House of Commons - International Development

Select Committee on International Development Written Evidence

Memorandum submitted by Ashley South

SUMMARY

The great majority of reports on Burmese Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and Refugees focus on the situation along the Thai-Burma border. While people displaced by armed-conflict in the eastern borderlands are among the most vulnerable communities in the country, large numbers of civilians remain displaced in other parts of Burma, and for reasons other than armed conflict.

Some groups of displaced people have been on the move for decades; others have found at least semi-durable solutions to their plight, despite the on-going political, social and economic problems in Burma. Community efforts to rehabilitate IDPs in Burma (for example, in ceasefire areas) deserve greater attention and support.

Groups assisting Burmese refugees in Thailand, and those working cross-border from Thailand with IDPs in conflict-affected parts of Burma, do excellent work, under often difficult conditions. Cross-border groups have access to "IDPs in hiding" in the war zones, and some other vulnerable communities accessible to armed opposition groups. Only very limited cross-border aid reaches people in Government-controlled areas, and ceasefire zones. Those working cross-border with IDPs do so in close partnership with parties to the armed conflict. The assistance they deliver is impartial, inasmuch as beneficiaries are targeted according to need alone; it cannot be considered neutral, as cross-border aid directly or indirectly supports armed opposition groups.

Karen and other community groups assisting displaced communities in Government-controlled areas consist mostly of church- or Buddhist Sangah-based networks. In addition to some relief aid, these groups are engaged in a variety of community development projects, some of which have low profile protective elements. These activities are generally under-funded, especially in comparison with the resources available to groups working cross-border from Thailand. Community-based organizations assisting IDPs from "inside" Burma have only limited access to populations in the few remaining war zones of Burma, but can often reach people in Government-controlled villages and relocation sites, and in non-Government controlled ceasefire areas.

Assistance to IDPs cross-border, from Thailand, and from inside Burma is complementary, inasmuch as the beneficiary groups do not overlap. However, there is only limited coordination between the two sets of actors.

SUBMISSION

1. Burma is one of the most ethnically-diverse countries in Southeast Asia. The remote, mostly mountainous areas along the borders with Thailand, Laos, China, India and Bangladesh are mostly populated by ethnic nationalities (minorities), and have long suffered from war and neglect. Although these border areas contain more than a third of the country's population, and most of its natural resources, many communities remain desperately poor, and are subject to a broad range of vulnerabilities, which undermine the potential for sustainable development.

2. Following the imposition of military rule in 1962, standards of living in Burma—which had outpaced both Thailand and Malaysia in industrial production during the 1950s—steadily declined, until it was declared a "Least Developed Country" by the United Nations in 1987. In 2005 Burma ranked 129th in the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Index, out of 159 countries (UNDP 2005).

Rights Violations and Forced Migration

3. Due to the misgovernance of its leaders—and their ignorance, hunger for power, misplaced patriotic zeal and greed—Burma has experienced decades of interlinked crises, in the fields of "first generation" human rights (as codified in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and "second generation" economic, social and political rights (as contained in the 1966 International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). These abuses have resulted in a widespread lack of human security, which—although not confined to minority-populated areas—has been felt most acutely in the country's remote, armed conflict-affected regions, where the Burma Army (Tatmadaw) and other armed groups often act as a law unto themselves.

4. Among the most acutely vulnerable people in Burma today are communities who have been forced to leave their homes, as a direct result of fighting and counter-insurgency operations, or due to other forms of distress, often related to structural violence (or non-armed conflict). Patterns of forced migration in and from Burma reflect the changing nature of conflict in the country. Internal displacement and refugee movements are not only caused by armed conflict in the insurgent-prone eastern borderlands. While the most acutely vulnerable internally displaced people (IDPs)—as defined in the UN 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement—do live in those few areas of the country still affected by significant levels of armed conflict, the phenomenon of forced migration is more complex and widespread.

Types of Forced Migration

5. Three "ideal types" may be identified, within the spectrum of forced migration in Burma. These Types are defined according to the root causes of population movement:

— 5A—Type 1: Armed Conflict-Induced Displacement—either as a direct consequence of fighting and counter-insurgency operations, or because armed conflict has directly undermined human and food security. Linked to severe human rights abuses across Karen State, in eastern Tenasserim Division, southern Mon State, southern and eastern Karenni State, southern Shan State, and parts of Chin State and Sagaing Division. A fair amount of quantitative data is available for Type 1 IDPs in eastern Burma (see below).

— 5B—Type 2: State-Society Conflict-induced Displacement (generally, post-armed conflict; caused by military occupation and/or "development" activities)—due to land confiscation by the Tatmadaw or other armed groups, including in the context of natural resource extraction (eg logging and mining); displacement due to small- and large-scale infrastructure construction (eg roads, bridges, airports); also forced migration as a product of predatory taxation, forced labour and other abuses. This form of displacement is related to the use of force, but does not occur in the context of outright armed conflict. All of the border states and divisions are affected by militarization- and/or "development"-induced displacement, including Arakan (Rakhine) and Kachin States, as well as a number of urban areas.

6. Types 1 and 2 forced migrants are "IDPs", whose displacement are a product of conflict. Type 1 is directly caused by armed conflict; Type 2 is caused by latent conflict, or the threat of the use of force.

— 6A—Type 3: Livelihoods Vulnerability-induced Displacement—the primary form of internal and external migration in and from Burma (and many other developing countries). The main causes are inappropriate government policies and practices, limited availability of productive land, and poor access to markets, resulting in food insecurity; lack of education and health services; plus stresses associated with transition to a cash economy. Livelihoods vulnerability-induced displacement occurs across the country, especially in and from remote townships.

7. Type 3 population movements constitute a particularly vulnerable sub-group of economic migrants in general, and are the product of very limited choices faced by marginalised populations. As such, they constitute a form of forced migration (or "distress migration"). Migration due to opium eradication policies is included under Type 3, because the proximate causes of movement are related to livelihoods issues—ie (with the important exception of some Wa areas), people are not ordered to move. However, opium eradication-induced migration could also be considered under Type 2 forced migration, due to the forcible nature of the opium bans, the severe shock to livelihoods involved, and the links to development activities.

8. There are important linkages between these three types of displacement, each of which undermines livelihoods options, and depletes people's resource base. Type 1 characterizes zones of on-going armed conflict, and some adjacent areas; Type 2 is particularly prevalent in remote and under-developed conflict-affected areas, where ceasefires have been agreed between the government and armed groups, and also affects urban relocatees; Type 3 is characteristic of remote areas in general, particularly those where armed conflict has ceased. This progression in causes of population movement is not strictly linear: many people are in cyclic transit between different phases of displacement, and may be categorized in different ways at different times.

9. It should be noted that, in many situations, migration itself constitutes a coping mechanism—as illustrated by the variety of rezones labeled "economic migration". The author's research has adopted an actor-oriented perspective, focusing on the agency of displaced people, rather than viewing them as passive victims.

Access and Enquiry

10. Most research on forced migration in Burma has a strong human rights orientation, focusing on armed conflict and its impacts, in the eastern border zones. Such approaches are obviously appropriate, given the widespread rights violations involved. However, the concentration on parts of eastern Burma accessible to agencies working cross-border from Thailand has tended to obscure assessments of forced migration in Burma as a whole. Much less is known about the situations in other geographic areas, or about displaced populations not accessible to the armed opposition groups with which cross-border aid agencies cooperate. One consequence has been a lack of data and analysis on military occupation- and "development"-induced displacement, or on livelihoods vulnerability-induced displacement.

11. Those investigating forced migration in and from the country generally hold strong views regarding the promotion of socio-political change. These agendas have determined the types of inquiry undertaken and the questions asked, and thus the nature of the reality "uncovered" by research. This problem-finding focus has created a distorted picture of the wider reality, since it does not include the positive trends (such as the re-emergence of civil society networks) which have emerged in some previously armed conflict-affected areas, over the past decade.

12. New forms of forced migration, which have emerged with the existence of ceasefires in many previously armed conflict-affected areas. It can be expected that such patterns of internal migration will emerge in areas currently affected by armed conflict, if/when insurgency comes to an end along the Thailand border. A better understanding of the issues in areas no longer affected by armed conflict-affected should help to prepare local and international actors for future developments in areas currently beset by the state's often brutal counter-insurgent operations.

Displacement Figures

13. The causes of population movement within Burma (internal migration) and beyond its borders (external migration) are closely linked. These often relate to serious and systematic abuses of a range of basic rights.

Migration beyond the Borders

14. For many Burmese citizens, patterns of often cyclic migration involve periods spent abroad as (legal or otherwise) labourers, and/or (official or otherwise) refugees in neighbouring countries. There are about three million migrant workers and their dependents in Thailand, most of whom come from Burma. Hundreds of thousand more Burmese migrants live in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Singapore. These people often endure very poor social and working conditions.

15. Refugees on the Western Borders: Following a brutal Tatmadaw campaign in 1991-92 (including massive forced labour and other human rights abuses), some 250,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh as refugees (a previous mass exodus had occurred in 1977-78). Most were repatriated by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in mid-late 1990s; in 2007 about 28,000 remained in refugee camps around Cox's Bazaar. A further 100-200,000 Rohingya were living illegally in Bangladesh, including five to 10,000 people settled in a makeshift camp near Teknaf. The UN and other international agencies have struggled to protect Rohingya returnees from further rounds of abuse.

16. Unknown numbers of displaced Naga lived along both sides of the Sagaing State border with India. There are also as many as 70,000 Chin and other refugees in India, including many in New Delhi, and along the border with Chin State. In July 2006 there were 24,800 Burmese refugees in Malaysia (mostly Rohingya and Chin).

17. Refugees on the Eastern Border: The first semi-permanent Karen refugee camps in Thailand were established north of Mae Sot, half-way up the border, in the early 1980s. Since 1984, these camps have been supplied with food (and, more recently, shelter and a range of other necessities) by a consortium of INGOs, currently named the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium (TBBC). The refugees health needs are addressed by a handful of medical agencies; since the late 1990s, a number of INGOs have been active in the border camps in the field of education.

18. By 2007, the number of refugees in Thailand had grown to 152,245, living in 10 camps (one Shan, four Karenni and five Karen). At least 4,000 Karen new arrivals had entered the kingdom since December 2005. Furthermore, large numbers of people continued to cross the border, without entering official camps (including most Shan new arrivals).

19. The actual number of camp residents also included several thousand (mostly newly-arrived) people whom the Thai authorities have excluded from camp lists. To a degree, this omission was compensated for by the absence of some registered refugees, who worked for extended periods outside the camps, in the informal Thai economy. An additional 20,000 people were located in nine NMSP, SSA and KNU-controlled settlements just across the border. These include a Mon "refugee" caseload which was forcibly repatriated in 1996, following the NMSP-SLORC ceasefire the previous year.

IDP Population Figures

20. The following synthesis includes data on (mostly Type 1) IDP numbers derived from sources working cross-border from Thailand, as well as from local groups active in Government- and ceasefire group-controlled parts of the country. However, the data available is still very patchy.

21. Counting only people forcibly displaced since 2005, the number of IDPs in eastern Burma in 2007 was probably no more than 100,000 people. However, the number of previously displaced people for whom no durable solution had was well over one million, including vulnerable communities who had been living in displacement for decades. Indeed, nearly the entire rural (and much of the urban) population of eastern Burma has been displaced or otherwise affected at some point during the last 50 years (although in many areas, such as the Pegu Yomas, armed conflict and forced displacement are memories of the 1960s). While some of these people have achieved a level of stability in new settlements, many have not (see below).

22. In 2002, while working for the (then) Burmese Border Consortium (BBC), the author conducted what was at that time the most widespread survey of internal displacement in Burma ever undertaken. This survey was implemented in partnership with the BBC's five partner groups, the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People (CIDKP), Karen Office for Relief and Development (KORD), Karenni Social Welfare Centre (KSWC), Mon Relief and Development Committee (MRDC) and Shan Relief and Development Committee (SRDC). The annual TBBC IDP report has since become the benchmark in calculating IDP numbers in Burma. Based on fieldwork conducted in 38 townships, the 2006 report again demonstrated the impressive data collection and analysis capacities of the local NGOs with which the TBBC works. The TBBC and partners found that, between 1996-2006, over 3,077 villages in eastern Burma had been destroyed and/or relocated en masse, or otherwise abandoned—including 232 in 2005-06 alone. At least 155 villages were re-established during this period (either in situ, or at a nearby location)—but most remained under-populated (the-settlement of 100 villages was thwarted by the Tatmadaw).

23. The TBBC's data was derived from very reliable local partner groups, working cross-border from Thailand (see below). Meanwhile, a number of local NGOs and CBOs were working with IDPs "inside" Government-controlled Burma, in Karen and other areas. Although these groups had only limited access to zones of on-going armed conflict, they often had excellent information regarding IDPs living in ceasefire zones and Government-controlled areas, including "relocation sites" (see below). In the case of the Karen, groups working in areas under Government control may be considered counterparts of those working cross-border from Thailand: neither sector had complete access to all displaced populations, but combining their data gave a clearer idea of the total numbers and situation of Karen IDPs.

24. Data collected by a coalition of local Karen (and some Karenni and Mon) NGOs working "inside" Burma (confidential documents) indicated that at least 155,110 people (141,340 Karen) in 29,603 families (26,635 Karen) from 626 villages (560 Karen) were internally displaced within Government-controlled areas and some ceasefire zones of Karen and Mon States, parts of southern Karenni, and Pegu and Tenasserim Divisions in 2005. Adding the total number of IDPs recorded in 2005 by TBBC partner groups in ceasefire areas and relocation sites, in Karen State, and Pegu and Tenasserim Divisions (ie those areas assumed to be accessible, during the same period, to groups working "inside" the country) gives a total of 70,600 plus 55,000 people—ie 125,600 IDPs in Karen areas (not including those in areas of on-going armed conflict). This is quite similar to the number of 141,340, recorded by the coalition of groups from "inside". In part, the differences (of about 10%) can be attributed to the TBBC partner groups' lack of access to "mixed administration" and government-controlled areas (especially peri-urban areas).

25. These preliminary calculations indicate that the total number of IDPs estimated by TBBC in 2006 (approximately 500,000) was probably accurate—but did not include Type 1 IDPs who chose not to make themselves available to armed opposition groups, or large numbers of people who had achieved (at least semi-) durable solutions to their plight—especially those living in peri-urban areas. It also did not include hundreds of thousands of Types 2 and 3 IDPs, in other parts of Burma (especially Kachin and Shan States, and the west of the country, as well as in some parts of Karen State).

Long-term Patterns of Displacement

26. Most studies of forced migration in and from Burma (eg those cited above) focus on peoples' often traumatic experiences, occurring over a relatively short period of time. While appropriate from a rights-based perspective, this approach tends to obscure longer-term patterns of displacement.

27. Forced migration among significant segments of the Karen and other ethnic nationality communities is not a "one-off" phenomenon. It is rarely the case that an individual, family or community used to live in "Place A", fled to "Place B" (as an IDP, or as a refugee to Thailand), and can thus return in a simple manner to "Place A". The original "Place A" may have been occupied by the Tatmadaw or other hostile groups, and/or re-settled by other displaced people, and/or planted with landmines. More complex however, is the likelihood that "Place A" is in fact a multitude of "Places A-N".

28. In-depth interviews, conducted in 2003-04 with a group of 36 Karen IDP in the Papun hills, reveals that these people had experienced more than 1,000 migration episodes. The great majority of migration episodes were undertaken as a direct result of fighting, because of severe human rights abuse (including forced labour), or because armed conflict had directly undermined sustainable forms of agriculture. Five people had been forcibly displaced more than 100 times, sometimes dating back to the 1940s. One old woman first fled to the jungle during WWII, when Japanese soldiers came to her village!

29. According to a Karen Churchwoman (Field Notes 29-5-03) in Rangoon:

"Many of our people—all that they know is fear. Communities have been forced to run and hide, run and hide, again and again. All they know is movement and fear, so that and it has become quite normal for them. This is almost our biggest problem: explaining to people that they don't have to—or should not have to—live like this, and that another, better life is possible."

30. Armed conflict-induced (Type 1) displacement often occurs among communities which periodically shift their location, for socio-cultural reasons, and to access agricultural land. However, the scale of displacement in Karen and other areas over the past fifty years has been out of all proportion to any traditional patterns of migration.

31. South-east Asian hill people's traditional response to oppression has been to move away, further up into the hills. This pattern and ethos is embedded in Karen culture, which is rich in myths of migration and dispossession (the trope of the orphan recurs regularly). However, the strategy of organised flight became less viable as the "land frontier" closed across mainland Southeast Asia in 1950-80s. In Burma, as insurgent groups lost territory to the Tatmadaw, the closure of the land frontier meant that displaced people could no longer move further into rebel-controlled "liberated zones", behind the front-lines of conflict.

Armed-Conflict-Induced Displacement in Karen State [Type 1]

32. For over half a century, much of rural Burma has been profoundly affected by armed conflict. Traditional ways of life have been severely disrupted by repeated incidents of forced displacement, interspersed with occasional periods of relative stability.

33. Since the late 1940s, the KNU has brought armed conflict to many Karen and other communities, without being able to protect civilian populations against Tatmadaw reprisals. The KNU and other insurgent groups have long had an interest in controlling, or at least maintaining, civilian populations in their homelands, as a source of legitimacy, and of food, intelligence, soldiers and porters—all of which functions have been targeted by the Tatmadaw's "Four Cuts" counter-insurgency strategy. The KNLA still regularly organises village evacuations, to "protect" civilians from Tatmadaw incursions (a service which seems to be appreciated by many IDPs).

34. Clearly, insurgent organizations bear some responsibility for the plight of civilians in areas where they operate. Nevertheless, the on-going human rights and humanitarian crises in eastern Burma are primarily due to the actions of the Tatmadaw and its proxies.

"The Four Cuts"

35. Burma's ethnic insurgent groups have positioned themselves as the defenders of minority populations, against the aggression of state forces. They have adopted guerrilla tactics, which have invited retaliation against the civilian population—but against which the armed groups have been unable to defend villagers. In response to protracted insurgencies in most ethnic nationality-populated areas, since the 1960s, the Tatmadaw has pursued often brutal counter-insurgency strategies, including the forced relocation of civilian populations deemed sympathetic to armed ethnic and communist groups.

36. This process usually begins with a Tatmadaw column issuing relocation orders. Previously, these were mostly written documents, which constituted evidence of state-sanctioned abuse. However, since the growth of the Burma human rights industry in the 1990s (see below), most relocations orders have been issued verbally. Villagers are usually given between zero and seven days warning to leave their homes. Sometimes they are told to move to a designated relocation site, but often villagers are not told where to go—just to vacate their homes. Tatmadaw columns often return repeatedly to cleared areas, to ensure that they are not re-settled; many villages are therefore "serially displaced".

37. Villagers are sometimes able to bribe Tatmadaw (or Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) officers, to abandon, or at least postpone, their relocation (a "coping mechanism", of sorts). Often, the relocation area is declared a "free-fire zone". Houses, animals and crops are looted and destroyed, people are raped and murdered. In some cases, the Tatmadaw purposefully launches offensives just prior to the harvest, in order to steal villagers' crops. This is an effective military strategy: it depopulates ethnic-nationality populated homelands, and denies insurgents a civilian support base.

38. Villages are often allowed to remain in situ, if they promise not to have contact with insurgent forces, and to supply the Tatmadaw with labour and other services and goods. Although life is these "peace villages" ("Nyein Chan Ye" in Burmese) may be bleak, the alternatives are even more so.

39. Many destroyed or otherwise abandoned villages are subsequently re-settled, either in situ, or in a more remote location, which villagers consider is less likely to attract the attention of the Tatmadaw, or other combatants. In some cases, villages are re-inhabited because villagers judge that the local security situation has improved; on other occasions, settlements are re-built further up in the hills, behind the "front lines" of armed conflict.

40. If the provisional 2004 KNU-SPDC "gentleman's agreement" had been consolidated, it might have delivered a substantial improvement in the human rights situation on the ground, creating the space in which local and international organizations could begin to address the urgent needs of a war-ravaged population. However, in early 2006 the Tatmadaw launched major operations against both the civilian population and a diminished KNU insurgency, across northern Karen State, displacing some 20,000 civilians in the process. (Nevertheless, across much of southern Karen State and in Tenasserim Division, while the Tatmadaw continued to perpetrate widespread rights violations, a decrease in armed conflict allowed for a limited degree of optimism, regarding the types of community-led rehabilitation that may be possible, if a sustainable end to the armed conflict could be negotiated.)

Responses to Type 1 Forced Migration

Community Coping Strategies

41. Type 1 forced migrants' vulnerabilities—and consequent needs—vary according to their response to displacement pressures. Given pressures to move, villagers may adopt one or more of the following strategies:

— Hide in—or close to—zones of on-going armed conflict (with the hope of returning home, but often remaining "in-hiding" for years).

— Move to a relocation site.

— Move to a relatively more secure village, town or peri-urban area—including "behind the front lines" in war zones, in ceasefire areas, and in Government-controlled locations.

— Pursue the increasingly difficult and dangerous option of seeking refuge in neighbouring Thailand.

42. In many cases, people from the same community, subject to the same migration pressure (eg a relocation order), will adopt a variety of different responses. Indeed, this is often the case within an individual family: elderly folks may attempt to stay at home; adults will go into hiding in the jungle, enter a relocation site, or seek new livelihood options in relatively more secure and stable villages, towns or urban areas; while some children may be sent to join relatives in town.

43. A displaced family or individual is more likely to adopt a life "in hiding", in a zone of on-going armed conflict, if they have some form of pre-established relationship with an armed opposition group—such as relatives already living in insurgent-controlled areas, or family or friends in the KNU. Similarly, Type 1 IDPs will tend to enter a ceasefire are, or relocation site, if they have non-threatening relations with the relevant ceasefire group, or state authorities.

44. Following the "gentleman's agreement" to cease hostilities between the KNU and Tatmadaw, between 2004-06, large numbers of Type 1 IDPs in central and southern Karen areas began to return "spontaneously" from hiding places in the jungle (and from relocation sites, and some refugee camps in Thailand), to build more permanent (wooden) houses and grow crops other than swidden rice. Especially in central Karen State, many IDPs moved from ceasefire zones into relatively more secure villages and peri-urban areas, influenced by both the government and armed groups.

45. Most relocation sites seem to disperse within a few years of their establishment, as the authorities "turn a blind eye" to forcibly relocated communities' efforts to return to their original land, or re-settle elsewhere. In many cases however, over time, conditions in relocation sites return to normalcy (by the standards of rural Burma), as people rebuild their communities in the new location, often in partnership with CBOs and local NGOs (see below). In such cases, residents may prefer life in the "new village", to the uncertainties of return or resettlement elsewhere (and the possibility of being subject to a new round of displacement, in the future). Such rehabilitated relocation sites may offer better health and education services, and access to markets, than the remote village which people were originally forced to vacate.

46. In such cases—where displaced people come to find the new settlement preferable to their original villages—the label "relocation site" is not particularly helpful. Certainly, people's vulnerabilities and needs will be different to those of people in "classic" relocation sites. Thus the importance of a community-based approach to needs analysis, which takes account of local responses to displacement. These distinctions also indicate that for many displaced people, rehabilitation in situ (a form of "spontaneous rehabilitation") will be a preferred durable solution.

47. Nevertheless, many villagers remain ready to flee at short notice, and still often spend a night under the stars, if a Tatmadaw patrol approaches. Furthermore, many armed conflict-affected (especially border) areas remain heavily land-mined—with important implications on any future refugee/IDP repatriation/rehabilitation activities.

International Responses: Refugees in Thailand

48. In the 1970s the KNU established a string of jungle villages on the Thai side of the border, on the east banks of the Salween and Moeie Rivers, opposite the Mannerplaw General Headquarters area. Symbolising the KNU's increasing dependence on Thailand, these "secret village" resembled those built by nationalist Chinese forces in Thailand, further to the north.

49. The first semi-permanent "refugee" settlements in Thailand were established in Tak Province in 1984. These were small camps, of a few hundred people only (or a couple of thousand, at most). In these early days, the refugees could enter and leave the camps more-or-less at will, and—with a nod from the right patron in the KNU hierarchy—were able to travel up and down the border, with passes issued by Thai intelligence agencies. The Karen refugees were able to forage for food in the forests around the camps, or across the border in Burma, and/or seek work in the informal Thai economy.

50. Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, or its 1967 Protocol (although it is a member of the UNHCR Executive Committee). Although it only accepted those fleeing the civil war in Burma as "temporarily displaced people", the Royal Thai Government (RTG) agreed to grant these people temporary refuge, so long as the task of providing basic assistance was taken up by a handful of international INGOs. It was not until April 1992—eight years after the first regular Karen refugee camps were)—that UNHCR staff undertook their first trip to the Thailand-Burma border. Until July 1998, the role of the UN refugee agency was mostly limited to irregular "long distance monitoring" of the refugees, from the UN regional headquarters in Bangkok.

51. The Thai authorities tolerated some two dozen small refugee villages, spread along the upper two-thirds of the border. Acting as civilian support bases for the insurgencies, the refugee settlements continued a long tradition of Karen (and later Karenni and Mon) groups playing low-key roles on behalf of the Thai armed forces, gathering intelligence on and skirmishing with the historic enemy, Burma.

52. In response to the RTG's invitation, in 1984 a small group of international, non-evangelical Christian agencies established the loosely-structured Consortium of Christian Agencies (CCA), with the aim of supplying food and other essential relief items. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and two other French agencies attended to the refugees' basic medical needs.

53. Unlike the Indochinese refugee caseloads in Thailand in the 1970s and `80s, most Karen refugees initially fled with their community structures more-or-less intact. The areas of Burma immediately adjacent to the refugee settlements in Thailand were still mostly controlled by the KNU and other insurgents, so the refugees' security was not at first a major issue. It seemed most efficient therefore, to deal with these people through the refugee committees established by the KNU. This approach suited the Thai authorities' desire for a low-key solution to the crisis—one that would meet the refugees' basic humanitarian needs, while costing Thailand little. The RTG wished to avoid provoking Rangoon—while at the same time elements in the Royal Thai Army and security agencies continued surreptitiously to support the KNU. The NGOs meanwhile, did not wish to impose alien structures upon the refugees, hoping to avoid encouraging "aid dependency", and minimise the camps' impacts on the environment. From the outset therefore, the CCA and other agencies worked through the insurgent-nominated refugee committees.

54. In the late 1980s a number of non-religious NGOs joined the CCA, and in 1989 the consortium was reorganised, as the Burmese Border Consortium. (The author worked as a field coordinator for the BBC, from 1994 until 1997.) The principal BBC donors were ecumenical Christian agencies and Western governments, with the Swedes and European Union playing important roles from the outset. Most of the BBC member-agencies were registered with the Thai authorities under the aegis of the Committee for Co-ordination of Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand (CCSDPT), which had been established in September 1975 to co-ordinate the activities of NGOs working with the Indochinese refugees. The CCSDPT, and its Education and Medical Working Groups, are considered a model of best practice in humanitarian governance. These monthly meetings in Bangkok, are attended by UNHCR and several of the Bangkok embassies, served as an information-sharing forum and locus of Thailand-Burma border NGO scene.

55. As well as the officially-registered NGOs, by the 1990s a number of small, unofficial groups had emerged, some of which consisted of only one or two foreign volunteers. Members of the Burma-NGO community in Thailand fell into two broad camps: those with a specific interest in Burma, many of whom had little or no training in the fields of relief and development, and those professionals who worked for international agencies with a sectoral specialisation, but sometimes little interest in Burma issues per se.

56. Non-CCSDPT agencies undertook a wide range of mostly small-scale relief and development activities—including programmes directed at Burmese migrant labourers in Thailand. Many engaged in advocacy work, including the documentation and denunciation of human rights abuses perpetrated by Government forces (but very rarely of those committed by opposition groups).

57. In 1984 most observers had assumed that the crisis would be short-lived. However, this was not to be the case, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s a small humanitarian and human rights industry grew up along the border, under the "umbrella" of the refugee relief regime. The NGOs—and in particular the BBC—provided aid via indigenous refugee committees, which were in effect the humanitarian wings of insurgent organisations. Whilst this policy certainly empowered the refugee leadership, the concerns of the majority of refugees remained largely unheard. In retrospect, it was probably a mistake to rely so heavily on the refugee committees, without providing the training necessary for them to become more responsive to and representative of their clients' needs. Furthermore, in establishing such close relations with the Christian KNU elite, the NGOs inadvertently contributed to a growing factionalism among the Karen population along the border, and reinforced the polarisation between the Burmese government and opposition forces.

58. By 1989-90, when the first Karenni and Mon camps were established in Mae Hong Son and Kanchanaburi Provinces, the Burmese refugee caseload had risen to 30,000 people. The Karen, Karenni and Mon refugee authorities administered a dozen-or-so camps, with a laid-back paternalism that sat well with the NGOs' low-profile mandate. For the refugees, the camps were a safe haven from the civil war in Burma. If those families with no members "in the revolution" were occasionally asked to act as porters or pay tax to the insurgents, then few questions were asked.

59. Until the late 1980s, the situation on the border suited most of these different players' agendas. Over the next few years though—as relations improved between the Thai and Burmese governments—all this would change.

The Impacts of Assistance

60. As the KNU lost control of its once-extensive "liberated zones", foreign aid insulated the organisation and its supporters from the realities of life in Burma. The camps in Thailand provide refuge to the victims of civil war in Burma—including nearly 20,000 new refugees, who had fled a major 1997 Tatmadaw offensive against the remaining KNU strongholds—and unofficial base areas for the KNU and other armed groups. The existence of the refugees—and of some two million other internally and externally displaced Burmese—provided testimony to the abuses of the military Government, while the KNU's loose control over this civilian population (many of whom are KNU family members) bestowed a certain legitimacy on the Karen insurgency.

61. Since the nineteenth century, international actors have played various roles in mediating ideas of Karen nationalism. In the present day, international NGOs supplying the refugee camps in Thailand, and supporting the Burmese opposition, have empowered camp administrations dominated by a self-selecting, S'ghaw-speaking, largely Baptist elite, which the aid agencies accepted as the refugees' natural and legitimate representatives.

62. In 1995 a ground-breaking quantitative study of Karen refugee communities the Coordinating Committee for Services to Displaced People in Thailand found that access to services and other opportunities was much easier for Christian families, than for Buddhists, or Muslims—ie among the refugees, religion was a more important factor in structuring inequality than is gender.

63. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the KNU-controlled Karen Refugee Committee (KRC) administered the camps with little interference—although since around 2000, progress has been made in encouraging greater popular participation in selecting, the refugee leadership. If more efforts had been made in the 1990s to encourage the KRC to become genuinely representative of the wider refugee population, some of the inequalities against which the DKBA rebelled might have mitigated, at least in the refugee environment.

64. It would be most unfair to blame international NGOs for the emergence of DKBA. However, few Thailand-based agencies have investigated the impacts of aid on the conflict in Burma, and the ways in which their rice and rhetoric have supported the KNU's program of militarised nation-building, during a period when the Karen insurgency became increasingly centred on the refugee camps in Thailand, as sources of refuge and legitimacy. In part, this intellectual naivety may be explained by the lack of internationally experience aid workers along the border, at least until the late 1990s.

The Institutionalization of Aid

65. Until the mid-1990s, the international community was largely unaware of the impacts of "low-level" armed conflict on ethnic minority populations remaining inside Burma. As a result of a series of well-documented reports, produced over the past decade by various indigenous and international rights-oriented groups, the appalling human rights and security situation in the borderlands and elsewhere in Burma is now well-know—at least to those who choose to enquire.

66. Increased levels of international awareness have been matched by rising aid budgets—at last for refugees and IDPs along the Thailand border. By 2005, about US$30 million was being channelled annually through Thailand-based organizations supporting displaced people in and from Burma. Most assistance was provided to the Karen and Karenni, refugees, while about $2.5 million went to IDPs inside Burma. In contrast, the amount of humanitarian aid provided via Yangon remained minimal: prior to August 2005, when the UN Global Fund pulled out of Burma, total ODA was approximately $150 million per year (ICG 2006: p.4)—or less than $3 per person, compared to $39 per person in Cambodia.

67. In late 2005 the RTG reversed long-standing policies, to allow international organisations with refugees to expand education (including vocational) services, and income generation schemes. Important progress was made in the field of school support and curriculum design—one largely unintended consequence of which was the creation of a Karen education system that diverges from the Government's, to a degree that makes it almost impossible for Karen and Karenni high school graduates to re-integrate with the state higher education system.

68. Since the expansion of UNHCR's mandate to cover the Burmese camps in 1998, the UN refugee agency UNHCR has worked with INGOs—and to a degree, with the KRC and other CBOs—to address the needs of more vulnerable members of the community, including women, and non-dominant minorities. In general, camp administration has become more accountable as a result.

70. Refugee Resettlement: After various delays, 2006-07 saw substantial numbers of Karen and Karenni refugees achieving the "durable solution" of resettlement to third countries. Many of those eligible for re-settlement were teachers, medics, administrators, and others from elite sectors of the refugee community. Although no more than 15,000 refugees had departed by the end of 2007, Ellen Sauerbrey, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration was quoted at the end of August as saying that "there will be no cap (for the resettlement of Karen refugees)".

Burma's Other Borders

71. Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh received assistance from UNHCR, and food aid from World Food Programme (WFP); MSF withdrew from the camps in 2003. Education provision was severely limited in the camps, where the Bangladeshis authorities were engaged in concerted efforts to intimidate refugees into accepting repatriation.

IDPs and Cross-border Aid

72. Assistance to displaced peoples in Burma sent from Thailand or other neighbouring countries is by definition illegal, as it challenges the sovereignty of the Burmese Government (which most cross-border actors consider illegitimate). Cross-border humanitarian aid programmes may be characterised as impartial—inasmuch as aid is distributed according to need only—but far from neutral.

73. Most Thailand-based cross-border groups work in Karen areas, and also in Mon and Karenni; security and local capacity constraints mean that much less work is undertaken in Shan State. Cross-border aid networks are closely associated with armed opposition groups, on which they relied for security and logistical arrangements. In fact, most cross-border personnel are members (or affiliates) of insurgent organisations. A number of local NGOs and CBOs are also engaged in human rights documentation and advocacy work, and in capacity-building with a range of opposition groups.

74. Border Settlements: Several humanitarian agencies support displaced people in the border areas, who are unable or unwilling to establish camps in Thailand. In 2007 international organisations provided basic supplies to some 20,000 people in border enclaves controlled by the New Mon State Party (NMSP), Shan State Army (SSA) and KNU. The Thai authorities generally "turn a blind eye" to this assistance, which lessens the prospects of displaced people entering Thailand (where in any case there are no official Shan refugee camps).

75. This caseload included some 12,000 Mon "returnee-refugees", who have been living in NMSP-controlled ceasefire zones since their non-voluntary repatriation in 1996. (This operation was organized by the Mon refugee authorities and TBBC, while UNHCR neither supported nor protested the move.) Foreign donors also support teachers' salaries in some 360 NMSP- and community-administered Mon National Schools (70% of which are located in Government-controlled areas).

76. IDPs Further Inside Burma: As the insurgents lost control of their remaining "liberated zones" in the early/mid-1990s, civilians displaced by armed conflict could no longer resettle behind the "front-lines" of conflict, and the vulnerable IDP caseload increased substantially. With the help of INGOs and donors who had been supporting the refugee caseload in Thailand for a decade, Karen and Mon IDP assistance programs were established. These were closely associated with the KNU and NMSP respectively. The growing humanitarian crisis was reflected in the formation of the (KNU-controlled) Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People (CIDKP) in 1998. By April 2002, the cross-border aid budget had grown to $1 million annually, distributed through these partner groups, and to a lesser extent via their Karenni and Shan counterparts.

77. Short-term humanitarian aid was intended to supplement villagers' existing rice-sharing and other coping mechanisms, offering them a chance to reconstruct their communities, once the immediate crisis had passed. In 2005 several cross-border groups began to implement a range of community-based development initiatives, stimulated by the injection of significant new American funds for cross-border work in 2006.

78. The majority of cross-border assistance goes to Type 1 "IDPs in hiding" in the conflict zones, and is distributed to people accessible to armed ethnic groups. Due to the problems associated with distributing aid in a war zone, in partnership with a party to the conflict, donors have demanded that the cross-border groups have developed sophisticated and systematic needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation, and information collection and dissemination systems.

79. Education: A network of some 936 community schools exists across Karen areas of Burma, including 10 high schools in KNU-controlled areas. IDP schools often consist of little more than bamboo benches under the trees, which must move repeatedly, as villagers are displaced by armed conflict. In the face of such difficulties, communities attempt to provide their children with some form of basic education. In partnership with local teachers, the KNU Education Department attempts to standardise the curriculum within this massively under-funded system. The main local NGO supporting education in areas of on-going armed conflict is the Karen Teacher Working Group (KTWG), which provides teachers with stipends and training.

80. Health: A number of clinics and a few field hospitals are run by the civilian and military wings of armed opposition groups. Coverage is mostly limited to civilians in insurgent-controlled or -influenced areas, plus combatants. These clinics are mostly funded by the NCUB's Chiang Mai-based, National Health and Education Committe.

81. Burma's Other Borders: Some cross-border activities are carried out from Bangladesh and India (very limited relief and human rights documentation), and also from China. These included low-profile medical assistance, and training to local NGO staff, targeted at resettled IDPs and other communities in Kachin and Wa ceasefire areas along the China border.

The Military Government

82. Limited state aid to displaced populations has focused on assistance to "peace" (ceasefire) groups, which have "returned to the legal fold". Two main groups have been targeted: re-settled ceasefire group soldiers and their family members, and (occasionally) civilian villagers displaced by the armed conflict. This has mostly been in the form of infrastructure development—eg roads, bridges, schools, hospitals—sometimes constructed on land confiscated from local villagers.

83. Relocation Sites: The distinction between different types of relocation site, and organic settlements, in Burma is rather arbitrary—particularly in an historical context where villages in the hills relocate periodically for socio-economic reasons (eg to access new lands). Furthermore, it is by no means clear when a relocated settlement stops being a "relocation site". Most villages in eastern Burma have experienced displacement at some time over the fast half-century, in the context of a protracted civil war and wider state-society conflict. In many (probably most) cases, people have re-built their lives, and re-settled at least semi-durably in new settlements. Whether these should still be regarded as relocation sites is a moot point.

84. Nevertheless, Relocation Sites still exist in many areas, especially those affected by on-going armed conflict. The Tatmadaw sometimes provides a few weeks or months' supply of rice to new arrivals—although this has often been taken from other villagers' granaries. In many cases, the state also provides limited education and health services, as it does in much of rural Burma. Access to schools and markets—and the "protection" from further bouts of relocation afforded by residence in relocation sites—explains the reluctance of some residents to leave, even when conditions allow.

85. Especially since the late-1990s, the Burma Army has "lived off the land", by appropriating resources (food, cash, labour, land) from the civilian population. This self-support policy has exacerbated conflict and displacement across much of rural Burma.

86. Domestic Law: Citizens of Burma enjoyed rights to private property under the 1947 constitution, which was abrogated by the 1962 coup. Article 23 both protected private property, and allowed for nationalisation "if the public interest so requires". The 1974 BSPP constitution nationalised all land, but this too was annulled after 1988 SLORC coup, since when the Government has ruled by decree. Legal practice in Burma today generally reverts to the 1953 Land Nationalisation Act, which recognizes some private ownership of agricultural land (Section 38), although it restricts sale or transfer (Sections 9-12). However, the same Act provides for the state to confiscate land which is left fallow (Sections 9-12).

International Organisations Working "Inside" Burma

87. In 2007, International relief and development projects in Burma are still spread very thinly. Rangoon-based IOs and UN agencies generally take a long-term, incremental approach to expanding access into conflict-affected parts of the country, starting programs in areas adjacent to state capitals, and gradually moving into more remote locations. Several agencies work in remote parts of Chin, northern Arakan, Shan, and Kachin States, and in some villages in Karenni State and Tenasserim Division. Some are also active in parts of Karen and Mon States—but have not been given permission to work in the most severely conflict-affected areas.

88. Very few IOs operating inside Government-controlled Burma implement programmes specifically targeted at IDPs, as such. In part, this is due to the sensitivity of the issue; in part, it reflects a lack of appreciation of the nature and extent of displacement crises in Burma.

89. The ICRC: The International Committee of the Red Cross is generally sceptical of a separate category of "IDP", arguing that humanitarian law (the 1949 Geneva Conventions—especially the Fourth Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War— and the two Additional Protocols of 1977) do not distinguish between displaced and other conflict-affected civilians. Between returning to Burma in 1998, and the humanitarian access crises of late 2004 (see below), the ICRC expanded its presence to remote parts of Karen, Mon and Shan States, and Tenasserim Division. Sub-delegations were established in Pa'an, Moulmein, Kengtung, Taunggyi and Mandalay, from where ICRC teams implemented water and sanitation and other projects in conflict-affected areas, with the aim of providing "protection by presence".

90. Following the purge of Khin Nyunt and his MI colleagues in October 2004, the ICRC experienced significantly reduced access to most parts of eastern Burma, leading to a reduction in the number of its expatriate staff from 56 to 16. In mid-March 2007 the organization announced the forced closure of its Moulmein and Kengtung field offices, and stated that prison visits were also being systematically obstructed.

91. United Nations High Commission for Refugees: In March 2004 UNHCR announced that it had negotiated access with the Government to areas of potential refugee return, in Karen and Mon States, and Tenasserim Division. Under this arrangement, the UN refugee agency was able to visit most of the townships from which the majority of refugees in Thailand had fled—ie for the first time, the UN had access to the Thailand border areas from "inside" Burma. In 2005 UNHCR implemented 138 micro-projects in fourteen Townships, in areas of possible refugee return; these involved the construction of schools, health centres, bridges and water projects.

92. However, UNHCR staff have only been able to visit areas securely under Government control, and accessible by—or a few hour's walk off—road. Very few projects are situated in areas affected by on-going armed conflict or displacement. There is a danger that UNHCR may extrapolate from conditions found in the relatively secure areas, to draw conclusions about more remote areas.

93. In principle, UNHCR would expect to extend repatriation and reintegration assistance to returning IDPs, as well as refugees. In 2004 the agency was requested by the Ministry of Home Affairs to assist "people returning from within the country" (ie IDP return and reintegration), in areas of refugee return. However, the status of this agreement became unclear, following the fall of Khin Nyunt.

94. United Nations Children's Fund: The UN Children's agency (UNICEF) works primarily through Government ministries, on education, immunization and nutrition campaigns, water and sanitation, community health and HIV/AIDS. (In 2006, the UNICEF health budget was larger than the Government's.) With the exception of a very few ceasefire zones, UNICEF has no regular access to areas of population displacement, and does not target IDPs—although immunisation teams have been able to reach some displaced populations in Karenni and Karen States.

95. Some other UN agencies have also offered limited protection and assistance to displaced and conflict-affected communities in Burma. These include the ILO, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and WFP (the latter two, in opium eradication areas of Shan State).

96. UN Resident Coordinator and Country Team: Leadership on IDP issues, and humanitarian protection in general, is provided within the UN system by the office of the UN Resident Coordinator (2004-07), Mr Charles Petrie. The Resident Coordinator oversaw the creation of a UN Country Team Population Movement Working Group, (PMWG) which in 2004-05 commissioned (from this author) an in-depth report on Forced Migration in Myanmar. The PMWG has taken some tentative steps to address some of the "protection gaps" in responses to the IDP crises in Burma, as recommended in said report.

97. International NGOs: In 2007 some 45 INGOs have Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the Government. A number of agencies in Karen and Mon States—and to a lesser degree, in Shan, Karenni and Chin States, and in Tenasserim Division—implement programmes which benefited forced migrants, such as IDPs who had moved into Government-controlled areas (including some longer-established relocation sites).

98. Since the late-1990s, INGOs in Burma had begun to realize the benefits of working in partnership with local NGOs and CBOs, in order to gain to access vulnerable and remote communities. In general, INGOs in Burma operate with more independence than their better-funded UN counterparts. While the Government could—and increasingly does—restrict NGO access to sensitive areas (see below), the private aid agencies are not told where or with whom they should work.

Local Organisations "Inside" Burma

99. In the mid/late-1990s, a variety of civil society networks (re-)emerged within and between ethnic nationality communities "inside" Burma. These included religious groups and traditional village associations, as well as more formally-established organisations.

100. These local networks often had access conflict-affected parts of Burma that were beyond the reach of international organisations. Their relief and development activities took the form of "self-help" initiatives, undertaken by extended family and ethnic clan networks, as well as more systematic programmes, implemented by several CBOs and local NGOs, which established low-profile aid programs in Government-controlled areas, and in some relocation sites and ceasefire areas in eastern and northern Burma. Some of these local organisations also worked in zones of on-going armed conflict, where access varied, depending on the local situation.

101. Contact with displaced populations is negotiated with Tatmadaw (and/or ceasefire group) commanders—usually by local or national religious leaders. In general, assistance to displaced people "inside" Burma is provided by faith-based networks, to civilians in the vicinity of the implementing agency's co-religionists. Most groups attempt to ensure that aid is extended to all needy people in the areas accessed, and not just church members—ie they strive for impartiality.

102. Groups involved in providing support to IDPs in relocation sites have been accused of abetting the state's draconian forced relocation program. However, their assistance is usually provided some time after the fact of relocation and, in providing relief in partnership with relocated populations, local NGOs help to build community networks and develop capacities in ways which contribute towards peace-making and conflict-transformation—and thus support processes of political transition, at least at the local level.

103. Between 2004-07, Karen groups (in particular) inside Burma have enhanced their capacities for assessing needs, and delivering assistance to IDPs and other vulnerable communities (eg flood victims). Relief aid usually consists of food, medical supplies (including mobile outreach teams) and community rehabilitation-development activities. In particular, three separate church-based networks working with IDPs have developed increasingly sophisticated monitoring methodologies.

Protection Activities

104. Organisations working "inside" Burma cannot afford to be as bold in their advocacy roles as those in Thailand and overseas. However, the presence of local and international agency personnel in conflict-affected areas does in some places help to create the "humanitarian space" in which to engage in behind-the-scenes' advocacy with power holders.

105. Some progress has been made by international organisations in the fields of harm reduction and HIV/AIDS issues, and on trafficking and child rights. Local civil society groups' access to conflict-affected areas has also had some protective impacts. Of necessity however, this type of work remains low-profile, and its significance is therefore generally under-appreciated.

106. Important protective work has been undertaken by local community leaders, who are able to engage with power-holders (eg Tatmadaw and ceasefire group commanders), to improve conditions for vulnerable communities. Such interventions sometimes involve persuading authorities not to relocate civilians, or to demand forced labour from a village, or perhaps to allow humanitarian access for international or—more often—local NGOs and CBOs.

107. Civil society actors also sometimes "mobilise" agencies operating outside Burma, by passing on human rights information to contacts in Rangoon, or Thailand. Such informal "protection and advocacy networks" help to reduce the incidence of human rights abuses in some parts of Karen and Karenni States—eg Tatmadaw commanders are sometimes reluctant to use forced labour in areas where this information is likely to be passed onto to advocacy groups in Mae Sot or Chiang Mai.

Restrictions on Humanitarian Space Since 2006

108. The ability of local and international agencies to address Burma's displacement crises is partly determined by the amount and quality of political and humanitarian "space" available. The period from November 2003 to September 2004 was one of rapidly opening humanitarian space in Burma. (In part, the authorities' willingness to allow international access to previously out-of-bounds areas was a response to increased pressure, following the "Depayin incident" of 30 May 2003.)

109. Following the purge of Khin Nyunt and his MI colleagues, in October 2004, the extent and quality of political and humanitarian space in Burma declined. For humanitarian agencies, this constriction was reflected in a set of draft "Guidelines for UN Agencies, International Organisations and NGO/INGOs on Cooperation Program in Myanmar", issued by the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development in early 2006. Among the more worrying proposals included in these Guidelines were that state officials should accompany UN and INGO staff on all field trips; the proposed supervisory roles to be played by Central, State-Divisional and Township Coordinating Committees; and the Government's plan to vet all new Burmese staff of the UN and INGOs.

110. It seems likely that, should these regulations be implemented systematically, some international agencies will withdraw from the country. Already the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis had ceased operation in Burma in August 2005—although in this case, there were additional, politically-driven consideration behind the decision to leave. In February 2006 MSF-France also withdrew from Burma, claiming that increased Government restrictions had made its operations in Mon and Karen States untenable. As MSF avoids working with local (state or non-state) structures, and thus does little to build local capacities, it was ill-prepared to operate in an increasingly constricted humanitarian environment.

Conclusion: Humanitarian Coordination

111. International organisations—whether based in Bangkok or Rangoon—have very limited direct access to IDPs in Burma. Therefore, most of the limited assistance available to displaced populations is provided via local NGOs and CBOs.

112. Groups working cross-border from Thailand vary in capacity, and scope of programmes. In general they have access to a sub-set of the most needy Type 1 IDPs in hiding, in zones of on-going armed conflict, and to a few relocation sites and ceasefire areas. They also provide aid to other vulnerable groups in conflict zones, who might not be IDPs, as such. However, they can do little to protect IDPs in the war zones.

113. Meanwhile, local civil society networks "inside" Burma have often extensive access to people displaced into or within Government-controlled areas, and also to many people in relocation sites and ceasefire areas. However, they have much less access to IDPs in zones of on-going armed conflict, although some aid is provided to such groups, on an ad-hoc basis. Ethnic nationality civil society networks also undertake some important, low-profile protection activities—although they are unable to take part in public advocacy, or denunciation of the Government or other power-holders.

114. There is relatively little overlap in the populations assisted by groups working from "inside" Burma, and those working cross-border from Thailand. In general, levels of support to IDPs from across the Thailand border is significantly greater than that provided from inside the country. If the provisional KNU ceasefire had been consolidated, more overlap might have been expected, and local NGOs on both sides of the "front lines"—which were already in informal contact—would need to adopt more formal coordination activities (as would their donors).

REFRENCES

Forced Migration in Myanmar: Patterns, Impacts and Responses

Burma: The Changing Nature of Displacement Crises

Karen Nationalist Communities: The "Problem" of Diversity

States of Conflict: Ethnic Politics in Burma Since 1988



© Parliamentary copyright 2007	Prepared 25 July 2007