Against a backdrop of local, regional and national conflicts the former generals now in government, have decided to focus on tourism and have worked hard since 2010 to develop Burma’s tourism sector. Ngapali, a small costal community in Rakhine state has been developed into a tourism destination with hotels and restaurants, all located on a beautiful beach. Tourism has great implications for communities, both negative and positive. For Ngapali the development of tourism led to an increased amount of jobs in the tourism sector. The access to hospitality training and education also increased. Educated and trained staff were able to demand higher wages for themselves and they managed to access further hospitality training at other tourist destinations in Burma. The few Burmese Rohingya employed at the hotels did unfortunately not share this rather empowered position the Burmese Buddhists had as they fell victim to severe discrimination. Unfortunately the development of tourism in Ngapali led to a conflict between the hotels located at the beach and the fishermen who traditionally had used the beach for drying fish. The lack of participation from local population in the development of tourism was also problematic. The Burmese government chose to design the tourism sector in Ngapali as they pleased without taking the local community into account. The use of hotel zones, sand mining, lack of infrastructure thus leading all tourists to fly to Ngapali, the fact that the hotels used already scarce water and electricity resources and the discrimination and ill-treatment of marginalized groups made the tourism sector unsustainable. In addition to these local conflicts and issues the over-all situation in Rakhine, and even Burma, make the future for Ngapali as a tourism destination very uncertain.

abstract: Since the 1988 uprising, a transnational advocacy network has formed around the issue of democracy and human rights in Burma. Within this transnational advocacy network, personal narratives of trauma have been promulgated in both international and oppositional news media and human rights reports. My thesis critically analyzes the use of the trauma narrative for advocacy purposes by the transnational advocacy network that has emerged around Burma and reveals the degree to which these narratives adhere to a Western, individualistic meta-narrative focused on political and civil liberties. Examining the "boomerang" pattern and the concept of marketability of movements, I highlight the characteristics of the 1988 uprising and subsequent opposition movement that attracted international interest. Reflecting on the psychological aspects of constructing trauma narratives, I then review the scholarship which links trauma narratives to social and human rights movements. Using a Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis, I subsequently explain my methodology in analyzing the personal narratives I have chosen. Beyond a theoretical discussion of trauma narratives and transnational advocacy networks, I analyze the use of personal narratives of activists involved in the 1988 uprising and the emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi's life story as a compelling narrative for Western audiences. I then explore the structure of human rights reports which situate personal narratives of trauma within the framework of international human rights law. I note the differences in the construction of traumatic narratives of agency and those of victimization. Finally, using Cyclone Nargis as a case study, I uncover the discursive divide between human rights and humanitarian actors and their use of personal narratives to support different discursive constructions of the aid effort in the aftermath of the cyclone. I conclude with an appeal to a more reflexive approach to advocacy work reliant on trauma narratives and highlight feminist methodologies that have been successful in bringing marginalized narratives to the center of human rights discussions. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social Justice and Human Rights 2011

The Rohingya, an ethnic minority group that traditionally have lived in Rakhine State, Myanmar, are facing severe structural discrimination from the Myanmar state. Rohingya women and girls have experienced horrific acts of gender-based violence from the Myanmar army in Rakhine State before they fled to Bangladesh and the refugee camps in Cox Bazar area. In these refugee camps gender-based violence continues to be widespread, much like other refugee camps in other parts of the world. Rohingya women and girls are vulnerable because of their gender, refugee status and ethnic affiliation. In addition they become even more vulnerable because family and community structures have broken down. These intersecting vulnerabilities make them exposed to gender-based violence from a number of different perpetrators. In addition these intersecting vulnerabilities lead to a lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services. Overall the humanitarian organisations operating in Cox Bazar did not manage to deliver these sexual and reproductive health services to the amount of Rohingya women and girls that needed them. Although gender-based violence was identified to be widespread in the refugee camps preventive measures were few. The unequal power relationships are identified as an underpinning reason for gender-based violence. In addition, the underlying causes of gender-based violence are connected with beliefs, norms, attitudes and structures that promote and/or tolerate gender-based discrimination and unequal power relationships.

The problem investigated in this thesis is the history of the Stilwell Road, from its beginning in 1920, as the old Burma Road, to its completion, re-naming, use in 1945, and death in 1946 . The study of this problem justifies itself for various reasons, namely: (1) The Stilwell Road was severely needed by China as the only thoroughfare to the outside world. Chinese needs were of morale , equipment and arms- both large and small, and the training and advisory leadership of existing man-power. China having stood alone against the Japanese since 1937 needed the psychological boost that was given by the Road--the thought that someone strong still stood at her side to see her through . Without the Road, it would have been impossible to transport to China the large amounts of arms , equipment and supplies that found their way into the country. How well these supplies were used is a question for dispute, but it is known that with American supervision in distribution, the Chinese did receive some of the tools to put up a greater struggle to free themselves from the Japanese.

This thesis explores the gendered dynamics of everyday peace through analysing women’s experience of peace and peacebuilding in Kayah (Karenni) state in Myanmar. I argue that everyday peace cannot be detached from rigid gender hierarchies and persistent power dynamics and that analytic attention needs to be paid to women’s, often neglected, contribution to everyday peacebuilding. Drawing on a theoretical framework of everyday peace and its feminist critique and by using Björkdahl’s concept of gendered peace gaps I illustrate how women’s experience of peace and peacebuilding in Kayah state are shaped by dynamics of care and silence. Both are used as arenas for women’s peacebuilding agencies but simultaneously contributes to, are coupled with or amplify gendered peace gaps. Hence, the results unveil an interesting tension between women’s peacebuilding agency and the peace being built as the peacebuilding limits the grounds in which women can operate consequently contributing to a future gender-discriminatory peace in Myanmar. Through this focus, this thesis adds to the rich and longstanding feminist literature exploring the everyday by illustrating the importance of understanding peace based on everyday experiences shaped by gendered power relations. By exposing the relationship between power and agency I illustrate how women’s ambiguous peace agencies are incused by gendered power relations and might run the risk of reproducing or maintaining existing structures of power.

While it is a widely accepted argument that ethnicity and armed conflicts are inextricably linked, there is little understating regarding in which conditions and how exactly ethnicity affects armed conflicts, which this thesis aims to explain through a qualitative case study on Burma, a Southeast Asian nation where what is known as ethnic armed organizations and the national armed forces of Burma-the Tatmadaw-have been at war since Burma got independence from Britain in 1948. While ethnicity can turn into a source of conflict in certain situations, ethnic differences per se are not the cause of conflict. However, ethnicity and ethnic groups can produce negative effects in certain situations. As the main research question, this study asks: In which conditions and how 'ethnicity' produce adverse effects that fuel armed conflicts? In addition to the main research question, this study will test three hypotheses in relation of the main research question to get a clear picture of the adverse effects of ethnicity on armed conflicts. The study concludes by discussing research findings and questions for further research in the area of ethnic armed conflict. Klíčová slova: Ethnicity, Armed Conflict, Recognition, Identity Crisis, Burma/Myanmar

No description available.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if economic sanctions is a useful tool to promote the democratic development of a state. I am interested in exploring the effectiveness of the most common reasons for implementing sanctions; to change specific behavior incompatible with democracy or to incur regime transformation. In order to examine this, we look at the intent of implementing economic sanctions, how democratic development is measured, and the importance of human rights as a part of a democratic state. By applying these findings on opposing versions of modernization theory, I find measurable economic data that I can look at in connection with two case studies. The episodes chosen for the case studies are current sanctions being leveled against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Myanmar. In the case studies themselves, I discover that Iran and Myanmar are very different in both the intentions behind their autocratic regimes, and the results of the sanctions against them. In examining the economic effects, I find it difficult to find data for both cases, and I fail to locate parts of the economic data I intended to look at. In the end, I conclude that while economic sanctions can have some impact on specific goals and the foundation for support of democracy, they are unlikely to be the deciding factor in democratic development.

Being sanctioned by the United States and its allies, Myanmar has long been isolated from the international community and become deeply dependent on China over the past twenty years. Until recently, the country embarked on political and economic reforms and expressed its desire to engage with other countries. The United States positively responded to the opening gesture, consequently the rapprochement between the two countries was commenced. As the competition for influence between China and the U.S. in Southeast Asia has long been existed, the shift in Myanmar’s foreign policy might represent the new challenge in this tug-of-war. This research aims to investigate the continuity or rupture in Myanmar’s foreign policy trend and to re-assess the influence of China and the United States presented in Myanmar. The collected data is analysed qualitatively. The result of the study shows that despite the re-engagement in Myanmar-U.S. relations, Myanmar-China relations remain cordial and the status of China-U.S. influence in Southeast Asia is not challenged.

This thesis explores whether dialogue between a company and a non-profit organisation (NPO) can influence a company’s way of working towards being more conflict sensitive. As a case-study I analysed the dialogue between the French oil and gas company, Total S.A. (Total), and the US based NPO, CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (CDA) relating to the company’s operations in Myanmar/Burma. The objectives of the research were to ascertain if dialogue had a positive impact, and if so, what it was about the dialogue that enabled change, what was the process of change that could be observed and how embedded such change was. Drawing on post-modernism, systems thinking and complexity thinking, I have built on organisational change, conflict transformation, dialogue and cross-sector partnership literature to examine the role of dialogue as an enabler of change. While highlighting parallels in the discourses, I analyse the process and degree of change within the company through two conflict transformation models, one by Lederach (1997) and the other by Lederach, Neufeld and Culbertson (2007), which I feel best synthesise these parallels. The research is a longitudinal case-study (2002-2012), based on semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The study adds to the limited academic research on conflict sensitivity in general, and on the implications for a company’s way of working in particular. Although I find that within the business sector, the notion of conflict sensitivity is assumed in the wider concept of corporate social responsibility, noteworthy is the relevance of dialogue in change processes. Dialogue is an essential enabler as it sparks transformational levers also recognised in the literature reviewed. However it is not sufficient. The research illustrates that the dialogue between CDA and Total has played a critical role in facilitating a shift in the company’s way of working, with the contribution of other influences at play. As such, I draw attention to the complexity of the change process and discuss the current nature of the drivers of change within Total.