BURMA: UN Official to Visit Amid Curbs on Aid Agencies

By Larry Jagan Reprint | | Print |

Larry Jagan

BANGKOK, Jul 30 2005 (IPS) - The visit to Burma of a top-ranking United Nations official from Monday is being closely watched because it comes at a time when the country’s military rulers are restive at the role of the world body in pushing democracy.

Jim Morris, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), is the most senior UN official to visit Burma since pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in May 2003 after pro- government goons violently attacked her car as she was touring the north of the country.

Suu Kyi, the world’s only Nobel Laureate in detention, was first placed under house arrest after her National League for Democracy (NLD) won the Burmese elections in 1990.

Morris will visit the humanitarian agency’s projects in Burma, especially in northern Shan state where the UN has been supporting former poppy growers who lost their main livelihood when authorities banned opium production two years ago.

”The purpose of my trip is to review WFP humanitarian operations in Burma,” Morris told Inter Press Service (IPS) in an interview.

However, the trip comes at a sensitive time when most UN agencies and international non-government organisations (NGOs) working inside the country have had their activities severely restricted by the military regime.

On Tuesday, the UN Security Council named Burma among 54 governments and regimes that could likely face sanctions for recruiting child soldiers.

International pressure also compelled the military regime to renounce this week Burma’s turn at chairing the 10-nation South-east Asian bloc, ASEAN in 2006. The bloc includes Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Over the past six months, volunteers have been prevented from visiting projects, especially in the ethnic border areas. The head of the UN Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) in Rangoon has not been allowed to visit project areas since last year, though the WFP chief will now be able to visit the same areas.

Regional military commanders have been instructed to make it difficult for foreign workers to operate, especially in the border areas. Even the Red Cross finds it difficult to function, especially in Shan state, according to western diplomats based in Rangoon.

Some three months ago several government ministries, including legal and financial departments, were ordered by the regime to prepare briefing papers on the effect and implications of a pull out by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which has charged the regime with failing to stop forced labour.

Following that, there has been an orchestrated campaign against the ILO, with several pro-regime bodies – those of veteran soldiers, women’s groups and the United Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) û urging the government to withdraw from the ILO.

A few months ago Burma’s top general Than Shwe asked a former Burmese ambassador to a European country whether Burma could withdraw from the UN, according to a source close to the senior general.

When the diplomat replied in the negative Than Shwe reportedly flew into a rage. ”The restrictions on the UN and international NGOs will be among issues I will be raising in my discussions with the Burmese authorities during my visit,” the WFP chief told IPS.

UN efforts to help broker political change in Burma are now in danger of being derailed. Both the UN special envoy for Burma, Razali Ismail, and the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, have been denied access to Rangoon for well over twelve months.

The Burmese foreign minister even refused to meet Razali in the Lao capital, Vientiane last week.

UN officials in New York have been seeking ways to revive the world body’s role in promoting democracy in Burma. A key initiative seems to be a possible visit to Rangoon by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

Than Shwe invited Annan to visit Burma when they met in Jakarta earlier this year. But the UN needs guarantees before the UN head contemplates any trip to Rangoon and these include an opportunity to meet Suu Kyi.

The NLD, led by Suu Kyi, has told the UN that the visit should be made before the National Convention reconvenes in November, say opposition sources. The Convention is drafting the country’s new constitution but the NLD and other pro-democracy parties have been excluded.

The UN may be using the WFP chief’s trip to Rangoon to courier a message to Burma’s top leaders, including the proposed visit by Kofi Annan, according to diplomats in New York. It may be a verbal message rather than a letter, said a UN source.

Morris declined to reveal whether Annan had asked him to deliver a message to the junta. ”This is a private matter, unless the Secretary- General decides otherwise,” he told IPS.

Many UN officials and diplomats in Rangoon remain uneasy about Morris’s visit at this time and many of them were taken by surprise by the planned visit.

”There is nothing special about the timing of my visit,” Morris was quoted as telling newspaper reporters here.

”With WFP operations, and staff, in more than 80 countries, I have an obligation to visit them and see their work. After more than three years in the job, I now have the opportunity to schedule a trip to Burma," he said.

The programme has a number of humanitarian assistance projects in Burma which includes working with refugees and marginalised people in the remote western regions of the country. Two years ago it began an important food assistance programme for people living with HIV/AIDS in central Burma.

”WFP is a humanitarian organisation with no political mandate. We are concerned with the food security and hunger,” Morris said. ”WFP food assistance is based on the findings of proper assessment missions to the areas, in consultation with local communities,” he added.

The WFP also provides food assistance to former poppy growers in the northern border region. Under pressure from Beijing and Rangoon, the ethnic Kokang stopped poppy cultivation in mid-2002. The following year the WFP started an emergency operation to provide rice to more than 50,000 people regarded affected.

This programme has since been extended to cover another 200,000 people and includes school feeding schemes and food-for-work projects. This is now being extended into the Wa area, where poppy farmers are now vulnerable after the Wa authorities imposed a ban on cultivation a month ago.

But Burmese opposition groups and ethnic organisations along the Thai- Burma border fear that the WFP’s programmes, especially in the former poppy-growing areas in Shan state, could only help prop up the military government and result in more forced labour.

”WFP programmes are directly assessed, implemented and monitored through its NGO partners, mostly international. Neither government authorities nor military personnel are involved in its programmes,” Morris, however, said.