This is an important question to which the UN Resident Coordinator for Myanmar, Marcoluigi Corsi of UNICEF, should respond: “What kind of health care do you think we will get from a violent dictator who took power during a global pandemic?”
The question is being asked by Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) doctors and health workers, who have shown enormous responsibility as citizens and professional courage to stand on the side of the people and not become servants of the murderous regime.
The Myanmar Public Health Conference in Naypyitaw on Dec. 6 and 7 turned out to be an event staged by Min Aung Hlaing for propaganda purposes. The junta boss attended the “conference” and gave the inaugural speech, which will now be covered in all the junta’s mouthpiece media. There was a huge screen on the stage so that the small guy behind the podium could look big and impressive.
After the speech Min Aung Hlaing inspected all the exhibition booths. There were about a hundred altogether. Among those booths were some from international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) such as Alliance, Medical Action Myanmar (MAM), MSF-Switzerland and Union. Jhpiego established a skills lab to demonstrate their programs. CHAI (Clinton Health Access Initiative) supported the conference with money and manpower. Representatives of several international organizations were included as speakers in the “conference” program, including Dr. Bitra George, FHI 360 country director for India, and Lydie Pak, harm reduction advisor at Médecins du Monde.
Security was extremely tight. Min Aung Hlaing was flanked by generals (including chiefs of staff) and permanent secretaries from ministries. Some participants, out of shame and worried about possible social punishment, wore masks to hide their identities from TV and newspaper reporters. However, the security guys asked those in the front to remove the masks, forcing them to play the roles of extras in the dictator’s propaganda show in full, without hiding. Min Aung Hlaing left at 1 p.m., after securing a lot of propaganda material.
FHI 360 is a-US registered organization, and Médecins du Monde is a well-known French group. Alliance is a-UK based NGO. MAM is led by a Dutch citizen and supported entirely by Western donors. MSF-CH is of course Swiss. Union is a French NGO. Jhpiego is an American firm linked to Johns Hopkins University. CHAI is of course American. A World Health Organization staffer was there as well. All of them are funded primarily by US, UK and EU international aid money.
The public health “conference” was organized by the junta’s “Ministry” for Health and Sports. The junta’s “health minister”, Thet Khaing Win, who was also one of the VIP speakers and participants at the “conference”, is under EU sanctions because under his authority hundreds of doctors have been fired for political reasons and had their licenses revoked, while private hospitals have been barred from hiring doctors who refuse to work in public hospitals under the military regime. In its explanation of the sanctions imposed on him, the EU explicitly named Thet Khaing Win as someone “who is engaged in actions that threaten the peace, security and stability of Myanmar/Burma.”
None of those INGOs or the UN agencies needed to be at the “conference” to listen to Orwellian talks about the “longevity and health of the nation”, “saving lives of mothers and children”, “accelerating progress in achieving the SDGs [sustainable development goals]”, “good practices”, “ending preventable deaths of newborn and child”, “preparedness and response to Cyclone Mocha”, “best practices in immunization” from the mouths of those who are waging a war of terror against the civilian population of the country, who are indiscriminately killing children, bombing hospitals and schools, preventing food and medicine from reaching millions of IDPs and who are intentionally weaponizing humanitarian aid.
They did not need to participate as extras in the junta’s propaganda show. The UN’s rules of engagement for UN agencies operating in Myanmar instruct them not to participate in junta-staged events. However, on Dec. 4, Corsi—according to local staff working for UN agencies—gave the green light to the UN agencies’ staff to decide for themselves whether to participate. For those unfamiliar with the workings of the NGO community, while the UN coordinator has authority only over UN agencies, INGOs do look to the UN for policy hints and their behavior is influenced by it.
It is easy to imagine what happened behind the scenes. The junta’s “Ministry of Health” would have been very nervous about what sort of a show they would be able to put on for their boss. The fear felt by subordinates in dictatorships is a serious matter. Nobody takes it lightly when one gets info that the big boss will be there as well. So junta subordinates would have put significant pressure on the UN agencies and INGOs that they must send someone to the “very important conference”, otherwise their already very restricted access could become even more restricted.
As UN resident coordinator, Corsi for sure received a few phone calls as well. He probably talked with Yin Yin Nwe, either upon her, or his own, initiative. In Myanmar UN circles there is a story going around that when national staff advise Corsi in any matters, he tends to say, “We need to check/verify.” Everybody understands that that means, “Let me ask Yin Yin Nwe.”
Yin Yin Nwe is a powerful and influential woman with a long career that includes high positions in UNICEF as well as successive Myanmar military regimes. In the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d’état, Yin Yin Nwe was appointed as a member to the Advisory Board of the State Administration Council (SAC), the junta’s governing body. Since then, she has forcefully served the interests of the junta. Corsi worked together with Yin Yin Nwe in Indonesia when he was the UNICEF deputy representative and she was UNICEF’s chief of tsunami support.
In the end, Corsi bowed to the pressure and on Dec. 4th, on the eve of the “conference”, gave a green light to the UN agencies and INGOs that their participation would not break the UN’s rules of engagement.
Which of course, it did, as it turned out on the first day when all of them played the roles of extras in Min Aung Hlaing’s propaganda show.
In a less hypocritical world than that of the international aid community in Yangon, after such a failure of judgement, UN Resident Coordinator Corsi would resign or would be asked to step down. His role is to protect the integrity and neutrality of international aid, not to give excuses to international organizations in Myanmar to be useful idiots for a murderous junta at sham “public health” conferences.
I also can’t help but wonder whether those international organizations that gave speeches at the “conference” and presented their booths for inspection by the junta boss will publish photos from the event in their annual reports?
Perhaps they could do so just as a warning—a “lesson learned”, so that similar mistakes do not happen again.
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.
