Democratic Transition in Karen State and the Union of Myanmar in the Period of Post- Signing Ceasefire Agreement
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Abstract
There have been numerous studies of democratization in the Union of Myanmar since Thien Sein’s government took office. Thein Sein ‘s reformist policy included releasing political prisoners and also announcing officially the by-election result in 2012. Moreover, The government tried to negotiate with many ethnic groups, by offering the ceasefire agreements to them, for its legitimacy and also reflecting the great step of democratic transition, it is questionable and controversial whether the ceasefire agreement really pave the way to the democracy in both union and state level, particularly in Karen state. The aims of this research are to study the outcome toward democratization in both Union level and local Karen State, after signing ceasefire agreement. The methodology of this research is to analyze from interviewing the representatives’ government and ethnic groups as a primary source and reviewing and evaluating from various kind of documents as secondary source. The implication of Protection Pact concept turned out that making ceasefires as a tool to be exploited for negotiating and sharing mutual interests of elites (of ethnic group) and government. If they could implement the agreement, the authoritarian government remained. The Sequencing Approach of democratic transition was accommodated by establishing political institutions, and holding elections for consolidating democracy. Another approach is Gradualist or Transformist, implied for promoting democratic values, such as freedom and human rights, as gradually embedded. The outcome of the study revealed that in the union level the democratic transition could be described as discipline democracy by considering the content of Constitution 2008 as allowing the military to retain in political domain, regardless the majority of the votes. After making ceasefire agreement between Myanmar and Karen ethnic group, Karen learnt the essences of democratic values, particularly human rights, and freedom as well as embedded the political institutions in the domestic societies such as Salaween Peace Park. It shades the light of the Karen culture, bounded by the rights of land management. In addition, it reflects that Karen people have their abilities to deal with the rights of self -determination, in the absence of government intervention.
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