UN agencies’ Myanmar PR campaign raises more questions than it answers

International aid organisations have not done enough to allay concerns about their deals with the country’s hated regime

Faced with growing criticism over their push to normalise relations with Myanmar’s illegal military junta, United Nations agencies have embarked on an effort to justify their actions. Using social media, they have deployed infographics and other tools to demonstrate just how indispensable international aid organisations are in a country wracked with conflict.

On October 3, for instance, the Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU), which operates under the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), published a map that looks truly impressive. It professes to show areas covered by “projects under implementation” by international nongovernmental organisations (INGOs) and the Red Cross.

In some places, such as Chin and Kayin states, there is barely a speck of white in the sea of yellow that indicates the presence of such projects. Even Sagaing and Magway regions, where the military’s ongoing war against civilians opposed to its rule has been most intense, have about 80% coverage.

Another graphic tweeted by OCHA Myanmar three days later claims that its “partners reached 3.1 million people with assistance at least once in the first half of 2022,” despite “access challenges” and an 80% shortfall in funding for its Humanitarian Response Plan. Again, a strong showing considering Myanmar’s near-total collapse since last year’s military takeover.

A closer look, however, reveals that these figures do not provide an accurate picture of the actual situation on the ground.
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The remains of a house destroyed in an arson attack by regime forces in Sagaing Region's Pale Township in August (Supplied)

The remains of a house destroyed in an arson attack by regime forces in Sagaing Region’s Pale Township in August (Supplied)

Consider this disclaimer from MIMU: “This map shows presence of organisations and does not indicate the volume of assistance, the number of beneficiaries, or the extent to which needs are met or unmet.” In other words, it tells you almost nothing about the real extent of aid delivery.

And then you have to wonder what OCHA Myanmar means when it says that its partners have reached 3.1 million people “at least once” in the first half of this year. This begs the question: How many of these people received aid only once? And was that enough to make a real difference in their lives?

Once you begin to pull on these threads, even more questions come to mind. For example: What kinds of assistance were provided? How was it decided who would receive aid? And what role did the junta play in the decision-making and delivery processes?

In short, it is highly misleading to release facts and figures that do more to obscure than inform. Without context, and without meaningful details, this amounts to little more than a slick PR exercise that does an enormous disservice to ordinary citizens under constant attack from their would-be rulers.

With more than a million people displaced by the military’s “clearance operations” around the country and tens of millions more driven into poverty by the junta’s callous disregard for everything except its own claims to power, Myanmar deserves answers about how international aid is being—and will be—distributed in future.

If UN agencies are genuinely interested in winning the trust of Myanmar’s people, they need to fill in some of the blanks in the information that they have so far provided.
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Hta Naung Taw, a village in Sagaing Region's Monywa Township, is seen after a junta raid on September 29 (Facebook)

Hta Naung Taw, a village in Sagaing Region’s Monywa Township, is seen after a junta raid on September 29 (Facebook)

It is worth asking, for instance, how much international aid has reached parts of Sagaing and Magway regions and Chin, Kayah, and Kayin states devastated by the military’s air and ground assaults. Have UN aid agencies or their partners done needs assessments in these areas? If so, when will they publish this information?

Also, what kind of aid has been provided in these and other parts of the country? And how has it met actual needs?

There are also many who would like to know if the UN has engaged in serious discussions with the National Unity Government, ethnic armed groups, and local civil society organisations on the territories not controlled by junta about what role they could play in delivering aid. If so, have they reached any agreements or allocated any funds?

On the subject of money—have UN agencies and INGOs been exchanging foreign currencies into kyat at the rate set by the regime? Since this would be putting hard currency into the hands of the country’s generals, has any effort been made to assess the impact this would have on their ability to commit crimes against the people of Myanmar?

Is it true, as some have reported, that UN agencies that have signed deals with the regime have pressured their INGO partners to do the same? And have they also agreed to share information about their partners’ projects with the junta?

Given that the UN’s Humanitarian Response Plan for Myanmar is operating on only 20% of its budget for this year, it seems pertinent to ask how much of this money has been spent on UN personnel and INGO expat staff who have been outside of the country since the coup. Are they receiving extra compensation, in the form of lodging costs, per diems, family allowances, and so on, in addition to their regular salaries? If so, are these expenses being paid for from the $169m that the UN says it has at its disposal to assist Myanmar’s most vulnerable citizens?

What assurances can the UN offer that the junta won’t be able to weaponise aid, by directing it into areas under its control while denying it to those living in parts of the country where it faces resistance? And considering the dramatic spike in corruption since the coup, are there any guarantees that money meant to assist the poor won’t end up being misdirected towards those who don’t need it at all?
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Residents of several villages in Sagaing Region flee after a junta raid on September 20 (Supplied)

Residents of several villages in Sagaing Region flee after a junta raid on September 20 (Supplied)

These are just some of the many questions that could be asked. But I leave it to a colleague with more than 20 years experience as a Myanmar national working in the aid sector to ask the one that should matter most to UN agencies seeking to return to business as usual in her country.

“Do you know,” she said, addressing “international colleagues” who might not want to hear what she has to say, “that in the eyes of the general public and most civil society organisations, anyone who deals with this illegitimate regime is seen as an accomplice in its many human rights abuses, including its killing of innocent children?”

The UN agencies clearly care enough about their image to make some attempt to justify their decision to cooperate with a regime that most in the country openly reject (even at great risk to their own lives). But if they believe that graphs and maps with incomplete data will be enough to convince anyone that they are a force for good, they are seriously mistaken.

Igor Blazevic is a prominent human rights campaigner based in the Czech Republic. He is a lecturer at Educational Initiatives, a training program for Myanmar activists, and a senior adviser with the Prague Civil Society Centre.

Myanmar Now News

Chin woman and girl knifed to death in Magway township with heavy military presence

The two victims disappeared last week while on their way home from a nearby village; their bodies were discovered on Sunday

A young woman and a 14-year-old girl were found murdered in southwestern Magway Region’s Ngape Township on Sunday, four days after they went missing in the heavily militarised area.

The two victims, who were both members of the Asho Chin ethnic group, were last seen alive in the village of Goke Gyi, where they had met relatives on Thursday.

They were walking back to their home village of Bone Maw, some 1.2km away, later that day when they disappeared, local sources reported.

The bodies of 21-year-old kindergarten teacher Mai Shwesin Ye and eighth-grader Mai Naung Pa Hla were discovered near Myay Latt, another village in the same area, on Sunday, the sources said.

“There were so many stab wounds—in their thighs, backs, necks, breasts, and stomachs. It was just so cruel,” said one person close to the victims’ families who saw the bodies.

It was believed that the older victim had also been raped.

“The older girl was wearing a dress but her body didn’t have any underwear on. The younger girl was wearing a pair of jeans and had been tied up with ropes,” said the source.

The murders were reported at the village police station in Goke Gyi, but as of Tuesday, no information had been released regarding an investigation.

The bodies of the victims were cremated in the nearby town of Padein on Monday and their remains were interred at the cemetery in Bone Maw the next morning, the family friend told Myanmar Now.

According to local news outlets, the military maintains a base in Goke Gyi as part of its efforts to eradicate opium poppies in the nearby hills.

Soldiers stationed in the village were said to be from Light Infantry Division 88, based in Padein. Since last year’s coup, an additional 100 troops have been sent there as reinforcements, the news outlets reported.

There is also another base in the area set up to guard a pipeline that runs from the Rakhine coast to China, according to locals, who say that the base is usually manned by six soldiers and four police. 

Ngape Township, which borders Rakhine State, also has two weapons factories and several other military installations. 

Despite being in Magway Region, which has been one of the main areas of resistance activities since the military seized power in February of last year, Ngape Township has seen relatively little fighting due to the proximity of the pipeline and geographical conditions, locals said.

Myanmar Now News

Prisoner beaten to death in Myingyan Prison

The prison, which holds hundreds of political detainees, has become one of the most notorious in the country since last year’s coup

A prisoner who was sent to Mandalay Region’s Myingyan Prison last week was beaten to death within a day of his arrival, according to prison sources.

Nay Myo Oo, a resident of the village of Nabu in Mandalay’s Taungtha Township, was transferred to the prison on the afternoon of October 3 to serve a one-month sentence for drunk and disorderly conduct.

Soon after his arrival, however, he was viciously beaten by four officials, according to an inmate of the prison.

In a letter received by Myanmar Now from a source close to the prison, the inmate claims that the officials—Thant Zin Maung, Win Myat Ko, Nay Zaw and Thiha Naing—inflicted multiple injuries on the victim when they ganged up on him.

When Nay Myo Oo was found dead the next day, a prison warden named Myat Kyaw Thu ordered officials to state that he had choked to death on his own vomit, the letter adds.

An officer of the Monywa Township People’s Strike Committee familiar with the incident confirmed the details of the letter’s account.

“The prison authorities beat him up for his drunken behaviour and for running around in his cell,” said the officer, adding that Nay Myo Oo was denied medical treatment despite his injuries.

According to the officer, the victim had broken bones, was bleeding from his eyes and mouth, and was also struggling to breathe.

A prison officer stands guard at the main entrance of Shwebo Prison in early May 2019 (EPA)

In August, hundreds of political prisoners were transferred to Myingyan Prison from Mandalay’s Obo Prison and Monywa Prison in Sagaing Region. Many have been singled out for abuse,  dissident sources have reported.

Zin Min Htet, the chair of the Monywa Student Union, is said to have been beaten unconscious inside the prison for refusing to cut his hair or “sit in position” as ordered by prison authorities. Another student leader was also attacked for attempting to protect him, sources reported.

Besides being subjected to various forms of torture, Myingyan inmates are also reportedly forced to do hard labour and pay bribes to officials.

Dr. Myint Naing, the ousted chief minister of the Sagaing Region, is among the prison’s political detainees.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been denied permission to visit Myanmar’s prisons since last year’s coup.

“They don’t care about the ICRC,” said one activist, referring to prison authorities. “They openly say that international organisations don’t matter anymore.”

The families of prisoners say that many detainees are transferred to remote locations to make it more difficult for them to maintain contact and provide care packages. 

Myanmar Now News

Prospects for Peace in Myanmar

Achieving peace in Myanmar has been a long and troubling journey as the Myanmar junta has historically jeopardized and devastated all possibilites. This is evident through a long line of broken ceasefires and attacks on vulnerable, unarmed populations. Throughout different periods, the violence perpetrated against ethnic people has led to hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives to border areas in order to seek refuge. Since the attempted military coup on 1 February 2021, efforts for peace have all but exhausted themselves as the terrorist-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, attempts to engage on a peace dialogue with ethnic armed organizations.

To ND-Burma members, such as the Association Human Rights Defenders and Promoters, peace is rooted in freedom from civil war, and agreement and harmony among all people. One challenge that has remained across Myanmar’s seven decades of brutal warfare has been building a truly federal arrangement that addresses the self-governance aspirations:

“For a multicultural society like Myanmar, the greatest test of democracy and peace is whether the government treats its minorities equal to the majority,” said Ko Aung Zaw Oo of the Association Human Rights Defenders and Promoters.

“Peace building becomes strategic when it works over the long run and at all levels of society to establish and sustain relationships among people locally and globally,” he added.

Unity is also a significant challenge as noted by ND-Burma affiliate member the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO). A free and fair federal union has long been the goal of ethnic people who believe peace is rooted in, “the right to work without any interference and disturbance when working in a group,” said Salai Benjamin, a field staff at CHRO, adding peace requires that everyone is equal.

At its core, one of the major challenges to achieving peace in Myanmar has been the deeply flawed and problematic 2008-military drafted Constitution. The document protects the military junta across nearly all legal and social sectors of society. This on its own also enables and emboldens impunity.

In addition, chauvinism and authoritarian rule have undermined prospects for peace as the military corrupts the economy. There is a lack of rights for ethnic people who have long felt marginalized and discriminated against.  Consequently, there is a lack of trust in the peace building process.

ND-Burma member, the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand, has advocated for truth-seeking and protection mechanisms to be developed.

“The Myanmar Army commits atrocities against civilians and deliberately commits genocide and war crimes as well as crimes against humanity,” said Ah San, the Program Coordinator of the Documentation and Research Program at ND-Burma member organization, the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT).

Women have also routinely been denied roles in the peace building process, and have had their inputs and experience side-lined. “Women must be involved and must be supported in any matters related to peace,” said Ah San from KWAT.

Another key element discussed by ND-Burma members as it relates to peace is the importance of reparations and truth-seeking initiatives to ensure that past grievances are resolved through an inclusive process of national reconciliation. This begins by dismantling the Myanmar military and reinstating the democratically elected National League for Democracy.

Seven civilians killed in 3 shootings in Myanmar’s Yangon

The 3 incidents involved the military or anti-junta forces, sources said.

At least seven civilians were killed in three separate shootings involving the military or anti-junta forces in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon on Thursday evening, according to witnesses.

The incidents took place in Yangon’s Pabedan and southern Dagon Myothit townships and left six men and a woman dead, sources told RFA Burmese.

In one of the shootings, a rickshaw driver and two young men were killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a junta soldier on duty near the Maha Thein Dawgyi Ordination Hall in Pabedan at around 3:30 p.m., according to a resident of the township, who declined to be named for security reasons.

“[The soldier] was shot near a betel nut stall on a side street near Ordination Hall. I didn’t hear anything for a while, and then a [military truck] arrived on the scene. The soldiers were yelling and cursing,” the resident said.

“Then I heard [around 10] gunshots continuously. The rickshaw man and two other young men who were hit died on the spot. I feel sad that these men were shot for no fault of their own.”

The resident said the bodies of the three victims were taken away by a Red Cross ambulance around 30 minutes later.

Other residents of Pabedan told RFA that authorities closed Maha Bandoola and Sule Pagoda roads, which run through the center of the township, following the shooting, but reopened them this morning. Meanwhile, the security force presence inside the Maha Thein Dawgyi Ordination Hall has been doubled, they said.

Posts on a Telegram social media network channel used by junta supporters said the two young men had “carried out an attack” on the soldier at the betel nut stall and were killed when security forces returned fire.

However, a spokesman for an anti-junta armed group known as the Yangon UG Association rejected the claims.

“We will attack and flee with motorcycles or cars. We will even attack on foot and run when we have an escape route. But it doesn’t make sense to attack [a military post] with a rickshaw,” said the spokesman.

“[The military] might be trying to protect themselves. Or they might just be lying to cover up the act. These urban guerrillas are young people in an age of globalization, they aren’t morons. Everyone knows you can’t launch an attack from a rickshaw.”

The spokesman added that urban guerrillas don’t carry weapons in Yangon because junta troops carry out strict security checks in the city.

Southern Dagon Myothit shootings

Also on Thursday, a resident of southern Dagon Myothit’s Ward 53 said junta soldiers shot and killed a man in his 40s and a woman in her 30s inside their home.

“When we found them, they were already dead. The man had gunshot wounds on his chest and stomach,” the resident said.

“They were shot in their own house. When we checked with people nearby, they said the two who had been killed were peaceful people. We don’t know exactly who shot them.”

Later the same night, the anti-junta South Dagon Urban Guerrilla Group said that its members had killed the deputy administrator of Ward 71 and an office worker from Ward 25’s General Administration Department, who it claimed were military informers.

RFA was unable to independently confirm the killings in southern Dagon Myothit township.

The military has yet to release any information about the killings, and further details about the incidents were not immediately available.

Nan Lin, a member of the Yangon-based anti-junta group University Old Students’ Association, told RFA that urban guerrilla units have attacked bunkers, police posts and local administration offices, leaving authorities on edge and ready to fire at anything they deem suspicious.

“More and more people have lost their lives because of the military’s indiscriminate shootings,” he said.

“Urban guerrilla forces are staging all kinds of different attacks. Because of this, the soldiers feel they aren’t safe anywhere,” Nan Lin said. “There are quite a lot of cases now where [troops] open fire at anything suspicious, sometimes even at their own people.”

In Yangon, authorities are regularly arresting people at their homes during checks of guest lists and shooting at anyone they suspect of being members of anti-junta groups, residents told RFA.

According to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), authorities have killed at least 2,327 civilians and arrested 15,691 others in the nearly 20 months since Myanmar’s military seized power in a Feb 1, 2021, coup — mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

RFA News

The world needs to recognise—and support—Myanmar’s ‘humanitarian resistance’

As UN aid agencies line up to sign deals with the junta, local groups fighting “for victory and humanity” continue to be the country’s real saviours

The recent rush of UN agencies to sign memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Myanmar’s military junta has raised important questions about who is really carrying the burden of humanitarian assistance in the country—international aid agencies, or local relief groups engaged in resisting the regime?

In a recent paper, Hugo Slim, a UK-based expert on the ethics of humanitarian aid, offers some valuable insight on this issue, which has been the subject of often passionate debate in Myanmar. Titled “Humanitarian resistance: Its ethical and operational importance,” this paper examines the respective roles of local civil society organisations and activist groups participating in the Spring Revolution on the one hand, and UN agencies and the INGO aid community on the other.

There is growing frustration on both sides. Those who work for international aid agencies, especially foreign nationals, feel that they are being unfairly criticised for trying to assist vulnerable populations. While they lament that this may mean making “many hard and unpleasant compromises in order to serve higher humanitarian imperatives,” as one such individual put it to me recently, they insist that this is necessary in order to function in a very complex situation.

On the other side, local activists feel that they are speaking for most in Myanmar when they say that the country has been largely abandoned by the international community—not least by the UN and its humanitarian agencies. Looking back over the past 19 months, what they see is the failure of UN agencies and INGOs to provide aid where it is needed most. Only a trickle of aid has come into the country, and it has only reached areas where the regime has allowed them to operate.

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Villagers flee their homes as junta troops carry out raids in Sagaing Region's Depayin Township in July

Villagers flee their homes as junta troops carry out raids in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township in July

In Slim’s terminology, this is a dispute between what he calls the  “local humanitarian resistance community” and the community of “conventional international humanitarian agencies.” The first term in particular is helpful in understanding the core of the disagreement, because it highlights the emergence of an alternative to more traditional thinking about the place of humanitarian relief work in the context of conflict.

Since its attempt to seize power in February of last year, Myanmar’s military has faced protests, civil disobedience and armed resistance; in response, it has unleashed harsh, indiscriminate, large-scale and systematic violence. Its sole aim is to crush dissent at any cost, and its inability to achieve this goal has only made it more brutal. Currently in control of less than 50% of the country’s territory, and vulnerable to attack even in areas where it has a strong presence, it routinely deploys jets, helicopters and ground troops to carry out “clearance operations” anywhere that it cannot impose its rule. The result has been a huge and growing humanitarian crisis.

This crisis has been created by the junta, and nobody else. As it continues to worsen day by day, week by week, the people of Myanmar have responded with an impressive display of what Slim calls “humanitarian resistance,” which doesn’t just address immediate needs, but also recognises that inflicting suffering on the civilian population is not just an unfortunate side effect of the country’s conflict, but an integral part of the military’s strategy. Thus, no amount of international aid will help as long as the regime continues with its systematic dislocation of civilians and destruction of their property and livelihoods.

Displaced locals flee army shelling in Kyauk Gyi Township, Bago Region, on June 29 (KNU)

KNU says more than 150,000 displaced in its territory

Figures released by the group suggest that Myanmar’s post-coup humanitarian crisis is rapidly escalating

Within Myanmar, local humanitarian resistance groups enjoy the trust and appreciation of the general population, while international aid agencies are increasingly regarded with frustration and even anger. Conversely, people outside of the country, who have little knowledge or recognition of the value of resistance humanitarianism, continue to hold the international agencies in high esteem, if only because these agencies have been so skillful at promoting themselves on the world stage.

There are a number of reasons that many in Myanmar take such a dim view of international agencies. One is that they are seen as remote, top-down organisations. They are also far less numerous and diverse than local, grass-roots groups. But perhaps the most important reason is that they see themselves as obliged to remain “neutral” and “non-partisan”—unlike local humanitarian resistance groups, which, according to Slim, “simultaneously [take] sides for human life and human freedom” and “combine a desire for victory and humanity.”

In his paper, Slim looks at Myanmar and Ukraine as examples of humanitarian resistance in action. In both countries, he sees evidence of how the humanitarian response to their respective political crises aims to serve “the cause of victory”: 

“In Myanmar, people committed to the resistance are boycotting government institutions and have either created new associations for the rescue and relief of people suffering from the dictatorship’s violence and increasing poverty, or they are surging existing social and religious institutions for the same effect. In Ukraine, where an entire nation is fighting for survival against outside aggression, people have come together en masse as volunteer auxiliaries to dramatically expand the provision of food relief, emergency housing and education, social work, civil defence and ambulance and fire services.”
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Volunteer medics travel on foot to remote villages in Karenni State (Loyalty Mobile Team)

Volunteer medics travel on foot to remote villages in Karenni State (Loyalty Mobile Team)

According to Slim, “All these welfare activities combine a humanitarian and a resistance purpose in the same activity. Being a resistance humanitarian in Myanmar or Ukraine means playing your part in the struggle. Working as a medic, a firefighter or an emergency teacher is experienced and understood as a valuable form of civil resistance.”

The fact that many see their humanitarian activities as part of a political struggle in no way detracts from the effectiveness of their efforts, says Slim. Indeed, he observes that humanitarian resistance has had a “significant” impact in terms of meeting people’s needs:

“Tens of thousands of people have been rescued from Ukrainian cities under Russian attack by informal groups using their own cars and covert routes in a continuous relay of rescue runs. These rescuers see their humanitarian work as part of the political struggle against the Russian invasion. In Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of people are being helped with food, healthcare and emergency education by rescue committees and relief committees formed by people from the [Civil Disobedience Movement] who have left their government jobs to work for alternative, resistance institutions.”

Unlike international aid organisations, which are relatively generously funded by donor countries, the local humanitarian resistance community is primarily financed by members of the public who are in many cases struggling with hardships of their own due to the economic fallout of the coup. An energized and self-organised diaspora is also making a contribution.

Another difference is that local humanitarian resistance work relies heavily on volunteers, whereas international aid agencies are mostly staffed by well-paid professionals. Expats employed to do international aid work typically follow a career path that takes them from one “crisis spot” to another. Most currently working “on Myanmar” do so from a safe distance—from neighbouring Thailand or even farther afield. And while they can expect to advance in their careers even under these circumstances, many humanitarian resistance workers actually inside the country have had to abandon their professions to oppose the injustice and repression of the military regime.

Needless to say, “resistance humanitarians” don’t just sacrifice their careers—they also risk their lives. On numerous occasions people providing aid have been arrested, tortured and imprisoned. Some have been killed. 

Doctors attend an anti-coup protest in Yangon in February 2021 (Myanmar Now)

Military demands Mandalay hospitals submit patient lists in ‘bid to prevent treatment’ of injured resistance fighters 

The junta has also revoked the licences of 14 medics and threatened to shut down private clinics that employ CDM doctors 

Meanwhile, conventional humanitarian agencies have been struggling to respond to the suffering in Myanmar. Their mode of operations requires the explicit or implicit consent of the regime, which has hugely restricted what they can do. But beyond this, they have also been constrained by their own bureaucratic character, which makes them extremely slow and expensive, as well as prone to self-censorship.

In short, there has been an enormous disproportionality between these two very different aid communities, in terms of their cost, effectiveness, and risk. This raises the question of which side actually receives the most money from international donors. The answer, of course, is that almost all funding flows to major agencies or organisations, while virtually none reaches groups engaged in humanitarian resistance.

This is not a new situation. It has long been the case that local groups have had to operate on shoestring budgets, while international aid agencies have been far more lavishly funded. This has been a source of some resentment among local aid groups, but most have hesitated to speak out about it, as they see the international aid agencies as being at least potential allies against the real enemy—Myanmar’s repressive military.

More recently, however, many have become more outspoken about this disparity, as they watch multiple UN agencies hasten to sign MOUs with the junta. In effect, according to those who are now witnessing this spectacle from the trenches of Myanmar’s ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, these agencies have broken their long-held principle of neutrality by reaching agreements with a regime that has no legitimacy in the eyes of the country’s people.

This cannot be defended as pragmatism. A genuinely pragmatic approach would be one that involves deals with both the regime and with the National Unity Government and governing entities in liberated ethnic territories. This would enable a more fair and balanced distribution of aid into areas that are currently being served almost entirely by humanitarian resistance organisations.

At this point, there are few in Myanmar who believe that the UN agencies are primarily motivated by a desire to deliver aid more effectively. Rather, they are seen as acting mostly out of institutional self-interest. Meanwhile, resistance organisations and networks continue to do what they have been doing to save the country from the coup regime. They need to be noticed, recognised and supported by donor countries. Yangon-based UN agencies and INGOs will not provide for them.

Igor Blazevic is a prominent human rights campaigner based in the Czech Republic. He is a lecturer at Educational Initiatives, a training program for Myanmar activists, and a senior adviser with the Prague Civil Society Centre.

Myanmar Now News