Spaces of Extraction Governance Along the Riverine Networks of Nyaunglebin District

MYANMAR – THE STATE, COMMUNITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT Spaces of extraction Governance along the riverine networks of Nyaunglebin District Ken MacLean Contemporary maps prepared by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) place most of Nyaunglebin District in eastern Pegu Division. Maps drawn by the Karen National Union (KNU), however, place much of the same region within the western edge of Kaw Thoo Lei, its term for the ‘free state’ the organisation has struggled since 1948 to create. Not surprisingly, the district’s three townships have different names and overlapping geographic boundaries and administrative structures, particularly in remote regions of the district where the SPDC and the KNU continue to exercise some control. These competing efforts to assert control over the same space are symptomatic of a broader concern that is the focus here, namely: how do conflict zones become places that can be governed? What strategies and techniques are used to produce authority and what do they reveal about existing forms of governance in Burma? In considering these questions, this chapter explores the emergence of governable spaces in Shwegyin Township, which comprises the southern third of Nyaunglebin District (Figure 11.1). SPACES OF EXTRACTION Figure . Shwegyin Township Mining Area MYANMAR – THE STATE, COMMUNITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT For decades, the SPDC and the KNU fought one another to control the riverine systems in Nyaunglebin District, and with them the flow of people, information, food and other commodities in the region. During the mid 1990s, efforts to extract the district’s natural resources intensified and more regulated forms of violence have since largely replaced lethal ones, at least where primary commodities are found. This chapter describes how the topography of these riverine systems shapes struggles by different state and non-state actors to control access to such valuable resources. Special attention is focused on the different ways military battalions and private business interests compete and collude with one another to produce a compliant labour force in low-lying areas where alluvial gold deposits are extracted and hydroelectricity is to be utilised. The data, drawn from field research conducted in the township between 2001 and 2005, reveal some of the contradictions that have accompanied efforts to consolidate centralised state control of Shwegyin Township (MacLean and Mahn Nay Myo 2002; ERI and KESAN 2003; ERI 2005; MacLean forthcoming). Governable spaces The term ‘governable spaces’ was coined by Nikolas Rose to explore the nature and the practice of government—what Foucault defined in his path-breaking lectures on governmentality as the ‘conduct of conduct’ (Rose 1999:31–4; Foucault 1991 [1978]). Who, in other words, can govern? What constitutes governing in a particular cultural and historical context? And what or who is being governed? To help answer these questions, which are far more complex than they first appear, Rose disaggregates the practice of government into four components so as to more fully examine how changes in the relationship between resources, territoriality and identity produce distinct kinds of spaces.1 The first component concerns the ways by which sub-populations are definedvis- à-vis one another along axes of difference such as age, gender, language, ethnicity, religion, class, comportment and so on. The second involves the techniques of government through which authority is constituted SPACES OF EXTRACTION and rule accomplished. The third emphasises the types of thought, calculation and expertise brought to bear in government—concerns that are not reducible either to those of ideology or economics. Lastly, the fourth stresses the forms of identification that produce governable subjects, who need specific kinds of ‘official’ documentation to be eligible for services and to exercise particular rights (see Watts 2004). All four components are, of course, relevant for understanding the diverse forms of government that have emerged in Burma’s former conflict zones. Moreover, the components are interrelated and, ideally, they should be examined in relation to the others rather than separately. The discussion that follows, however, focuses more narrowly and concretely on the second component in order to make sense of the socioeconomic and ecological transformations that have occurred in Shwegyin Township in the past decade (c. 1996–2006). It is important to note at the outset that these transformations, which will be described shortly, have resulted in contradictory outcomes, which simultaneously extend and fragment centralised state control of spaces where natural resources—in this instance, gold and hydroelectricity— are located.2 As a consequence, current politico-administrative maps of Burma have become little more than ‘cartographic illusions’ (Ohmae 1995:7) that fail to depict accurately how these areas and the resource concessions located within them are governed—and by whom. A more accurate representation would require dynamic maps with multiple layers to convey how momentary economic alliances anchored to particular resource bases have created ‘mosaics of territorial control’ (Hardin 2002:ii), which have further dislocated populations and devastated the ecosystems they rely on. The findings also complicate analyses that continue to stress ethno-nationalist struggles as the primary cause of the SPDC’s counter-insurgency campaigns, something it regularly justifies by claiming that theTatmadaw (army) is the only institution capable of preserving ‘national unity’ and the ‘territorial integrity’ of Burma (ICG 2001; Houtman 1999:59–120). The evidence presented here instead indicates that revenue streams and not national security concerns have long dominated the agenda of 0 MYANMAR – THE STATE, COMMUNITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT the Tatmadaw’s battalions in Nyaunglebin District. Moreover, regulatory agencies there have little or no ability to enforce existing laws related to the sustainable management of the country’s resources. Recent reports published on the extractive industries operating elsewhere in Burma suggest this state of affairs is not limited to the district’s waterways, but increasingly effects the country as a whole (see, for example, Global Witness 2003; Images Asia and PKDS 2004; Karen Rivers Watch 2004; and Thaung and Smith in this volume). If true, this means that much of Burma’s remaining natural capital is under serious threat. Background Nyaunglebin District is a study in contrasts. The Tatmadaw has controlled large areas of the district for decades, especially urban areas and the low-lying plains, which form a narrow strip of fertile land on both sides of the Sittaung River. As a consequence, before 2006, these areas experienced only three waves of large-scale, state-sponsored violence, each of which entailed the forced relocation of thousands of Karen civilians: in 1975–1982, 1988–1990 and 1997–99 (Karen Rivers Watch 2004:26; BERG 1998). Interestingly, oral histories collected from those affected indicate that the extractive industries continued to operate through all but the worst moments of violence during each of these waves (MacLean forthcoming; ERI and KESAN 2003:27). Official statistics also support these claims. Despite the violence, mining operations in Shwegyin Township were able to extract significant, if varying, amounts of gold during the third wave: 31 kilograms in 1988; 124kg in 1989; 26kg in 1990; and 145kg in 1991 (Pui-Kwan 1991:62). While further research is necessary, the information suggests counter-insurgency operations were not antithetical to the pursuit of profit; rather, they appear to have facilitated the expansion and intensification of the extractive industries in the township (see also Frynas 1998; Ferguson 2006).3 This is not to suggest that violence has disappeared entirely; abuses remain widespread and continue to grow more entrenched and burdensome, SPACES OF EXTRACTION particularly in areas where valuable resources are found. The violence in the concessions is, however, now largely regulated. In contrast, the Karen living in the rugged hills that cover approximately 75 per cent of Nyaunglebin District have endured near- constant warfare, suffering and loss for the past five decades (KHRG 2001a). Despite the existence of a verbal cease-fire agreement,tatmadaw battalions have continued to carry out counter-insurgency operations in remote areas where the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA, the military wing of the KNU) still exercises some de facto control. Since January 2004, when the informal cease-fire began, at least seven more villages have been abandoned out of fear or destroyed by the Tatmadaw. Tatmadaw units have also built seven new military bases in the district using forced labour. In 2005, renewed military operations in Kyauk Kyi Township, which borders Shwegyin to the north, displaced another 5,900 civilians, raising the total number of internally displaced people in eastern Pegu (Bago) Division to 21,300 (TBBC 2005:23–4). An unknown number of people died during this period—directly from the conflict, through mistreatment by soldiers, or from hunger, injuries and treatable diseases. The most recent offensive, which began in March 2006 in the northern and western parts of the district, will undoubtedly raise the number of displaced people by as much as another 22,000 (TBBC 2006:22, 37–9). Surprisingly little is known, however, about the forms of governance in the transition zone between the plains and the

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