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Photo Essay - New Naratif - 28 Aug 2019 - Dominique Dillabough-Lefebvre, Brennan O'Connor

Into Myanmar's Special Region 2

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With a standing army of 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers, the United Wa State Army (UWSA) is one of the largest non-state armed groups in the world and the largest in Myanmar. It operates from a reclusive virtually autonomous area, called Special Region 2, that it controls along the border of China, as wellas a semi-contiguous region along the Thai border in Southern Shan State.

At a late night bar in the centre of Pangkham (previously called Panghsang), one can still hear echoes of old “Golden Triangle” legends, challenging the ofﬁcial narrative of the Wa party leadership.“Wei Hsueh Kang? He is the president here. Nobody sees him, but he controls everything.” Notorious drug lord Wei Hsueh Kang has long been wanted by the US’ Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as the subject of a 1993 DEA indictment, and is a senior member of the UWSA’s central executive committee.“

Chairman Bao Youxiang praised the developments his party has made in what he describes as the “[once] barren Wa mountains”, which contain one of the largest tin mines in the world and endless rubber plantations, tissue culture banana plantations as wellas high-grade tea growing along the countryside hills. The UWSP also has huge investments in jade the massive Hpakant mine in Kachin State. Certainly, the roads and buildings in Panghsang are far superior to most towns in Myanmar.

There are also the casinos and wildlife shops that sell endangered and threatened live animals and animal parts. The neon glow from the numerous brothels lining the streetsof most major towns in Special Region 2 light up the night. These are businesses catering to primarily Chinese clientele, which has been decreasing in recent years, due to the tightening of visas issued to Chinese gambles as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive.

Most Wa have seen little economic beneﬁts from the enormous proﬁts of the drug trade and natural resource extraction other than infrastructural development and increased military build-up. This, coupled with the lack of foreign engagement, means that the Wa still face a particularly unique political dilemma—while the Wa have to seek methods of engaging with international partners as well as their Burmese and Chinese counterparts, they also have to bridge gaps with their own rural population, all while grappling with militaristic state-building that has recently reignited old tensions in Southern Shan State. For example, in the past, the UWSA served for many years as a proxy army for the Myanmar Army in its ﬁght against other ethnic groups such as the Shan. Whether their Burmese and Chinese compatriots are both ready for such a realignment remains to be seen, while it is clear that the Wa hope to recast themselves after 30 years of a very unique type of autonomy.”

Ongoing Photo Project - 2018-2022

Kawthoolei

This photo project is the result of over two years of ethnographic research in the Thai-Myanmar borderlands amongst S’gaw Karen speaking peoples who call themselves Pwakeñaw. The majority of these people - especially in the Mutraw/Hpapun hills where much of my research took place - are subsistence swidden farmers, practicing rotating agriculture on hillsides along the Salween river which divides Thailand and Myanmar. This area is home to the worlds longest ongoing civil war. A political organisation, the Karen National Union (KNU) and its armed wing the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) have been engaged in conflict since 1949, the year after Burma gained independence from the British Empire. Followin the lives of farmers, soldiers, mothers, doctors, students and villagers, my ethnographic research has attempted to trace how people relate to land in a time of extreme transformation and war, and how people revitalise traditions and find new ways of relating to the changing world around them.

2018-2022

Shan Hills

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Dominique Dillabough-Lefebvre

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Researcher, Ethnographer, Anthropologist, Image-Maker