The big boss of UN aid, Martin Griffiths, the UN under secretary general and head of relief agency UNOCHA, is in Myanmar. He has already met junta chief Min Aung Hlaing and a bunch of other junta officials in Naypyitaw, and made a day trip to Rakhine State on Wednesday.
The junta’s propaganda mill is in full swing, using the opportunity created by the high-profile visit to provide the international audience—and even more so, the domestic audience—with “accurate information on Myanmar’s situation”.
Junta spokespersons and propaganda outlets will now flood us for a few days with “accurate information” about “political progress in Myanmar” under the junta, and about “State responsibilities being taken by the Tatmadaw [Myanmar’s military] under the Constitution (2008) for occurrences of voting fraud in the 2020 multiparty democratic general elections”.
To get an indication of the real dynamic behind Griffiths’ visit, one should read the junta Ministry for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement (MoSWRR)’s press statement (exclamation points added by the author of this article):
“At the meeting, they discussed the current status of relief provision for those affected by the [Cyclone] Mocha storm… Among other matters, both sides also touched upon the humanitarian support extended by friendly nations, the ongoing collaboration between the Ministry and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), and the forthcoming renewal of the Letter of Agreement (LoA) between the Ministry and UNOCHA [!!!]. Addressing challenges, they deliberated on internal visa concerns faced by OCHA personnel [!!!] and the implications of the expiration of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) [!!!] with pertinent ministries on humanitarian partners’ operations. This included the impact on numerous international non-governmental organizations.”
This press statement reveals the real reason for the UNOCHA boss’s visit to Myanmar right now. Current UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Myanmar Ramanathan Balakrishnan is supposed to leave soon and a replacement will arrive. A few other top positions at the UN agencies in Myanmar are also due to be replaced with new expats. The new people need visas. UNOCHA also needs to renew the LoA with the junta in order to be able to continue to operate in the country. A number of INGOs—the UN agencies’ implementing partners—will also have their MoUs expire and new ones will need to be accepted by the junta. Such a nice blackmailing opportunity for the junta, even more so because millions of people across the country are in desperate need, facing a humanitarian emergency created by the junta and its war against the civilian population.
The UN agencies and INGOs need an assurance that they can stay and operate in Myanmar and have all credential letters and MoUs accepted, and visas approved. They need this in order to continue receiving big chunks of money from USAID (Washington’s aid agency) and a few other donor governments. Just as an illustration, in last year’s US budget allocation of aid for Myanmar, $136 million was appropriated for assistance to the country, with $79.9 million to be distributed through USAID, most of which has gone to and through UN agencies: the World Food Program ($50 million), the International Organization for Migration ($8.15 million), OCHA ($1.5 million) and children’s fund UNICEF ($4 million).
The junta knows all this and is playing a game of cat and mouse with the UN agencies. As with everybody else, they threaten to withhold access, visas, LoAs and MoUs, and then grant some of these things to make the UN agencies play the way the junta wants them to play.
Griffiths’ own press release from the visit also shows that fundraising for the UN agencies is an important reason for his visit. After months of very limited access, the UN agencies need to deliver some “breakthrough” success in negotiating access so that they can make a claim for funding for next year.
The UN agencies are excellent when it comes to the marketing of aid needs. They will now push media coverage of how dramatic the situation in Rakhine State is. Griffiths’ visit to Rakhine State will serve this purpose well. And they will then do PR on what a big breakthrough Griffiths has achieved to get access. The junta will give visas to a few new senior UN guys needed to replace Rama and others. UN agencies will have a senior presence on the ground and, having successfully negotiated “access”, they will have something to present to governments when shopping for budgets for the next year.
Obscured by the PR around this “breakthrough” is the real story: that aid is not getting to Sagaing, Magwe, Kayah (Karenni), Chin or other places where the junta wants to cut off resources and starve the resistance.
It is, of course, to be welcomed that Griffiths’ visit will improve access to Rakhine State and to Cyclone Mocha victims. But it is time for UN agencies and international donors to get serious about balancing any regime-approved aid going through junta channels, with international aid distributed via alternative routes through the public service providers of the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) and the ethnic revolutionary organizations (EROs). These do not operate under the junta MoUs (i.e., under the regime’s supervision).
Otherwise, the UN agencies will use this limited and tightly controlled access to Rakhine State as an excuse that they need to continue to lobby for access in other areas. Access they will not get.
Instead, both the UN agencies and the big aid donors must act in a truly neutral way by balancing regime-approved aid deliveries with those made through alternative routes such as the NUG, EROs and civil society organizations (CSOs). If they do not do that, then 1) huge numbers of people will be deprived of aid; and 2) aid will continue to be weaponized by the military.
The idea that access to ALL people in desperate need of aid can be negotiated with the junta is a fantasy. And with all the experience that we have of the junta, we know it is not a fantasy brought about by mistake or omission, but a fantasy that is partly of our own making. The only way to get access and to be truly neutral is by using a two-track approach and implementing it in a proportional manner.
International aid must go through ALL channels and more than anything else that means through institutions that actually do care about and assist people in need: the NUG- and ERO-affiliated public services and CSOs, which are driving an impressive “humanitarian resistance” effort and providing assistance to millions of people in need, with little or no funding from the UN agencies.
The junta is manipulating and weaponizing aid and the UN agencies are complicit in that. Griffiths’ visit so far has done nothing to disrupt that pattern. Myanmar civil society and the people of Myanmar understand that. They see through the façade, and are aware that the junta is manipulating international aid agencies and channeling aid where and when they want aid to go. The junta is also blocking aid in the areas where it is increasing its atrocities, intentionally producing humanitarian emergencies.
Griffiths and the UN agencies will argue that they are providing aid everywhere. It is necessary to bluntly say that this is not the case, and the level of disproportionality is glaring.
It is possible to do it differently. It is possible to be truly neutral, to not become a hostage to the junta, and to have a proportional, balanced two-track approach and to be transparent about it.
A two-track approach means that part of the aid money (I would say one-third) should continue to flow through the UN agencies and INGOs and local CSOs that operate under the conditions of the LoA and MoU with the junta to get access to people who are in territory controlled by the regime.
The remaining two-thirds of the money should be channeled through genuine local civil society and through homegrown public services and institutions that are affiliated with the NUG and EROs. That is the only way to access the majority of those who are in dramatic need.
Otherwise, we will endure one more year in which the UN agencies deliver most of the aid to one-third of the territory, and one-third of the people in need, while two-thirds of the territory and two-thirds of the most desparate people will receive none, or extremely little, of the international aid.
Delivering aid everywhere in a proportional way to where it is actually needed (and not just to where the junta allows access—sometimes) is important. Being transparent is also important. It is not just aid which matters, but also messaging about aid. The junta is using aid—and Griffiths’ visit—for propaganda purposes. That is why implementing a two-track approach—and publicizing this two-track approach—are both crucial.
Igor Blazevic is a senior adviser at the Prague Civil Society Centre. Between 2011 and 2016 he worked in Myanmar as the head lecturer of the Educational Initiatives Program.
