Summary:
-
With a new rule requiring registration for all national and international non-governmental organisations and groups and instituting criminal penalties for unregistered entities with up to five years in prison, the junta is attempting to impose its power.
-
According to Charles Petrie, former assistant secretary-general of the UN and former head of the UN mission in Myanmar, it cannot cooperate with a repressive government without appearing to support its activities.
-
The junta is supported militarily and in other ways by China and Russia. Still, most of the rest of the diplomatic community has stepped back from the Myanmar crisis and is instead counting on ASEAN to take the initiative.
-
The junta’s leadership has been shunned in regional gatherings in a never-before-seen fashion.
-
Van van Assum claimed that the programme “died a lingering death.
According to the most recent projections from the UN, the civil war and the economic catastrophe following the military coup would result in the need for humanitarian help for up to 18 million people, or around one-third of Myanmar’s total population, this year.
Since the estimated 14 million people required assistance last year, the number of those in need has increased. Fighting forced almost 10,000 people from their homes in southern Kayin State early in January alone, adding to the more than 1.5 million IDPs in the nation.
The UN claims it understands the urgent need to stay in Myanmar and boost humanitarian operations. Still, it is wedged between a hostile military junta restricting its actions and a loose network of rebel organisations claiming the international organisation legitimises an unjust administration.
Many criticise UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for the crisis’s lack of hands-on leadership.
According to Ramanathan Balakrishnan, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Myanmar, “nearly 18 million people, or nearly one-third of the Myanmar population, are estimated to need humanitarian assistance nationwide in 2023, with conflict continuing to endanger the lives of civilians in many parts of the country.”
He told IPS that despite significant underfunding and what he described as “strong bureaucratic and access barriers,” local and international humanitarian relief organisations are “using various tactics” in various locations and have touched over four million people in 2022.
Balakrishnan defended the significance of the UN’s interaction with the administration of General Min Aung Hlaing, which has brutally suppressed opposition since seizing control two years ago and toppling the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
“To negotiate access and campaign on essential protection issues, principled interaction with all parties is required. As crucial as providing humanitarian relief to those in need is advocating to end the intense fighting and airstrikes in inhabited areas that endanger civilians and aid workers.
Humanitarian workers charge that the junta has further restricted assistance efforts and prevented millions of people from receiving much-needed aid. Around one-third of Myanmar’s townships cannot be adequately managed, the authorities acknowledged last month. Nonetheless, it is possible to block entry to some regions under the control of armed ethnic and resistance organisations that have been at war with the military for a long time.
With a new rule requiring registration for all national and international non-governmental organisations and groups and instituting criminal penalties for unregistered entities with up to five years in prison, the junta is attempting to impose its power.
According to James Rodehaver, head of the Myanmar Unit for the UN Human Rights Office for South-East Asia (OHCHR), “Civic space has already been decimated in the country due to the military’s activities, particularly its systematic harassment, arrest, and prosecution of anyone who challenged their coup.” These new laws could significantly reduce the operational space available for civic organisations to provide necessary goods and services to a population that is fighting to exist.
Many of the over a million refugees living outside of Burma also require assistance. Before the coup in 2021, waves of ethnic cleansing forced the majority of stateless Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh; many were detained in border camps.
Before the coup, the UN’s standing had already been damaged by the way it handled the long-running Rohingya crisis, in which relief workers and activists charged it with being too accommodating of the Burmese military. And since then, it has faced more criticism.
The UN agencies, finances, programmes, and other entities working within Burma recently publicly signed new agreements and presented letters of appointment to the illegal Myanmar military junta, according to a joint letter from more than 600 Burmese civil society organisations.
The letter addressed to the UN Secretary-General stated, “We call on you and all UN institutions to immediately discontinue all kinds of cooperation and participation that give legitimacy to the unlawful, murderous junta.” The signatories stated that letters of appointment and agreements should be given to “ethnic revolutionary organisations” and what they regarded as the legitimate government of Myanmar, the parallel National Unity Government set up by expelled parliamentarians.
The importance of Burmese CSOs in distributing help was underscored by a researcher from Myanmar who specialises in civil society and international aid. The researcher, who goes by the name Kyaw Swar out of concern for security retaliation, stated that local CSOs “comprehend the complexity of specific local needs in the current crisis as the communities they serve struggle with security concerns and essential public services, including healthcare and education.”
Referring to the costs incurred by the UN and INGO for capacity-building components and excessive country-office operations, he claimed that funders and foreign organisations had implemented risk aversion policies in the wake of the coup. Local CSOs operate less frequently, and risk management strategies are forced to direct foreign aid to the communities in which they serve.
Insisting that only by acting in the junta-controlled heartland and by cross-border assistance can aid reach a significant portion of the population in severe need, UN officials reject the idea that they are legitimising the government.
The UN is in a precarious situation that is nearly existential. According to Charles Petrie, former assistant secretary-general of the UN and former head of the UN mission in Myanmar, it cannot cooperate with a repressive government without appearing to support its activities.
“The senior leadership of the UN must somehow persuade everyone that engaging in dialogue with a pariah regime is not the same as supporting it and that it should be judged on the results of the negotiations rather than being condemned for the sheer fact of interacting,” he said.
Yet being able to do so effectively suggests that it has the amount of credibility that it still needs to regain at the moment, he continued.
Also, concerns have been made regarding Guterres’ apparent lack of active leadership. The UN Secretary-General doesn’t appear to have personally intervened much outside of routine statements, like the most recent one on the second anniversary of the coup, in which he denounced “all forms of violence” and reaffirmed his support for the democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar for an inclusive, just, and peaceful society as well as the protection of all communities, including the Rohingya.
Notwithstanding the escalating humanitarian situation since the coup, Guterres is thought to have taken a backseat and handed off responsibility to two other special envoys. In contrast, Ban Ki-moon, his predecessor, personally met with the then-junta leader General Than Shwe and negotiated the opening of Myanmar to aid workers during the Cyclone Nargis disaster in 2008.
Taking a cue from Ban, Petrie urged Guterres to take a far more proactive stance on Myanmar and be “more openly engaged and supportive of the job done by his special envoy.”
The junta is supported militarily and in other ways by China and Russia. Still, most of the rest of the diplomatic community has stepped back from the Myanmar crisis and is instead counting on ASEAN to take the initiative.
Yet thus far, the 10-member group has had no impact. The junta’s leadership has been shunned in regional gatherings in a never-before-seen fashion. Still, neighbouring nations are reluctant to punish the regime since they have their spotty democratic histories. Although tasked with responding to the humanitarian crisis, the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Aid on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) has proven ineffective.
According to Laetitia van den Assum, a former Dutch ambassador to Myanmar and Thailand, the assistance response would have been more successful if ASEAN had established a collaboration between the AHA and seasoned UN and other organisations.
“In actuality, that is what took place after Nargis, when ASEAN and UN cooperated under the strong leadership of Dr. Surin Pitsuwan. The initiative took some time to pull together, but it eventually succeeded, according to van den Assum, speaking to IPS.
Compared to Pitsuwan, who assisted Than Shwe in accepting humanitarian aid in 2008 after Cyclone Nargis killed over 100,000 people, Lim Jock Hoi, a Bruneian government official who served as ASEAN chief until last month, received little attention on the topic of Myanmar.
Van den Assum noted that “UN agencies like OCHA, WFP, and UNICEF, as well as numerous devoted INGOs, continue to deliver help, frequently under trying conditions, and with countless Burmese civil society organisations playing crucial roles.”
She said, “But until now, the SAC has prevented more efficient aid.” “What is needed is a comprehensive agreement between Myanmar and ASEAN on how to expand this support and ensure that everyone who needs it is helped. The AHA and ASEAN have failed to deliver on this.
Observers point out that AHA is not equipped to provide relief in conflict because it is designed to respond to natural disasters.
“It was already evident in 2018 when AHA was charged with recommending ASEAN assistance to northern Rakhine state following the forcible displacement of over 750,000 Rohingya. Van van Assum claimed that the programme “died a lingering death.
“AHA wasn’t at fault. Instead, the veteran diplomat claimed that ASEAN politicians had chosen without first debating whether it was the best course of action.
No major development is imminent. The junta admitted it lacks authority over many places for the fresh elections it says it intends to hold but which have already been heavily criticised by the resistance as a sham by extending the rule of emergency for another six months.
In its most recent update, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that “heavy fighting, including airstrikes, tight security, access restrictions, and threats against aid workers have continued unabated, particularly in the Southeast, endangering lives and hampered humanitarian operations.”
