ENABLING WAR and PEACE: DRUGS, LOGS, GEMS, and WILDLIFE in THAILAND and BURMA the BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: CENTER for EAST ASIA POLICY STUDIES Ii Contents

EAST ASIA POLICY PAPER 7 DECEMBER 2015 Enabling War and Peace Drugs, Logs, Gems, and Wildlife in Thailand and Burma Vanda Felbab-Brown Brookings recognizes that the value it provides to any supporter is in its absolute commitment to quality, independence, and impact. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment, and the analysis and recommendations of the Institution’s scholars are not determined by any donation. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Tom Kramer, Ashley South, James Windle, and Natasha Hamilton-Hart for their invaluable comments and detailed exchanges with me on this project, and Bradley Porter for his superb research assistance. Any remaining deficiencies are solely mine. A version of this paper was presented at the 5th annual East Asian Peace Conference, “Regional Peace and Domes- tic Conflict,” in Singapore in November 2015, organized by the East Asian Peace Program of Uppsala University and the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore. ENABLING WAR AND PEACE: DRUGS, LOGS, GEMS, AND WILDLIFE IN THAILAND AND BURMA THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: CENTER FOR EAST ASIA POLICY STUDIES ii Contents Executive Summary . .iv Introduction..........................................................1 Narcoterrorism and Its Fallacies, Narcopeace and Its Limitations ................5 Thailand . 8 Burma.............................................................15 Conclusions ........................................................28 Policy Recommendations..............................................30 ENABLING WAR AND PEACE: DRUGS, LOGS, GEMS, AND WILDLIFE IN THAILAND AND BURMA THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: CENTER FOR EAST ASIA POLICY STUDIES iii Executive Summary his policy paper explores the relation- NLD will become far more involved in the ne- ship between conflict, peace dynamics, gotations, having drawn important support from and drugs and other illicit economies in the contested ethnic areas allowed to participate TThailand and Myanmar/Burma since the 1960s in the election. At the same time, the NLD and through the current period. In both cases, drugs Suu Kyi (whatever her formal title in the new gov- and other illicit economies fueled insurgencies ernment will be) will need to carefully structure and ethnic separatism. Yet both Myanmar and and calibrate their relationships with external do- Thailand are in different ways (controversial) ex- nors and trading partners, such as China and the emplars of how to suppress conflict in the con- United States, many of which will seek to shape text of the drugs-conflict nexus. They both show policies toward drugs and other extractive and il- that the central premise of the narcoinsurgency/ legal economies, including logging, mining, and narcoterrorism conventional approach—in order wildlife trafficking. to defeat militants, bankrupt them by destroying the illicit drug economy on which they rely—was ineffective and counterproductive. At the same Key Findings time, however, in both Thailand and Myanmar, recent anti-drug policies have either generated Thailand has become a paragon of how to imple- new hidden violent social conflict or threaten to ment alternative livelihoods to wean local popu- unravel the fragile ethnic peace. The leading re- lations off of cultivating illicit crops. Yet the strat- search finding and policy implications are: While egy’s success was critically enabled by Thailand’s illicit economies fuel conflict, their suppression is suspension of the eradication of illicit crops while often counterproductive for ending conflict and can the ethnic insurgency among the poppy-cultivat- provoke new forms of conflict. Prioritization and se- ing ethnic minorities was underway. Suspending quencing of government efforts to end conflict and eradication and thus being able to win the popu- reduce illicit economies is crucial. So is recognizing lation’s allegiance was crucial. But well-designed, that suppressing poppy at the cost of exacerbating alternative livelihoods only became effective long logging or wildlife trafficking is not an adequate after violent conflict had ended. policy outcome. Recently, however, Thailand’s drug policies have Learning the right lessons is acutely important for been the source of a new kind of violent conflict: Burma/Myanmar, which, after the overwhelming In early 2003, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra victory of the National League for Democracy launched a zero-tolerance “war on drugs.” In ad- (NLD), led by Aung Sang Suu Kyi in the Novem- dition to many arrested, an estimated 3,000 people ber 2015 elections, is entering a new political or- were killed during the “war.” A new phase of the war der and a new phase in peace negotiations with is currently underway, resulting in the arrest of al- ethnic separatist groups. Although the Myanmar most 285,000 people in 2015 alone. As before, this military will not give up its influence on the eth- war on drugs is counterproductive when it comes to nic peace processes, Aung San Suu Kyi and the addressing the threats and harms posed by drug use ENABLING WAR AND PEACE: DRUGS, LOGS, GEMS, AND WILDLIFE IN THAILAND AND BURMA THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: CENTER FOR EAST ASIA POLICY STUDIES iv and the drug trade. It also violates human rights. It Key Policy Recommendations should not be seen by either Thai society or the international community as legitimizing the mili- Contrary to the conventional wisdom, suppress- tary junta that seized power in 2014. ing labor-intensive illicit economies does not re- lieve military conflict, it exacerbates it. Accord- Burma is yet another case where laissez-faire ingly, the opposite sequencing and prioritization policies toward illicit economies were central to of policy is often required: the government’s ability to reduce and suspend military conflict. However, the policies adopted • In order to end insurgencies, whether in Burma provide a new twist on laissez-faire: in through a victory on the battlefield, by that it was not used by the government to win the weaning local populations from supporting hearts and minds of the population, but rather to belligerent groups, or through peace deals buy off and co-opt the belligerents and the traf- that give insurgent groups an economic fickers themselves. Indeed the centerpiece of the stake in the peace, governments may have ceasefires of the early 1990s was the junta’s acqui- temporarily to tolerate labor-intensive illicit escence to the belligerents’ continued trade with economies, such as drug cultivation. any of the goods in their territories—including drugs, minerals, timber, and wildlife. • However, for such a peace to be both sus- tainable and satisfactory from a public Renegotiating the ethnic ceasefires of the 1990s goods perspective, the social and economic into permanent negotiated settlements is one of the development of former conflict areas will be essential determinants of whether lasting peace is necessary to prevent undesirable unregulat- established and Myanmar’s transition from author- ed and illegal economies, such as logging itarianism succeeds. Yet it is not clear whether the and wildlife trafficking. economic inducements à la the 1990s can any lon- • Conversely, for alternative livelihoods pro- ger be available. First, the international oversight, grams to be effective in reducing such un- including China’s, is far more determined to not al- desirable economies in a lasting way, good low the perpetuation of illicit economies in Myan- security needs to be established in the rural mar, such as a resurrected poppy economy. Sec- regions. This means that the ending of mili- ond, many more actors, including Bamar groups tary conflict needs to be given priority. and Chinese enterprises, are now intermeshed in a variety of Myanmar’s economies, including illegal • Alternative livelihoods must address all the logging and land seizure, squeezing out ethnic par- structural drivers of illicit economies. They ticipants. For many reasons, beyond but including must encompass generation of sufficient the management of illicit economies and economic employment opportunities, such as through interests, some of the peace negotiations are break- the promotion of high-value high-labor-in- ing down, and violent conflicts are restarting. At tensive crops as well as through off-farm in- the same time, many of the economies which have come, infrastructure building, distribution underpinned peace and sometimes replaced the of new technologies, marketing help and opium poppy economies—including logging, min- the development of value-added chains, ing, and wildlife trafficking—have had devastating facilitation of local microcredit, establish- environmental effects. ment of access to land without the need to ENABLING WAR AND PEACE: DRUGS, LOGS, GEMS, AND WILDLIFE IN THAILAND AND BURMA THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: CENTER FOR EAST ASIA POLICY STUDIES v participate in the illicit economy, and de- as contrary to their human security and velopment of off-farm income opportuni- hence can be internalized. Thus, providing ties—to name a few of the most prominent desirable legal economic alternatives facili- components. A combination of purposeful tates policing and rule of law. village-level rural development and broad • However, alternative livelihoods strategies job-generating economic development is must become far more sensitive to their necessary. environmental impacts. Underpinning a • They also need to be integrated into over- peace deal with unrestrained destruction of all development strategies,

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