With one-third of Myanmar’s population in need of humanitarian assistance, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing on Wednesday used a cabinet meeting to order his ministers to more closely regulate local and international aid groups, accusing some of being stooges of foreign governments.
More than 1.9 million people have been displaced by the fighting since the coup, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), while the humanitarian crisis continues to deteriorate in Kachin and Chin states as well as Mandalay and Sagaing regions.
More than 1 million people in Rakhine State in western Myanmar who were hit by a devastating cyclone in May still need assistance to recover because the regime has restricted the supply of humanitarian aid to storm victims. The regime itself has provided little assistance for those who lack food and housing.
On August 17, a senior UN official called for expanded humanitarian access “to assist the 18 million people in need of aid across Myanmar.”
“Successive crises in Myanmar have left one-third of the population in need of humanitarian aid,” the UN”s Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said.
On the same day, OCHA said “humanitarian needs in Myanmar have surged in recent years, with the number of displaced persons increasing fivefold in less than three years, from 380,000 at the start of 2021 to 1.9 million at present.”
The regime, however, is paranoid about aid groups, accusing some of funding revolutionary organizations.
In October last year, Min Aung Hlaing replaced the 2014 Law on Registration of Associations—which covers both national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)— with a tougher law. The new law gives the regime the power to dissolve NGOs, including international ones, confiscate their property, and imprison those it deems to have violated its provisions.
The law prohibits organizations from supporting or having direct or indirect links to groups and individuals that the regime has labelled “terrorists” or are actively opposing the regime, as well as unlawful associations and their members.
The regime has labelled the parallel National Unity Government and its armed wing, the People’s Defense Force, as terrorist organizations.
While the old law on registration of associations only imposed fines, the new one can land those found violating it in prison for up to five years—as well make them pay a fine of up to five million kyats (about US$ 2,375)—for unlawful association or having ties with “terrorist” organizations.
Under the old law, organizations operating in their townships or regions did not need to register. But the new law prescribes three years imprisonment and a fine of 1 million kyats for non-compliance.
The new law also requires international NGOs operating in Myanmar to reserve 40 percent of the seats on their boards of directors to Myanmar citizens. International and domestic NGOs are also banned from politics and religious and domestic affairs, and are subject to random checks by government officials.
In the aftermath of devastating Cyclone Nargis, which left more than 100,000 people dead in 2008, the then-military regime also barred international NGOs and civil society organizations (CSOs) from providing humanitarian supplies to victims of the cyclone.
During the time of Thein Sein’s administration, and the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government, military sympathizers labelled international and domestic NGOs as supporters and lobbyists for the NLD.
The crackdown on NGOs is likely to intensify.
In May, the regime formed a 19-member committee to draft a new law on foreign and international NGOs. Led by the deputy police chief, the committee consists of officials from the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Health, Defense, Legal Affairs, Commerce, and other government departments.
The committee will study legal practices regarding foreign and international NGOs used by ASEAN neighbors and other countries to draft a legal framework that suits Myanmar, the regime said. The new law is intended to prevent NGO staff from interfering in the country’s affairs with financial and other assistance from foreign countries, it added.
For decades, Myanmar military has also used the colonial-era Unlawful Association Act to prosecute people suspected of having ties to ethnic armed organizations.
