ABSTRACT
Introduction On a remote stretch of the Salween River, between the proposed Dar Gwin and Wei Gyi hydropower dam sites and where it forms the border between Thailand and Myanmar (Burma),1 sits the Ei Tu Hta camp for ethnic Karen internally displaced peoples (IDPs) in Karen National Union (KNU) controlled Myanmar. The family of Hsiplopo, the leader of this camp, live three hours walk away but he is unable to visit them because the tatmadaw, the Myanmar military with which the KNU has been engaged in the world’s longest running civil war, have camps that are only two hours walk away. The camp is also built on steep hillsides, denuding the forest cover in the limited area available, and is unable to grow its own rice, relying instead on regular donations from the UN and other NGOs shipped upriver by longtail boat.2 This type of human and environmental insecurity colours the daily existence of both the Karen people in this camp and many other ethnic minorities in Myanmar. Nevertheless, despite these conditions, Hsiplopo’s commitment to a campaign against the proposed nearby dams is resolute: ‘We don’t want dams . . . the military cannot build the dams because the KNU will not let them while the people do not want them.’3 This stance reflects the opposition to the dams of many environmental activists and groups who inhabit the nebulous and dangerous borderlands regions of eastern Myanmar. It also represents a form of activated citizenship although the concept of citizenship for ethnic minorities in Myanmar is itself problematic as their relationship to the Myanmar state is often little more than one of oppression and conflict. Despite the civil conflict in these areas, and perhaps because of it, these activists often operate beyond the remit of the tatmadaw undertaking perilous work with the KNU to promote human and environmental security for ethnic minorities. As an activist from the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) explains: ‘KESAN’s programs are in the KNU area [in Myanmar] so we have a close relationship with the KNU leaders.’4 It can be difficult for environmental activists in the North, for whom this precarious
existence is entirely foreign, to fully comprehend the existential struggle that dictates much environmental activism in the South, particularly under authoritarian regimes such as that of Myanmar, which has been dominated by the military since 1962. As a result, many Northern environment movements, and the American environment movement in particular, have been historically apolitical with the issues of ‘human health, shelter, and food security’ traditionally absent from their agendas (Doyle 2005, 26). This lack of political analysis on the issues of central importance to survival in the South and the movements they spawn is also reflected within many academic writings on environmental politics. Despite an increased focus on the environment in the last two decades, most approaches to environmental politics still examine predominantly ecological issues or regulatory regimes and focus particularly on the affluent states of the North (Howes 2005; Kutting 2000; Paehlke and Torgerson 2005). Although there has been increased attention on environmental movements in recent years, much of the material also focuses primarily on movements within the North (Carter 2007; Doherty 2002; Doyle 2000; Dryzek et al. 2003; Gottlieb 2005; Hutton and Connors 1999; Rootes 2007; Sandler and Pezzullo 2007; Shabecoff 1993). There has been some analysis of environment movements in the South (Doherty 2006; Doherty and Doyle 2006; Doyle 2005; Duffy 2006; Dwivedi 1997, 2001), and various studies of transnational activism more generally (della Porta et al. 2006; Eschle and Maiguashca 2005; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Reitan 2007; Routledge et al. 2006; Rupert 2000), but only limited studies on how authoritarianism in the South specifically impacts on environmental activism (Doyle and Simpson 2006) or policy (Fredriksson and Wollscheid 2007). There are numerous studies that examine civil society under authoritarianism more broadly but these tend to focus on more traditional and formalised civil society organisations (Jamal 2007; Liverani 2008; Sater 2007). This chapter adds to this literature by delving more deeply into environmental politics under the military in Myanmar and examines the transnational campaigns against several proposed hydroelectric dams on the Salween River in eastern Myanmar. As transnational projects these dams are being undertaken by governments and transnational corporations (TNCs) but, as with most large energy projects in Myanmar, they are designed to export most of their electricity to either Thailand or China. Despite national elections in November 2010 that returned Myanmar to nominally civilian rule the 2008 constitution, on which the elections were based, provides for a continuing central role for the military in the country’s governance (Holliday 2008). Although the election process was flawed, fraudulent and tightly controlled, with many generals from the former military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC),5 merely stepping out of their uniforms to take up senior positions in the new government, there is little doubt that incremental change towards civilian rule is occurring and the potential for political discourse in Myanmar may well improve over time. While many exiled or human rights groups rightly point out that civil conflict and human rights abuses, particularly in the eastern border regions, continue,6 some analysts, such as the
former International Labour Organization (ILO) Liaison Officer in Myanmar, Richard Horsey, are more optimistic about the ‘new level of scrutiny’ (Horsey 2011, 4) that has accompanied the new parliament. The current Liaison Officer, Steve Marshall, who is possibly more intimately involved with the new government than any other Westerner likewise argues that ‘there is no doubt that the political landscape has changed’.7 This top down political change has accompanied a less visible but nonetheless significant increase in domestic civil society activism in recent years and particularly since Cyclone Nargis in 2008 (Sabandar 2010; South 2004). The main beneficiaries of this opening have been humanitarian NGOs that have focused on emergency relief to natural disasters such as Nargis and Cyclone Giri in 2010,8 but there has also been increased activity by environmental groups and NGOs. These groups, as with all those actors who wish to avoid sanction or imprisonment in Myanmar, engage in a certain amount of self-censorship to avoid overtly political critiques of the government but there is increasing space available for pursuing third sector environmental governance. This increased domestic activism has improved the prospects of collaboration between domestic and exiled groups with prominent domestic environmentalists running trainings on the border or in Thailand for exiled groups such as KESAN.9 Regardless of recent changes, however, after five decades of authoritarian rule the local environmental movement remains embryonic with significant limitations in experience and expertise. It has, therefore, been the transnational environment movement occupying Myanmar’s borderlands that has provided the most fertile and important outlet for environmental activism and governance of large-scale hydropower projects in Myanmar.10 This case study therefore suggests that, whereas hybrid regimes offer domestic spaces for political competition and therefore foster domestic civil society (Diamond 2002; Jayasuriya and Rodan 2007; Levitsky and Way 2002), traditional authoritarian regimes such as that which has afflicted Myanmar are more likely to create an activist diaspora, a dynamic transnational community of expatriates who engage in environmental activism in borderland regions or neighbouring countries. As this case study demonstrates, an activist diaspora tends to transcend ethnic divisions and therefore provides a multi-ethnic cohesion which is often absent from the broader exile community. As ‘divide and conquer’ has been one of the tatmadaw’s main strategies in neutralising opposition by ethnic minorities, Myanmar’s activist diaspora may contribute to more potent domestic social movements that promote democracy, human rights and environmental security in Myanmar.
