OxMo-Vol.-3-No.-1

Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration Vol. 3, No. 1
A British Legacy Forced Migration, Displacement and Conflict in Eastern Burma
Abstract
By Daniel Murphy
Colonial-era migratory movements were profoundly transformational. This article, however,
examines an instance of contemporary, conflict-induced forced migration - that of the Karen
in eastern Burma – situating it within the context of Burma’s colonial past. It argues that the
British imposition of notions of territorial sovereignty, the importation of a politics of
ethnicity and religiosity and the decolonisation process were ultimate causative factors in the
emergence of conflict, and hence forced migration, in Eastern Burma. Structural conditions
by which post-independence displacement has been reproduced as an experience of Karen
communities are situated within a historicised political economy of narco-trafficking and
transnational engagement. In doing so, this article references current crises in Kachin and
Rakhine states and calls for an intensification of international pressure to resolve Burma's ongoing
human rights abuses and provide support to those affected by displacement.
Introduction
On January 12 th 2012, leaders from the Karen National Union (KNU) met with
representatives of the Burmese government to sign a ceasefire agreement, bringing the
world’s longest running civil war to a close. This historic agreement, which remains stable
excluding minor breaches, could result in the return of thousands of Karen refugees from
Thailand. The number of Karen in Burma remains difficult to estimate due to unreliable
census data. At anything from 7 to12% of the total population, they are second only to the
Shan as the most sizeable minority group amongst an ethnic Burman majority, whilst in
Thailand they constitute the principal ethnic minority, numbering around 400,000 (BRU
2009). Figure 1 (see appendix) situates the largest and most widely dispersed Karen subgroup
- the S’Gaw.
Out of an estimated 1,400,000 legal and illegal Burmese migrants in Thailand, an unknown
but significant proportion is ethnically Karen. The Karen constitute the majority of
Thailand’s 160,000 refugees residing in nine United Nations High Commission for Refugees’
(UNHCR) camps hugging the Thai-Burmese border while an estimated 500,000 have been
displaced within Burma. The categorical blurring between forced and economic migrants in
the Burmese case is significant (Bosson 2007), suggesting the number of forcibly displaced is
much higher than those receiving UNHCR assistance.
Research overwhelmingly shows that the Karen migrate to escape conflict and human rights
abuses including forced labour, use of child soldiers, torture, extortion, human minesweeping,
sexual violence and razing of villages (see Cusano 2001; HRW 2005). Accounting fully for
Karen forced migration, however, necessitates an anatomy of the 63 year long KNU and
Tatmadaw (Burmese armed forces) conflict. The following is thus a substantiation of the
hypothesis that colonial-era factors stand as ultimate causes in relation to the emergence of
post-independence conflict and, ipso facto, forced migration in Eastern Burma.
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