House of Commons - International Development

Select Committee on International Development Tenth Report

1 INTRODUCTION

1. Behind Burma's displacement crisis lies a political, human rights and humanitarian situation as grim as any in the world today.[1] Millions of Burmese people are suffering from abuses caused by these three inter-related problems, and ethnic minorities in particular see their rights violated on a daily basis in a climate of impunity. Armed conflict continues in eastern Burma, where insurgent groups maintain their independence struggle against the Burmese Army.

2. Military rule, imposed in 1962, has systematically torn apart Burma's economic, industrial and social fabric, transforming it from one of South-East Asia's wealthiest countries to a Least Developed Country by 1987.[2] Most Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Burma ceased after the refusal of the military junta to recognise the winning of the 1990 elections by the National League for Democracy (NLD), and the subsequent house arrest of NLD leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Her arrest, renewed for another year by the regime in May 2007, has been accompanied by what the European Parliament has called the "unremitting repression" of Burma's citizens.[3]

3. The catalogue of human rights abuses perpetrated by the regime includes forced labour, political and religious persecution, conscription of child soldiers and forced displacement. These abuses are closely linked to poverty. 25% of Burma's population currently live below the UN-agreed poverty line of $1 per day,[4] but this rises drastically in regions of the country where ethnic minorities are persecuted and displaced from their homes: for example, some estimates suggest that 70% of people in Chin State live below the poverty line.

Forced displacement

4. One particular human rights abuse driving Burma's high poverty rate is forced displacement. Internally Displaced People (IDPs) are described by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as "individuals or groups of people who have been forced to flee their homes to escape armed conflict, generalized violence and human rights abuses."[5] In Burma's case, conflict is not the only factor in displacement. The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement framework highlights that displacement can also be caused by large-scale development projects, and in Burma state-sponsored natural resource extraction and major infrastructure construction have displaced, and continue to displace, communities and destroy the local environment.[6] Displacement is also caused by inappropriate state policies that drive people from their homes, such as forced labour; lack of food due to limited productive land and poor access to markets; and a dearth of basic social services such as schools and clinics.[7]

5. Burma's military regimes have used what is known as the 'Four Cuts' counter-insurgency policy since 1974, and this has been sustained under the current regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Through this policy, the regime aims to cut insurgents' access to food, funds, recruits and information. Civilians are also continually caught up in this brutal campaign, which is a primary factor in displacement.[8] The SPDC and the Burmese Army, the Tatmadaw, destroy villages and crops, lay landmines and coerce villagers into working for the Army (often through forced portering of goods across long distances and forced labour to build roads and infrastructure). The Tatmadaw maintains the largest number of under-aged soldiers with arms in the world. A 2006 survey by the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium of NGOs (TBBC) found that over 3,000 villages had been destroyed, relocated or abandoned, and over one million people displaced in eastern Burma since 1996.[9] There is evidence that torture and murder are used routinely by the Army, and that rape is used systematically as a weapon of war.[10]

6. While forced displacement is present across the whole of Burma, the situation in the country's remote, mountainous areas bordering Thailand, Laos, China, India and Bangladesh is the most grave. These areas, mostly populated by ethnic minorities, including the Chin, Kachin, Karenni, Karen, Mon, Rakhine and Shan peoples, have suffered historically from conflict and neglect—yet they contain more than one third of the country's population and most of its natural resources.[11] Written evidence received from Dr Alan Smith of the Thailand-based Centre for Local Development, the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) and the Euro Burma Office all highlighted that displacement is likely to increase in border areas, as the Burmese Army tries to exert control in areas previously controlled by insurgents and state-driven natural resource and other economic development projects are driven forward.[12]

7. Eastern Burma has experienced a recent escalation in violence due to an SPDC offensive in northern Karen State which began in November 2005. There are more than 500,000 IDPs in eastern Burma, including 287,000 people in ceasefire areas, 95,000 in armed conflict areas and 118,000 people in state-controlled relocation sites.[13] Human rights violations are pervasive and a 2006 survey found that almost one-third of households surveyed in the region had experienced forced labour.[14] The abuses perpetrated against displaced populations are contributing to a humanitarian crisis in eastern Burma, particularly with regard to public health. Standard health indicators in eastern Burma conform to those of countries experiencing humanitarian disasters: a 2006 Back Pack Health Worker survey estimated under-five mortality rates to be 221 per 1000 live births, compared to 205 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.[15]

8. Many displaced people in eastern Burma have crossed the border into Thailand. Some have managed to join the two million Burmese migrant workers in Thailand. Around 150,000 live in 10 refugee camps along the border (one Shan, four Karenni and five Karen—see Map 1, page 6). A further 15,000 are unregistered in Thailand and live in or near the camps.[16] Since 1984, the camps have been provided with food and—more recently—shelter from the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium (TBBC). TBBC is run by 10 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from eight countries and is based in Thailand. Health and education services in the camps are more limited and are provided by a separate group of NGOs working under the umbrella Committee for the Co-ordination of Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand (CCSDPT).

9. There are also more than 60,000 Burmese refugees in India, over 20,000 in Malaysia, several thousand in Bangladesh and an unknown number in China.[17] Refugees on all these borders face numerous vulnerabilities. Refugee camp conditions are generally poor, and unregistered refugees outside camps face huge obstacles in securing their human rights and livelihoods. DFID does not currently fund assistance to Burmese refugees on these other borders, and thus this report will not focus on these groups in depth, beyond a brief discussion at the end of Chapter 5. But it is important to note that, as Benedict Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldwide told us, these borders are even more "vulnerable and forgotten" than the Thai border and that refugees here deserve far more support from the international community, including DFID.[18]

DFID's response

10. DFID funds work with both IDPs in Burma and refugees in Thailand. This assistance is funded from DFID's development programme for Burma, which totals £8.8 million in 2007-08. The UK provides assistance to Burma in line with the EU Common Position, which states that non-humanitarian aid should be suspended, with a number of exceptions (see Box 1).

Box 1: EU Common Position on Burma

The UK provides assistance to Burma in line with the EU Common Position, which states that non-humanitarian aid or development aid should be suspended, with exceptions made for:

Human rights, democracy, good governance, conflict prevention and building the capacity of civil society;
Health and education, poverty alleviation and in particular the provision of basic needs and livelihoods for the poorest and most vulnerable populations;
Environmental protection, and in particular programmes addressing the problem of non-sustainable, excessive logging resulting in deforestation. (Article 5)

Council Common Position116/77, 27 April 2006, Article 3.
Online at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2006/l_116/l_11620060429en00770097.pdf

11. DFID has four objectives for its Burma programme:

reducing communicable diseases. To support this, DFID is contributing £20 million over 5 years to the multi-donor Three Diseases Fund for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

improving access to basic education by contributing funding to, for example, Save the Children and Unicef's education projects;

development of sustainable livelihoods by funding the work of organisations including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and International Development Enterprises; and

support to a process of transition to a democratic society. This includes supporting the improvement of community participation, strengthening governance and helping to build Burmese civil society.[19]

12. DFID is supporting refugees with a grant to TBBC of £1.8 million over three years. This represents about 4% of TBBC's total budget. The UK contributes around the same amount again as its share of European Union (EU) funding to TBBC. Following an internal review, DFID announced on 5 March 2007 that it was removing the restriction on the use of its funds for assistance to refugees, so that they can be used for either cross-border or refugee assistance, as need and funding dictates.[20] This change of policy was accompanied by an extra £400,000 for community groups within Burma to assist IDPs and other groups affected by conflict.[21] DFID has also provided emergency assistance to IDPs through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This totalled £0.5 million in 2006. However, this has been disrupted by the closure of two ICRC offices in Burma in March 2007.

Our visit to Thailand and the Thai-Burma border

13. We visited Bangkok, Chiang Mai and the Thai-Burma border in May 2007 to observe DFID's assistance to Burmese IDPs and refugees first-hand. We visited one of the largest refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border, Ban Mai Nai Soi Camp (also known as Site 1) to talk to refugees about their experiences in Burma, and to hear their views on the assistance they receive in the camp. We also met the Camp Committee and the Camp Commander and visited the Camp's vocational training centre, the Ban Tractor Health Clinic, the Community Agriculture and Nutrition Project and the Provisional Holding Centre. We met Royal Thai Government (RTG) officials to discuss RTG policy towards refugees. Other key interlocutors we talked to about refugee issues included TBBC, the UNHCR's Thailand Field Office, the International Rescue Committee and the Jesuit Refugee Service.

14. In Chiang Mai, we met agencies carrying out cross-border assistance to IDPs in Burma. Because of the sensitive nature of this work, we will use discretion in naming the agencies carrying out this work in both the visit programme (Annex) and the text of this report. In Bangkok, we met the UK Ambassadors to Rangoon and Bangkok and representatives of several organisations working to assist IDPs within Burma, including NGOs, the ICRC and the UN Office of the Co-ordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), whose Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Co-ordinator had visited Burma in April 2007 with a view to improving co-ordination of humanitarian assistance to Burma.

The structure of this report

15. Our visit gave us some valuable insights into the plight of IDPs and refugees and the courage of many of those assisting them which we followed up by three evidence sessions held at Westminster during June 2007. The resulting oral evidence, together with the 35 submissions of written evidence and the background papers submitted to the inquiry, form the basis of this report. Chapter 2 assesses the assistance being delivered by DFID within Burma to IDPs. Chapter 3 explores DFID's co-ordination role and its participation in multi-donor approaches to in-country assistance. Chapter 4 looks at cross-border assistance to IDPs in Burma and will explore DFID's possible role in supporting this form of aid delivery. Chapter 5 addresses DFID's support to refugees on the Thai-Burma Border, including the extent to which the Department co-operates with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to implement policy in relation to the refugee situation.

1 UK policy is to refer to Burma rather than 'Myanmar', the current name used by the Burmese regime since 1989. Burma's democracy movement prefers the form 'Burma' because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country. Internationally, both names are recognised. Back

2 Ev 78 [Ashley South]. Least Developed Country status is a UN categorisation for countries meeting three low income, human resource weakness and economic vulnerability criteria. Back

3 European Parliament Resolution of 21 June 2007 on Burma. Back

4 Ev 118 [Peace Way Foundation: Burma Issues] Back

5 UNHCR, Internally Displaced People: Questions and Answers, p.6. Online at http://www.unhcr.org/basics/BASICS/405ef8c64.pdf Back

6 Principle 6.2 (c) UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, 1998, UN Document E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2, cited in Thailand-Burma Border Consortium, Internal Displacement in Eastern Burma 2006 Survey. Back

7 Ev 81 [Ashley South] Back