Non-state armed groups in the Myanmar peace process: What are the future options?

In Myanmar/Burma the government and the many ethnic non-state armed groups (NSAGs) are close to signing a national ceasefire agreement that will end almost 65 years of conflict in the country's resource-rich borderlands. This is taking place alongside a transition from totalitarian military rule towards democracy, and a rapid influx of international aid agencies and foreign investors. While there is progress in the peace negotiations, the process has been contested and fighting has continued in Kachin state. A key controversy concerns the future status of the many NSAGs that represent different ethnic nationalities, such as the Karen and the Mon. The NSAG leaders demand a political settlement that allows them to retain arms and political positions within a federalist system. The government has now agreed to discuss a federal system, but this is not backed by the powerful Burmese army generals. Moreover, the term 'federalism' can have many meanings. Left out of the peace negotiation talks has been any open discussion of what will happen to the many middleand lower-ranked armed actors after an agreement has been reached. Failure to include this may be detrimental to sustainable peace and to the building of trust in the peace settlement. This paper is a preliminary attempt to discuss the future options for the members of the ethnic NSAGs in Myanmar: what 'exit' options do the NSAG members have after decades of conflict and, for many of them, entire lives spent inside the armed groups? How do they envision their future - as armed actors, civil servants, politicians, businessmen or something else? In addressing these questions we draw on interviews held in Mon and Karen states in January 2014 and on prior research. We engage with that segment of the international peacebuilding literature which debates the transformation of ex-combatants through different forms of ‘Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration’ (DDR) programmes. A core argument of the paper is that in the Myanmar context it is highly unlikely that conventional DDR programmes will suffice to support sustainable peace and stability. This is not only due to the exceptionally low involvement of international aid agencies in the peace process, but also because of the predominant focus in DDR programmes on disarmament and on economic incentives to successful integration. In Myanmar this overlooks key political motives behind both the causes of conflict and the negotiations for peace. It also ignores the fact that the NSAGs have enjoyed decades of state-like control over territories and people. Based on this, we do not take a point of departure in disarmament, but instead outline seven different integration options. These consist of a combination of different forms of political, economic, civil society and security sector integration. We call for more in-depth analyses of the armed groups in Myanmar as a complex and dynamic set of actors with various motives, aspirations and incentives. Finally, the paper concludes by reflecting on the future role of international aid agencies in the context of the peace process

Cosmology, Prophets, and Rebellion Among the Buddhist Karen in Burma and Thailand

This article probes into the historical details and the present practices of Karen Buddhist movements. The Christian Karen have had a dominant position in the media and scientific publications. However, the Buddhists are probably still the majority among the Pwo and Sgaw Karen. The recent split between the Christian Karen National Union and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Organization is a dramatic expression of the political role of religion. Religion, religious movements, and prophetic leaders are important elements in Karen identification and their relationship with neighboring peoples, states, and colonizers. Religious cosmology and rituals are not merely the essentials of their world view but also constitute modes of empowerment, which are analyzed and discussed in this paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork begun in 1970 among the Karen in Thailand on the border with Burma, as well as on archival research in London.Cet article examine le détail historique et les pratiques actuelles des mouvements bouddhistes karen. Alors que les Karen chrétiens ont joui d’une forte visibilité médiatique et scientifique, les bouddhistes sont probablement encore majoritaires parmi les Karen Pwo et Sgaw. La récente scission entre l’Union Nationale Karen (chrétienne) et l’Organisation Bouddhiste Karen Démocratique exprime de façon dramatique le rôle politique de la religion. La religion, les mouvements religieux et les chefs prophétiques sont autant d’importants facteurs identitaires pour les Karen dans leurs relations avec les peuples voisins, les États et les colonisateurs. La cosmogonie et les rituels religieux, formant la base de la vision karen du monde, constituent aussi des modes d’habilitation, que cet article analyse et discute à partir de données ethnographiques collectées depuis 1970 parmi les Karen de Thaïlande à la frontière birmane et d’une recherche d’archives à Londres

Creating Pan-Karen Identity: The Wrist Tying Ceremony in the United States

A movement to unite all Karen-language speaking people under the banner of a distinct and unified Karen identity has been afoot for more than a century. Buddhist and Christian Karens from Burma, now living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, are forging – and contesting – a universal Karen identity through the celebration of the “traditional” wrist tying ceremony. This articulation of pan-Karen identity is an example of Baumann and Gingrich\u27s (2004) theory of identity construction, which they call a “grammar of encompassment.” This case study shows that the theory, which claims that instances of encompassment are often contested by the encompassed (that is, the subordinate people whose alterity is denied), must be extended. In the United States, it is the encompassers (that is, the Christians who have greater economic and political power) who are the most deeply troubled by the denial of difference demanded by the discourse of encompassment