The Covid-19 crisis has once again focused attention on political fragmentation in Myanmar, especially along ethnic divides. Much of the nation’s population in borderlands and rural areas has limited access to government healthcare and assistance, relying instead on ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) that are often the dominant political power in these regions.
Although EAOs and the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw, have mounted joint responses to the pandemic in some cases, armed clashes have continued in the southeast, the west, and the north, including Kachin State. Heightened conflict, along with pandemic-related restrictions on cross-border movement and trade, poses a significant challenge for communities along Myanmar’s mountainous periphery.
In a recent interview, The Asia Foundation’s Araya Arayawuth spoke to Dan Seng Lawn, executive director of the Kachinland Research Center, in Kachin State, Myanmar, about the economic impact of the pandemic in Kachin, its effects on internally displaced persons (IDPs), and joint responses to the pandemic by the Tatmadaw and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) that have crossed the lines of conflict.
AA: Dan Seng Lawn, welcome to Views from the Field
DSL: Hi, how are you?
AA: Tell us, first, a bit about your organization, the KRC.
Kachin State, Myanmar (TUBS / CC BY-SA 3.0)
DSL: Very briefly, the Kachinland Research Center is a regional policy think tank that is currently involved in the Covid-19 Concern and Response Committee–Kachin, which was organized by community organizations and faith-based groups across Kachin State.
AA: As of early August, there had been just over 470 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in all of Myanmar, and most were reported in the Yangon region among citizens recently returned from abroad. What has been the impact in Kachin State, and especially among communities along the Myanmar-China border?
DSL: Looking at the official figures, there had only been two positive cases in Kachin State by early July, so I think the virus has not had a strong direct impact on communities, but the economic effects on cross-border trade have been deep and far-reaching.
Movement restrictions, not just on people, but on the movement of goods, have had significant effects on the Kachin State economy, from extractive industries like jade mining and other mineral resources to the agricultural sector.
Kachin State relies largely on cross-border trade with China. In the agricultural sector, when the Chinese government closed its border, the price of paddy went down, and farmers could not repay their agricultural loans from the government. The majority of farmers in Kachin State rely on these loans, and when they could not repay their debt, it affected the government’s ability to issue new loans.
This will definitely have an impact on this year’s agricultural cycle, which I think we will see later this year. Farm productivity will fall, and many farmers will be at risk of losing their land.
AA: Due to years of ethnic armed conflict with the national government, there is a large population of internally displaced persons in Kachin State. How have they been affected by Covid-19?
DSL: When we talk about IDPs in Kachin State, we need to understand that there are three categories of people.
One group lives in areas controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization, the KIO, which is the civilian wing of the largest ethnic armed organization in Kachin State. Its armed wing is the Kachin Independence Army. In much of Kachin, the KIO is the local authority. These people are located along the Chinese border. Since the Chinese government closed the border, humanitarian agencies supporting them have had a hard time delivering aid, because they were sending that aid across the Chinese border.
A second group, internally displaced persons living in camps in areas of government control, have been under strict Covid-19 health guidelines, imposed by camp management committees, since April. But since mid-May it has become more and more difficult to observe these strict rules about lockdown—staying at home, social distancing, and so forth. The problem is that the camp management committees cannot provide sufficient subsistence support, livelihood support. These people cannot stay forever in these camps, because they have to solve their own livelihood problems. That means they have to go out. So, the camp management committees have had to loosen enforcement of the Covid-19 guidelines since mid-May.
Finally, in mixed-control areas like Injangyang Township, there are returning IDPs. This third group is also facing livelihood issues as they try to restart their agricultural activities from scratch, and they don’t get any support from the humanitarian agencies.
So, these are the challenges facing IDPs in Kachin State.
A Bamboo house in Kachin State, Myanmar, where healthcare and social services are often disrupted by ethnic conflict and competition between government agencies and rebel organizations (Sinwal / Shutterstock)
AA: In April, the government established a committee to coordinate with ethnic armed organizations on the prevention, control, and treatment of Covid-19, but there have been clashes between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Army in recent weeks. What has been happening, and how are these clashes affecting coordination on Covid-19?
DSL: Looking back to May, there were good prospects for peace and collaboration between the government and the KIO. The Covid-19 Concern and Response Committee–Kachin, the CCRCK, facilitated a meeting between delegations from the Kachin State government and the KIO’s Covid-19 response committee.
On May 10, at Mai Sa Pa Village, which is under KIO control, both sides exchanged good will and identified areas where they could work together. The next week, the Tatmadaw came to Mai Sa Pa with a helicopter and delivered Covid-19 prevention materials and medical equipment to the KIO. So, the general situation in May was quite positive, and people were quite happy about it.
But then things started changing. We noticed after the first week of June that the Tatmadaw was reshuffling its troops in Kachin. Then, on June 8 and 9, armed clashes broke out in northern Shan between the Tatmadaw and the Kachin Independence Army, the armed wing of KIO. On June 22, the Tatmadaw destroyed one of the KIO’s Covid-19 cross-border checkpoints. And on June 29, there were armed clashes in central Kachin State in an area controlled by the KIO.
These clashes occurred despite the Tatmadaw’s declaration of a unilateral, three-month ceasefire in Kachin State. So, unfortunately, I think that the peace process right now is really at rock bottom.
AA: Dan Seng Lawn, thank you for sharing your insights on this very complex and tragic situation.
DSL: Thank you.
Yemen and Somalia are connected by a maritime border that runs through the Red Sea—a space of cooperation and exchange that joins rather than divides the two countries. Historically, movements of Somali and Yemeni people have occurred in both directions. But, since the start of Yemen’s civil war in 2015, most migration has been from Yemenis fleeing the conflict, with some Somalis living in Yemen also returning home. Prior to this, the proximity of the two countries, which fuelled trade between their coastal towns and cities, meant that communities of Yemenis and Somalis had developed on both sides of the Red Sea, facilitating ongoing cultural and economic interactions. Now, most Yemenis who arrive in Puntland are refugees attracted by the proximity, ease of entry and social connections with pre-existing Yemeni communities. Many see Puntland as a temporary refuge, or staging post for more ambitious future migrations. As part of RVI’s ongoing project on the cross-border connections between Yemen and Somalia (read the two reports here and here), the Institute’s partners at Puntland State University in Garowe spoke to Yemenis living in Bosaso and Garowe in Puntland, to discuss their lives there.
Since the start of Yemen’s civil war, the migration of Yemeni people to Puntland has increased as they sought a refuge from the fighting and economic collapse in their homeland. Somalia is often not the first choice destination for Yemenis as many prefer to stay in the Gulf region, where there are likely to be better economic opportunities. However, to move freely and live there they must have a kafeel—sponsor—but many do not. This is a major reason many end up in Somalia, where there is no requirement for a kafeel and there are no restrictions on entry for Yemenis fleeing the war.
Maasim Khaadim, a Yemeni living in Bosaso, said that he:
Used to smuggle khat into Saudi Arabia, it was a good business, but I was arrested by Saudi Police at the border, they entered by data into their system, and I am blocked to enter any Gulf Countries. I tried Oman but my data showed as ‘Blocked Entry’. They arrested me, transferred me to prison. During my prison time in Oman I met other Yemenis and they told me about Somalia. After release I decided to move [there].
There are other factors that pull Yemenis to Puntland. First, the established Mukulla-Bosaso transport corridor means that Puntland is quite easy to get to, particularly from Yemen’s south-eastern Hadhramaut region, where security is generally better than the rest of the country. Most refugees coming from Yemen to Puntland use Mukulla port to reach Bosaso and then move to other destinations by land. The cost of travel between Mukulla and Bosaso is very low as there are already boats which transport commodities—including fish—between the ports.
Abdalla, a Yemeni living in Bosaso who owns a restaurant there said, ‘Somalia is nearer to Yemen, its less costly to travel and living cost is cheap, we are here to earn income to send back home for our families’. Shaahir, a Yemeni who works as a waiter in Garowe, told us that ‘I have a family of 10 persons, they live in Yemen and they need USD 400 for their living costs but I only send USD 100–150 per month, sometimes nothing, they are suffering, and I am trying to help them’.
Mohamed Salim, a 21-year-old waiter now living and working in Garowe is from San’a in Yemen. He described how he had ended up in Puntland. Mohamed left Yemen in 2014 for Saudi Arabia, where he became a cashier in a supermarket. He lived in Riyadh for four years, but in 2018 the Saudi government adopted a law criminalizing foreigners working in retail businesses. His Saudi kafeel (also his employer) cancelled his job. He was then arrested and deported to Yemen. Mohamed stayed two months there and then decided to travel to Egypt, with the intention of reaching Europe. During the journey, Egyptian police arrested him at the border and he spent 57 days in prison. They later released him on condition that he go back to Yemen, but he flew to Malaysia after receiving an invitation from a friend in Kuala Lumpur to join him there. After his arrival, he got a job at a Syrian restaurant. Following a three month stay he moved to Muscat, Oman, when another friend invited him for a job. But, as Yemeni workers are only allowed to work in restaurant jobs or manual labour, such as painting buildings, Mohamed had difficulties getting a visa extension and was later arrested and deported back to Yemen. During his prison days, other inmates told him about Somalia, the route, and business opportunities. After his release, he decided to travel there.
To see an illustration of Mohamed’s journey from Yemen to Somalia via Egypt, Oman and Malaysia click here.
The long-established trade connections between Yemen and Somalia mean that the routes between the two countries are already well-known, and information is shared via pre-existing Yemeni communities in Somalia. This facilitates mobility between the two countries. When they get to Puntland, many of the Yemeni refugees often start off by living in camps supported by international agencies and the Puntland authorities.
Outside of their own communities, Yemenis feel reasonably at home in Somalia, which shares common cultural practices, including some foods, khat chewing and Islam. Inter-marriage between the two communities—both in Yemen and Somalia—is common. Many Somali returnees to Puntland have Yemeni wives and Yemenis living in Puntland have made mixed families. Abdalla Hussein told us, ‘I am Yemeni, and I married two Somali women’.
Despite the relative ease of moving and integrating into Puntland life, Yemeni refugees often struggle to survive financially even with support from aid agencies. Some have been able to start businesses—often restaurants—while others take jobs in the food and construction sectors. Businesses are mainly partnerships with Somalis. Generally, a Somali partner injects the capital, while the Yemeni provides skills and labour for running the business.
Yemeni refugees, unlike Ethiopians for example, are more likely to find employment, due to their skills and their social connections with local people. Some problems do arise with language, khat chewing and frequent conflicts, which are all raised as issues by Somali employers. A Somali NGO employee noted that, ‘most of the legal cases [we try to help resolve] concerning Yemeni refugees are over conflict with their employers or business partners, while most of the cases from Ethiopian refugees are on domestic issues’.
Hussein, a Yemeni migrant in Garowe, reported that: ‘I had a booming restaurant, near Garowe municipality building, it was a profit yielding business. One day, without prior notice, local government contractors entered the building and demolished the restaurant structures, we lost all prepared food, stock, supplies at that day, now I re-started another restaurant business’. Abdullahi, a Yemeni businessman, noted: ‘I partnered in seven businesses with Somali traders, all of them collapsed due to conflict between me and my partners, currently I run my own business in Bosaso’.
Mohamed Hussein is a Yemeni refugee in Garowe, born in Raadac in North Yemen. He was a businessman in Raadac before the start of Yemen war, but fled to Somalia. He left Yemen in 2017 through the Mukulla-Bosaso corridor, with a Somali returnee from Yemen. Mohamed planned to start a business with his Somali friend in Kismayo, but their plan failed after disagreements between them. He decided to start a business in Bosaso, but had no capital in hand. Mohamed started to look for capital and finally met a businessman in Bosaso, Yasin, who agreed to help. Yasin gave him a small loan as seed capital. He started the business and opened a restaurant selling Yemeni food. After a few months, the business collapsed. Mohamed decided to move to Garowe, the capital of Puntland, and Yasin again provided a small loan. He started a new business by partnering with a Somali trader and now employs fifteen other Yemenis. His business has become a central meeting place for Yemeni people in Garowe and Puntland at large.
As Mohamed’s story shows, Yemenis are generally resilient in coping with the difficulties of life in Puntland. They work in groups, which provides a degree of solidarity and mutual support, and often draw on their connections with the Yemeni communities that lived in Puntland before the Yemen war. But, despite the safe refuge, and some economic opportunities, Puntland is usually not the end goal for Yemeni refugees and migrants. Most of those interviewed had aspirations to move to other countries where they perceive there to be better economic prospects. These include Ethiopia, Kenya, the Gulf and even Europe. Mohamed Salim, who told us his life story before ending up in Puntland, explained how he ‘moved like a bird, from country to country, but always ends up back to Yemen. Now, I cannot go back to Yemen … my intention is to save money to reach other countries then to Europe.’ Due to its proximity and ease of travel and existing connections, Puntland seems to mostly be an interim point for Yemen’s new generation of migrants, on a long journey towards a better life.
Aid providers in the Horn of Africa have always struggled to adapt their systems and models to the simple fact that people move from place to place. Delivering aid in remote areas normally involves establishing long supply chains that rely on populations being in places where they can be relatively easily ‘accessed’. The refugee and IDP camps of the region, many of which were constructed as temporary locations for the provision of food or shelter, are an obvious symbol of this tendency.
But, the idea of populations being fixed in one place works against the intrinsic mobility in their lives; from pastoralist groups moving with their animals to grasslands for grazing, to seasonal farm labourers moving annually for work. Movement is often a survival strategy that helps people to seek refuge from conflict, food shortages or the coercive control of the state. Borders are also central to these strategies. Recent research by the Rift Valley Institute has shown the importance of the social capital created by the transnational networks that operate across borders, and how borderland populations use it as a critical component of their livelihood strategies.
Political actors have been alive to these contradictions for years, and the aid community has long experience of how aid can be used to push populations towards, or away from, particular places in support of political agendas. The COVID-19 response opens up a new front in these longstanding tensions, one that needs urgent consideration if aid delivery is not to be implicated in long-term harm.
In South Sudan and its neighbours, reducing the circulation of people has been a major pillar of the COVID-19 response. In countries where communities share small living spaces, social distancing becomes a virtual impossibility. Therefore, for public health authorities, the key response is to keep communities fixed in place. In common with COVID-19 affected countries around the world, the decision to lock down comes with complex consequences for these communities. Three key issues arise in the South Sudan context:
Small-scale cross-border flows of goods and resources are often critical for the livelihoods of populations living in border areas. For example, in RVI’s work in Akobo, on the border between South Sudan and Ethiopia, it was noted that members of the Nuer-speaking community living either side of the border would regularly cross to conduct business, access resources and visit family and kin. RVI’s work in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, on the border with South Darfur, has shown similar patterns of cross-border movement. In both cases, local authorities seek to control and profit from these movements.
While these borders cannot, and have not been, fully shut down, attempts by national authorities to regulate movement across them as part of its pandemic response have enabled local agents of the state to increase their presence and control over economic activity. The targets of state authorities tend to be the most lucrative, or easily controlled parts of this cross-border economy. For example, in Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal this includes goods like cement and fuel, while on the Ethiopia border the focus has been on the river trade that supplies small towns like Akobo with everyday necessities. The increased involvement of the authorities in regulating, and in some cases manipulating, these flows, reduces the autonomy of local populations and shifts power balances even further.
Aid programmes in these areas have also come under pressure from national authorities during the pandemic. For example, in Gambella—on the Ethiopian side of the border with South Sudan—the government announced the closure of registration centres for refugees, which provide access to the goods and services available in refugee camps, to reduce the flow of people across the border. Although these goods and services are primarily intended for people displaced from South Sudan, there is evidence that they are as important to the Nuer-speaking population on the Ethiopian side of the border—particularly at times of economic hardship. The closures have therefore increased economic pressure on populations either side of the border.
Long-standing traditions of community mobility have created transnational networks of support that are critical to household economies in South Sudan. This includes remittance networks, which have both physical and digital components (in the form of money transfer companies). While distant territories such as the US, Canada and Australia are critical nodes in these networks, just as important—perhaps more so—are the individuals or families that have travelled to urban centres such as Juba, or over the borders into Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia, and who circulate the cash that they earn back to their places of origin. In South Sudan, the digital remittance system is far less developed than, for example, in Somalia, so the ability for individuals or transfer agents to move in, out of and across the country is very important.
At the moment, these channels are under threat from COVID-19. This is the case for two reasons: first, if people cannot move easily across borders, or through South Sudan more generally, they cannot bring money back to their families. Second, the economic effects of the lockdown on, for example, boda-boda drivers (motorbike taxis) and tea stalls in Juba or Uganda, or on the daily income of those of South Sudanese origin in Australia or the US, mean that people will have less spare cash to send or take back to their families, who often rely on these external injections into their household budget to make ends meet.
Previous research on the transnational networks of Nuer-speaking peoples shows that a crisis in one population centre can ripple outwards to effect populations elsewhere. For example, during the December 2013 violence at the start of South Sudan’s civil war—when many Nuer living in Juba were killed—populations as far afield as Melbourne and Minnesota suffered due to the increased financial demands from relatives in South Sudan, as well as the psychological impact of observing traumatic events from a distance. Similar dynamics may play out during the current pandemic.
The response to COVID-19 also adds to the political toolkit of local and national authorities at a time of intense fragility across South Sudan. Coming after the signing of the ‘revitalized’ peace deal (R-ARCSS) between the government and opposition coalition, President Kiir’s new unity government is seeking to reassert its authority across the country. Key positions of authority at state level and below are still being appointed, and political actors at local levels are therefore seeking to increase their leverage and influence through the mobilization of local populations to pursue their agendas through force. Any new tools they are given by the COVID-19 response—for example, the ability to impose local lockdowns on particular communities, or to utilise security forces to monitor or enforce particular entry or exit points from their areas—are likely to be deployed in the service of these wider political objectives.
There is one issue on which the COVID-19 crisis may be used to encourage greater circulation of people, adding a new dynamic to the tensions around the Protection of Civilian (POC) camps across the country. The UN has long seen these camps as unsustainable and is uncomfortable with the complex politics that shrouds these highly visible, and expensive symbols of the civil war. The risks that such high-density settlements create for the rapid spread of COVID-19 provides a further justification for seeking their dispersal. For example, in May David Shearer, the head of UNMISS, said that they ‘very strongly encouraged people in the POCs to return home’. However, the sense of insecurity felt by these populations—which keeps them in the POCs—must be acknowledged, and their physical safety should not be de-prioritised in the face of the pandemic response. This is especially true given the scarcity of quality health services available in potential locations of return.
Humanitarian actors in South Sudan, and the Horn of Africa more broadly, know that the resources they provide are always at risk of manipulation or misdirection by politicians seeking to pursue their own agendas. The response to COVID-19 has opened up new fronts in this battle. Mitigating these risks requires strong analysis, close monitoring of local political dynamics and the ability to understand the links between so-called intercommunal conflicts and national politics. All of these tasks will be hampered by COVID-19. With travel between the capital and more remote locations more difficult than ever, there is a risk that Juba-based teams lose the ability to keep in touch with realities on the ground.
While seasonal rains will act as a natural constraint on mobility for a few months—providing all actors in South Sudan with a degree of space to reflect—the end of the rains will act as a trigger for movement across the country and it will be critical to have clear plans and policies in place before then. Above all, there is a need to recognise the importance of mobility as a pillar of individual and community resilience. Aid agencies must seek to understand the specifics of how the communities they work with use mobility in their everyday lives, and work with community leaders and local authorities to enable as safe and dignified passage as possible within public health guidelines.
Given the risk that political elites will seek to exert greater control over communities, the ability of aid agencies to monitor and communicate dynamics around mobility and lockdown in key locations could act as an important mitigating factor. The work that organisations such as IOM and REACH do to monitor movements across, in and out of the country becomes even more important. Analysis of this data could potentially be used as part of a strategy of more nuanced and targeted movement restrictions. Aid agencies can also play a role in promoting a more transparent debate about options for those currently living in the POCs. The donor and diplomatic community will have a critical role in creating space for discussion of the political implications of lockdown and aid.
Agencies will face particular challenges in tracking local dynamics as their own ability to move is constrained, both within the country and across borders. Creative thinking is required to enhance information gathering from particularly sensitive areas, and to ensure that there is good information sharing between locations connected by movement channels. For example, the interdependency of Nuer communities along the Ethiopia-South Sudan border speaks to a need for regular and detailed information sharing between humanitarian actors on both sides, which does not currently take place.
The humanitarian community should also explore new ways to engage with the global support networks that the communities they seek to help are part of. While there is an existing body of research on diaspora humanitarianism, current thinking risks focusing on attempts to reshape these transnational support networks into a vehicle for international aid funding, rather than trying to understand them on their own terms. At a time when accessing remote locations is more expensive and challenging than ever, aid agencies should look for opportunity in these networks—reinforcing positive effects by working in multiple locations at once.
Rather than seeing diaspora communities simply as an extension of their places of origin, aid actors should seek to develop new kinds of partnerships that help to build trust, tackle the issues that they face in their new homes, and support their efforts to strengthen social capital across their transnational networks. This will require new programming modalities, with resources that can be spent in multiple countries, by organisations with a wide range of expertise.
The aid community has talked a lot over the last decade about dealing with complexity, but translating this into action has proved harder. The basic framework of aid delivery remains too rooted in an analysis of the world predicated on states, capitals and permanent settlements. This is not how the world works. People move, they connect and use these connections to create networks that are resilient to the systems around them. Aid actors must increase their understanding of these strategies. This will help prevent their efforts becoming part of existing systems of control and maximise choice and opportunity for the populations they support.
The impact of Yemen’s long-running war is being felt not only inside the country, but also in neighboring Saudi Arabia. New developments and the changing dynamics of the conflict have had major security, social, and economic consequences for Saudis as well as Yemenis, especially inhabitants of the southern border area. While rumored negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Ansar Allah, better known as the Houthi movement, could result in political and military arrangements, the impact of events on the border will continue to shape Saudi public opinion long after the war is over.
Since Riyadh intervened militarily in Yemen in 2015, Saudis have actively discussed developments there on social media, reflecting growing public interest in Yemeni affairs. This has been accompanied by ongoing, wide-ranging debates between Yemenis and Saudis over the details and trajectory of the war and how the Saudi intervention is seen by Saudi society. Most Saudi activists have adopted a similar discourse to that of the Saudi state, partly due to government censorship and intense monitoring of social media platforms, precluding any opposing voices. However, the level of debate shows how much attention Saudis have paid in recent years to news from Yemen, which has had a direct impact on their lives.
The economic costs of Saudi involvement in the conflict alone have had major effects on Saudi society, in the form of tax hikes, raised fees for various services, and higher fuel prices. The conflict has also sparked a string of Houthi missile attacks against targets inside Saudi territory, sowing fear among ordinary Saudis and prompting many to start following the news from Yemen more closely.
Totally forbidden from criticizing their government or critiquing its policies, Saudis writing on the war have focused on the country’s enemy and limited their criticism of Saudi-backed actors in Yemen to questioning their seriousness and ability to achieve victory. The situation in Yemen has brought to prominence new Saudi writers, who have treated the subject as a safe topic for political commentary—provided that they adopt the official narrative.
Prior to the war, Yemen received hardly any attention in Saudi life, especially in light of how difficult the Saudi state has made it for Yemenis to enter the country over the past two decades. But things have changed because of the conflict, and Saudi writers and activists have emerged to meet public demand for a narrative to explain the war. Many Yemeni media figures covering the conflict have also gained a following among the Saudis, while clerics have used mosques and religious gatherings to promote the official discourse around it. This narrative has played up Saudi national identity and the ruling family’s ability to manage the conflict. Saudi media outlets have also used events in Yemen to promote the concept of the upstanding Saudi citizen, loyal to his country and its rulers.
The kingdom’s weak spot in this regard is its territory along the Yemen border, where the war has changed security arrangements and demography. When the war broke out in 2015, the Saudi government moved many residents of villages near the border to cities deeper inside Saudi Arabia, essentially turning the region into a buffer zone. This zone extends into Yemeni territory along the border, to a depth of between 10 and 40 kilometers toward Houthi-controlled territory. The goal of this was to prevent incursions into Saudi Arabia, especially as land clashes with the Houthis have dragged on.
This shift in Saudi strategy in its southern region has had major repercussions for tribes along the frontier. Before it engaged the Houthis in military conflict, Saudi Arabia relied heavily on these tribes, both inside Saudi and Yemeni territory, to secure the long border. But Houthi military operations on the Yemeni side, with cooperation from some Saudi elements due to social and sectarian links, pushed Riyadh into a brief conflict with the Houthis in 2009. This revealed the fragility of the region’s security situation and prompted Saudi Arabia to invite the Yemeni military to fight the Houthis from Saudi territory, backed by Saudi air strikes.
Throughout the current conflict Riyadh has relied on Yemeni conscripts—by some estimates numbering as many as 60,000 fighters—distributed across various fronts along the border. However, these fighters only make up the first line. Behind them are a multitude of military and security forces charged by the kingdom with securing its territories. Saudi Arabia has lost dozens of troops in the area due to clashes and artillery fire emanating from Houthi-held areas.
As many as half the Saudi troops lost in these clashes hail from the southwestern border region, especially Jizan, upon whom Riyadh has relied heavily. These casualties have naturally had a social impact. Despite Saudi glorification of soldiers sacrificing their lives to guard the frontier, the losses have been deeply felt nationwide, especially in contrast to the stability that had reigned in previous decades.
Fighting in certain border regions has also forced the closure of markets once vital to local economies. The closure of major border crossings in the Tuwal district has caused major economic losses for Saudis living in surrounding areas. Traffic that used to cross into Yemen from there has moved instead to the Wadieh crossing in the Najran region, which leads into an area controlled by the Yemeni government opposed to the Houthis. These areas have seen an economic rebound thanks to the surge in cross-border trade, especially with the anti-Houthi coalition’s partial blockade of Yemeni ports and crossing points. Residents of Najran have benefitted from this economic shift and the influx of Yemeni investment in areas close to the Wadieh crossing.
The displacement of residents from some pockets of border territory and the rise of economic opportunities in others have led to the creation of new communications channels between these regions, as well as a growth in unofficial traffic across the 1,400-kilometre border with Yemen, which is hard to control.
The war has shown that residents of Saudi Arabia’s southern cities and villages have not been shielded from the repercussions of Riyadh’s intervention. The conflict has brought changes to the way that Saudis think, which will remain strongly present in the coming years. Even after the war ends, Saudi Arabia will face many domestic problems born of the long conflict in Yemen.
This blog was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
The social fabric on both sides of the Syrian-Jordanian border has remained similar, notwithstanding the fact that a century has passed since the Sykes-Picot agreement that divided the region between Britain and France. Communities on either side of the separation line remain similar, with extended families and clans (sub-tribes or ‘ashireh) dominating the social landscape. They remain linked by family and kinship ties, as well as shared customs and traditions.
But this so-called “line in the sand”—the boundary dividing British and French areas of control drawn during World War I—has also left its mark. Relations between tribal clans and their respective states differ markedly between Jordan and Syria, both in terms of their roles in the state-building process and the space that clan notables have been given to exercise traditional authority within their societies.
With the increasing levels of violence in Syria after 2011, many Syrians, especially from the border governorate of Dar‘a, sought refuge in Jordan. Statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees show that the largest concentration of refugees is located in Amman Governorate, Jordan’s economic heartland. The second-largest is present in the northwestern border areas of the kingdom, which resemble nearby parts of Syria in their climate, geography, and even architecture. Not only is the environment similar, but many Jordanian and Syrian families have family ties and relationships from before the conflict. This helped Syrians integrate into Jordanian society after they had fled Syria.
After settling in Jordan, many refugees found that the state’s relationship with clans were different than what they had encountered in Syria. Throughout the decades of Ba‘th Party rule, the Syrian state sought to weaken tribal clan authority. Half a century of such policies prior to the uprising, along with changing ways of life, gradually reduced the role of clan notables. Still, the state used what remained of these notables’ influence for its own ends. For example, it took advantage of their authority to contain and resolve major disputes between large families and keep the peace in rural peripheries of the country.
Jordan’s tribal clans, in turn, face few of the restraints and pressures experienced by their Syrian counterparts. Instead, they remain a major power center with considerable authority and influence in the kingdom. Tribal tradition plays a crucial role in Jordanian society despite growing opposition to it. Even today, the king derives some of his legitimacy from his status as the leader of the kingdom’s tribal leaders, a historical legacy dating back to Jordan’s foundation. Despite rare bumps in ties between the state and tribal clans, especially for economic reasons, these relationships have remained essential for the stability of Hashemite rule.
The new reality in Jordan makes some Syrian notables claim that there is more respect for the clan in Jordan than in Syria. Indeed, in Jordan tribal traditions and customs similar to those in Syria are more widely practiced. This continues to strengthen the clans’ traditional authority, which gives them positions of leadership with judicial, customary, and even political roles as intermediaries between their communities and the state—far more than in Syria.
The situation in Syria has brought about deep changes in the relationship between state and society, including with clan notables. Early on in 2011, notables in Dar‘a broke with their traditional roles and were at the forefront of anti-regime protests when Brigadier General ‘Atif Najib, the head of the Political Security Directorate in Dar‘a, humiliated notables who had gone to seek the release of children arrested and tortured for writing anti-regime slogans. This is widely seen as the incident that sparked the uprising.
Tribal customs remained, and perhaps were strengthened, amid the absence of state institutions in Syria. As a result, some known personalities lost their social status as notables, while others turned the crisis into an opportunity. They gained authority and prominence within their extended families and clans and became new intermediaries with the state. These transformations are ongoing and the political role of clan notables in Syrian society today has yet to become clear. For now, many seem to have lost the roles they played before the uprising, becoming rivals and targets of the state.
The lives of Syrian clan notables in Jordan differ greatly from their lives before the uprising and from the situation of Syrians who are living in Dar‘a today. Many certainly face the hardships of being refugees and do not enjoy the same privileges as their Jordanian counterparts. Yet they live in a sociopolitical environment in which they are able to exercise their traditional authority more widely over their communities and without the fear of being targeted by the state. In that sense, despite living in exile, they are in a more favorable social and political setting than where they had been.
This blog was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
The American withdrawal from areas east of the Euphrates in October 2019 was a turning point in the conflict in northeastern Syria. It allowed Turkey to expand into the area, effectively moving its border deeper inside Syria to create a buffer zone with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF is a heterogeneous alliance of multiethnic armed groups led by the People’s Protection Units, which Turkey sees as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an organization it accuses of engaging in terrorist activities.
This expansion has fundamentally altered the nature of Turkey’s border areas with Syria, linking them politically, socially, economically, and in security terms to Turkish provinces just over the frontier. While stopping short of outright annexation, such integration has reshaped the social and economic framework of these regions. It also may lay the groundwork for future, more far-reaching, steps by Ankara in the area.
The U.S. withdrawal was followed by a Turkish military operation known as Peace Spring, which resulted in Turkey’s military taking control over a strip of land between Ras al-‘Ayn and Tell Abyad. This established a new border zone, much as Turkey’s Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations had done in other parts of northern Syria. The Peace Spring area is closely connected to Sanliurfa Province in Turkey in terms of administration, services, and trade. However, it is also isolated from surrounding areas inside Syria. The area has strategic importance for Turkey in that it intervened to prevent the emergence there of an entity effectively controlled by the PKK. That is why the expanse between Ras al-‘Ayn and Tell Abyad is highly securitized and is not one to which Syrians can easily return today.
Turkish involvement in the area runs deep. Every local council has a coordinator who is affiliated with the province of Sanliurfa. These coordinators help local councils secure the logistical support and funding necessary to carry out service projects. They also help coordinate the delivery of Turkish assistance to local bodies through the Syrian opposition’s interim government. This includes such things as healthcare, property and civil status registration, and education.
The depth of this involvement is illustrated by the fact that when the interim government declared the formation of a local council in Tell Abyad on October 28, 2019, the governor of Sanliurfa, ‘Abdullah Erin, visited the city and expressed his support for the new council. When the local council for Ras al-‘Ayn was formed on November 7, 2019, Erin visited this city as well, stressing that Turkey would continue to rebuild the area and encourage a Syrian refugee return.
In the education sector, the Turks have reopened 146 schools operating in the Ras al-‘Ayn area, enrolling more than 15,000 students. Harran University has also signed a memorandum of understanding to open a branch there soon. Scholarships are given out to a number of students who have achieved high scores on the YÖS Turkish-language exams, especially for universities located in Harran, Mardin, and Hatay.
In another example of what Turkey is doing, last May it allowed 85 combined harvesters to pass through its territory from areas captured in the Euphrates Shield operation to the area of Ras al-‘Ayn and Tell Abyad in order to harvest wheat and barley. This was necessary as there is no direct connection between the two areas under Turkish control. According to sources on the ground, the Turkish authorities also granted entry permits to 1,500 farmers during the harvest season so that they could move through Turkey to harvest their land in Syria. After the end of the harvest, transit procedures will be eased in order to move seeds to the Euphrates Shield areas. The Turkish aid groups IHH and the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, as well as the Turkish Red Crescent, are also involved in the area, filling the gap left by U.S. and European aid agencies no longer active there.
The Ras al-‘Ayn and Tell Abyad area is highly connected to Turkey but has closed its boundaries with the rest of Syria. This has encouraged smuggling. According to people on the ground, building materials are cheaper in the Peace Spring areas, where they are stored. Steel costs $500 per ton in these areas, but $650 per ton in Raqqa, controlled by the SDF. A ton of cement costs $42 in Peace Spring areas and $100 in Raqqa. The opposite is true for fuel products, because SDF-controlled areas produce oil. A barrel of fuel oil costs $37 in Peace Spring areas but just $15 in Raqqa, while gasoline costs $84 per barrel in Peace Spring areas and $40 per barrel in Raqqa.
This indicates that while the area is technically in a border zone with Turkey, it also acts as a border between Turkey and the rest of Syria. The fact that it is closely connected to Turkey yet remains isolated from Syria makes an imminent large-scale refugee return unlikely. Asked about the prospect of refugees returning, a local commander stressed the deficiencies in local infrastructure and the difficulties in procuring sufficient resources. “The electricity, water, and food are just enough for us. We don’t want anyone to come back,” he said.
The idea behind Turkey’s reshaping of Syria’s northern border areas is not to seize these territories for Turkey, but to create a buffer zone with the SDF to absorb the impact of any confrontation with the group. These parts of Syria will likely remain Syrian, but under Ankara’s heavy influence. That said, the situation could create more options for Turkey in the future. But for now, as its administration of these areas has in many ways been successful, Turkey may be encouraged to replicate such a model east of the Euphrates.
This blog was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
As coronavirus-related lockdowns are implemented worldwide, they are posing serious problems for supply chains and increasing the vulnerability of Middle Eastern and North African economies.
Supply chains in many sectors throughout the region have been severely impacted by the closure of ports and delayed shipments. The departure of goods and shipping volumes from Chinese ports have plummeted since the implementation of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, and the activity of many ports throughout Asia, Europe, and the Middle East has slowed.
A good example of this situation is Tunisia and its supply chains. The new Tunisian government has announced the doubling of strategic stocks of basic food, medicines, and fuel. It has done so because it aims to prevent panic buying generated by the long confinement. Because of the risk of food shortages, given the limited number of operating suppliers and the slowdown in transportation, governments are under pressure to secure a variety of basic necessities.
The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t only impacted formal economic exchanges but also invisible supply chains providing for markets across the region. Informal economies in the region don’t exist as separate entities. They are inextricably linked to domestic and international formal economies. Many goods supplying formal economies make their way through complex global commodity chains that are linked in one way or another to informal economies. In North Africa, these supply chains are usually diverted toward illicit cross-border trade through border markets, such as the one in Ben Gardan in Tunisia or Souq Dubai in Al-‘Aulma in Algeria.
Unregistered and misevaluated because of corrupt arrangements, these flows transit through ports and border posts. All across the region informal operators trade products through illicit distribution mechanisms as this means they don’t have to comply with registration, tax, and licensing regulations. Similarly, transnational economic actors use the informal economy and border markets to reach low-income segments of the population whom large formal retailers cannot supply.
Since the 1990s, border markets in North Africa have been energized by extended supply chains importing Asian-made consumer goods and low-cost products. With globalization there has been a restructuring of production and distribution in many industries, characterized by outsourcing and subcontracting through global commodity chains. Border markets and small retailers sell items that are made in Asia before being shipped to North and sub-Saharan African through Dubai. That’s how the Tunisian economy ended up being supplied with Asian goods transiting through Libya or Algeria.
In North African countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, informal economies represent between 35–40 percent of GDP. Informal employment has been massive in sub-Saharan Africa, with 85 percent of employment taking place in the informal sector. In Asia, the figure is 68.2 percent and in the Arab world 68.6 percent. In total, 93 percent of the world’s informal jobs are in emerging and developing countries, showing that globalization has gone hand in hand with informalization.
The current coronavirus lockdown underlines an interesting fact, namely that many informal economies have been globalized over the decades. This is notably the case of border markets. The border market of Ben Gardane, in southeastern Tunisia, has played an important role in supplying the Tunisian and Libyan economies with consumer goods and fuel. Since the 1990s, Ben Gardan has been an entrepôt in which informal cross-border trade between Tunisia and Libya has been concentrated. Cities in western Libya have connected southern Tunisian cities to the global illicit economy. After the fall of the Qaddafi regime, the border economy became a magnet for non-state armed groups seeking to control and profit from illegal flows of goods, people, and money.
The struggle for control over economic resources and illicit cross-border traffic has had a significant impact on Ben Gardan. This has been mainly due to fighting between Libyan militias over the control of border rent and the frequent disagreements between the Tunisian authorities and their Libyan counterparts over procedures at the Ras Jedir border crossing. The closure of the crossing has sparked massive protests, strikes in Ben Gardan, and anger directed against the Tunisian authorities for contributing to the marginalization of the border region. The Libyan conflict, the coronavirus lockdowns, and the slowdown in global supply chains, will drastically limit the flow of goods transiting through Ben Gardan.
Tunisia’s government has sought to cushion the impact of the new situation and has put in place an economic package to prevent job losses and assist poor families who have been severely hit by the economic crisis. Tensions rose recently as people struggled to cope with the unprecedented sanitary and economic crises, while the government still does not have accurate data about the poor in order to help them. That is why Tunisia’s political elites have to think strategically on how to integrate the informal economy and address the needs of all those living off the books.
This blog was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Ahmed Nagi is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, where his research focuses on Yemen. He has been closely following the development of the new coronavirus pandemic in the country, and recently published an article on the topic at the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It is to discuss the issue further that Diwan interviewed Nagi in mid-April to get his perspective on what may happen in an impoverished Yemen that has been caught in a devastating war since 2015, and that suffers from a healthcare system in deep crisis.
Michael Young: How have the parties to the Yemen conflict reacted to the spread of the novel coronavirus?
Ahmed Nagi: Despite the fact that they announced that they would take precautions, the warring parties have displayed indifference toward civilians even with regard to their health measures. For instance, in areas controlled by the internationally recognized government, Aden airport and Seiyoun airport in Hadhramawt remained open until March 17, though most of the travelers there either came from or passed through Egypt, which was one of the areas most affected during the early days of the pandemic. The government then announced the closure of ports, following measures taken by Saudi Arabia.
In the northern areas, the Houthis began establishing centers to quarantine people arriving from government-controlled areas. However, these centers are anything but quarantine centers. They contain hundreds of people placed together in small buildings with almost no social distancing rules in place. At the beginning of April, the Houthis closed all internal borders, claiming that the government was not applying the proper preventive measures in the areas under its control. Moreover, the local authorities are trying to ban gatherings, including wedding celebrations, qat markets, group prayers, Friday sermons, and other religious gatherings, despite a lack of commitment by inhabitants.
It is remarkable how measures to contain the coronavirus reveal conflicting plans for fighting the pandemic. We have seen measures independently implemented by the local authorities in governorates controlled by the government. For instance, in Hadhramawt, where the only coronavirus case in the country has been reported, the local authorities announced a partial lockdown even before the case was made public. After that, the southern governorates of Mahra and Shabwa announced the closure of roads with Hadhramawt.
The fact that only one case so far has been made public does not mean that Hadhramawt is the only area affected by the pandemic. What it means is that the authorities in the governorate are, in relative terms, the most transparent. Other areas in Yemen have concealed the spread of the virus to show that they are more adept at implementing containment measures. Moreover, the lack of testing and medical capacities make it difficult to confirm cases of coronavirus, especially when other diseases are present in Yemen, such as cholera, dengue fever, and H1N1, with symptoms similar to the coronavirus. According to interviews with some doctors, the mortality rate has been higher than average in recent weeks, and most of the deaths have been recorded as being caused by the diseases I mentioned.
In terms of the conflict, while Yemenis were expecting the warring parties to halt their hostilities in order to face the coronavirus, the fighting has continued, even escalating in some areas despite announced ceasefires. That is the case of the current confrontations between the Houthis and the government in Marib, Baida and Jawf Governorates, as well as the military tensions between the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) and Saudi-backed government forces in Abyan and Socotra. It seems that some parties are trying to take advantage of the situation to advance their agendas. What we learned from the cholera outbreak is that the parties to the conflict pay no attention to the concerns of civilians. They only pursue their own military interests.
MY: Is Yemen’s public health infrastructure capable of addressing the spread of the coronavirus?
AN: Before the war Yemen’s health sector was already suffering from a lack of capacity, especially in rural areas where people have no access to basic healthcare. Today, after more than five years of conflict, the public health system is nearly ruined. Even the private healthcare sector has been affected by the situation. Most private hospitals suffer from a lack of health personnel and medical equipment, as well as limited capacity. In addition, most Yemenis live below the poverty line and therefore cannot afford private healthcare services.
In the last two months the World Health Organization (WHO) has equipped a few centers in Aden, San‘a, and Hadhramawt to receive coronavirus cases if they are confirmed. But confirmation requires testing, which is not available in many areas of the country. Beside being unable to receive a large number of cases, the WHO-equipped centers conduct no regular tests for people suspected of having the disease so that we can have a sense of the number of cases. The situation is made worse by a sense of shame among Yemenis. Even if some people have coronavirus symptoms, they do not report them, thinking it could trigger panic.
Consequently, Yemenis are facing the pandemic with a devastated health system, little international assistance, and a lack of awareness in society. All this will mean the pandemic could have serious implications for the war-torn country.
MY: Is there any sense of how widespread the coronavirus epidemic is in Yemen? And what would you say are its main sources?
AN: The Yemeni government has reported only one case so far, but this might not be accurate given the large number of newcomers from affected areas who have entered the country without testing. Furthermore, the number is expected to rise dramatically given the inability of people to follow social distancing measures because of the very difficult economic conditions in the country.
I was talking to one of the locals, and he said, “It is impossible to stay at home, as that will make me unable to feed my family. Even if I catch the coronavirus, there is only a 5 percent possibility of death, while staying at home without work means a 100 percent possibility of death.” When people have only two options—the coronavirus or starvation—of course they will choose the least harmful one.
Another source of the disease that has been hard to control is the flow of migrants into Yemen’s coastal areas. According to Yemen’s Health Ministry, a large number of migrants continue to enter Yemen despite the closure of the country’s borders. The ministry warns that this could spread the coronavirus into many areas.
MY: You recently wrote an article on internal borders in the Yemen conflict. Has the coronavirus affected such borders, and if so how?
AN: The coronavirus has pushed the warring parties to tighten their control over internal borders, leaving each region closed off and isolated. The Houthis, for instance, have threatened to punish anyone who smuggles people into areas under their authority. Participants in the conflict have used the pandemic as an excuse for tighter security control. Yet unlike the time before the virus, many people today are not opposing such restrictions. They view them as justified. But since there is no national action plan to contain the pandemic, it is anticipated that the internal borders may be imposed for a period far outlasting the pandemic itself.
MY: Has aid been provided to Yemen for the coronavirus outbreak? If so, what kind of aid and how have the warring parties used this aid?
AN: Assistance has been provided by certain international nongovernmental organizations in the past two months. In addition, the World Bank announced it would allocate just under $27 million for fighting the pandemic. Nevertheless, this is not enough to curb the disease and address its consequences, especially at a time when most donors are fighting the coronavirus at home. This could be the difference between the cholera outbreak, which afflicted Yemen after April 2017, and the coronavirus, despite the fact that the mortality rate of the latter is higher.
Most of the warring parties have asked for more aid from international nongovernmental organizations. Yet this aid has been used politically in certain parts of the country. For example, the STC has withheld essential coronavirus-related equipment that WHO sent to Yemen in Aden. It has done so to ensure that government medical staff would not have access to it.
MY: Do you anticipate any long-term impact of the disease on Yemen’s international borders, and on border relations?
AN: The land crossings with Saudi Arabia and Oman were largely closed last month, with only a limited number of trucks carrying agricultural products allowed to pass. The closure is expected to last after the pandemic ends, as the Saudis and Omanis fear that the possibility of transmission may remain given the poor state of Yemen’s healthcare system. This would be added to measures on the Saudi side to continue to use the military to prevent smuggling and human trafficking from Yemen. More than 1.5 million Yemenis live in the kingdom and their movement would be significantly affected.
This interview was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Harith Hasan, a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center (CMEC) and Kheder Khaddour, a nonresident scholar at CMEC, have just published a paper titled “The Transformation of the Iraqi-Syrian Border: From a National to a Regional Frontier.” The paper was published with support from the X-Border Local Research Network, a component of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development’s X-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy, and Trends program. The X-Border Local Research Network—a partnership of the Carnegie Middle East Center, the Asia Foundation, and the Rift Valley Institute—carries out research to better understand the causes and impacts of conflict in border areas and their international dimensions. Diwan interviewed the authors in early April to discuss their paper.
Michael Young: You’ve just published a paper at Carnegie on the Iraqi-Syrian border in the area of Qa’im-Bukamal, titled “The Transformation of the Iraqi-Syrian Border: From a National to a Regional Frontier.” What is your main argument?
Harith Hasan and Kheder Khaddour: We present two main arguments: First, as a result of the weakening of the central state and the fragmentation of power in both Iraq and Syria, the border area has attracted a number of state, nonstate, and parastate actors. This has created a hybrid configuration of authority characterized by fluidity, changing alliances, contestation, and the overlap of subnational, national, and transnational agendas.
Second, rather than being a border separating two sovereign states, this border zone has become a regional frontier where the authorities in Baghdad and Damascus are restricted by the intense presence of Iranian-backed militias and the transformation of the Qa’im-Bukamal area into a strategic conduit for pro-Iran paramilitary groups. The presence of U.S. forces and their local allies in other areas near the border, like the frequent targeting of the bases of Iranian-backed militias in Qa’im and Bukamal by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, has turned the border zone into a front line in a regional conflict.
MY: What have been the main characteristics of the border in the past, particularly since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003?
HH and KK: Prior to the U.S. invasion, the rivalry between the two ruling branches of the Ba‘th party in Iraq and Syria resulted in the severing of diplomatic and commercial relations and the closing of border crossings. Apart from limited illicit trade run by local smugglers, there was a general stagnation in the border area as both Qa’im and Bukamal became more connected with the centers in Baghdad and Damascus, respectively, than they were with each other. This started to change when the two countries resumed commercial relations and opened the border to the movement of goods and people in the late 1990s. It also changed with the revival of smuggling routes in the 1990s, benefiting from the relative weakness of the Iraqi government after the Gulf war of 1991 and the decline in the value of the Iraqi currency due to international sanctions.
After the U.S. invasion in 2003, there was a collapse of order on the Iraqi side of border, which provided insurgents and jihadi groups with an opportunity to build a strong presence in the border zone as they took advantage of old and new smuggling networks. The area became an essential passage for jihadis and foreign fighters who moved into Iraq from Syria, often with the help of Syrian government operatives. Qa’im became a key stronghold for Al-Qa‘ida in Iraq, led by Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, who spent some time there. This remained the case until 2005 when an alliance was formed between the U.S. military and the largest tribe in Qa’im, the Bou Mahal, which eventually managed to push the jihadis out.
However, the Syrian uprising in 2011 created new opportunities for jihadis, this time entering Syria from Iraq. The area became a vital zone of activity for the Islamic State group. In 2014, when the Islamic State—then still known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant—declared the foundations of its caliphate across the Iraqi-Syrian border, Qa’im-Bukamal was the only area where it tried to integrate Iraqi and Syrian towns into one administrative entity. The aim was to legitimize its claim of having put an end to the alleged consequences of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 (though it was based on an inaccurate interpretation of that agreement). The Islamic State named the new entity Wilayat al-Furat, or the Euphrates Region, allowing the unrestricted movement of people between the two towns, which are located around 7 kilometers from each other.
MY: In recent months we’ve seen an uptick in military actions in the border area by U.S. and Israeli aircraft. Why has this happened and is the border a new regional front line?
HH and KK: Indeed. The recent confrontations have had very little to do with the key interests and priorities of the Iraqi and Syrian states. There is a heavy deployment of militias on both sides of the border area, including militias that are part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). In theory, the PMF is affiliated with the Iraqi state, but in practice it is largely autonomous. Therefore, the Qa’im-Bukamal area has become the main conduit for the activities of the transnational network of paramilitaries backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Tehran has sought to use the border to maintain a connection across four countries—Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—in order to protect its regional influence. This is why the United States and Israel have frequently targeted the bases of IRGC-backed paramilitaries in the area, to prevent Iran from securing this route and using it to counter U.S. influence in Iraq, promote its operations in Syria, especially near the Syrian-Israeli border, and retain its ability to support Hezbollah in Lebanon.
MY: Who is actually present in the Qa’im-Albukamal sector of the border, and how solid is their control?
HH and KK: On the Iraqi side of the border, an array of state, nonstate, and parastate military units share territorial control. These include the Iraqi army’s 7th and 8th Divisions, border guard units, a counterterrorism force, various militias operating under the auspices of the PMF, and Sunni local tribal forces such as the Hamza Brigade, which is the military arm of the Bou Mahal tribe, and the Upper Euphrates Brigade, made up of men from Karbuli tribe.
When we were writing the paper, the main PMF militias deployed in the zone were Liwa’ al-Tuffuf (PMF Brigade 13), Kataeb Hezbollah (PMF Brigade 45), which controls the road between Qa’im and ‘Akashat to its southwest; Kataeb al-Imam ‘Ali (PMF Brigade 40); Saraya al-Khorasani (PMF Brigade 18); Liwa’ al-Muntazir (PMF Brigade 7); and Kataeb Ansar al-Hujja (PMF Brigade 29). Based on interviews with local residents, the Tuffuf brigade, affiliated with the Shi‘a shrines in Karbala but which also has strong connections with Iran, and Kataeb Hezbollah, one of the most pro-Iranian and well-trained groups that secured a very influential position within the PMF’s core leadership, are the most active in Qa’im.
Inside Syria, in and around Bukamal, the Euphrates River divides the area into two regions. The western side is known as the Shamiyya, which the regime holds alongside Iranian-backed militias; and the eastern side is known as the Jazira, and is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of militias led by the People’s Protection Units, a Kurdish militia with ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party. However, IRGC-backed militias also maintain a heavy presence in the city. On the Shamiyya side, the 17th Division, the Republican Guard, and some Russian forces control the boundary between the Assad regime and the SDF along the Euphrates. The Russians also run a center focused on fostering reconciliation, the Markaz al-Musalaha, in Bukamal.
Some neighborhoods have become centers for Iranian-backed militias. These include Kataeb Hezbollah, Harakat al-Abdal, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba’, the Zeinabiyyoun, the Fatimiyyoun, Kataeb al-Imam ‘Ali, and ‘Asaib Ahl al-Haq. In May 2019, the Fatimiyyoun militia, composed mainly of Afghan Shi‘a fighters, took over a building in the Dowar section of Bukamal because it gave them a good view of the surrounding roads. They installed cameras and converted the building into an operations center.
On the Jazira side, by contrast, the SDF has maintained control in cooperation with the Sha‘itat clan, a less complex mix than the multinational forces on the Syrian regime-controlled side. This combination of armed units throughout the border region likely will ensure that tensions remain high for years to come.
MY: Has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the border in any way?
HH and KK: It’s too early to make an assessment. Inasmuch as it affects the Qa’im-Bukamal border zone, the pandemic is likely to slow the ambitious plans of some actors who put pressure to officially reopen the Qa’im-Bukamal crossing, which took place on October 1, 2019. That was the same day when the latest wave of Iraqi protests started, feeding into the conspiracy theories of some Iranian-allied groups that the protests were driven by the United States and Israel, whose aim was to weaken ties between members of the resistance axis—Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and pro-Iranian Iraqi Shi‘a militias—which the border opening was supposed to strengthen.
Qa’im-Bukamal is now the only crossing on the Iraqi-Syrian border that is officially opened and managed by the Iraqi and Syrian governments. The two other official border crossings—Tanf-Walid and Rabi‘a-Ya‘rubiyya—remain closed, as U.S. forces have blocked the Syrian government’s access to the former, and the SDF has impeded its access to the latter.
The Syrian government lobbied to accelerate the opening of the border. It did so to reassert its authority over part of the border and because it aspired to reactivate industrial facilities in Aleppo and benefit from the Iraqi market as a destination for Syrian products while also importing cheap oil products from Iraq. The Lebanese government and Hezbollah also encouraged the reopening of this crossing as a way of facilitating the export of Lebanese products to the Iraqi market.
The crossing would also serve as the main land crossing for Shi‘a pilgrims from Iran and Iraq to Syria. The reopening can be seen as another step toward the normalization of the new power configurations in this border area, with the aim of strengthening ties between Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut. Some local residents also think it would benefit transportation and commercial companies connected to the IRGC-led axis of groups and paramilitaries operating in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Now, some of these plans have had to be postponed as all borders are either closed or subjected to extraordinary restrictions for the purpose of preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
This interview was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Mindanao, despite its legacy as a strife-ridden region, is still known to us as the “Land of Promise.” Gagandilan Mindanao Women, Inc.—Gagandilan Women for short—is a nongovernmental organization dedicated to peace, development, and women’s empowerment in Muslim Mindanao. The name “Gagandilan”—courageous warrior in the local Tausug language—pays tribute to all Bangsamoro women who have worked so tirelessly for peace.
I founded the organization in Zamboanga City after the infamous 2013 clash between government soldiers and a faction of the Moro National Liberation Front that became known as the Zamboanga Siege. Our members are Moros, the Muslim inhabitants of Mindanao, and we focus our efforts on mobilizing our community for small-scale projects to foster peace and build a foundation for stability in the region’s most vulnerable areas.
Today we run local programs such as orientations on gender-based violence and the role of women in preventing conflict. Our program Women Against Violent Extremism, or WAVE, was a coalition-style movement to prevent violent extremism. Our organization is led mostly by women, and the majority of our field researchers are women as well. In keeping with our commitment to gender equality, however, our researchers on the ground always include men. We focus on the provinces of Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi—fondly referred to together as Zambasulta—all on the southwestern tip of the Philippines.
The sea borders to the west of Zambasulta are shared with the Malaysian state of Sabah and the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan, and Zambasulta has been a maritime trading region since precolonial times in the Philippines. Today, much of this trade takes the form of so-called “barter” that skirts tax and customs enforcement, yet the barter trade brings basic necessities to Zambasulta and has, in some ways, contributed to the stability of the area.
In late 2018, The Asia Foundation invited Gagandilan Women to work on a study of the informal barter marketplace. An initiative of the X-Border Local Research Network, which studies conflict in border regions, the new research project examines the nuances of the barter marketplace and the policy regimes that have both sought to suppress it and allowed it to thrive. We conducted interviews and gathered data from traders, boat operators, port authorities, and other people and institutions that contribute to informal trade in Zambasulta. We wanted to know what people were trading, how much they were earning, and how they were able to slip across international borders.
For a prosperous trading region, Zambasulta has earned a notorious reputation for its decades of violent conflict due to lawless elements like Abu Sayyaf, kidnap-for-ransom gangs, clashing political groups, and the episodic clan violence known as rido. Gagandilan Women hoped the X-Border project would be an opportunity to show the world a Mindanao beyond the conflict, and a Zambasulta that is home to the diverse cultures of several indigenous groups, including the Samal, Tausug, and Yakan peoples. We also saw a chance to grow as an organization by committing our time, resources, and network to a project that was larger than our previous undertakings.
The Asia Foundation encouraged us to take the lead in developing local data-gathering strategies, and they incorporated many of our ideas and insights into the research design. The Foundation provided training on interview and data-collection procedures and created a rigorous safety protocol, an important consideration given the sensitive nature of our inquiry and the volatile areas where we would be working. This was driven home for us by a kidnapping in Sulu, where some of our interviews were to take place. The incident caused us to reevaluate our approach to interviews and to plan our local movements strategically and with the utmost caution.
In 2020, we continue to work with the X-Border Local Research Network, focusing on rice, the primary commodity traded from Sabah, Malaysia. The informal rice trade in Zambasulta has come to a crossroads, with a new semi-autonomous regional government looking to support the local economy while the domestic market is flooded with imported rice, and we’ve set out to see how barter traders and the public are being affected.
In the midst of our fieldwork in Sulu, a serious fire broke out in the capital city of Jolo in February. Thousands of people were affected by the conflagration, including several of our intended respondents. One pillar of Gagandilan Women as an organization is humanitarian engagement, and we changed gears to provide assistance to victims of the Jolo fire, working with various partners such as local government agencies, student organizations, and other civil society organizations to organize clothing donations. In the end we were still able to complete our intended interviews through local contacts.
We have completed the first round of research on the rice trade, and despite the temporary restrictions on movement caused by Covid-19, our work with the X-Border Network in Zambasulta will go on. In the meantime, we have been helping local governments distribute masks and pandemic information. Ultimately, we hope our research will help the Philippine national government and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao bring lasting peace and security to the Land of Promise.
Covid-19 is already starting to expose fractures, prejudices, and weaknesses among many marginal or conflict-affected populations. Existing discrimination against minority ethnic or religious groups is intensifying as they are perceived to be spreading the virus. In Pakistan, minority Shia Muslims have been blamed for importing the virus from Iran, creating potentially serious implications for communal tensions and a challenge for those organizing a comprehensive response.
In the Philippines, prejudices between villages and along religious lines are being amplified, and hate speech is spreading online. Where relationships between local communities and authorities are already strained—from urban neighborhoods in India to rural parts of Southeast Asia—official health advice on Covid-19 has been rejected.
Addressing these fears and prejudices is challenging but not impossible. Decades of development work in conflict-affected areas have led to an array of approaches, many of them actively pursued by local and foreign organizations. Development actors must ensure that pandemic mitigation efforts do not backfire by exacerbating current problems or unintentionally stoking violence. Further steps can proactively seek to dispel rumors, build common understanding, and ease tensions.
Since 2004, southern Thailand has struggled under a bloody and attritional confrontation between local armed cells and the Thai military. Hundreds of shootings, bombings, reprisals, and revenge attacks have led to over 7,000 deaths. Ceasefires have been repeatedly proposed but never gained momentum. Recently, though, the threat of Covid-19 has led to a minor breakthrough, as the main rebel faction informally decided to postpone hostilities until the pandemic is brought under control.
This example shows how sudden crises can break established patterns of behavior, sometimes generating shared interest in ending violence. In other cases, a major crisis such as Covid-19 can lead to more conflict. Governments are already taking advantage of emergency legislation and a distracted international media to suppress their rivals. In February 2020, the Myanmar government ramped up aerial and ground attacks on an armed group, the Arakan Army, in a heavily populated area of Rakhine State, striking hard while the world is distracted.
Similarly, fear of the pandemic has not stopped ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, and leaders of the extremist group Islamic State have openly encouraged followers to launch attacks globally. Meanwhile, lockdowns, quarantine, and travel bans may weaken ceasefire monitoring and peacekeeping missions in conflict zones across the world.
Coordination and collaboration, two essential elements in addressing a pandemic, are especially hard to achieve in conflict zones, where responses need the support of all armed actors. Involving armed groups is critical if they hold territory or exert strong influence over local civilians.
There are precedents for cross-conflict cooperation. International agencies have backed cooperation across conflict lines when organizing mass vaccination campaigns. Nonstate armed groups have already assumed some responsibility for Covid-19 responses. The most powerful nonstate armed group in Myanmar, the United Wa State Army, rapidly introduced travel restrictions and launched public health information campaigns.
The response to Covid-19 provides an opportunity for foreign aid agencies, who are now obliged to work remotely, to support local capacity and devolve program management, steps that they have already pledged to take. In conflict-affected areas, where people often mistrust or fear government representatives, including even health workers, local organizations can play a vital role by providing health services, gathering accurate information, and persuading local communities to change behavior.
Displaced and refugee populations, often the victims of conflict, are especially vulnerable. Families in refugee camps and temporary settlements endure poor sanitation, dense housing, and limited access to information. In Bangladesh, the government has restricted mobile internet access for almost 900,000 Rohingya confined to refugee camps around Cox’s Bazar. The resulting information vacuum has allowed damaging rumors about Covid-19 to flourish. People suspected of carrying the virus are being stigmatized, leading to the underreporting of symptoms and unwillingness to seek treatment.
Policymakers may have limited information on events in conflict-affected areas, from the spread of the virus to the status of border closures and the availability of basic goods. Measures to gather and report on data, qualitative or quantitative, can make a significant difference for areas that are off the radar and for marginalized groups who otherwise remain invisible.
Gender inequalities are exaggerated by the combination of conflict and crisis. While statistically more men than women have serious symptoms and die from Covid-19, the indirect impact of the pandemic in conflict zones is likely to disproportionately affect women, aggravating gender-based violence.
After the risks of outbreaks recede or a vaccine becomes available, the economic impacts of the virus will persist. Analyses of policy responses to major shocks indicate that things rarely return to the old normal. Once governments introduce new powers or impose new taxes, the temptation to retain them is strong.
Where the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates changes that were already under way, it may trigger a tipping point into a new normal. For example, controversial forms of high-tech surveillance and monitoring of citizens may become acceptable. The policy response to the virus may unintentionally increase border restrictions over the long term, with unclear consequences for the many conflicts in Asia that straddle frontiers and borderlands. More immediately, border closures will have a devastating effect on communities that depend on cross-border trade for their livelihoods.
The Covid-19 pandemic makes existing conflicts in Asia less predictable. Change often follows disruption; one well-quoted study indicated that most long-term conflict rivalries both start and end in the ten years following a major shock. If current conflicts follow the same trends, the next decade will be a time of both risk and opportunity for peacebuilding. Accurate local information and high-quality analysis will be vital to make sense of the confusing new terrain.
Fifty years ago, most households in South Sudan produced the grain they ate, organizing agricultural labour and distributing small surpluses mostly through kinship and other social networks. Now, the majority of households buy most of their food. This transition from self-sufficiency to market dependence took place during long wars, which transformed or distorted almost every aspect of everyday life. It is a transition that now seems to be irreversible. This report therefore looks at how South Sudan’s subsistence system, which organized the production and distribution of wealth around kinship and social networks, is being replaced by a market economy, and what the consequences of this are for the country and its people.
