Peace in Name only

War and refugees will remain a fact of life in Burma as long as the root causes of conflict in the country’s borderlands remain unaddressed.

The rout of the ethnic Kokang militia, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, in northern Burma in late August has brought into stark relief what millions of people live with in Burma every day: conflict between the central state and non-state armed militias. For decades, clashes between the Burmese regime’s army and its myriad enemies have been forcing people into hiding or across borders. What is different about the recent fighting is that it involved China—not usually a country that tolerates refugees from Burma or instability along its borders.

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The cause of the latest outbreak of hostilities is the decision of Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to pressure cease-fire groups to transform their armies into border security guard forces before next year’s election. Under the SPDC plan, which was first proposed in April, the militias would be split up into battalions consisting of 326 soldiers, mostly from ethnic militias, but with a number of Burmese government army troops and officers. The deadline for a response to the plan was June, with training to begin in October.

Many groups have refused, and with good grounds. How could an armed group such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA), with an estimated 20,000 soldiers, practically accept such a demand under such a tight timeframe? The Kachin Independence Organization seems to have diplomatically rejected the junta’s demand by conditionally agreeing to it, but other groups have declined outright, leading to fears of a resumption of armed conflict.

Yet as negative as the potential consequences of the SPDC’s demands are, the status quo is equally bad, not just for national political reforms, but also for civilian protection. Burma’s hinterlands have for most of the past 20 years been ordered into a network of semi-autonomous cease-fire zones, run by politico-military armed groups often financed by investments in the narcotics trade, illegal logging, smuggling, transport and casino capitalism. From Mon State up the eastern borderlands and around Shan State to Kachin State, a string of “special regions” has emerged, often in an uneasy coexistence with central state forces based on verbal agreements with Burmese military leaders.

For the cease-fire groups, the dividends of this arrangement included some form of autonomy in future constitutional changes, as well as national and international development assistance. In return, they agreed to stop fighting. This pact has paid off handsomely for the leaders of the various groups, many of whom have amassed substantial fortunes. But for many of their “constituents,” the cessation of active conflict has only produced a tenuous peace.

Paradoxically, the number of armed groups in Burma has actually increased since the cease-fires, because of factionalism and local security requirements.

Burma has been through all of this before. In the 1960s, the Tatmadaw created Ka Kwe Ye (Home Guard) units, sometimes called “anti-insurgency forces,” from the private armies of local warlords. Pyithu Sit (People’s Militias) have also increased, especially in Shan State, where, as local motley bands of militia under the direction of Tatmadaw battalions, they often exist as the bottom feeders of the Burmese drug trade, acting little better than modern dacoits.

The Kokang showdown was preceded in a more peaceful, if not more productive, format, in early 2005, when the SPDC forced the surrender of the Palaung State Liberation Party. According to the Palaung Women’s Organization, the surrender dramatically increased suffering among the civilian population.

Two years later, in 2007, the small Shan State Nationalities People’s Liberation Organization split into three factions as a result of intensified pressure from the SPDC to surrender their weapons. One of their military leaders who broke the cease-fire and returned to active hostilities, Col Hkun Thu Rein, said, “We got nothing from the cease-fire.