has now essentially been engaged in a half century of chronic, low-grade warfare. Human rights abuses are rife, most notably torture in detention and rape, and the conflict has further deepened the poverty of an already poor population. Traditional ways of life have been destroyed.

In order to undermine perceived support for armed ethnic or communist groups, since the 1960s the military government and Tatmadaw have created well over a million IDPs by forcibly moving thousands of ethnic nationality villages across the country. IDPs are highly vulnerable to Tatmadaw abuses and have serious difficulty maintaining livelihoods. Even after conflict has died down, many are unable to return to their previous farms and settlements, due to the prevalence of landmines and confiscation of land or other resources. Plans for massive infrastructure projects in border areas––including dams and new roads––will also prevent the resettlement of IDPs and repatriation of refugees.

Ethnic nationality groups have sought to advance their agenda politically as well as militarily. Although most of the 1,076 delegates to the 2003 National Convention were handpicked by the SPDC, they included over one hundred representatives from armed ethnic nationality groups that have concluded ceasefire agreements with Rangoon, such as the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and New Mon State Party (NMSP). Despite their reservations about the process, most groups apparently attended the convention in good faith in the hope of registering their aspirations on the national political agenda and using the ceasefire agreements to address some of the key issues that have caused armed conflict in Burma for over five decades.

Although demands varied to some extent, there was general agreement among them to press for granting states more authority, transforming ceasefire armies into local security forces, and, most importantly, establishing a federal union of Burma, under the rubric of “ethnic or national democracy.” In expressing their concerns on the national political stage, ethnic groups have made it harder for the international community, while pursuing the resolution of political issues in Rangoon, namely the restoration of multiparty democracy in Burma, to ignore the “ethnic question.”

However, the convention’s Convening Work Committee refused to put the proposals of the ethnic groups on the agenda, claiming they fell outside the National Convention’s current remit.¹³ The ceasefire groups were told that their proposal would be submitted directly to the Prime Minister, General Khin Nyunt, yet his ouster in October 2004 means that the proposals remain in limbo.

The National Convention did not reconvene until February 17, 2005. It did so without the NLD and the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N) ceasefire group, which boycotted the convention following the arrest of several Shan leaders in early February. These included Khun Htun Oo and Sai Nyunt Lwin, Chairman and General Secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), the party with the second largest number of MPs-elect from 1990. The Shan leaders were detained following a meeting in Taunggyi (southern Shan State) on February 7, where plans were discussed to form a stronger coalition between Shan State ceasefire groups and the 1990 parties, who were not at the convention.¹⁴

On February 13, six ceasefire groups issued a statement, repeating their demands of the previous year and calling for a review of the draft constitution’s Principle No. 6, which provides that the military will continue to play a leading role in politics. They also asked for non-ceasefire groups to be allowed observer status at the convention, to allow disagreements and debate, and for the convention minutes to record such dissenting voices. Upon arrival, delegates to the convention were cut off from each other and from most contact with the outside world.

On March 7, 2005, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that:

Most regrettably, it…remains the Secretary-General’s view that the National Convention, in its present format, does not adhere to the recommendations made by the General Assembly in successive resolutions.

He thus reiterates his call on the Myanmar authorities, even at this late stage, to take the necessary steps to make the roadmap process more inclusive and credible. The Secretary-General also encourages the authorities to ensure that the third phase of the roadmap, the drafting of the constitution, is fully inclusive. A national referendum will be held after that. It is his considered view that unless this poll adheres to internationally accepted standards of conduct and participation, it may be difficult for the international community, including the countries of the region, to endorse the result.¹⁵

In mid-March it was revealed that the National Convention would take another break, from mid-April. Some observers interpreted this as a sign of “unsolved problems with ethnic ceasefire groups.”¹⁶

In late April 2005 a battalion of the Shan State National Army (SSNA) ceasefire group was pressured by the SPDC into surrendering its weapons. Many observers viewed this as an escalation of the government’s crackdown on Shan opposition groups.¹⁷ Then, on April 29, another northern Shan State–based ceasefire group, the Palaung State Liberation Army (PSLA), was also forced to surrender its weapons. This development may indicate that the government is intent on picking off ceasefire groups one-by-one, persuading the smaller groups and less well-organized groups to disarm first, before moving on to the better established Wa, Kachin, Mon, and other militias.¹⁸ In late May the SSNA leader, Colonel Sai Yi, took his three remaining battalions back to war with Rangoon, merging his forces with the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), which had never agreed to a ceasefire.¹⁹ This was the first time in a decade that a ceasefire group had resumed armed conflict with the military government.

It is an open secret that the Thai government is pressuring the KNU to sign an agreement with Rangoon because it wants to be rid of the 140,000 mostly Karen refugees in the kingdom and is keen to exploit the economic opportunities that peace may bring to its borders. KNU negotiators have emphasized the extent of the displacement crisis in Burma, and suggested that the plight of IDPs be addressed before any refugee repatriation is undertaken. Most aid workers and diplomats agree that the time is not yet right to begin sending refugees back from Thailand.

The Karen

Despite the limited opportunities for community development and peace-building represented by the ceasefires in conflict-related areas, much of Karen and Karenni States, southern Shan State, and Tenasserim Division––in the east and southeast of Burma––are still affected by low-level armed conflict. For the civilian victims of civil war, the situation remains dire.

The five to seven million Karen in Burma and approximately 350,000 Karen in Thailand speak twelve mutually unintelligible, but related, dialects. Between 80-85 percent of Karen are either S’ghaw (mostly Christian and animist living in the hills) or Pwo (mostly lowland Buddhists). About 25-30 percent are Christian, 5-10 percent are animist, and the rest are Buddhist. An estimated 30 percent of Karen people live in urban settings and 70 percent in rural areas. About 40 percent are plains dwellers and 60 percent live in the hills.²⁰

As demarcated by the government, Karen State consists of seven townships (Pa’an, Kawkareik, Kya-In Seik-Gyi, Myawaddy, Papun, Thandaung and Hlaingbwe), with a population in 1995 of approximately 1.3 million.²¹ The percentage of Karen living in Karen State has decreased considerably due to the outflow to Thailand.

Rejecting the government’s administrative boundaries, the KNU has organized the Karen “free state” of Kaw Thoo Lei²² into seven districts, each of which corresponds to a Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) brigade area.²³ The districts are divided into twenty-eight townships and then into groups of villages administered as a unit by the KNU––that is, in areas where the KNU still exercises some influence. This civilian structure is paralleled by an often more extensive KNLA military administration.

The majority of the Karen live in Tenasserim Division (KNU Mergui-Tavoy District), eastern Pegu (or Bago) Division (which overlaps with Nyaunglebin District), Mon State (which overlaps with parts of Duplaya and Thaton Districts), and the Irrawaddy Division, areas that are mostly government-controlled.²⁴ Neither the government nor the KNU has ever conducted a reliable population survey. However, a report issued in 1998 estimated the population of Kaw Thoo Lei at between 2-2.4 million people, or about half the Karen population of Burma.²⁵

The Karen have been subject to repeated displacement. For example, following the introduction of the “Four Cuts” in 1974-5, approximately forty-three villages in the Nyaunglebin District were forcibly relocated at least twice.²⁶ According to the highly respected Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), there were eighteen thousand IDPs in eastern Pegu Division in mid-2004, while a community-based organization working inside Burma reported as many as 29,807 people displaced in the same area at government-controlled sites alone. Similarly, in Papun District, a “Four Cuts” operation beginning in the mid-1970s displaced an estimated fifty thousand people.²⁷ Further Tatmadaw operations caused about nine thousand refugees to flee to Thailand in 1996 alone.²⁸

Although Karen nationalists have resisted Rangoon’s domination for more than fifty years, their internal divisions have been equally persistent, making it difficult to articulate a unified position on behalf of the entire nationality group. It has also been easier for the military government in Rangoon to “divide and conquer” the Karen.

Like most ethnic insurgent groups, the KNU has claimed to be fighting for democracy in Burma––especially since the great 1988 “democracy uprising.” Although the KNU retains a sometimes contested legitimacy in many Karen communities, the democratic ideal has not always been honored in practice, and the liberated zones have often been characterized by a top-down tributary political system, aspects of which recall pre-colonial forms of socio-political organization.

After a series of military setbacks, dating back to the 1970s, and with greatly diminished support from the Thai government and army, the KNU today is a greatly weakened force. The KNLA still has some five thousand-seven thousand soldiers, but it no longer represents a significant military threat to the SPDC.²⁹ However, the KNU’s longevity alone brings it considerable credibility among the wider Burmese opposition. It is also still considered a key player by elements within the SPDC.

Like other insurgent organizations in Burma, the KNU has an interest in controlling, or at least maintaining, populations in traditionally Karen lands––as a source of legitimacy, and of food, intelligence, volunteer soldiers, and porters. KNLA soldiers regularly organize village evacuations to protect villagers from Tatmadaw incursions.³⁰ However, cases of KNLA soldiers purposefully targeting civilians are rare. Since the provisional ceasefire in 2003 there has been virtually no displacement as a result of KNLA offensive operations.

In an incident that has undermined intra-Karen relations along the border for a decade, disaffected Buddhist Pwo-speaking KNLA soldiers who felt excluded by the dominant Christian S’ghaw-speaking KNU elite broke from the mainstream Karen insurgentgroup in December 1994. The establishment of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Organization (DKBO) and Army (DKBA) in December 1994, which may have taken place with encouragement from local Tatmadaw units, also reflected legitimate grievances among the KNU rank-and-file regarding the Christian-dominated organization’s alleged discrimination against the Buddhist majority in Kaw Thoo Lei.

The emergence of the DKBA consolidated a major split in the Karen insurgent ranks. The DKBA command-and-control structure is weak, and many of these units enjoy almost complete autonomy, and/or answer to local Tatmadaw commanders. DKBA troop strength is difficult to gauge. Informed sources suggest that the number of active soldiers is about three thousand-four thousand. It currently fields three brigades.³¹

The DKBA often acts as a proxy militia army for the Tatmadaw, deflecting some criticism for the state’s harsh policies. Like the Tatmadaw, it uses displacement as a means of controlling populations and resources and undermining its rivals. Between 1995-98 it instigated at least twelve major attacks on KNU-controlled refugee camps in Thailand, killing more than twenty people,³² and it has launched attacks on KNLA positions following the announcement of a provisional KNU-SPDC ceasefire. In addition, many DKBA commanders and soldiers must be considered conflict entrepreneurs who have been personally empowered and enriched as a result of the fighting.

Since the fall from power in October 2004 of General Khin Nyunt, a number of militias have come under pressure to hand over their arms to the government. Several DKBA units in particular are under pressure to surrender to the Tatmadaw. As result a number of Karen soldiers have returned to the KNU in 2005.³³ In late May, reports emerged that DKBA units were beginning to withdraw from parts of northern Karen State, including Nyaunglebin District, and being replaced by the Tatmadaw.

Ceasefires

Until 1989, the Tatmadaw had been fighting two interconnected civil wars: one against the ethnic nationalist insurgents, and another against the Communist Party of Burma (CPB). The CPB collapsed in early 1989 and disintegrated into four ethnic militias, which quickly agreed to ceasefires with Rangoon.

Since 1989, ceasefire arrangements have been made with some twenty-eight armed ethnic nationality groups. The nature of the ceasefire agreements are not uniform, although in all cases the ex-insurgents have retained their arms and still control sometimes extensive blocks of territory (in recognition of the military situation on the ground). The ceasefires are not peace treaties, and generally lack all but the most rudimentary accommodation of the ex-insurgents’ political and developmental demands. These agreements have been dismissed by some as benefiting vested interests in the military regime and insurgent hierarchies. Civilians in these ‘ceasefire areas’ still experience a wide range of problems.

However, in many cases there is also something of a peace dividend from the ceasefires. Human rights abuses, displacement, and livelihood issues are considerably less acute in ceasefire areas, so much so that the TBBC reports that the IDP population in those areas has increased, as IDPs move out of war zones and into ceasefire zones. While many violations continue, such as forced labor, land confiscation, and arbitrary taxation, in areas where ceasefires have held serious violations against the integrity of the person, such as extrajudicial killings and torture, have decreased.³⁴ This pattern is already emerging in post-armed conflict Karen areas.

The variable vulnerability to abuse is illustrated by the TBBC’s October 2004 report on “Internal Displacement and Vulnerability in Eastern Burma.” The report stated that “the internally displaced population in ceasefire areas has increased by between 20-30 percent during the past two years,” as IDPs in hiding move to relatively more secure areas.³⁵ A range of indicators show that conditions for IDPs in ceasefire areas are significantly better than in free-fire zones or relocation sites. Reports of human rights abuses (with the exception of forced labor and local “taxes,” which are extracted by ceasefire groups) are lower in ceasefire areas than in free-fire areas, partial/mixed administration areas or relocation sites.³⁶ People in ceasefire areas are reportedly less likely to be forcibly displaced (on average, 0.2 times/year) than those in free-fire areas (1.4 times), partial/mixed administration areas (0.3 times), or relocation sites (1 time), and are also less likely to become casualties of war (0.2 percent, compared to a range in other situations of between 0.3-2.2 percent).³⁷

One crucial but largely unrecognized benefit of the ceasefire process is the rise of community-based organizations (CBOs). These not only address humanitarian and developmental needs, but also make it possible to debate and articulate their communities’ specific concerns. Whether the ceasefire process can be sustained, and move from the current negative peace––characterized by a significant decrease in armed conflict––into a positive, peace-building phase, will be fundamental to the success of reconstruction and national reconciliation efforts.

In this climate of risk and uncertainty, the KNU, Burma’s most significant remaining insurgent group, has been attempting to negotiate a ceasefire with Rangoon. On December 10, 2003, the KNU announced a “gentlemen’s agreement” to stop fighting, shortly after an exploratory meeting in Rangoon between military intelligence officers and a team selected by KNU Vice-Chairman General Bo Mya. These were the first KNU-government contacts since 1995-96.

Following the announcement, both the KNU and SPDC ordered their military units to cease offensive operations. However, the Tatmadaw subsequently repeatedly violated the agreement. Talks continued in Rangoon in mid-January and in Moulmein in February.³⁸ These yielded a vague “agreement in principle,” with specifics to be discussed over the coming year. The KNU pressed to establish concrete mechanisms to address human rights and other ceasefire violations, and to discuss the urgent needs of IDPs and other conflict-affected civilians.

During the January 2004 talks, a military government representative for the first time admitted that the Tatmadaw had engaged in extensive population relocations, as part of its counter-insurgent strategy. He also accepted that, with an end to the fighting, these people might be able to go home, and receive appropriate assistance.³⁹ But the next round of talks was delayed for several months, following an incident on February 23 in which KNLA 3^rd Brigade troops attacked a Tatmadaw camp in western Nyaunglebin District, killing several soldiers and liberating weapons and some communications equipment. Although the KNLA returned the seized material, the SPDC used this ceasefire violation as a ground to further delay talks.

In March 2004 Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the United Nations “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar,” stated that:

Among other related positive developments, the most notable is the resumption of peace talks between the Government and the largest armed opposition group, the Karen National Union. Were human rights commitments to be built into an agreement, this process could significantly improve not only the human rights situation in ethnic minority areas, but also the political climate throughout Burma.⁴⁰

The next few months will determine whether or not a KNU-SPDC ceasefire will be achieved and deliver a substantial improvement in the human rights situation, creating the space in which local and international organizations can begin to address the urgent needs of Karen villagers.