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A Shifting Political Tide University of Amsterdam Faculty of Humanities, Department of History MA: History of International Relations A shifting political tide Thailand-Myanmar relations and the Karen Conflict 1988-1997 Supervisor R. van Dijk Second reader R. van der Veen MA Thesis by: R. Deckers 5879477 email: [email protected] Amsterdam, 9th of July 2015 1 2 Preface In February 2012 I bought a jacket at a local market store in the city of Hpa-An, Karen state, Myanmar. I did not realize what the flag on the jacket meant for millions of ethnic Karen. I asked the owner of my guesthouse. I had been reading up on Myanmar’s history, but what the owner said startled me. He told me about the war of the Karen National Union and the Burmese government. Since the Second World War fighting had never stopped in this region. I was not planning to go to Myanmar, but I am happy that I did back then. In September 2012 I started a Master’s degree History of International Relations. For one class I had to visit the website of the International Institute of Social History (IISH). To my surprise I came across several Myanmar related archives like the Burma Communist Party archive or the Burma Personal Papers collection. Finding the archives in the IISH really felt like an opportunity to do research on Myanmar. My time as an intern early 2014 at the Dutch Refugee Foundation or Stichting Vluchteling drew my attention to the refugee question in Thailand of which the causes lay inside Myanmar. In the second half of 2014 I decided to go on an exchange semester with the specific goal to follow courses on Myanmar history and related fields. It was at the National University of Singapore from August to December 2014 where the subject I would do research on took shape. After my study time in Singapore I had the chance to travel to both Thailand and Myanmar. Through the Dutch Refugee Foundation I was offered the opportunity to visit two refugee camps in Mae Hong Son province, in the north of Thailand close to the border with Myanmar in November 2014. Later that same week I visited Dr. Cynthia Maung’s clinic and the Back Packer Health Worker Team in Mae Sot, central-west Thailand. On the final day of that week I had a meeting with David Arnott, the creator of the largest online Myanmar archive, www.burmalibrary.org. Meeting Mr. Arnott and visiting the regufeecamps and different NGO’s was a learnful experience. Seeing how international aid was provided really felt like a final stage of my internship. But what caused all this? What lay at the root of these problems? And how can we solve it? Three years later this master thesis is the result of something that started in that market store in Hpa-an, the capital of Karen state. My internship at the Dutch Refugee Foundation provided me with much background information on the Karen conflict in Myanmar. In Singapore I met many Burmese and other professors who helped to shape my thoughts. My time in Singapore gave me a chance to visit refugee camps in Thailand and to meet with Eef Vermeij, the person who works for the IISH in Southeast Asia. He made sure I got permission to enter the archives of the Karen National Union. Upon return in the Netherlands I found the Burma Peace Foundation and the Karen National Union archives useful. Unfortunately time was against me and if ever given the chance I wish to extend this research and use all the sources found in the IISH at their fullest potential. 3 Index Preface 3 Terminology 5 Introduction 6 Map 10 1. Thai-Burma Relations in Historical Perspective 11 1.1 The Karen 12 1.2 World War II and the rise of the Cold War in Southeast Asia 15 2. The End of the Cold War: Thai-Myanmar relations 1988-1997 19 2.1. 1988 and its aftermath 20 2.2. Thailand in the 1980’s 22 2.3 Thai-Myanmar trade: Logging, Oil, Gas and refugees 24 3. 1988-1997 and the Karen National Union 28 3.1 Thailand as a safehaven 29 3.2 Rising Pressure 31 3.3 Cross-border trade 34 3.4 The Karen Borderland 36 Conclusion 37 Archives 40 Bibliography 40 4 Terminology Burma/Myanmar: In 1989 the military junta of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) renamed the country ‘Myanmar Naing-ngan’. Several other place names were changed too, for example ‘Rangoon’ has become ‘Yangon’ and ‘Tavoy’ has become ‘Dawei’. I use the old terms when I refer to the period before 1989. I use the new names when I refer to the period during or after 1989. SLORC/Tatmadaw: Both terms refer to the military junta of Myanmar. The SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) forms the political branch of the same military institute. The SLORC are military men who turned to politics but who function as an instrument of the Tatmadaw. The Tatmadaw is a Burmese name for the top officials of the Burmese military. In my thesis I use the two terms interchangeably. The Karen/KNU: The Karen are Myanmar’s largest ethnic minority and the Karen National Union is their largest political and military organization. There are at least 10 other Karen organizations. The Karen are called the Kayin by the government of Myanmar ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Comparable to the European Union (EU) BPF: Burma Peace Foundation. British Non-governmental Organization (NGO) which worked for the United Nations. IISH: International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Nation-states: I have used the definition of Max Weber: A nation-state is a continuous legal administrative apparatus exercising control over a certain territory and holds the monopoly on the right of using violence. 5 Introduction “From the late 1980s, Thai policy regarding its neighbors changed from one of surreptitiously undermining rivals and traditional enemies through supporting armed groups in the border areas to a strategy of directly engaging national governments.”1 During the Cold War the foreign policy of Thailand was based on creating buffer zones to protect Thailand’s borders. The largest minority group of Myanmar, known as the Karen, have been waging a war against the government of Myanmar since 1949 to gain independence or more autonomy. The Karen live mainly along the Thai-Myanmar border and thus the Karen have received support from the Thai government to act as a buffer.2 At the end of the 1980’s support from Thai authorities for the Karen’s armed struggle vanished.3 What caused this change? Why did Thailand diverge from its traditional foreign policy of using buffer zones? Why did Myanmar cooperate in the newly found bilateral relation? And secondly, how did this new relationship influence the development of the Karen Conflict? The armed struggle of the Karen is known as the longest civil war in the world. The conflict broke out in 1949 and has been raging on since 1949.4 From 1962 the Burmese military ruled the state of Burma and introduced ‘The Burmese Way to Socialism’. The next twenty-five years the economic situation of Myanmar5 worsened. The Karen, a group of 5 to 7 million people, profited from this situation by levying taxes. The Karen started controlling border posts between Thailand and Myanmar to levy taxes on products entering the black market trade of Myanmar from Thailand. In the 1980s the first Karen refugee camps sprang up on Thai soil. These refugee camps are known to have been used by Karen rebels to prepare for clashes with the Myanmar government.6 While Myanmar followed an economic policy based on Marxism, Thailand became an American base in the 1960s and gradually developed an economy based on capitalist principles. In the 1980s the Thai economy grew exponentially every year opposed to a worsening economic situation in Myanmar.7 Throughout the twentieth century contact between Thailand and Myanmar was minimal. By the 1980s Burma was one of the poorest states in the world. The capitalist urge of Thailand’s elite to make use of the extraordinary rich resources of Myanmar combined with the Myanmarese government financial bankruptcy moved the elites of both states to establish relations in 1988, which pushed the Karen in a difficult position. The struggle for power between the USA and the Soviet Union influenced the Southeast Asian region deeply. Thailand became an American military base to fight communists in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Thailand thus came in the American sphere of influence and capitalism became the accepted system of the economy. Burma followed a neutralist policy internationally, however foreign relations were established with communist China. For this 1 South, A., “Burma’s Longest War. Anatomy of the Karen Conflict.” Transnationale Institute/Burma Center Netherlands, (Amsterdam, 2011) pp. 1-53, p. 20. 2 South, A., “Burma Longest War. Anatomy of the Karen Conflict.” Transnational Institute/Burma Center Netherlands, (Amsterdam, 2011), pp.1-53, p. 20. 3 South, “Burma’s longest war.”, p. 20 and 34 and A. Rajah, “Contemporary Developments in Kawthoolei: The Karen and Conflict Resolution in Burma.” Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter 19, 1992, (http://www.nectec.or.th/thai- yunnan/19.html#3) and J. Brouwer & J. van Wijk “Helping Hands: external support for the KNU insurgency in Burma.” In: Small Wars & Insurgencies, Vol. 24, No. 5, pp. 835-856, p. 840. 4 Nijhuis, M., Birma. Land van geheimen. (Amsterdam, 2009), p. 21. 5 The Burmese government renamed the country ‘Myanmar’ in 1988. When I use the term ‘Burma’ I thereby refer to the country before 1988.
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