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.
In 2019, I traveled back to my homeland, Yemen, to see how the country is coping after almost six years of conflict. My journey to Mahra, a more remote governate in eastern Yemen, began with a seven-hour drive from the country’s southern city of Mukala. Once largely empty, the coastal road is now filled with countless pick-up trucks transporting people and goods—visible evidence that thousands of Yemenis seek a safer, better life there and beyond the border.
Cars being transported along Mahra’s coastal road.
A used-car market near Nishtun Port.
A quarter of a million people have moved to Mahra since 2015, bringing its population to 650,000 as of early 2019, according to the governor. If this estimate is accurate, more than one-third of its residents are now originally from outside the governate.
Many of these newcomers are internally displaced, fleeing from violence in other parts of Yemen. But while Mahra is not a hotbed of the Houthi conflict, intensive military deployment suggests that a shadow conflict has emerged and regional powers are now heavily invested in the region.
Recruited and financed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), local Hadrami elite forces control the territories along the coast of the Hadramout Governate leading to Mahra. Saudi-backed security forces moved into Mahra in 2017 and now dominate its nine districts; their numbers continue to strengthen, and they have recently built several new military compounds. Oman has no formal military presence in Mahra, but it indirectly supports local tribes standing against the Saudis.
The drive to the center of Mahra took me through dozens of military checkpoints to check my identity and make sure that I was not a pro-Houthi supporter trying to slip through as an ordinary businessman or a traveler seeking medicines.
In the heart of Mahra’s capital, Ghayda, a small area with bleachers originally designed for official celebrations is now frequently used for protests attracting hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. In September 2019, Mahri protest leaders—backed by Oman—formed the Southern National Salvation Council to counter the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council and expel the Saudi-led coalition’s military forces from both Mahra and South Yemen. The leaders are demanding that the Saudis hand over control of Mahra’s airport, key ports, and administrative and community institutions.
Raised by protesters, the historical flag of the Mahra Sultanate—which lasted 500 years until 1967—is a reminder to the Saudi-led coalition of Mahris’ independent identity.
Not all Mahris are resisting the regional powers’ increased presence, however; thousands have been recruited by military forces to secure their loyalty. Unfortunately, this is leading to internal divisions among tribes who have historically maintained their independent identity within Yemen and shared common social, linguistic, and cultural characteristics.
Despite the tensions, Mahra is relatively stable, sitting 800 miles east of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. Although it’s home to only 1.3 percent of the country’s total population, it is the second-largest governate and the main commercial artery for Yemen’s trade with Oman. Since the air, sea, and land blockade the Saudi-led coalition imposed in March 2015, Mahra has become a lifeline for merchants to import goods through its border crossings and ports.
Mahra is also rich in natural resources. Its 350-mile coastline has abundant marine life, and its lush mountainous area in the east—in stark contrast to the vast desert in the north—is famous for its Boswellia trees that produce frankincense, a resin used in perfumes, oils, and incense.
A Boswellia tree in eastern Mahra.
Local fishermen’s boats
Yemen-Oman border crossing in Mahra’s Sarfit mountainous area.
Although not grown in Mahra, qat, a stimulant like coca, is playing a growing role in the economy. No longer considered socially shameful among Mahris but still banned in Oman, many people gather in Ghayda to freely chew qat and build cultural and business relationships.
A large qat market in Mahra.
Who will ultimately benefit the most from Mahra’s growth is not easy to predict. Regional powers in Mahra are jostling for influence over local Yemeni tribes who have distanced themselves from the wider conflict but have suffered from a weak national government. Each power has so far been largely successful in furthering their interests.
“I was a student at Ibb University studying accounting, but when the Houthis advanced to my city in 2014, I felt extremely disappointed, as I did not want to see my beloved hometown ruled by militias. So I dropped out of college and moved to Mahra to work at my cousin’s supermarket. Six months after my arrival, I decided to be more independent and work as a taxi driver.”
The Saudis’ main goal is to keep the Houthis out of eastern Yemen. But their expanding economic interests in Mahra have pitted them against the UAE, which wishes to protect its commercial shipping lines on the south coast. Oman, once a more neutral actor, has stepped up its indirect support of Yemenis—money, cars, media coverage, and diplomatic connections—to secure its border. How long the relative peace can last in this environment is uncertain.
New and old Mahra residents are seizing opportunities as a result of this competition. But they are also struggling to find their way in an increasingly corrupt and restrictive environment. While walking through Ghayda’s markets, I met Rami, a thirty-two-year-old taxi driver from Ibb in northwest Yemen. “I was a student at Ibb University studying accounting, but when the Houthis advanced to my city in 2014, I felt extremely disappointed, as I did not want to see my beloved hometown ruled by militias. So I dropped out of college and moved to Mahra to work at my cousin’s supermarket. Six months after my arrival, I decided to be more independent and work as a taxi driver.” For Rami, it has become a valuable venture: “I am a guide more than a taxi driver. Many people have trusted me to ease their businesses since I am familiar with Mahra’s local authorities.” People like Rami help entrepreneurs navigate complex procedures that often require bribing authorities and exploiting personal relationships.
Popular market in Ghayda City, where the main mode of transportation is motorbikes due to congestion.
A man buying qat in a Ghayda market, and a little girl looking for food for her family, who likely lives in a camp for internally displaced people.
Over the last several years, Mahra’s local government has weakened significantly. For example, in 2017, former governor Mohammed Kudda began to organize the first-ever annual conference to promote investment opportunities in Mahra. Yemeni businesspeople, especially diaspora living in Egypt, Jordan, and the Horn of Africa, showed an immediate interest. But then, at the Saudis’ request, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi dismissed the governor, who had been critical of Saudi interventions in the governate. Hadi installed a Saudi-loyal replacement, Rajih Bakrit, whose first decision was to cancel the conference.
Mahra’s local authorities have since largely adopted Saudi policies, including higher tariffs on customs and the banning of close to 100 goods from entering the governate (the Saudis claim the Houthis may use them to manufacture weapons).
The Saudis are not the only ones filling the administrative vacuum. While traveling around the city, it’s hard to miss the many billboards carrying the names of development projects. Most are financed by the Saudi-King Salman Center and the UAE Red Crescent and Oman-Charitable organizations. While they are formally listed as humanitarian institutions in Yemen, they are tied to the countries’ respective governments and therefore come with political and economic strings attached. The Red Crescent is run by military officers.
These organizations have built much-needed schools, medical centers, roads, and wells. But according to a local activist, the motivation behind their projects is not the area’s development but rather the expansion of their influence. Many projects that are announced do not move forward.
Aside from appearing to meet Mahris’ basic needs, regional powers are using another, more direct way to bolster their influence. According to armed tribesmen I interviewed, over the last two years, Saudi-backed forces have recruited around 6,000 Mahris to gain their loyalty.
Recruits are largely enticed by healthy salaries. One man I met in Ghayda said, “Before 2015, I was unemployed, with no income, but when the Saudi-led coalition started their intervention in Yemen in March 2015, I joined the UAE-backed forces who, at that time, were in Mahra under a coalition to support the security sector. I was among 2,500 recruits from different Mahra areas. After three months of military training, we became a part of the Mahri security forces. I used to receive my monthly salary from the UAE, but since the Saudis took over in Mahra, I now receive it [an equivalent to $400] from the Saudis.”
The armed tribesmen also receive salaries from their tribal leaders, many of whom are backed by Oman and want to assure some degree of loyalty to the tribe. This shows how much Yemenis’ livelihoods are dependent on the continuing conflict.
For others in Mahra, however, making a living is still a struggle. In the fishing market, I met Mahmoud and his son from Hajjah in western Yemen, who came to Mahra to start life over. “We used to work in fishing in my town, Midi, close to the Yemen-Saudi border, but our business vanished when the battles erupted, so we decided to come here to work given the richness of Mahra’s coast.”
Mahmoud (left) selling fish in a market near Ghayda’s coast.
But Mahmoud and other fishermen face tightening restrictions. Fishing is now prohibited in areas close to Saudi military installations, which continue to spread along the coast. This forces fishermen into more remote areas, including the Somali Sea. Although the Mahri community and some Somalian tribes have close social and economic relations, fishing in the area is dangerous. Navy fleets have mistaken Mahri anglers for pirates.
“Last year, I was stopped by an Indian ship crew in the middle of the ocean. I was beaten and taken to their ship, where they questioned me and then threw me into the ocean. I had to swim 300 meters to my boat,” said Salem, a Mahri fisherman I met in Nishtun Port.
Saudi forces also restrict shipping access in the ports and require prior approval before arrival. Once docked, they often board the boats to check for banned items, including solar electricity systems, batteries, and fertilizers.
A Mahri fisherman preparing to sell his catch in Ghayda’s market.
The situation has apparently worsened since the Saudis deployed forces to Nishtun Port in September 2018. They claim to be combating smuggling networks across the Yemen-Oman border, especially those related to the Houthi movement. But even Mahra’s Saudi-backed governor stated that, since November 2017, no smuggling network has been caught by Saudi forces.
Instead, the Saudis are likely preparing to renew plans for a massive oil pipeline that would bypass the Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz and run from Mahra’s coast to Saudi Arabia’s Kharakhir coast—a move that would boost security and greatly reduce transportation costs. Evidence of their intentions have included a leaked document from a marine construction company to a Saudi official and a report that engineering teams have been studying the mechanics of the project.
Salem, a Mahri fisherman (second from the left) with this commentary’s author, Ahmed Nagi (center). In the background are Saudi security ships, moored at Nishtun Port.
On the coast near Nishtun Port, a development project belonging to a Yemeni oil businessman loyal to the Saudis.
Yet smuggling routes going up the coast are a major problem. Through Mahra, networks smuggle cars from Oman to Yemen and qat and handguns from Yemen to Oman. According to some locals I met in Qishen District, “the flow of smuggled goods is heavy along the coast from Mahra to Aden [in southwest Yemen], which is 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] long, and activities are spread throughout Yemen’s territories, even among different warring parties, including Hadi’s forces, the Southern Transitional Council, and the Houthis. Given the good income associated with such activities, smuggling networks have become one of the war economy’s manifestations.”
Despite the smuggling, however, customs revenues have ballooned since 2015, currently bringing in $3 to $4 million monthly according to managers at Shihen crossing. At the center of the Oman-Yemen border, the crossing has grown to be one of the busiest land ports in Yemen. It is now the most common route for goods entering and leaving Yemen and is a window to the world for people seeking to travel and do business with Oman, China, and India—Yemen’s biggest trading partners. Since 2015, Omani authorities have greatly eased visa controls at the crossing. This is likely an attempt to boost their image by offering businessmen, students, and patients a safe alternative to flying out of Sanaa.
Unfortunately, Saudi-backed local authorities control the crossing and refuse to send the requisite customs revenues to the Central Bank in Aden. The money instead goes toward buying the local tribes’ loyalty. Meanwhile, public institutions in Mahra are still suffering from a financial deficit.
Mahra’s future will likely involve further hardships. In one scenario, tensions escalate, as Saudi Arabia continues to expand its control over Mahra’s districts and its people and as Oman increases its resistance to military presence close to its border. Should this happen, a major breakout of fighting could drastically reduce continued investments in Mahris’ basic needs and economy.
In another scenario, the return of a strong state in Yemen leads to the pulling out of Saudi and Emirati forces and a decline in Omani support, resulting in a temporary vacuum and loss of livelihood for many Mahris. For now, the conflict in eastern Yemen remains in the shadows, and it may take time for relief to spread from Yemen’s central war-torn areas.
In the long term, lasting peace and development in Mahra will only be possible with a strong state, without the entanglement of external interventions. But because of the complexity of Yemen’s situation and the spreading of more diffuse conflict, this goal seems elusive.
This photo-essay was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
The humanitarian catastrophe afflicting Yemen over the past five years has been exacerbated by the country’s suffocating isolation from the outside world. The Saudi-led Arab coalition has blockaded most of the country’s air and sea ports. Meanwhile, fighting has further isolated Yemen’s regions from each other. The expansion of the conflict zone and the competing local parties’ control over different areas have contributed to the rise of internal borders that have systematically kept inhabitants apart.
One example of such dynamics is the growing difficulty to cross from the northern part of Ta‘iz, which is controlled by Ansarullah, more commonly known as the Houthi movement, to the city center, which is held by parties loyal to the internationally recognized government. Even though the distance between the two areas is just a few kilometers, the journey can feel like crossing an international border. Travelers are forced to use alternative rugged routes that result in journeys that can often last hours.
A similar situation exists on the routes that connect Yemen’s northern cities, controlled by the Houthis. Dozens of military checkpoints have been set up to screen travelers and search their belongings. Armed men usually demand documents issued by the travelers’ sponsors in places where they are visiting, or by the authorities the travelers intend to see. The aim it to prevent the entry of anyone who may potentially belong to the opposing camp. Whoever does not meet the criteria risks being detained.
Residents of western and northern areas of Yemen are also finding it increasingly difficult to enter Aden in the south. The forces of the Southern Transitional Council, which controls the city and surrounding towns, have restricted the flow of people into the areas under their control. There is a exception to this, however, in that those traveling through Aden airport can enter into the city, provided that they hold a valid airline ticket and pledge not to remain in Aden.
In central and northern Yemen, both Houthi and loyalist forces have carved out internal borders by setting up checkpoints at the edges of the areas they control. The most prominent of these are the Houthi-controlled checkpoint in the Rada‘a area of Bayda Governorate and the government-controlled Falaj checkpoint in Marib. Both checkpoints, again, restrict the movement of people and goods.
Regional actors have also exacerbated Yemen’s geographical segregation. In early 2018, the United Arab Emirates pressured the then-governor of Socotra into barring the entry of all Yemenis except those originally from the archipelago. This pushed the local authorities to place other restrictions on non-residents, such as demanding that they be sponsored by locals when wanting to visit. They also have limited the use of boats by travelers to the island, to prevent large numbers of displaced from reaching Socotra. In that way they have made air travel the primary mode of transportation to the archipelago. These measures remain in place despite differences between the UAE and the local authorities in Socotra.
Warring parties instituted these new internal borders as a temporary measure to establish their control. However, these have developed into more enduring tools to divide Yemenis and limit movement, creating a new reality of geographically isolated pockets of land. There is an economic rationale for keeping the situation as is. As the conflict drags on and the war economy becomes more anchored, these new borders have taken on valuable economic roles. For example, the Houthis have created a customs center near the capital, San‘a, in the city of Dhamar. This center has imposed high tariffs on goods arriving from areas beyond the Houthis’ control, which represents a valuable source of revenue helping to finance the militia.
Similarly, just as smuggling is common across international borders, so too has it developed along Yemen’s internal borders. To facilitate their smuggling efforts, some networks have coordinated with the militias at checkpoints and paid them off with part of their revenues from smuggling operations. This too has helped harden the militias’ desire to maintain the status quo. These smuggling networks have also become widespread along Yemen’s extensive land and sea borders and have turned to transferring goods such as weapons and drugs.
Yemen’s internal borders have impacted heavily on the lives of civilians. Other than restricting their freedom of movement, such borders have nurtured regionalism and rallied society behind local identities, a phenomenon that will have both short- and long-term effects. Economically, these internal borders have limited work opportunities and raised the cost of basic goods, deepening the suffering of ordinary Yemenis. People were hard hit hard by the recognized government’s decision to move the Central Bank to Aden in 2016, which damaged the banking sector in San‘a, and the Houthis’ more recent decision to stop using the newly-printed riyal.
The presence of internal borders has added an extra layer to Yemen’s many challenges, which include managing its international borders and dealing with a battle for domination among regional states. Yet internal borders are no less relevant. Understanding them allows for a better grasp of Yemen and its conflict.
This blog was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
The daily hardships of the camps are apparent in the crowded rows of ramshackle bamboo-and-tarpaulin huts, but there is also an unexpected orderliness to this makeshift community. The decade’s recent exodus is just the latest, largest wave of a refugee population that has been growing here for 30 years, and a semblance of civic and family life has emerged in the camps, along with markets, community centers, and places of worship.
While relief efforts are largely meeting refugees’ basic needs, life in the camps offers little more than survival, and many are desperate to escape to find work, go to school, or rejoin lost families. It’s a daunting, underground journey. Deprived of legal citizenship in their own country, and lacking identity and travel documents, refugees must hide or fake their identity and risk jail, or death under fire, to cross the nearby border.
An unknown number have braved this harrowing journey. Thousands more, who fled persecution before the latest exodus, have found their way to other countries in the region. As a result, Rohingya families are often splintered across multiple borders. Despite the numbers of Rohingya who have experienced the trauma of dislocation and family separation, however, no data existed to understand its impact. To clarify the dimensions of this crisis, the Centre for Peace and Justice at Bangladesh’s BRAC University, which has been conducting social and policy research on the Rohingya crisis, collaborated with The Asia Foundation on a new study, Mitigating Hardship with Mobility: The Coping Strategies of Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh.
The survey took place in a moment of upheaval: on August 25, 2019, Rohingya youth and community leaders staged a peaceful prayer rally to commemorate their second year in Bangladesh and call for Myanmar to grant them citizenship. Local media, encouraged by anti-Rohingya activists, mischaracterized the rally as an angry protest, and camp security officials took steps that included cutting cellphone and internet service, just as the survey began. The Bangladesh government announced that it was illegal for the Rohingya to have Bangladeshi SIM cards, and there were reports of Rohingya mobile phones being confiscated or destroyed. We were concerned that our enumerators’ tablets, along with the collected data, would be seized. Luckily, this did not occur.
Respondents spoke of the daily sorrows of camp life, the lack of mobility or possibilities, the boredom, the difficult conditions. They missed everything from home: Burmese cigarettes and coffee, lahpet thoke (pickled tea-leaf salad), and the lives they used to have. Some wept over family members jailed abroad and their abandoned property in Myanmar, often asking for help or information. Whenever possible, we directed them to NGOs that were working on these problems. The importance of this survey’s results—to find strategies to restore fractured families, clear the way for remittances from abroad, and support the Rohingya diaspora—was always on vivid display.
The research team is currently analyzing the survey results, and we expect to publish our findings in the coming months. The findings will help inform solutions to mitigate the impact of family separation and reduce the perils of illegal travel in pursuit of a better life.
Conducting fieldwork is indispensable for researchers to understand and produce knowledge of the turbulent Middle East. For this to be successful one needs to develop a wide personal network, maintain it, and constantly expand it.
Make no mistake, building and sustaining a network can be arduous, requiring dedication and time. It is an art unto itself, which goes beyond the short-term contractual relationship with passing contacts. The relationships that usually matter are more personal, can be transformed into valuable friendships, and enable opportunities for partnership and cooperation, with both sides having a common interest in developing skills and producing knowledge.
That researchers need personal networks in the Middle East is unquestionable, because the region usually functions through personal relationships. However, there is no single recipe for how to do so. One of the finest things about traveling to the field is that you meet people, or should, from all walks of life. Most of those with whom you interact potentially add to your understanding—janitors, hotel receptionists, taxi drivers and barbers (who love to talk), local researchers, or senior officials with whom you arrange to meet (if they don’t cancel). It is the willingness to listen to people and, of course, nod convincingly when hearing conspiracy theories, that help to develop a wide network.
That said, ultimately you are the architect of your own networks. Meetings with some interlocutors will be the first and the last you have, while you may choose to remain in touch and reconnect occasionally with others. It is the third category that interests us here: those individuals who are happy to trade their local knowledge if they feel that they can get something in exchange. However, this has less to do with money than with mutual interest in a research area. Many people respond when they feel an urge to disseminate the information that they will share with you. Similar concerns between you and someone on the ground is often a valuable instrument in advancing knowledge of a particular situation.
I have experienced this personally on many occasions. I met one of my good friends, a researcher and a humanitarian worker, while on a field trip to Jordan. An official meeting of 40–50 minutes turned into a longer discussion over a dinner of fine Middle Eastern dishes. It didn’t take much time to understand that we had many interests in common. We even invited each other to our weddings. Professionally, our interchanges were mutually beneficial. Our shared concerns meant we were encouraged to exchange on a variety of matters, adding to our understanding.
The other favorite story of mine started in one of Amman’s busiest streets where I met a Syrian journalist from Dar‘a. A meeting that was supposed to last for an hour turned into a long discussion that went beyond Syria politics. This led to the idea of working together on a short project that involved engaging in several long, in-depth interviews. The next step will be cooperation on a larger project.
Maintaining contacts successfully is not easy because it means allocating what is most valuable in life, namely time. Remembering your contacts only when there is breaking news, or not being available when they need you, does more harm than good. For a network of contacts to be truly effective means that researchers need to invest in the gamut of interactions that make up a human relationship, not reduce everything to a functional task of extracting information.
That is not to say that information from the ground is irrelevant. Of course it is not. But when access to information is prioritized over human relations, it raises ethical questions and indicates to interlocutors that they only serve as your tool. Few people like to be reduced to that and it can weaken relationships.
In the Middle East people are sensitive to gestures of recognition. Offering a small gift to an interviewee can go a long way. However, this does not mean that you are buying their collaboration, and thinking such a thing would be a mistake. Rather, such gestures create a positive atmosphere that makes interaction, and an exchange of information, much easier. Most people one interviews appreciate it when you take the time to think about them before your discussion.
Networks, by their very nature, are dynamic. People come and go, marry, emigrate, or quit research altogether. While some bonds may last for a long time, eventually it is very difficult to maintain a large network for a long time. Adding new people to your list of contacts is not just exciting and challenging, it is crucial. Staying within the same circles can often mean that the same ideas and outlooks circulate again and again. To have an interlocutor with whom one always agrees can lead to ignoring valuable alternative views, to the detriment of a more balanced understanding of a given situation.
Therefore rejuvenating one’s network of relationships while also maintaining ties with previous contacts, particularly personal ties that display appreciation of an individual, may be as close to a recipe for successful research as one will get.
This blog was originally published by the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Afghan kings ruled by forging alliances with local strongmen. Even the influence of tribal leaders waned quickly, however, as one left the towns for the mountains or the desert. Ansary describes rural Afghanistan as a universe of “village-republics,” self-reliant social units where daily life remained unaltered by events in the capital. The wars of the past decades have changed this. National and global politics have left deep scars in the social fabric of rural Afghanistan: bombs and mines turned fertile valleys into deserts; millions left their villages for the cities, Pakistan, or Iran. But to a large extent, these wars have illustrated once again the resistance of rural Afghanistan to central rule.
Afghanistan’s borderlands are an extreme illustration of this governance challenge: border residents tend to have stronger economic and cultural ties with people across the border than with Kabul. And yet, these areas play a central role in the security and economy of the country. Border security is inseparable from the larger war effort, as insurgents take advantage of porous borders and kinship networks to take refuge in neighboring countries.
This satellite photo of Bahramcha, a border town in Helmand Province, strikingly illustrates how the Durand Line (in yellow), which marks the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, runs straight through border communities. Bahramcha is also a Taliban-controlled border crossing on the Kandahar–Quetta route, and a major export route for narcotics. (Source: Afghan Analysts Network / Google Maps)
The borders are also vital to the Afghan economy. Customs duties are the most important single source of government revenue after foreign aid. Despite significant improvements in customs collection since 2015, considerable leakage persists because of insecurity, entrenched corruption, and insufficient processing points along thousands of miles of permeable borders. Security dynamics and cross-border trade are interrelated in complex ways. In his 2000 book, Taliban, Ahmed Rashid exposed the role of Quetta’s trucking mafia in financing the expansion of the fundamentalist movement in the mid-90s. Insurgents levy taxes on trafficking and trade in areas that they control.
In border regions, a vast share of the local population makes a living from legal trade, smuggling, or the grey area in between. A 2019 study by The Asia Foundation looked into livelihoods and trade in the districts of Spin Boldak, in Kandahar province, and Muhmand Dara, in Nangarhar province. The two busiest official crossing points between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Torkham and Wesh-Chaman, are located in these districts. Torkham links Kabul to Peshawar via the Khyber Pass; Wesh-Chaman connects Kandahar to Quetta. A representative survey in these districts found that two-thirds of respondents had crossed the border at least once in the past year, and nearly one in five was conducting regular business with Pakistan residents other than family. A large majority reported that their community (71 percent) or their household (56 percent) depended on such trade for their economic welfare, and 47 percent depended on it for their own occupation. The study paints a picture of large traders and smuggling barons profiting most from business opportunities and ineffective border controls, while many more earn a modest living as truck drivers and cargo handlers, or by transporting licit and illicit goods along local trails.
From the perspective of local residents, the border is an artificial line that divides families but also provides economic opportunity. Although they acknowledge the contribution of porous borders to national insecurity, border residents do not see lax controls as a threat to their own safety. Instead, they worry about the impact of tighter controls on their lifestyle and livelihoods. In the past few years, a series of measures by Pakistan have drastically limited their traditional freedom of movement. These measures include fencing the border, establishing additional security posts, and requiring incoming Afghans to show proper passport and visa documents. (Previously, border tribes were allowed to cross without them.) Pakistan has also occasionally closed the border, sometimes for days or weeks at a stretch, usually in response to security incidents.
From the perspective of Pakistan, these measures are part of a legitimate effort to enforce border security, curb smuggling, and boost legal bilateral trade. The goal is to encourage people and goods to pass through official border crossings, where they can be more easily controlled and taxed. Security measures such as the border fence are combined with positive incentives: in September, Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the 24/7 opening of the Torkham gate, which used to be closed at night. This measure was intended to reduce the long wait times at the border, a major grievance of Afghans trading fresh produce. Afghans say delays persist despite Khan’s initiative, and it remains to be seen whether these policies will have the intended long-term effects. One way or another, they will durably affect the vast majority of border residents whose livelihoods, and often healthcare or education, have long been dependent on their ability to cross into Pakistan.
Why does this matter for peace? Western commentators have focused on geopolitics and ideology to explain past and current Afghan wars. Tamim Ansary and Ahmed Rashid remind us, however, that the rise of the Taliban in the 90s was not just a religious reaction to the instability and insecurity of the Afghan civil war; it was also a revolt of southern tribes rooted in historical grievances and a sense of marginalization. Improving border management and the rule of law in border regions might be a legitimate goal, but unless the needs of local populations are taken into account, such efforts may feed a fresh cycle of frustration and sow mistrust in the benefits of peace.
Last year, U.S.-Taliban peace talks raised hopes for an agreement on a political process to end the war. It remains unclear whether the talks will resume, and if they do there is no guarantee that they will succeed. Nonetheless, key governance issues that have been pushed aside by the war will eventually reclaim their place in the Afghan public debate: What role for the central state in border regions? How to protect borders against traffickers and insurgents and improve customs revenues without hurting livelihoods and fueling local grievances?
These are questions that The Asia Foundation wants to help answer. Over the next four years, our offices in Afghanistan and Pakistan will undertake joint research to document changes in policy and other conditions along the border and their favorable or adverse effects on local livelihoods, trade, and security. This work will be done through the X-Border Local Research Network, a partnership with the Carnegie Middle East Center and the Rift Valley Institute, supported by DFID, to study conflict-affected borderlands in Asia, the Middle East, and the Horn of Africa and suggest more effective responses from the international community and national governments. Our research this year will focus on how border residents on either side adjust to tighter border controls. Future studies may look at the integration of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, bilateral trade, and other relevant topics.
Majok Nyinh-Thiou (Majok) is a small market town on the border between Sudan and South Sudan, four hours’ drive to the north-east of Aweil. It is one of the main border crossing points between the Northern Bahr el-Ghazal region in South Sudan and the Sudanese regions of Kordofan and Darfur. For this reason, it attracts many traders and migrants, although border crossings are strictly regulated by the South Sudanese military (SPLA).
Historically, Majok has had a close relationship with towns like Meiram and Muglet that are now on the Sudanese side of the border. However, this relationship has often been disrupted by the region’s conflicts, which have restricted the mobility of the local population and shaped the way that people have built often insecure livelihoods. Majok has retained a heavy security presence, with many SPLA soldiers deployed there to control border crossing and manage the lucrative collection of fees and taxes that result from it.
While Northern Bahr el-Ghazal suffered from raiding by pro-Khartoum militias during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005), the region escaped the worst of the fighting during South Sudan’s civil war. Nonetheless, this national conflict has contributed to increased economic pressures on the region’s women.
Many of Northern Bahr el-Ghazal’s young men joined the pro-government Mathiang Anyoor (Brown Caterpillar) militias in 2012 and 2013, which were first formed to protect the border after independence. They later became a source of fighters loyal to President Kiir’s government and many were deployed in conflict zones after the war broke out in December 2013. Those who were killed or lost contact with their families often left their wives as the sole breadwinners.
The region’s conflict-affected economy has created a substantial population of women forced to scratch out a living in an increasingly marketized economy. We met some of these women in Majok’s busy market, sitting in grass-thatched shops selling tea, roasted nuts and other foods like vegetable leaves, wild fruits, dried fish and meat.
We sat down with Rebecca Anger, a widow in her early thirties with three children. Rebecca was born during the war between the SPLA and the Sudanese government. Unlike many of their neighbours who left for the north, Rebecca’s family chose to remain in their village south of Majok.
The family survived on farming, gathering wild foods and some humanitarian assistance. They also brewed alcohol to sell to SPLA soldiers. Brewing became a source of money for many women from southern states, who would make beer and sell it in the north where the Islamist government had made it illegal, but demand remained strong.
After the war, Rebecca married an SPLA finance officer. He died from illness in 2013 just before South Sudan’s civil war broke out in Juba. At first, Rebecca was left to look after her children on her own, but her husband’s younger brother later adopted her as a wife. She has had two children by him, but he only comes home occasionally and doesn’t provide money for food. Rebecca is responsible for paying all the living costs for her family.
Rebecca makes a living by selling tea and roasted nuts in the market. She has considered going to the north to resume her alcohol brewing business, which she thinks will provide a better income than her tea stall. However, she fears the consequences of risking the border crossing, which she hears has grown more difficult in recent years—those caught crossing without the right permissions may be beaten, tortured or arrested and forced to pay for their release.
Local governance and security organs regard border crossing by women and children as a long-term threat to the region. They fear that it will artificially reduce the population and therefore weaken the region’s political and economic status. Mothers are told that children are the property of the country and should not move across the border with them.
The women who want to cross have two options: either they pay a local chief to draw up a travel permit, which states that they are crossing for medical reasons, or they can bribe SPLA soldiers to help them cross safely. Regulation of the border has therefore become a lucrative business for some SPLA soldiers.
Many women who can’t afford these options are now living in Majok, where they try to gather enough money to pay for illegal entry in to Sudan. Those who cannot afford to pay for permits or bribes sometimes travel to the border on foot through the forest and enter Sudan via this route. Due to the presence of armed militias, this route is risky. The militia groups rob travellers or ask for bribes by threatening to take them to the border authorities. It is even more dangerous for women, who may be subjected to sexual violence.
The strict regulation of the border also affects the truck trade between Northern Bahr el-Ghazal and Sudan. Evidence of this could be seen on the main highway south that runs between Warawar in South Sudan and Meiram in Sudan, with trucks loaded with foodstuffs parked there throughout the day. They had arrived in Majok overnight from Sudan—crossing the border illegally under cover of darkness.
This illicit trade across the border is a lucrative business. It is controlled by Sudanese Misseriya who inhabit Meiram and the areas around it. Local businessmen in Meiram, who have developed relationships with the security forces on the border, buy goods from Khartoum-based traders and smuggle them into South Sudan overnight where they can get a higher price.
The South Sudanese soldiers deployed on the border rarely arrest the drivers if they are caught. Instead, they have set up many roadblocks between Majok and Aweil and unofficially tax the trucks. For this reason, the soldiers and their commanders on the border prefer to have many more trucks entering South Sudan through Majok.
The life stories told to us by Rebecca and other women in Majok help us understand some of the difficult choices that women in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal face, particularly those who have little or no support from their husbands. Surviving in the border economy is hard, with little prospect of self-advancement. But the alternative is to risk the crossing in to Sudan, which brings more dangers for them and their children. This has been made more difficult by the strict regulation of the border since independence, making it difficult, expensive and risky for traders and individuals to cross. This often leaves women, like Rebecca, trapped in a low-margin economy in towns like Majok, surviving as best they can.
It’s business as usual for cross-border trade in the Sulu Archipelago, off the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where enterprising men and women from Zamboanga City and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi brave the waves of the Sulu Sea to import goods from Sabah in North Borneo—goods such as rice, noodles, and other food products, as well as the cooking oil and gasoline that remote island communities of the southern Philippines depend on.
Isolated from formal trade and markets, “barter trade” as the locals call it has been practiced here since time immemorial, and it continues despite a regulatory environment that is becoming more restrictive due to rising maritime insecurity in the region, including the growing presence of kidnap-for-ransom groups such as Abu Sayyaf and the rise in violent extremism in Southeast Asia.
A recent study by The Asia Foundation explores the challenges faced by barter traders in the southern Philippines and the strategies they adopt to navigate this complex political and security environment. Trade in the Sulu Archipelago: Informal Economies amidst Maritime Security Challenges finds that barter trade remains a risky business. While Malaysian authorities allow the duty-free transshipment of goods, barter traders are considered to be smugglers under Philippine law, and the goods that fill their wooden-hulled boats are contraband. Rather than being discouraged, however, these traders have found allies among some security and regulatory agents, who provide protection in exchange for a cut of the profit.
This “special arrangement” has benefited both traders and some state agents, along with formal and informal actors throughout the supply chain, including fixers, boat operators, port operators, wholesalers, laborers, and truck operators. It’s a system with no clear-cut distinction between formal and informal actors or transactions, consigning transborder trade to a legal gray zone in which formal and informal are conflated. Filipino state agents who facilitate border-crossing to Malaysia can shift their role from facilitators to regulators, preventing the entry of untaxed imported goods on their journey back to Philippine waters. In the same vein, formal traders can easily embark to Sabah on a registered wooden-hulled boat from a local public port, then dock illicitly, loaded with contraband, in one of the many private ports upon their return.
Despite significant legal risks and growing maritime insecurity, barter traders have few livelihood alternatives. In interviews in January and February 2019, 36 barter traders gave a glimpse of their skill and persistence in moving goods across the maritime border, even in times of heightened scrutiny. When enforcement is more severe, most traders say they stop crossing the border to wait for the situation to normalize. Others change routes. Women traders importing clothing and other nonperishable goods, for example, have shifted to traveling either by plane or along the formal Zamboanga City–Sandakan route, plied regularly by the vessel MV Dona Antonia. Small traders with insufficient capital are forced to find other sources of income during crises. Larger traders smuggling cigarettes and other contraband have evaded state agents by hiding among nearby islands for hours, waiting for navy or coast guard vessels to finish their patrols.
For those with the capital—at least 10 million Philippine pesos (PHP) in cash (approximately USD 200,000) for each journey to Sabah—cross-border trade can be a lucrative business, with a round trip generating around PHP 1 million (USD 20,000) in profit. State actors who accept “special payments” can earn similar profits from each shipment, without the risk faced by traders. The study illustrates how this mutually beneficial relationship between traders and state actors has created a parallel economy that overlaps and often supersedes the formal legal structures and practices in cross-border trade. In this parallel economy, fueled by large financial rewards, state regulatory and security agents interact with traders and fixers in both official and unofficial transactions. Among traders, the high demand for barter-trade products, their familiarity with trade routes, strong social networks, and clan-based support add to their resilience in braving the waves of adversity in cross-border trade.
All this soon may change following the adoption by plebiscite in January and February 2019 of Republic Act No. 11054 establishing a new regional government in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). The new BARMM government now has an opportunity to enact laws to protect barter traders from coercive rents and more equitably and transparently share the fruits of cross-border trade with the local economies of the Sulu Archipelago. Providing incentives for barter traders to formalize their operations could gradually eliminate the issue of rent payments and corruption. Executive Order 64, signed by Philippine president Duterte in late 2018, allows for the establishment of a Mindanao Barter Council (MBC) and the designation of ports in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi as legal areas for barter trade. The MBC will continue its function until the Bangsamoro government establishes its own barter trade office, at which point authority will devolve to the regional level.
How these legislative changes are managed, along with existing and emergent security challenges, will be key to the future development of the region and the stability of the newly created BARMM. Informal trade in the Sulu archipelago operates in a complex conflict environment shaped by extreme poverty, marginalization, and weak governance. These interlocking issues are deeply ingrained in what have been flawed government systems and policies. Efforts to formalize barter trade as a significant economic and cultural activity must incentivize barter traders and others directly involved in the practice to participate in a legal and transparent manner. Policymakers, regional agencies, and donors should focus on understanding how the country’s policies on barter trade, security, and maritime borders can be improved to maximize benefits for Filipino traders, the BARMM, and local economies in the Sulu archipelago.
Views from the Borderlands sheds light on how political, security and socio-economic developments affect the people living in contested borderlands and, reversely, how border dynamics shape change and transition at the national level. In this first issue, we cover:
