An uneasy relationship in Myanmar

From IRIN, a story on the uneasy relationship between the military junta in Myanmar and the few humanitarian aid workers they allow into the country.

Soon after floods and landslides killed 68 people and displaced thousands a month ago in western Myanmar, the prime minister and two other ministers went to assess the damage first-hand.

They delegated duties for aid delivery. They greenlighted humanitarian shipments. Minister of Social Welfare U Maung Maung Swe met local and international NGOs to brief them on the government response, hear their assessments and “thank [them] for their support”.

This is not the ruling military government of yesteryear, when only a visit from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon - three weeks after Cyclone Nargis struck in May 2008, leaving 140,000 dead - could secure international aid workers unfettered access to the battered Ayeyarwady Delta region.

This is the post-Nargis junta.

“The government’s response capacity has much improved since Nargis. The government has shown willingness to work with the UN and NGOs,” said Bhairaja Panday, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative in Myanmar. “The government has shown more confidence in dealing with the aid community and now understands better how the latter functions.”

It is far from a perfect union, with many aid workers grumbling about restrictions on travel outside Yangon and nervous of openly criticizing the junta for fear of being shut out of the country altogether.

Yet judging by the junta’s actions - not only after the landslides, but also with respect to policies - a fragile trust has coalesced between the government and international aid workers.

“The relationship between NGOs and the UN agencies and the government on substantive policies has gotten much better in the five years since I got here,” said Andrew Kirkwood, Myanmar director of Save the Children.

Two steps forward… sometimes

Kirkwood pointed to HIV, forced labour and child rights programmes as concrete signs of better cooperation for the benefit of the people of Myanmar.


For example, trafficked children picked up in Thailand are now safely repatriated and no longer charged with illegal migration, Kirkwood said.

The government has also given its blessing for a forced labour and underage military recruitment complaints desk run by the UN International Labour Organization (ILO).

Still, challenges remain. With the exception of the cyclone-hit delta, visas and travel permits were just as difficult to get as before, aid workers said.

A staff member of an international health NGO, who spoke on condition of anonymity, complained that the government processed mandatory operating licence applications at a snail’s pace.

“Although we are under the process of renewal, we can do our work under the previous (memorandum of understanding), but low profile. We cannot scale up; we cannot extend to other areas, but we are still working,” he said.

In some cases, international aid workers are barred from areas where help is needed most.

During severe flooding in many parts of Myanmar in 1998, “the government restricted information from the affected area, as a policy,” said Win Zin Oo, the director of humanitarian and emergency affairs for World Vision. “At the outset of the Nargis response, the policy of the government was ‘we can do [this] by ourselves’.

“Now, the approach of inviting international agencies for assistance can be seen as change, due to the humanitarian space created by cooperation during the Nargis response.”

Willing to cooperate

Kirkwood, of Save the Children, recalled that during the annual water festival in April 2009, a cyclone looked to be headed for Northern Rakhine State. Everyone across the country was on holiday, but the government called to set up a meeting to plan a joint assessment and response mission. The storm narrowly missed Myanmar and hit neighbouring Bangladesh.

“That, to me, was a great indicator of where we’ve come since the tsunami [in December 2004]. I was here when the tsunami happened as well, and that kind of cooperation wasn’t there,” Kirkwood said.

In the case of the recent landslides, the government issued its assessment of the situation in Northern Rakhine State, heard the UNHCR and NGOs’ take and then adjusted its own accordingly.

“They were not only saying you have to go by our assessment. They wanted us to share information with them on our findings,” said Panday of UNHCR.

For Northern Rakhine State, the government has mobilized key ministries to manage the aid, agreed to facilitate shipments and passed out contact names, focal points and phone numbers, said Vincent Hubin, deputy head of office for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“They are open to receiving support and are continuing to engage. This is exactly the sign that the cooperation built after Nargis is continuing. We have engagement.”

New report on human rights in Myanmar shows no improvement

Human Rights Watch has issued an update on rights within Myanmar, the humanitarian group says human rights are less even after Cyclone Nargis. After the cyclone killed 140,000 people in 2004 the world hoped that the military junta that rules the country would be more open, but the reverse has happened.

From Reuters Alert Net, we read more about the report.

"Civilians in cyclone-affected areas continue to be subjected to various forms of forced labour, everyday restrictions on movements, and infringements of the rights to freedom of expression and association," according to Human Rights Watch's new report.

It said ongoing international recovery efforts are not accompanied by measures to protect human rights and 21 people who were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone, for speaking out against the iron-fisted junta's handling of relief efforts, remain in jail.

The report called for their release as well as those of nearly 2,100 political prisoners. It cautioned that while the rise of civil society groups in Myanmar - formed to provide relief to cyclone survivors in the first few weeks before international aid was allowed in - is to be applauded, their existence remains extremely fragile.

The cyclone was the worst to hit Asia since 1991, and the country's ruling generals came under harsh international criticism for initially refusing to allow foreign aid workers into the country.

The government finally relented but progress was slow. Without the government's stringent restrictions in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, the survivors would be much farther down the road to recovery, the report said.

Despite estimated foreign reserves of US$5 billion and income from lucrative natural gas sales, "the Burmese government has failed to adequately support reconstruction efforts that benefit the population," it added, calling the country by its former name.

According to the report, the junta had allocated a mere 5 million kyats (US$50,000) to an emergency fund immediately after the storm.

Guest Voices: Building Stupas in the Sand

Introducing our new guest blogging series called "Guest Voices."

To inaugurate our series we turn to Jane Ginn, who writes for Sedona Cyber Link. Jane recently took a trip to Myanmar, the country that is ruled by an oppressive military regime. The military government was so oppressive that it prevented humanitarian aid from reaching it's people after Cyclone Nargis.

Jane was thinking about how much better life in Myanmar if some bottom of the pyramid opportunities were allowed into the country.

On my recent trip to Myanmar (Burma) I took the time to read several important books analyzing the root causes of the economic crisis of 2008. As I was floating up the Irrawaddy, one of the major rivers in Asia flowing from the Himalayas, I reflected on the way of life of the peasants living along the banks while immersing myself in the abstract thoughts of macroeconomics and theoretical finance [more on these books in a later article]. One image was especially poignant for me; two children were building stupas (Buddhist-style temples) along the banks of the Irrawaddy. When they had almost completed their masterpiece, two older children came by and destroyed it by bombarding it with sticks.

The readiness of the older children to destroy the fruits of the labor of the others was, in some ways characteristic of the governance of the country. During this excursion I began to see the effects to the real economy of the type of zero-sum thinking that is practiced in Myanmar by the ruling elite. This same type of thinking is what led to the bursting of the housing and credit bubbles in the U.S. and beyond: zero-sum thinking [more on this later].

Although most of export-dependent Asia was severely hit by the economic downturn, countries like Myanmar were relatively insulated from the excesses of the developed world markets. This is because they had not yet become integrated into the global trade community. This was true both by fiat, and by design. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the 30+ year rule by a military junta has so severely arrested economic development in Myanmar that the commercial landscape is more like 10th century Europe than a post-modern S.E. Asian country.

The leadership has, evidently, based their leadership and management philosophy more on zero-sum thinking than on the non-zero-sum type thinking that is so evident in the Tiger countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The closed-society, total control approach has created an impoverished nation with the poorest transportation and communications infrastructure in all of Asia, except perhaps, North Korea. It has also led to an autarky-type economy whereby almost all of the products (such as they are) are produced locally, that is, except for the trickle of products coming in from China. For other nations of the world that would like to participate in the growth of this economy, this early dominance by the Chinese is a bit distressing. This is especially true given the current state of the global economy and the recognition that the growth of a consumer base in Asia would help to ameliorate the global imbalances so evident in the current account and trade deficits of countries like the U.S. The U.S. has only recently begun a rapprochement with Myanmar after many years of trade sanctions. Perhaps this can lead to an opening of trade relations.

The large segment of the population that live on less than $1/day would make this an ideal country for targeting some Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) products. And, given the well established handicraft industries that I witnessed, a fair trade initiative sponsored by the government would help to bring some of their unique products to the world markets. A regional model from the Malaysian or Indian governments could be emulated; much like the Kraft Komplex in Kuala Lumpur or those storefronts in Chennai established by the provincial government of Tamil Nadu.

Any producer of products, whether BOP or mainstream, seeking to penetrate that market will encounter many other obstacles other than the “keep the prosperity pie small” syndrome practiced by the military junta officials. Since the infrastructure is so poor, there are few formalized and efficient distribution systems. The river continues to be the main route for nbound and outbound commercial and passenger traffic; however there are virtually no docks and cargo are loaded and unloaded almost entirely by hand.

The lack of a transportation infrastructure is not the only problem.

The electrical grid is highly unreliable. We stayed one extra day in Mandalay after the 15-day cruise on the Pandaw river boat. We had an electrical surge about every hour. It is hard to work on a computer or do anything productive under those conditions.

The other key element that is lacking that could significantly enhance the development potential is a communications infrastructure. Cellular coverage that is linked to region-wide systems is non-existent. SIM cards for operating on the Myanmar-controlled cellular system are priced so high that only members of the ruling elite and a few foreign business men and women can afford them. It is only with integration of the world telecommunications community that prices will be brought down so that cellular phones are affordable by the common person, family or village.

Furthermore, the Internet is also not widely available and slow dial-up connections at Internet Cafe’s are prohibitively expensive.

The role of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank in the financing of an infrastructure for economic development must first be ascertained. Further, the willingness of the junta to “liberalize” trade and capital markets will, in some ways, depend on how integrated with the global trade community they would like to be. It is rumored that an election is upcoming; although no date has been set and there is some question about who could run for the opposition. This is because the European-educated leader of the opposition has been under house arrest for much of the past 20 years.

Resolution of this issue and a more gradual development approach such as has been implemented by the Chinese would be more suitable in Myanmar, given the need to be concerned about the equity implications of economic growth. Joseph Stiglitz, who recently visited Myanmar to advise them on their development strategy, outlines a valuable approach in his 2003 book “Globalization and Its Discontents.”

The innocence of the young people building their stupas in the sand is a reminder of the frailty of life and the economy in Myanmar. To improve the state of the economy they need to use sound, rational management and avoid crony capitalism. I am not necessarily advocating shock capitalism or strategies such as those advocated under the auspices of the Washington Consensus; however, a gradual opening to trade would greatly enhance the quality of life of millions. The lessons that the world investment and trade community have learned from the 2008 global economic crisis can be put to work in a creative way for supporting gradual development in Myanmar that will help to benefit the poor, and integrate the society with the global community.

Non-zero sum thinking, if practiced by those children on the banks of the Irrawaddy, would not have led the older children to destroy the work of the younger ones. Quite the opposite would be true; the older children would have offered to help. When will the adults set the right example?

Non-zero-sum thinking and gradual development is the way of a hopeful future for the people of Myanmar.

A story and a video on the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis

Myanmar's government has decided to stop flights into the Ayeyarwady Delta for aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis. The flights took only an hour, now it will take aid workers a lot longer to get supplies to the cyclone victims. Cyclone Nargis killed 140,000 in Myanmar.

From the IRIN, we read more about the impact this decision makes on aid.

"It is back to six-hour-long road trips or boat rides," grumbled an aid worker.

Chris Kaye, WFP country director, confirmed that the service had been discontinued. The agency had started off with a fleet of 10 helicopters after Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar on 2 and 3 May 2008. The service delivered 1,119MT of life-saving supplies, including food and shelter materials, and transported thousands of aid workers and people needing urgent assistance.

The operation was reduced to a single helicopter in recent months but continued to provide critical access to the delta not only for WFP but the entire humanitarian community as roads are often inaccessible after rains.

"The service was a great convenience also for government officials and donors conducting assessments of the various post-Nargis programmes," said Thierry Delbreuve, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar.

Last night PBS aired a program about the plight of the survivors of the cyclone. The show Wide Angle focused on orphans who now have to take care of themselves. The below video is an introduction to the show.