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Frontier Governance: Contested and plural authorities in a Karen village after the ceasefire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2021

HELENE MARIA KYED Open the ORCID record for HELENE MARIA KYED [Opens in a new window]
HELENE MARIA KYED*
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Danish Institute for International Studies Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article applies the concept of frontier to analytically understand the forms of border governance that are developing in a former combat zone after the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the Myanmar government and the Karen National Union (KNU). In particular, it explores border governance through the lens of judicial interventions, moral ordering, and control of crime. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in 2016–2018, it shows how a Karen-populated area changed from being a military combat zone to an area that is the target of civilian state-making efforts by both the KNU and the Myanmar state. These efforts intermingle and compete, and yet each form of state-making remains incomplete and contested. This has resulted in pluralized authorities and partly overlapping forms of what I conceptualize as ‘frontier border governance’. With its focus on two competing state-making actors, the article adds new insights to the burgeoning literature on frontiers, which predominantly focuses on a single expansionary state.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 56 , Special Issue 2: Border Governance in Myanmar , March 2022 , pp. 603 - 638
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Acknowledgements: The research was conducted as part of the ‘Everyday Justice and Security in the Myanmar Transition’ (EverJust 2015–2021) project, which constitutes a partnership between the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Yangon University's Anthropology Department, the Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF), and Aarhus University. The project is funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the council for development research. I am indebted to researchers Lue Htar and Saw Hay Htoo for their tireless and committed participation in data collection and analysis.

References

1 Due to the sensitivity of the topic of governance in the ceasefire area, I have not used original names for places and persons.

2 See also Harrisson, Annika P. and Kyed, Helene M., ‘Ceasefire State-Making and Justice Provision in Ethnic Armed Group Areas of Southeast Myanmar’, SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2019, pp. 290–326CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 The research for this article was part of the larger EverJust research project which explored how and by whom disputes and crimes are handled across different areas of the country—including areas controlled by EAOs and the Myanmar government. The theoretical objective was to understand how authority is constituted and configured within a legally and politically plural context of transition. Hence the focus in this article on justice systems and policing of crime should also be seen in this light.

4 Mampilly, Zachariah C., Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2011), p. 65Google Scholar.

5 Ibid.; Harrisson and Kyed, ‘Ceasefire State-Making and Justice Provision’.

6 Brenner, David, Rebel Politics: A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar's Borderlands (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2019) p. 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 South, Ashley and Lall, Marie, Schooling and Conflict: Ethnic Education and Mother Tongue-Based Teaching in Myanmar (Yangon: The Asia Foundation, 2016)Google Scholar.

8 The interviews were distributed as follows: KNU administrative personnel and judges: 9; KNU police: 1; Village leaders and elders: 18; Village security: 1; religious leaders: 4; women's group members: 6; and ordinary villagers: 21, of whom 6 were men and 15 were women.

9 See Jolliffe, Kim, Ethnic Armed Conflict and Territorial Administration in Myanmar (Yangon: The Asia Foundation, 2015)Google Scholar; Kyed, Helene M. and Thitsar, Myat The, ‘State-Making and Dispute Resolution in Karen “Frontier” Area’, Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018, pp. 29–55Google Scholar; Brenner, Rebel Politics.

10 Taylor, Robert H., The State in Myanmar (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Einzenberger, Rainer, ‘Contested Frontiers: Indigenous Mobilization and Control over Land and Natural Resources in Myanmar's Upland Areas’, Austrian Journal of Southeast Asia Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2016, pp. 163–172Google Scholar.

11 Chan, Chai-fong, ‘British Colonial Policy on Frontier Areas adjoining Assam and Burma: With Special Reference to the Crown Colony Scheme’, Minamiajiakenkyu, Vol. 2001, No. 13, 2001, p. 78Google Scholar. However, many people classified as Karen were living within ‘Burma proper’ or what became Ministerial Burma during late colonial rule. Hence, not all the Karen population was concentrated within the frontier areas: Jolliffe, Ethnic Armed Conflict, pp. 10–12.

12 Smith, Martin, Burma. Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity (London: Zed Books, 1999), pp. 40–44Google Scholar.

13 The research team translated the history book from Sgaw Karen into English and it is therefore not an official translation. I have decided not to include the reference here, as it would compromise the anonymization of the area, as the title and publisher carries the name of the village and of the Karen sub-group.

14 For a detailed description of this history of ethnic struggles for self-determination, the roots of which can already be found during late colonial rule, see Smith, Burma. On the Karen, see, in particular, Gravers, Mikael, ‘The Karen Making of a Nation’, in Antlöv, H. and Tönnesson, S. (eds), Asian Forms of the Nation (London: Curzon Press, 1996), pp. 237–269Google Scholar.

15 Smith, Burma.

16 Michael Eilenberg, ‘Frontier Constellations: Agrarian Expansion and Sovereignty on the Indonesian-Malaysian Border’, Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 157–182.

17 Stepputat, Finn, ‘Formations of Sovereignty at the Frontier of the Modern State’, Conflict and Society, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2015, pp. 129–143CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prescott, John R. V., Boundaries and Frontiers (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1978)Google Scholar.

18 Rösler, Michael and Wendl, Tobias (eds), Frontiers and Borderlands. Anthropological Perspectives (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1999)Google Scholar; Kristof, Ladis K. D., ‘The Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 49, No. 3, 1959, pp. 269–282CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As discussed by Andrzej Janeczek, ‘Frontiers and Borderlands’, Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae, 2011, pp. 5–14, the concept of frontier has multiple meanings and there is no agreement across disciplines. Here I have chosen to draw on scholars who distinguish frontiers from national boundaries, fixed by law and associated with state sovereignty, with the frontier conveying a more open-ended and moving zone that is not fully captured by central state control and which is associated with outsiders’ imaginaries of being uncaptured, underdeveloped, and wild: Eilenberg, ‘Frontier Constellations’.

19 Kristof, ‘Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries’, p. 270.

20 Ibid.

21 Eilenberg, ‘Frontier Constellations’, p. 5.

22 Kopytoff, Igor (ed.), The African Frontier. The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 11Google Scholar.

23 Scott, James C., The Art of Not Being Governed. An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 1–464Google ScholarPubMed.

24 Eilenberg, ‘Frontier Constellations, p. 5.

25 Rösler and Wendl, Frontiers and Borderlands.

26 Ibid., p. 5.

27 Ibid., p. 281.

28 Einzenberger, ‘Contested Frontiers’.

29 Anderson, Malcolm, Frontiers. Territory and State Formation in the Modern World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p. 9Google Scholar.

30 The Burma Library provides a long catalogue of the forced removals of whole Karen villages to areas under military control: see https://www.burmalibrary.org/en/category/forced-relocation-of-karen, [accessed 27 November 2020]. See also Murphy, Daniel, ‘A British Legacy? Forced Migration, Displacement and Conflict in Eastern Burma’, Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2013, pp. 66–82Google Scholar.

31 Walton, Matthew J., ‘The “Wages of Burman-ness”: Ethnicity and Burman Privilege in Contemporary Myanmar’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2013, pp. 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 It should be noted that this account of the history and period prior to our fieldwork is based on the oral testimonies of our interlocutors in the village, especially the elders and previous leaders.

33 P'Doh is not his actual name, but means ‘leader’ in the Karen language, so I have chosen to use this term in order to anonymize him.

34 South and Lall, Schooling and Conflict.

35 South and Lall, Schooling and Conflict, pp. 133–134. See also Lall, Marie and South, Ashley, ‘Policy in Myanmar's Contested Transition’, Comparative Education Review, Vol. 62, No. 4, 2018, pp. 482–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Walton, ‘The “Wages of Burman-ness”’.

37 South and Lall, Schooling and Conflict, pp. 134, 137.

38 Ibid., p. 138.

39 Ibid., p. 139.

40 As noted by Lall and South, ‘Policy in Myanmar's Contested Transition’, p. 485, ethnic minority education systems are still not officially permitted by the National Education Strategic Plan (2016), which was passed by the NLD government.

41 Interview, KNU district chairman, 15 May 2016.

42 Kristof, ‘The Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries’.

43 Interview, KNU district chairman, 11 May 2016.

44 In order to secure anonymization, I will not mention the name of the Karen sub-tribe nor use the original name of the village.

45 Interview, village chairman, 12 May 2016.

46 For more details on the official KNU justice system and laws, see Kyed, Helene M., Justice Provision in South East Myanmar. Experiences from Conflict-Affected Areas with Multiple Governing Authorities (Yangon: Saferworld, 2018)Google Scholar; McCartan, Brian and Jolliffe, Kim, Ethnic Armed Actors and Justice Provision in Myanmar (Yangon: The Asia Foundation, 2016)Google Scholar. On the administrative system, see Jolliffe, Ethnic Armed Conflict; Jolliffe, K., Ethnic Conflict and Social Services in Myanmar's Contested Regions (Yangon: The Asia Foundation, 2014)Google Scholar. The KNU has a legal procedure code and three laws: civil, criminal, and witchcraft. In 2016, the KNU also passed an anti-drugs law in response to the increasing problem of drugs in Karen state and other KNU areas, and in 2015 it upgraded its land policy: Kyed, Justice Provision in South East Myanmar.

47 On similar checkpoints in the same KNU district, indicating that these were part of a larger strategy, see Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), Foundation of Fear: 25 Years of Villagers’ Voices from Southeast Myanmar (KHRG, October 2017), p. 162.

48 Interview, female group leader, 16 November 2018.

49 For security reasons, we as researchers were not permitted to visit the prisons or the cells and thus the information presented here is based on the descriptions of the KNU judges and chairman we interviewed.

50 Rösler and Wendl, Frontiers and Borderlands, p. 281.

51 See Saw Myat Oo Thar, ‘Drug Seizures Tripled in Karen State’, Karen News, 9 January 2018, available at http://karennews.org/2018/01/drug-seizures-tripled-in-karen-state-majority-of-captures-made-in-hpa-an-myawaddy/, [accessed 25 November 2020].

52 This was part of a wider KNU anti-drug campaign that took place between June and August 2016, when the KNU, according to Karen News, caught a total of 200 traffickers: Saw Myat Oo Thar, ‘KNU Makes 200 Drug-Related Arrests in Three Months—Villagers Want More’, Karen News, 23 August 2016, available at http://karennews.org/2016/08/knu-make-200-related-drug-arrests-in-three-months-villagers-want-more/, [accessed 25 November 2020].

53 Interview, 28 February 2016.

54 Interview, District Justice Committee, 27 September 2016.

55 Gerard McCarthy, ‘Building on What's There. Insights on Social Protection and Public Goods Provision from Central-East Myanmar’, Working Paper ref no. S-53308-MYA-2, International Growth Centre, September 2016.

56 It is unclear how this agreement was put in place and we were not able to verify why. According to South and Lall's thorough analysis of educational reform and ethnic minority language teaching, this permission to teach Sgaw Karen is not supported explicitly in the 2016 Myanmar Education policy: see South and Lall, ‘Policy in Myanmar's Contested Transition’. However, the authors simultaneously show that, in practice, there have been local initiatives and flexibility towards allowing some minor level of ethnic minority language teaching in government schools in many ceasefire areas. This coexists with the tendency to have public schools in the ethnic minority areas staffed mainly by Bamar teachers. See also Lall, Marie and South, Ashley, ‘Power Dynamics of Language and Education’, Comparative Education Review, Vol. 62, No. 4, 2018CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Interview, village leader, 13 May 2016.

58 Ibid.

59 While the NLD won a majority in the wider constituency covering the village, I was not able to assess what party the voters voted for or whether there was a competing ethnic Karen party. These electoral dynamics and how they play into border governance would be important for future studies. See Michael Lidauer's contribution to this special issue.

60 See also Kyed, Helene M., ‘Introduction to the Special Issue on Everyday Justice’, Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018, pp. iii–xxiiGoogle Scholar; MyJustice, Searching for Justice in Law: Understanding Access to Justice in Myanmar. Findings from the Myanmar Justice Survey 2017 (Yangon: MyJustice/EU/British Council, 2018); ‘Security, Justice and Governance in South East Myanmar. A Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Survey in Karen Ceasefire Areas’, Saferworld and Karen Peace Support Network Report, January 2019.

61 These forms of comparison were confirmed in our survey: 95 per cent of the survey respondents found that the KNU judges resolve cases fairly and treat people with respect (one respondent answered negatively, and one said that she did not know). By comparison, 75 per cent responded that they did not find the Myanmar state courts and police to be fair and respectful (15 per cent said that they did not know, and 10 per cent said that they were neither fair nor unfair).

62 Rösler and Wendl, Frontiers and Borderlands, p. 5.

63 Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed.

64 See the other contributions to this special issue.

65 On Myanmar, see Einzenberger, ‘Contested Frontiers’.

66 Brenner, Rebel Politics, p. 97.

67 Frontier, ‘Karen National Union Suspends Participation in Peace Talks’, Frontier, 29 October 2018, available at https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/karen-national-union-suspends-participation-in-peace-talks, [accessed on 25 November 2020]; McCarthy, Gerard and Farrelly, Nicholas, ‘Peri-Conflict Peace: Brokerage, Development and Illiberal Cease-Fires in Myanmar's Borderlands’, Conflict, Security and Development, Vol. 20, No. 1, 2020, pp. 141–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Brenner, Rebel Politics, p. 97.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid., p. 16.

71 Mampilly, Rebel Rulers; Harrisson and Kyed, ‘Ceasefire State-Making and Justice Provision’.

72 Brenner, Rebel Politics.

73 Ibid., p. 11.

74 Harrisson and Kyed, ‘Ceasefire State-Making and Justice Provision’.