Secret UN deals may entice Myanmar

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By Brian McCartan

CHIANG MAI - New hopes are rising that the goodwill engendered by the joint United Nations and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) relief effort for Cyclone Nargis last year can be parlayed into greater multilateral access to the isolated and impoverished country through a possible aid-for-reform deal.

United Nations special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari's seventh visit to the country is scheduled for this week and will be closely watched by international observers. Gambari said previously that significant steps, such as the release of political prisoners and moves towards genuine free and fair elections in 2010, would need to be taken before he would return to Myanmar.
That stand was a diplomatic response to junta leader Senior



General Than Shwe's refusal to meet with the envoy during his last two visits to the country. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi also declined to see Gambari during his most recent visit in August. Now there is speculation that Gambari aims to take a new diplomatic tack by dangling offers of development assistance in exchange for political reforms, including Suu Kyi's and other political prisoners release, and the inclusion of opposition parties in the upcoming polls.

A December 28 editorial in the Washington Post citing unnamed UN officials said "special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has proposed that nations offer Burma [Myanmar] financial incentives to free more than 2,000 political prisoners, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and to open the country to democratic change". A confidential document outlining the strategy was presented to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon in November, according to the Washington Post.



A former UN official who claims to have seen the secret document, however, downplays those claims. While many hope the joint cyclone relief effort will open access to the rest of the country for badly needed development projects, the idea of holding out aid as a "reward" for political reforms runs counter to humanitarian norms that govern relief and development operations, he said.

What the document definitely does call for is increasing development assistance for projects aimed at Myanmar's most vulnerable and impoverished people, but not direct disbursements to the junta, the former UN official says. It also proposes that policy reforms are vital, including economic reforms, which, if properly implemented, would improve the investment climate. The UN official says this should not be perceived as a call for foreign direct investment to Myanmar, which is currently sanctioned by both the US and European Union.

One initiative Gambari is expected to push is the establishment of a forum of experts - both local and international - to advise on social and economic policy, including towards exchange rate unification, health, agriculture and education. He will aim to build on the on-the-ground presence of the UN, ASEAN and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) during the ongoing Cyclone Nargis relief effort.

UN and ASEAN officials have categorized that controversial operation as a disaster relief success story, although one aid worker notes that the first six weeks after the storm were "an abomination" due to the government's inept handing of the crisis and its initial blockage of foreign aid and international aid organizations.

According to the first periodic review of the relief effort, released on December 15, there has been "significant progress" in both relief and recovery, according to the Tripartite Core Group (TCG), a coordinating body composed of representatives from the UN, ASEAN and the Myanmar government.

While the relief effort is far from finished, recovery operations have already begun, including a three-year plan known as the Post-Nargis Recovery and Preparedness Plan, or PONREPP. PONREPP establishes the framework for the international community's assistance, scheduled to run from January 2009 to December 2011, which will focus on "restoring productive, healthy and secure lives".

The joint aid effort is expected to cost $400-$500 million per year; the UN's revised appeal for cyclone relief assistance now stands at 64% funded, with $304 million received from international donors. The world economic downturn is unlikely to affect donations for 2009, since most donors have already committed, but the second and third years of the recovery plan could face funding shortages.

Unprecedented access
The UN's and other organization's access to needy communities is unprecedented in Myanmar's humanitarian context, aid workers say. According to a recent paper written by Julie Belanger and former UN spokesman Richard Horsey for the Overseas Development Institute of the Humanitarian Policy Group, the TCG effort has been the most effective tool yet for successful coordination between the government, UN and international NGOs.

However, the TCG mechanism is due to expire in July this year, although its possible continuation will be broached at the ASEAN summit to be held next month in Thailand. With unprecedented direct and high level access to the junta, aid officials working in the cyclone-hit Irrawaddy Delta have been able to explain their operations and negotiate problems in a way that is all but impossible in other areas of the country.

The paper also cautioned that the future of humanitarian operations in the Delta, or elsewhere in Myanmar, will depend on the unsettled domestic political situation.

The UN and NGOs are sanguine that the goodwill won during the cyclone relief effort can be leveraged into greater access to other areas of the impoverished country. Myanmar is ranked as a least developed country and ranks 132 out of 177 on the UN's Human Development Index.

A mounting food crisis is a call for an expansion of aid. A report by the World Food Program (WFP) released this week states that, although widely assumed shortages due to damage caused by Cyclone Nargis did not materialize and this year's rice harvest was better than expected, one million Burmese are still short of food in the cyclone-affected Irrawaddy Delta and another five million in other areas are also in need.

Although there have been some openings, including increased access to provide food aid to the country's famine-hit western Chin State, some believe the xenophobic junta intends to maintain an "aid wall" around the cyclone-hit Delta areas. Local organizations and international NGOs usually are only allowed to operate in secure government areas, which are delineated by the geographical dividing line marked by the mountains lining its border with Thailand.

Those mountainous areas are where insurgent groups are still engaged in armed struggle against the military regime and where some of the most egregious rights abuses take place. Access to ceasefire areas along the Thai border is also difficult, with the UN and NGOs often denied access by the government - although local groups and staff are often able to enter the remote regions. As such, rather than going through Myanmar, international aid organizations distribute aid through a number of NGOs that work from inside Thailand along the two countries' border.

This longstanding cross-border aid operation was for the first time given an official stamp of approval by the UN, according to an undated confidential document compiled by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and reviewed by Asia Times Online. The document appears to mark one of the first times the UN has approved such an arrangement, which touches on sensitive sovereignty issues the global organization tends to shy from.

Sources in border-based relief organizations who declined to be named said that they were confused by the document and its confidential nature. That's because the prevailing perception in the Thailand-based aid community was that the UN was in favor of a shift to providing more aid through Yangon. There is some speculation that perhaps the UN is interested in keeping the cross-border option open in case its negotiations with the generals for greater access is denied.

While noting that there are issues that need to be addressed, such as the potential need for armed escorts and the diplomacy of dealing with local relief groups with known ties to armed opposition groups, the document notes that the people stuck in the middle of the armed conflict remain vulnerable and in need of aid which can only be distributed through Thailand.

The UN and aid workers have consistently contended that humanitarian aid and politics should be separate. Activists and opposition groups believe that UN-backed aid and development programs have recently lent international legitimacy to the regime. For instance, they note that while the UN worked alongside Myanmar officials in distributing cyclone relief, in other areas of the country the regime mounted a brutal crackdown on political dissidents, where thousands were imprisoned, and sustained a costly brutal war along its border with Thailand.

In those same border areas, relief and human-rights organizations such as the Free Burma Rangers, Backpack Health Workers and Karen Human Rights Organization report that their relief workers are often shot on sight by government soldiers. Several have been arrested, tortured and imprisoned, they say.

These presumably are some of the same organizations the UN now says it would support funneling aid through. Gambari's challenge will be to foster confidence in both the generals and political opposition at a time when the UN is sending mixed signals about its intentions.

Brian McCartan is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.

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