An adequate understanding of internal displacement in Burma necessitates a conceptualisation of displaced villagers as political actors. This means realising that internal displacement arises from the overt policy of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to expand military control over all civilians and that attempts by those displaced to maintain their livelihoods directly challenges this policy. Perceiving the coping strategies of internally displaced persons (IDPs) as forms of non-violent resistance to the further militarization of their homelands is especially relevant for those civilians living in hiding.
The eastern ethnic regions of Burma are home to the country’s largest concentration of IDPs. The most recent estimates place the IDP population in this area at approximately 540,000; of which 92,000 are hiding in free-fire areas1. Although both rural and remote, these free-fire areas are the most actively disputed regions as armed opposition groups vie for control with SPDC and SPDC-backed troops.
Under the rubric of ‘counter insurgency’ tactics, SPDC forces target civilians living in these contested areas ostensibly to undermine support for insurgent activity. Villagers are perpetually harassed and often forcibly relocated to military-controlled resettlement sites. While SPDC officials claim internal displacement in such cases is a consequence of Burma’s civil war with armed opposition groups, it is more accurately explained as part of a national policy of complete militarization. Indeed, as the Karen Human Rights Group has observed, “abuses were never primarily intended to undermine the armed resistance – they are targeted at the civilian villagers, because they are intended to bring the villagers under direct military control”2. By removing civilians from remote contested areas the SPDC is able to further encroach on ethnic lands, conduct large-scale natural resource exploitation and undermine local cultural cohesion.
While regular military patrols, widespread landmine contamination and food insecurity are ever present, many of those displaced choose to remain in hiding at or near their abandoned villages rather than relocate to military-controlled areas, or flee, where possible, to neighbouring Thailand. In this way they can retain some control over their land and lives and resist further militarization.
Those IDPs choosing to remain in hiding face threats from both military forces troops and the natural environment. While in hiding, villagers are effectively outside of SPDC control. As such they are deemed enemies of the State and regularly shot on sight. When IDP hiding sites are discovered, the Tatmadaw (SPDC military) destroys all dwellings and loot whatever possessions are left by those who fled. Such attacks occur regularly throughout the year, requiring IDPs to repeatedly flee and preventing the establishment of any permanent settlements. The military destroys agricultural lands and food stores and plants landmines to prevent the return of villagers.
As a consequence of the poor living conditions that IDPs are forced into, illnesses are frequent and malnutrition is rife. The threats of military attack, food insecurity, and illness and injury are the primary obstacles to IDPs’ survival outside of military controlled settlements3. Furthermore, obstacles to education serve to curtail the intellectual growth of the next generation.
Given the SPDC’s aim of complete militarization over land and civilians, villagers’ attempts to live outside of military control become political acts. Survival becomes an act of resistance. The strategies IDPs use to cope with their situation oppose what would otherwise be the depopulation of their homeland and the establishment of military dominance over all aspects of civilian life.
In the face of direct military attacks, IDP communities have little choice but to flee their temporary lodgings, possessions in hand. The surest means by which civilians in hiding cope with recurring military patrols is through the establishment of early warning systems. Villagers in hiding typically establish observation posts to monitor the activity of SPDC and SPDC-backed troops. When patrols are sighted, those on lookout will run back to inform others at the hiding site. This is a particularly risky practice as those on sentry duty are typically unarmed and have often been shot dead when sighted by SPDC troops. Other measures supportive of IDPs’ early warning systems involve the exchange of information about troop movements with opposition patrols and other IDPs passing through a given area. Through such advanced warning IDPs are able to decrease the likelihood of being be detected and subsequently attacked.
The Tatmadaw’s policy of undermining IDP subsistence capacities negates the possibility of any sort of food security. Villagers often flee into hiding in conjunction with military relocation orders. Such orders are followed up with the destruction of village infrastructure including crops and the deployment of anti-personnel landmines within the village vicinity and throughout agricultural land. When fleeing their homes, villagers typically grab what clothing and provisions they can carry; most often this amounts to rice for no more than a few days to a week. Fear of landmines and SPDC patrols prevent IDPs from returning to tend their crops.
Knowing that military patrols could arrive any time, villagers often prepare emergency rice stores in the jungle to which they can return after displacement. These, however, are destroyed on sight by SPDC troops and villagers found storing rice in the jungle are accused of supporting insurgent forces. To supplement stored provisions, displaced villagers often grow cash crops like betel nut or cardamom which require less land and energy to sustain than rice. Profits from these crops are then used to buy rice. The risk that IDPs will be arrested upon entry into SPDC-controlled villages prevents IDPs from selling their produce at open markets. Temporary markets established in the jungles where IDPs are hiding allow them to make the required sales and purchases with other villagers. Alternatively, IDPs can sometimes borrow rice from those with enough to share. Also, by consuming meals of watered down rice porridge, villagers can often stretch their food reserves4.
Internally displaced villagers are forced to hide in unhygienic environments with limited protection from the elements. They also have limited education about preventable diseases and suffer from ailments such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, “gastric problems, coughs, anemia, worms, chest infections and skin disease”5 as well as “common colds, respiratory infections, digestive problems…, diarrhoea, dysentery, skin infections, vitamin deficiencies, dizziness, fatigue, and depression”6.
Occasionally, villagers are able to take limited medicine with them during their initial flight from home. These supplies are usually quite limited and IDPs often supplement them with traditional remedies of bark, roots and leaves available in the forest. Such treatment is often inadequate or ineffective. More extensive medical supplies are provided by opposition forces and backpacker health teams operating out of facilities across the border. Trained medics on these teams are able to provide some treatment; although demand outstrips supply.
Obstructions to education do not present direct threats to the present livelihoods of displaced villagers but they undermine the strength of future generations. As such, education is highly prized by those in hiding who do their utmost to provide educational opportunities for their children despite the obstacles inherent in internal displacement. IDPs are quick to establish whatever form of schooling is possible after military patrols depart from the area. Bamboo shelters serve as makeshift schools withstudents sitting on the ground. Villagers fabricate writing implements out of split bamboo and charcoal and those acting as teachers often have only a few years of basic education themselves.
These makeshift schools must close down immediately upon approach by SPDC patrols. When discovered, troops burn down all structures and materials left behind. Although disheartening, these search and destroy campaigns do little to frustrate the drive for education, as IDPs quickly establish new schools as the situation allows.
An understanding of IDPs as active agents resisting the militarization of their society through non-violent means is a necessary precursor to an adequate assessment of the phenomena of internal displacement as a whole. That IDPs in hiding chose to struggle through such dire conditions evinces how dismal the situation of abuse in SPDC-controlled villages really is. Although beyond the scope of the present article, the conceptualisation of displaced villagers as political actors has implications for humanitarian agencies seeking to address IDP issues and international bodies evaluating the SPDC’s responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. Such organisations would do well to support, through aid or advocacy, the coping strategies of those on the run, as they are the most capable of assessing the contextual needs of forced displacement.
Endnotes
Internal Displacement and Protection in Eastern Burma, Thailand Burma Border Consortium, October 2005
Karen Human Rights Group, “Seeing Through the Smoke of Ceasefires”, June 9th 2005
Karen Human Rights Group, “‘Peace’, or Control? The SPDC’s use of the Karen ceasefire to expand its control and repression of villagers in Toungoo District, Northern Karen State “, March 22nd 2005
Karen Human Rights Group, Enduring Hunger
Free Burma Rangers, “Medical Mission to IDPs: Southern Karen State March/April 2005”, August 28th 2005
Karen Human Rights Group, “Toungoo district: Civilians displaced by dams, roads, and military control”, August 19th 2005
To go to the other articles published in the March 2006 BI Newsletter click on the links below:
