Karen Refugees Describe Peace within the Context of Displacement

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21158
• Published date: 01 March 2016
• Date: 01 March 2016

C R Q, vol. 33, no. 3, Spring 2016 297

© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Conf‌l ict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21158

Karen Refugees Describe Peace

within the Context of Displacement

Al Fuertes

Displaced populations are often the most vulnerable and at-risk people

in our world today. Many end up becoming victims of human smug-

gling and traf‌f‌i cking, and they are often subjected to intolerable living

conditions and uncertainty regarding their future. What can displaced

populations teach us about peace? Using a storytelling method, Karen

refugees along the  ai-Burmese border describe peace as encompassing,

embodying quality of life, both social and personal. It comprises an

interdisciplinary spectrum of socioeconomic, political, psychosocial, and

educational elements. Peace for Karen refugees requires a collaborative

action among government and nongovernment organizations.

When war and armed conf‌l ict result in massive displacement and

devastation, displaced populations ask what has become of them

given their new reality. Many struggle to make sense of the destruction and

loss of lives and property, let alone comprehend the far-reaching conse-

quences of their displacement.  e UN High Commissioner on Refugees’

(UNHCR) annual Global Trends Report: World at War, released on June

18, 2015, said that worldwide displacement was at the highest level ever

recorded (UNHCR 2015).  e number of people forcibly displaced at

the end of 2014 had risen to a staggering 59.5 million compared to 51.2

million a year earlier and 37.5 million a decade ago.  e increase represents

the biggest leap ever seen in a single year. Moreover, the report said the situ-

ation was likely to worsen.

What can displaced populations teach us about peace given their expe-

rience of massive displacement?  is article discusses descriptions of peace

and the elements comprising peace as described by Karen refugees through

298 fuertes

C R Q • DOI: 10.1002/crq

various storytelling workshops that I have facilitated along the  ai-Bur-

mese border for nine years. I use the terms Karen refugees and participants

interchangeably throughout the article.

Participants

Karen people constitute one of the largest groups of ethnic minorities in

Burma (Myanmar).  ey and six other large minority groups (the Karenni,

Rakhine, Kachin, Shan, Chin, and Mon) make up roughly one-third of

Burma’s population of 56,320,206 (Central Intelligence Agency 2015).

 ey live primarily in the seven ethnic minority states named after their

respective ethnic groups that form a horseshoe of mountainous regions

around the central Burman plain.

My f‌i rst meeting with Karen refugees, which was also my f‌i rst time

inside a refugee camp, happened in February and March 2003. I was

invited to facilitate a series of trauma healing workshops in two dif‌f erent

refugee campsites, sponsored and organized by the Shanti Volunteer Asso-

ciation through the American Friends and Service Committee based in San

Francisco. Since then, I have been conducting workshops in trauma heal-

ing and conf‌l ict transformation using storytelling as a method in Karen

refugee camps.  ese workshops were made possible by invitations from

various nongovernment organizations (NGOs) working on refugee issues.

Participants in my workshops were camp leaders, librarians, teachers, par-

ents, and young people inside dif‌f erent camps, representing the Sgaw, Pwo,

and Bwe Karen groups (Marshall 1997). Close to a hundred Karen refu-

gees have participated in my workshops to date.

 e Karen and other minority people of Burma have a long history

of displacement, especially internal displacement, as they continue to be

the targets of counterinsurgency campaigns since the early 1960s by Bur-

ma’s military regime, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Asia

Watch 1992), later renamed the State Peace and Development Council

(Lang 2002).

Karen refugees started arriving in camps as early as 1984 (Mason 2000).

As set forth in Article 1 of the UN Convention relating to the Status of

Refugees (modif‌i ed by Article 1 of the Protocol Relating to the Status of

Refugees), refugee refers to any person who “owing to a well-founded fear

of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership

of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside of the country

of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail