There are Two Sides to Every COIN
Of Economic and Military Means in Myanmar’s Comprehensive Approach to Illiberal Peacebuilding
In: European Journal of East Asian StudiesThe capacity of Myanmar’s government to effectively rule and administer peripheral areas of the country has been challenged since independence by a vast array of non-state armed groups (NSAGs), and the country is home to the most long-lasting insurgencies still active today. The core interest of this article rests on analysing the degree of continuity and change in the strategy enacted by Myanmar’s government in order to counter, contain and re-absorb insurgencies in the wake of the recent liberalisation process. The government activity vis-à-vis insurgencies is assessed in two core dimensions: economic and military. The analysis is developed in diachronic perspective, spanning three key phases. The first, meant to provide the essential historical background and benchmark, is the post-1989 period, characterised by the implementation of the ceasefires. The other two focus on the current transition, splitting it into two (2008–2011 and 2011–2015), taking Thein Sein’s new peace plan as a turning point. Moving through these three phases the paper assesses how Myanmar’s government achieves a balance between military pressure and economic incentives in the face of three major insurgencies: in Shan state, versus various NSAGs; against the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO); and against the Karen National Union (KNU).
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1
Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, ‘Democratization and the danger of war’, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1995), pp. 5–38; Paul Collier, War, Guns, and Votes (London: The Bodley Head, 2009); Lars-Erik Cederman, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch and Simon Hug, ‘Elections and ethnic civil war’, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3 (2013), pp. 387–417.
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3
Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999); Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and grievance in civil war’, Policy Research Working Paper No. 2355 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2000); Mats Berdal and David M. Malone (eds), Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000). For a critique of the intrinsic reductionism of the predominantly economic explanation of civil war see especially: Christopher Cramer, ‘Homo Economicus goes to war: methodological individualism, rational choice and the political economy of war’, World Development, Vol. 30, No. 11 (2002), pp. 1845–1864; Stathis N. Kalyvas, ‘“New” and “old” civil wars: a valid distinction?’, World Politics, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2001), pp. 99–118.
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4
Mats Berdal, Building Peace after War (London and New York: Routledge, 2009); David Keen, Useful Enemies: When Waging Wars is More Important than Winning Them (New Haven: Yale University Press: 2012).
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11
Sherman, ‘Burma: lessons from the cease-fires’, p. 139; South, Ethnic Politics in Burma, pp. 144–149; UNODC, Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2014; available at http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/sea/SE-ASIA-opium-poppy-2014-web.pdf, pp. 23–24.
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12
Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, pp. 247–271; South, Ethnic Politics in Burma, pp. 86–87.
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13
Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, p. 221; Martin Smith, ‘Ethnic participation and national reconciliation in Myanmar: challenges in a transitional landscape’, in Trevor Wilson (ed.), Myanmar’s Long Road to National Reconciliation (Singapore: ISEAS, 2006), pp. 44–45; Jane M. Ferguson, ‘Sovereignty in the Shan state: a case study of the United Wa State Army’, in Nick Cheesman, Monique Skidmore and Trevor Wilson (eds), Ruling Myanmar: From Cyclone Nargis to National Elections (Singapore: ISEAS, 2010), pp. 54–55.
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14
Zaw Oo and Win Min, Assessing Burma’s Ceasefire Accords, p. 32.
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15
Sherman, ‘Burma: lessons from the cease-fires’, p. 243; South, Ethnic Politics in Burma, pp. 151–159; Mary Callahan, Political Authority in Burma’s Ethnic Minority States: Devolution, Occupation and Coexistence (Washington, DC: East-West Center, 2007), pp. 42–45; Transnational Institute, Neither War nor Peace: The Future of the Cease-fire Agreements in Burma (Amsterdam, 2009); available at http://www.tni.org/files/download/ceasefire.pdf, pp. 24–29; Woods, ‘Ceasefire capitalism’.
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18
South, Ethnic Politics in Burma, p. 52 and pp. 57–64; Kramer, Neither War nor Peace, pp. 33–34; Ashley South, ‘Governance and legitimacy in Karen state’, in Cheesman et al., Ruling Myanmar, pp. 63–65 and p. 76; Zaw Oo and Win Min, Assessing Burma’s Ceasefire Accords, pp. 20–23.
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20
Zaw Oo and Win Min, Assessing Burma’s Ceasefire Accords, pp. 12–13; Meehan, ‘Drugs, insurgency and state-building in Burma’, pp. 387–389.
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22
Zaw Oo and Win Min, Assessing Burma’s Ceasefire Accords, p. 16.
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23
Tom Kramer, Neither War nor Peace, pp. 35–36; Kramer, ‘Ethnic conflict in Burma’, pp. 78–81; Ferguson, ‘Sovereignty in the Shan state’, p. 53.
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25
Kramer, ‘Ethnic conflict in Burma’, pp. 77–78; Ian Storey, ‘Emerging fault lines in Sino-Burmese relations: the Kokang incident’, China Brief Vol. 9, No. 18 (2009); available at http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35468&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=459&no_cache=1#.VUoTXPntlBc; Reuters, Analysis: Myanmar Ethnic Offensive Tests Vital China Ties, 1 September 2009; available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/01/idUSBKK494356; Mizzima, ‘Beginning of the end’, 2 September 2009; available at http://archive-2.mizzima.com/edop/commentary/2713-beginning-of-the-end-.html.
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26
Ko Htwe, ‘Conflict in Shan state spreading’, The Irrawaddy, 8 April 2011; available at http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21101; Transnational Institute, ‘Ending Burma’s conflict cycle? Prospects for ethnic peace’, Burma Policy Briefing, No. 8, (2012); available at http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/bpb8.pdf, pp. 3–5.
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27
Sherman, ‘Burma: lessons from the cease-fires’, p. 243; Seng Maw Lahpai, ‘State terrorism and international compliance: the Kachin armed struggle for political self-determination’, in Nick Cheesman, Nicholas Farrelly and Trevor Wilson (eds), Debating Democratization in Myanmar (Singapore: ISEAS, 2014), p. 288; Woods, ‘Ceasefire capitalism’, p. 750.
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29
Smith, ‘Ethnic participation and national reconciliation in Myanmar’, p. 51; Kramer, ‘Ethnic conflict in Burma’, p. 81; Farrelly, ‘Ceasing ceasefires?’, p. 60; Transnational Institute, ‘Ending Burma’s conflict cycle?’, pp. 9–10.
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30
Saw Yan Naing, ‘Irrawaddy Dam construction begins, human rights abuses begin’, The Irrawaddy, 29 January 2008; available at http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=10064; Kramer, ‘Ethnic conflict in Burma’, p. 72; Farrelly, ‘Ceasing ceasefires?’, p. 63; Seng Maw Lahpai, ‘State terrorism and international compliance’, pp. 287–289.
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33
South, Ethnic Politics in Burma, pp. 55–57 and pp. 64–68; South, ‘Governance and legitimacy in Karen state’, pp. 63–65.
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35
South, Ethnic Politics in Burma, p. 64 and pp. 64–68; South, ‘Governance and legitimacy in Karen state’, p. 66.
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37
Transnational Institute, ‘Ending Burma’s conflict cycle?’, p. 5. However, this transformation was not entirely uncontroversial, and generated a small DBKA spin-off (DKBA-5) about 1,500 strong. Myanmar Peace Monitor, ‘DKBA-5’; available at http://www.mmpeacemonitor.org/background/ethnic-grievances/159-dkba-5.
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40
Lee Jones, ‘Explaining Myanmar’s regime transition: the periphery is central’, Democratization, Vol. 21, No. 5 (2014), pp. 780–802.
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41
The New Light of Myanmar, ‘Union government offers olive branch to national race armed groups’, 19 September 2011; Transnational Institute, ‘Ending Burma’s conflict cycle?’, pp. 3–7; Myanmar Peace Monitor, ‘Government peace plan’; available at http://www.mmpeacemonitor.org/peace-process/government-peace-plan.
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42
Transnational Institute, ‘Ending Burma’s conflict cycle?’, pp. 4–5.
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46
Thomas Fuller, ‘Myanmar returns to what sells: heroin’, The New York Times, 3 January 2015; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/world/myanmar-returns-to-what-sells-heroin.html?_r=0.
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48
Zarni Madd, ‘Fighting dashes hopes of homecoming for displaced in Kachin’, The Irrawaddy, 20 February 2014; available at http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/fighting-dashes-hopes-homecoming-displaced-kachin.html.
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49
Hannah Beech, ‘Inside the Kachin war against Burma’, Time, 21 November 2014; available at http://time.com/3598969/kachin-independence-army-kia-burma-myanmar-laiza/.
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50
Yun Sun, ‘The guilty and the innocent: China and illegal logging in Myanmar’, The Irrawaddy, 22 January 2015; available at http://www.irrawaddy.org/contributor/guilty-innocent-china-illegal-logging-myanmar.html; Sherman, ‘Burma: lessons from the cease-fires’; pp. 232–235.
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58
As published in Nathan Vanderklippe, ‘A meeting of unity in war-torn Myanmar’, The Globe and Mail, 30 March 2015; available at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/a-meeting-of-unity-in-war-torn-myanmar/article23699780/?cmpid=rss1.
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60
As anticipated by South, ‘Governance and legitimacy in Karen state’, p. 67.
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61
Meehan, ‘Drugs, insurgency and state-building in Burma’, pp. 396–402; Woods, ‘Ceasefire capitalism’.
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63
Bertil Lintner, ‘A “nationwide ceasefire agreement”—for what?’, The Irrawaddy, 30 April 2014; available at http://www.irrawaddy.org/magazine/nationwide-ceasefire-agreement.html.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
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There are Two Sides to Every COIN
Of Economic and Military Means in Myanmar’s Comprehensive Approach to Illiberal Peacebuilding
In: European Journal of East Asian StudiesThe capacity of Myanmar’s government to effectively rule and administer peripheral areas of the country has been challenged since independence by a vast array of non-state armed groups (NSAGs), and the country is home to the most long-lasting insurgencies still active today. The core interest of this article rests on analysing the degree of continuity and change in the strategy enacted by Myanmar’s government in order to counter, contain and re-absorb insurgencies in the wake of the recent liberalisation process. The government activity vis-à-vis insurgencies is assessed in two core dimensions: economic and military. The analysis is developed in diachronic perspective, spanning three key phases. The first, meant to provide the essential historical background and benchmark, is the post-1989 period, characterised by the implementation of the ceasefires. The other two focus on the current transition, splitting it into two (2008–2011 and 2011–2015), taking Thein Sein’s new peace plan as a turning point. Moving through these three phases the paper assesses how Myanmar’s government achieves a balance between military pressure and economic incentives in the face of three major insurgencies: in Shan state, versus various NSAGs; against the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO); and against the Karen National Union (KNU).
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 503 | 80 | 3 |
| Full Text Views | 199 | 11 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 59 | 35 | 0 |