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Myanmar Needs ‘People First’ Assistance

August 5, 2021/in News

By AUNG MYO MIN 5 August 2021 The people of Myanmar face an unparalleled national three Cs (coup, COVID and climate change) crisis today as we confront a failed military coup, catastrophic third COVID-19 wave, and natural disasters engineered by changes in the climate. As the third wave of COVID-19 spreads rampantly throughout Myanmar, it is possible […]

Myanmar human rights crisis needs solidarity-based approach

August 4, 2021/in News

The people of Myanmar are facing a humanitarian catastrophe, with large-scale suffering caused by violence and displacement, an economic and food security crisis, and a public health emergency within which a deadly new wave of Covid-19 is wreaking havoc. Myanmar is in dire need of humanitarian aid. But this aid needs to be politically sensitive. […]

Myanmar Needs ‘People First’ Assistance

August 5, 2021/in News

Myanmar human rights crisis needs solidarity-based approach

August 4, 2021/in News

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Myanmar Needs ‘People First’ Assistance

August 5, 2021/in News

By AUNG MYO MIN 5 August 2021

The people of Myanmar face an unparalleled national three Cs (coup, COVID and climate change) crisis today as we confront a failed military coup, catastrophic third COVID-19 wave, and natural disasters engineered by changes in the climate. As the third wave of COVID-19 spreads rampantly throughout Myanmar, it is possible that the next COVID-19 variant could arise out of Myanmar; this is a major threat to regional and global public health security, a threat that must be immediately addressed by ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighboring countries as well as the international community.

For six months, the military junta has robbed the people of Myanmar of their sense of security and dignity. The military has murdered 940 people, including over 70 children as young as 6 years old. They have arbitrarily detained over 5,400 people. Of those, 19 percent are women who have been at the forefront of leading anti-junta protests on the streets. The Ministry of Women, Youths and Children’s Affairs has reported rape and sexual violence against girls and women in detention. Along with peaceful LGBTIQ protesters, they have been sexually assaulted and harassed, made to conduct humiliating and degrading acts that amount to torture in detention.

Meanwhile, food insecurity is growing, the banking sector is in crisis, and the economy is collapsing with the World Bank forecasting Myanmar’s economy to shrink by 18 percent, and the World Food Program estimating that an additional 3.4 million people will now go hungry. This adds to the decades of military rule, and the mismanagement of essential administration, including in the health sector. Instead of funding education and health, the military focused on stealing wealth from the people of Myanmar to fund their decades-long civil war against ethnic communities, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in ethnic areas and genocide against the Rohingya with impunity. As a result, more than half a million people are now internally displaced in Myanmar. This is the reason why Myanmar requires such dire levels of international assistance today.

In the face of these challenges, the people of Myanmar, and the National Unity Government (NUG) have repeatedly called on ASEAN and the international community for rapid and expanded humanitarian aid intervention. We welcome the generous support that has been provided by the regional and international community in response to the humanitarian crisis so far, particularly in dialogue with the NUG and NUG-aligned administrative bodies, as well as civil society organizations (CSOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs), but the needs are far greater and require a more robust and coordinated intervention.

Responsibility for this human rights and humanitarian crisis rests squarely with the military junta, which, rather than tackling these issues to the benefit of the people of Myanmar, continues to weaponize COVID-19 and humanitarian aid for its own political gain.

It is vital that humanitarian assistance programs be designed and implemented in a way that ensures that they are not being used to promote or benefit the political or financial interests of the military junta.

ASEAN and the wider international community must coordinate with and empower existing governance structures that are supported by the people in all parts of Myanmar, particularly through NUG-aligned administrative bodies and CSOs/CBOs in ethnic-administered areas for localized humanitarian response to needs on the ground.

The NUG’s people-centered response to humanitarian aid prioritizes the immediate needs of the people of Myanmar. The “People First” approach places the people’s well-being and health services as our first priority, as we endeavor to work with all UN agencies and development partners to bring equitable access to healthcare and COVID-19 vaccination for all people of Myanmar in accordance with international standards, including those laid out by the WHO and UNICEF.

We urge ASEAN, and its humanitarian assistance through the AHA Center, to adhere to certain principles in provision of humanitarian aid. While the people in Myanmar are in desperate need of assistance, support must reach those most in need in a way that does not legitimize the junta, which is the cause of the people’s suffering.

While recognizing that communication with the military may be unavoidable in some instances in providing humanitarian aid, all ASEAN, UN and international partners are strongly urged to avoid communications with the military junta, which will imply or provide it with legitimacy or recognition. To this end, we strongly urge ASEAN to have regular, meaningful and inclusive dialogue with all stakeholders as set out in its five point consensus, in particular by holding dialogue with the NUG and members of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) as well as ethnic armed organizations.

It is crucial that resources be provided directly to local actors who can flexibly and creatively meet the needs on the ground in a way that does not legitimize or otherwise support the military junta. By resourcing CSOs, CBOs, ethnic administrations, and in some circumstances services through CDM health professionals, ASEAN and international support can meet the needs of the people without causing greater harm. This can also ensure that COVID-19 support and vaccinations are not used as a weapon against the people and those participating in the CDM.

Commitment to providing cross-border assistance is key to meeting the urgent needs of the people of Myanmar. Cross-border aid can be delivered through CSOs and CBOs with decades of experience in provision of essential services, particularly in ethnic administrations. The COVID-19 Task Force set up by the Ministry of Health, NUG and ethnic health organizations is central to such provision of assistance at this time.

Decentralized and localized aid is reflective of the emerging federal democratic union that we aspire to build and cross-border aid is currently essential in the realization of inclusive and equitable provision of aid.

These above positions of the NUG in regards to humanitarian aid are clearly laid out in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management position paper issued on June 19. On July 18, reiterating these calls, the NUG sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, requesting a robust and well-designed intervention from the international community.

Every day that passes without ASEAN and the international community’s urgent action is a day that we lose more lives. The military exists to serve its own interests and has demonstrated over the past six months that it will not act in the best interest of the people of Myanmar. Rather, it serves to perpetuate its own status quo, which will only be further emboldened by the inaction of ASEAN and the wider international community.

The attempted coup has failed. It is the people of Myanmar, despite the immense challenges and against all odds, who are keeping the future of Myanmar from falling into decades-long military rule once again. But we require immediate support.

ASEAN must act, and it must act NOW. Not only for the sake of the people of Myanmar but for the sake of ASEAN. Their continuing insistence on working through the junta is an affront to its own founding Charter, with its declaration of “adhering to the principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, respect for and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

History is repeating itself once again. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is an aspiring dictator, a third-generation military chief who is following in the footsteps of previous dictators, appointing himself as the “caretaker” of Myanmar. This is a threat to global stability and security, and while ASEAN has an important role to play, the world must no longer wait for ASEAN to act. The current human rights, humanitarian and COVID crisis requires robust and immediate action by the UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council. Their immediate action is needed to save lives.

Aung Myo Min is Minister of Human Rights in the National Unity Government of Myanmar.

Irrawaddy News

Myanmar human rights crisis needs solidarity-based approach

August 4, 2021/in News

Myanmar is in dire need of humanitarian aid. But this aid needs to be politically sensitive.

It is essential to “frame” Myanmar’s current humanitarian crisis as a political and human rights crisis. Indeed – as highlighted by Professor Hugo Slim, a specialist in the ethics of war and humanitarianism – Myanmar is facing a political emergency in which a civil resistance movement is legitimately opposing a violent regime.

Myanmar has a long history of conflict between the Tatmadaw (armed forces) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) struggling for self-determination in border areas. But if international actors frame the whole of the situation in Myanmar as the result of conflict (or, worse, “ethnic conflict”), it makes it far too easy for the military-run State Administration Council to deny any responsibility.

Instead, what is needed is recognition that, first, the humanitarian crisis cannot be isolated from what is a human-rights crisis driven by a military bent on terrorizing local populations to retain power; and, second, that deeply embedded structural violence and injustices lie at the root of Myanmar’s decades-long conflicts.

“Framing” the crisis in Myanmar as a political and human-rights crisis is obviously important from a moral perspective. It is also essential for the development of humanitarian programs.

Indeed, any humanitarian intervention in a political crisis will inevitably have political impacts. And any intervention in a conflict situation “will inevitably have an impact on the peace and conflict environment – positive or negative, direct or indirect, intentional or unintentional.”

The decisions that international donors and aid organizations make in Myanmar therefore carry heavy consequences.

The military has already blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid in many ethnic areas, as well as deliberately destroying food and medical supplies, diverting aid away from its intended recipients, and attacking aid workers. These acts constitute violations of international humanitarian law.

Myanmar soldiers on the march amid an anti-coup protest. Image: Getty via AFP / Hkun Lat
There are also major political and ethical implications in maintaining any kind of relationship that might signal international recognition of the State Administration Council.

For one – and even if this is not the intention of the agencies involved – international aid could legitimize a regime that is committing widespread and systematic attacks against the Myanmar people, which amount to crimes against humanity.

Second, if international agencies are seen as “siding” with the State Administration Council, this may sow distrust among local populations who overwhelmingly oppose the coup.

Third, this could create major tensions within aid agencies themselves – with many local staff opposing the State Administration Council.

In Myanmar’s political minefield, no matter how much international actors claim to be neutral, how they channel aid will not be perceived as neutral. Attempts at neutrality can also do real harm, particularly if – by not taking a stand or by having their aid politicized by the military regime – international actors end up emboldening and enabling those behind Myanmar’s human-rights crisis.

At the same time, as Hugo Slim highlights, “neutral humanitarian action is one version of humanitarianism – not the only version” – and it is not necessary to be neutral to be a good humanitarian.

The debate about humanitarian neutrality is far from new in Myanmar, with neutrality having been used in the past to justify shifts in international aid.

In the 1990s and 2000s, when Myanmar was under military rule, international donors provided aid in ways that in essence bypassed the junta – either by funding international non-governmental organizations or UN agencies operating inside Myanmar and/or by funding “cross-border aid.” These approaches were shaped by isolationist policies and concerns that aid would be misappropriated by and bolster an illegitimate military regime.

Cross-border aid organizations include health, education and other service provision “wings” of ethnic armed organizations, along with community-based organizations that serve local communities in border areas under EAO control.

Rebel soldiers of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) manning rifles on a supply route from Laiza, a KIA-controlled stronghold in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state on the border with China. Photo: AFP/Patrick Bodenham
Rebel soldiers of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) manning rifles on a supply route from Laiza, a KIA-controlled stronghold in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state on the border with China. Photo: AFP / Patrick Bodenham
They channel international assistance into Myanmar from a management and logistics base in a neighboring country (commonly, Thailand), but their staff come from and work within ethnic communities inside Myanmar.

In the past, donors described funding for cross-border aid as a way to support actors who were seen as legitimate “agents of change” in Myanmar.This amounted to a “solidarist” approach “employing humanitarian action within a political strategy on behalf of victims.” But when donors’ political aims in Myanmar shifted, so too did definitions of legitimate humanitarian action.

When Thein Sein’s government came to power in 2011, donors were encouraged by indications of political change in Myanmar and keen to engage with the new reformist leadership. Major Western donors were also influenced by broader geopolitical considerations, as they attempted to counter China’s influence in the region and to compete for stakes in Myanmar’s developing market economy.

Many donors shifted to channeling aid through official mechanisms inside Myanmar. In this evolving politics of international aid, cross-border aid organizations faced significant funding cuts. These cuts were often justified by claims that cross-border organizations were too political, or non-neutral, with the latter becoming synonymous, in the lexicon of many influential stakeholders at the time, with “un-humanitarian.”

Nevertheless, over the past decade, ethnic and community-based service providers have continued to provide essential services to local populations in border areas.

With conflict and displacement now increasing in the border areas, and with Civil Disobedience Movement members and other civilians from urban areas fleeing to areas controlled by EAOs, ethnic and community-based service providers are facing increased demand for their services. Some of these organizations are also at the forefront of responding to Covid-19.

These organizations therefore have the human resources and networks in place to respond in Myanmar’s current crisis. But they are in desperate need of funding. Funding them would obviously not be a neutral act.

But rather than trying to be neutral, what is important is that international donors and aid organizations do no harm. To achieve this, priority should be given to support that will not legitimize the State Administration Council.

At the same time, priority should be given to working with community-level and civil-society actors in ways that enable the provision of life-saving assistance and that demonstrate real commitment to decolonizing aid. As Myanmar activist Khin Ohmar argues, working around ethnic and community-based organizations rather than with them “represents a continued colonization of aid practices – a denial of locals’ agency.”

This picture taken on July 14, 2021, shows people waiting to fill up empty oxygen canisters outside a factory in Yangon, amid a surge in the number of Covid-19 coronavirus cases. Photo: AFP / Ye Aung Thu
To assist populations in conflict-affected border areas, international donors should fund cross-border aid, and international NGOs and UN bodies should work with ethnic and community-based service providers as equal partners, supporting the distribution of aid through these organizations.

To address the Covid-19 crisis, support should be coordinated with the Covid-19 Task Force, formed by the National Unity Government and ethnic health organizations.

This is important to address immediate humanitarian needs, but also to contribute to longer-term development and peace-building aims.

Myanmar’s military coup and defunct peace process highlight what many had said all along: that equitable development and lasting peace will never be achieved without real, systemic change – without reducing the control of the Bamar military elite over the state and without recognizing and strengthening ethnic service and governance systems.

Supporting and building the sustainability of ethnic and community-based service systems will help to address some of the structural inequities and injustices that have fed into decades of conflict in Myanmar.

At the same time, populations in more central, government-controlled areas are also in dire need of humanitarian aid. To access these populations, international NGOs and UN agencies should listen to civil society and community-level actors, and work with these actors in ways that limit involvement from the State Administration Council and that enable true localization of humanitarian decision-making and responses.

Moreover, with Myanmar’s current Covid-19 crisis presenting severe risks for the wider region, there is a clear impetus for a regional response.

Diplomatic and political pressure must be exerted by international donor countries on Myanmar’s neighbors, to allow for unrestricted cross-border humanitarian operations. At the same time, pressure must also be exerted on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and neighboring countries to help negotiate access for the Covid-19 response and advocate for the protection of health workers across the country.

With Myanmar’s human-rights crisis forcing international actors to recognize that aid is politicized and has political impacts, international donors and aid organizations must remain committed to provided life-saving humanitarian aid.

But in doing so, they must also demonstrate solidarity with the people of Myanmar, who have overwhelmingly rejected the military regime and continue to suffer because of its violent actions.

The full version of this article was originally published by Melbourne Asia Review, Asia Institute, University of Melbourne.

asiatimes

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ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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