Memorandum submitted by Guy Horton
1. BACKGROUND
INFORMATION ON
GUY HORTON
I have worked on the issue of Burma since 1998
when I was asked by the Brussels-based Euro Burma Office to go
on a mission to the country on the tenth anniversary of the 1988
uprising to make contact with MPs and monitor the volatile situation.
From 2000-02 I carried out research into human
rights violations. In particular, I conducted an extended reconnaissance
inside eastern Burma where the internally displaced people attempt
to survive. I am one of the few outsiders to have witnessed directly
what is being inflicted in eastern Burma and thus have a duty
and responsibility to communicate what I have seen, and analyse
what has been documented.
I witnessed the widespread, systematic destruction
of the physical basis of their lives; saw evidence of wounds and
listened to evidence of killing. The last village I passed through
was burnt to the ground hours after I left. I enclose with this
submission a DVD copy of my experiences transmitted by BBC News
Night. While traveling I myself became ill and was helped by a
backpack doctor operating from the Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot.
I then taught English and Human Rights to refugees
in northern Thailand, funded by The Open Society and The Netherlands
government. I did not apply for funds to the British embassy in
Bangkok since I understood, in contrast to some other western
democracies, that no funds are available for such activities.
From 2002-05, I conducted legally informed research
into the violations inflicted on the eastern ethnic peoples on
a project funded by The Netherlands government and Oxfam GB, advised
by a senior prosecuting lawyer at the International Criminal Tribunal
for Yugoslavia, now Chef de Cabinet at the Rwanda Tribunal. The
Report, "Dying Alive," and supporting video footage,
received worldwide coverage and contributed to the Report, "Burma:
A Threat to the Peace" by DLA Piper. This in turn led to
the submission of Burma to the UN Security Council in January
2007. I enclose a copy of the report. To preclude accusations
of bias, I excluded my personal experiences and based my analysis
on well substantiated reports by reputable organizations. However,
it was my personal experiences which convinced me of their authenticity.
Partly as a result of the Report, the UN Committee
on the Prevention of Genocide carried out a limited investigation
on the Thai-Burma border. While I understand that it is not part
of its mandate to pronounce on genocide, it views the situation
with grave concern, especially the allegation of genocide by attrition,
a method of genocide consonant with article 2 c) of The Convention
on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide:
"Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions
of life calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole
or in part."
During my years working on this issue on the
Thai-Burma border, I received financial and moral support from
The Netherlands, Swedish, Swiss embassies and the US State department.
I neither asked for, nor was given, support by the British embassy
in Bangkok.
Recently I have focused on establishing a coalition
of governments, funders, institutions and leading international
lawyers with the aim of getting the violations objectively and
comprehensively investigated and analyzed so that an informed
decision can be made as to how to respond to the situation inside
Burma. A number of governments are considering supporting this
investigation, including I am pleased to say, the UK Foreign Office.
I am a member of the The Royal Geographical
Society and currently have a research post at London's School
of Oriental and African Studies. I am currently acting as a consultant
preparing a human rights project for two major international institutions.
2. BURMA BACKGROUND
a) History
This is no place to indulge in post-Colonial
guilt. The responsibility for the violations inflicted in Burma
rests, 60 years after the British withdrawal, with the Burmese
Junta. However, the post-war withdrawal by Britain from South
Asia left Burma without a proper, inclusive Constitution capable
of protecting the rights of the ethnic peoples.
The continued conflict in Burma, and the plight
of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people is partially
a consequence of that precipitate withdrawal. In a sense, World
War Two has never ended in Burma; a virulent form of Fascist racism,
long incubated in some sections of the Burman officer class, took
hold and destroyed the democratic Constitution in 1962 leading
to a policy of Burmanization being inflicted on the whole country.
The internally displaced remember the British
intensely and suffer terribly at their sense of abandonment.
b) Narcotics
Despite its complex, secret nature, it is not
possible to understand the situation without taking into account
the issue of narcotics. The opposition between the Junta and the
democratic and ethnic groups is not just ideological. The conflict's
fault line is demarcated by those not involved in the narcotics
trade and those who are. The National League for Democracy, the
Karen National Union, the Karenni National Progessive party and
the Shan State Army South are generally not involved in the drug
trade; the Junta, its proxy allies, like the Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army, the Karenni New Land Party, the KMT descended Thai/Chinese,
and other sections of Thai society, are.
Fifty per cent of the economy of northern Thailand
is estimated to be dependent on the drug trade; only 8% of drugs
transported from northern Thailand to the south are usually interdicted.
Although personnel, production facilities and transport routes
are well known, no effective action has been taken to close down
the trade by arresting those responsible at the highest level
for operating it for the past five decades.
3. THE CURRENT
SITUATION
The situation in Burma, and for the internally
displaced people in particular, is bad and is likely to get worse.
The defeat of the UN Security Council Resolution has emboldened
the regime which now believes it can act with complete impunity.
The external Burmese democratic movement has not yet developed
an effective strategy for uniting the opposition groups. The continuing
counter insurgency programme which targets civilians and the building
of major dams in ethnic areas will inflict substantial additional
development induced displacement in eastern Burma.
Nevertheless, the truth about the Junta's destruction
of ethnic groups has been exposed.
In an unprecedented recent collective statement,
six UN Special Rapporteurs (for Myanmar, Minority Issues, Torture,
Housing, Food and Health) condemned the Burmese Junta in May 2006
as follows:
"The current government strategy of targeting
civilians in the course of its military operations represents
a willful abrogation of its responsibility under international
humanitarian and human rights law."
The words "strategy"and "willful"express
intentionality; abrogation suggests full knowledge of the circumstances.
The two essential components of very serious criminality are affirmed.
In his latest reports, the UN Special Rapporteur
for Human Rights, Professor Paulo Pinheiro, repeatedly condemned
the Junta for widespread, systematic violations and confirmed
the destruction of over 3000 villages between 1996 and 2005. ("Situation
of Human Rights, Myanmar", Feb 2007, para.47). To put this
figure in a global context, I understand that this approximates
to the number of Kurdish villages destroyed, and exceeds the estimated
1,600 villages currently destroyed in Darfur.
4. BRITAIN'S
AID POLICY
The policy of hitherto not directly helping
internally displaced people, but channeling aid through and within
the framework imposed by the Junta, is difficult to justify, both
in terms of efficacy and morality. Aid provided in this way is
not only officially denied to the most vulnerable victims, but
is reportedly routinely siphoned off to the regime and its collaborators.
(I was frequently informed, for example, that medicines in Karennni
State were routinely taken or replaced by bogus ones and that
medical clinics were always devoid of medicines and equipment.
UNICEF teaching materials which should have been donated free
of charge were normally sold instead by Burmese soldiers.) This
denial of aid by the Junta, in addition to the positive violence,
is expressive of a form of negative violence now clarified and
affirmed as the act of genocide 2c) by the Rome Statute as:
"The deliberate deprivation of resources
indispensable for survival such as food, medical services or the
systematic expulsion from homes." (Article 6 c, footnote
4, Rome Statute, p.150, OUP, 2002)
All three resources are systematically deprived,
in addition to clean water and hygiene, leading to large numbers
of preventable deaths, including very high infant and maternal
mortality rates comparable to some of the worst crises in Africa.
Nowhere I traveled did the internally displaced
receive aid from agencies from lowland Burma. What they "received"
was relentless destruction. The situation in Burma now is as if
the British government had provided aid in the former Yugoslavia
via Belgrade on the condition that none of it would reach victim
Bosnian and Kosovar groups, while at the same time rejecting feasible
alternative methods of delivering that aid.
Critics of those wishing to alleviate the suffering
of internally displaced people by providing aid directly have
been accused of being politically motivated. Such a viewpoint
considers providing aid through the regime which is responsible
for inflicting the violations as not political; channeling it
directly to the victims of the regime, is, however, apparently,
political.
5. CAUSES OF
POLICY FAILURES: INADEQUATE
COMMUNICATION AND
MISREPRESENTATION
It is understandable that British aid policy
may have been misguided because there have been significant failures
in communication and understatement of the facts upon which the
policy is based. While it is important not to exacerbate further
factionalism, it must be pointed out, in the interest of truth
and to encourage protection of victims, that the failure to communicate
the true scale of the suffering of the internally displaced people
cannot be attributed solely to the Burmese Junta.
a) The media
With some notable recent exceptions, such as
the BBC in the last 18 months, the world's media has largely failed
in its responsibility to expose what has been inflicted in Burma.
The following are drawn from my own experience.
b) Western observers, consultants and academics
Some western consultants providing information
to the international community in the form of reports tend to:
— downplay the gravity of the situation;
— marginalise the National League for
Democracy; and
— advocate constructive engagement
with the regime.
With the debate largely dominated by such observers
it is perhaps not surprising that DFID has failed to understand
the needs of the victims of the regime.
c) Thai authorities
Thai authorities systematically suppress and
intimidate refugees in Thailand and prevent them from communicating
to the rest of the world.
d) International groups inside Burma
Those who operate inside Burma do so within
the framework inflicted by the Junta and generally maintain a
collusive silence and even echo the Junta's views when required.
They remained silent after "The massacre," (Pinheiro,
Feb 2007) of members of Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy at Depayin in
May 2003, an event defined by the UN Special Rapporteur as involving
"A prima facie case of State connivance" (Pinheiro 2006).
There is a belated, dawning realization that
what the internally displaced people require is aid and protection,
not collusive silence. This Parliamentary enquiry is an important
part of this process.
6. THE JUSTIFICATION
FOR PROVIDING
AID TO
THE INTERNALLY
DISPLACED
a) Aid agencies are unable, or unwilling,
to provide help to internally displaced people from within Myanmar
Medecins Sans Frontiers
While carrying out my research I was intrigued
by two Medecins Sans Frontiers clinics in eastern Burma
close to internally displaced people. The provision of aid to
displaced people was incompatible with their systematic destruction.
I received conflicting reports about the centres. One leading
consultant affirmed their effectiveness while local people on
the ground claimed little or no aid reached them, most going to
local Burma army troops. In the end Medecins Sans Frontiers
withdrew and clarified its position in a Press Release of March
30 2006: Why the French section of MSF has ended its activities
in Mynamar.
"Our role has been reduced to being a technical
service provider of the Myanmar authorities, subject to their
political agenda and no longer to the goals that we have set for
ourselves as a humanitarian organisation."
It reported being refused access by the Junta
to ethnic villagers because "The Junta did not want anyone
to witness how they organize the forced displacement of the population,
the burning of villages and forced recruitment". MSF confirmed
ethnically targeted positive and negative violence:
"They are exposed to violence and deprived
of health care."
MSF was reportedly prevented even from, amongst
other things, distributing mosquito nets. (Responding to Aids,
TB, Malaria and emerging infectious diseases in Burma: Dilemmas
of Policy and Practice, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health,
p 6 March 2006"). The region is one of the most malaria infested
regions of the world, with some of the disease's most dangerous
strains. The internally displaced are particularly vulnerable
because they have been burnt out of their homes, and are without
shelter. I would ask this Select Committee to reflect on the motives
and intentions of a regime which prevents the free distribution
of mosquito nets to groups of its own people where malaria rate
accounts for "45% of all adult and child deaths." ("Responding
to Aids, TB, Malaria in Burma," p.30, pub. John Hopkins School
of Public Health, March 2006")
b) The Red Cross
The Red Cross has withdrawn from these ethnic
eastern areas. Again while carrying out research in southern Shan
State we discovered that local people were intimidated and monitored
before, during and after Red Cross visits. In fact many felt the
visits actually made them more vulnerable and stated the Myanmar
Red Cross was itself heavily infiltrated with informers. We should
note the Red Cross even succeeded in operating in Nazi occupied
Europe.
c) Necessity and feasibility of cross-border
assistance
Providing help in this way is probably the only
way effective help can be provided.
The organizations exist and are experienced,
honest, transparent, accountable and extremely cost effective.
Although there are major risk factors involved, these are probably
outweighed by the disastrous consequences which would result by
abandoning the internally displaced people.
7. CONCLUSIONS
a) Situation of internally displaced
In conclusion, it must be re-affirmed that the
IDPs in Burma are not suffering from underdevelopment, or natural
disasters, but from widespread, systematic destruction inflicted
by the Junta. Development aid in such circumstances should be
delivered directly to victims and consideration given to how they
can be protected.
b) British government position
By not having provided aid to the internally
displaced yet having cited Burma's internal crisis as a "Threat
to International Peace and Security" the British government's
policy could be considered to be inconsistent.
7. RECOMMENDATIONS
There are better informed people than myself
on the ground capable of offering practical advice on practical
requirements of internally displaced people, but it is recommended
that:
a) Equipment and medicines should be provided
The internally displaced people require, in
particular, medicines, food and mosquito nets. Insecticidally-treated
mosquito nets and antibiotics are light, easy to carry and particularly
effective at saving lives.
There is no electricity in these areas, so equipment
like wind up radios, torches and solar panels are extremely useful
and practical.
As radio is the main form of mass media available,
help should be provided to enable programmes to be produced by
the refugees themselves and sets should be provided.
b) Cross-border aid should be delivered through
existing experienced channels
Experienced, honest and courageous groups, well
capable of meeting the needs of transparency and accountability,
like the backpack medics operating from the Mae Tao clinic in
Mae Sot, the Committees for Internally Displaced People and the
Free Burma Rangers are ideally placed to deliver this aid.
c) Help should be delivered to refugees in
Thailand
The refugees are suppressed by the Thai authorities,
who are now apparently targeting those who have been able to get
out of the camps and receive an education, by withdrawing refugee
status from them. It is recommended that the British government
with like-minded others, like The Netherlands, Canada, Norway,
Sweden and the United States, work together to pressure the Thai
authorities to allow access by educators and aid workers to the
refugee camps, and enable those who have been identified for relocation
to third countries to be able to leave. At the moment I understand
these people are being prevented from going.
d) Burmese refugees in Britain should be
given asylum
The British government should recognise the
special plight of Burmese asylum seekers in Britain. They face
intolerable delays in their applications for asylum and face the
threat of forced repatriation.
e) The policies and procedures of the Rangoon
and Bangkok Embassies should be better co-ordinated
There could be better co-ordination of their
activities. The Rangoon embassy cannot get access to the IDP areas
and the refugees in Thailand may not appear its responsibility.
The Bangkok embassy tends to see the internally displaced as a
Burmese problem and even the refugees as marginal to its major
concerns. They are of course part of the same tragedy and the
fact that they overlap borders should not mean our response should
be divided.
f) Destroyed villages should be mapped on
the internet
Support should be provided so that destroyed
villages can be mapped with Google Earth as has been successfully
done in the case of Darfur. In this way, the degree of destruction
can be readily viewed on the internet.
g) Training to develop effective strategies
and leadership should be provided to Burmese people
Sustained support should be provided to the
refugees in terms of language skills, training and political education.
Individuals, with moral and intellectual leadership qualities
and skills, should be identified and nurtured.
h) Leadership and commitment should be provided
by members of the international community
Sufficient effective leadership may not emerge
from the Burmese opposition alone. One hopes that it will be shown
by individuals in the international community.
The examples of Lord Ashdown and David Holbrooke
in the former Yugoslavia, and the British ambassador's role in
Sierra Leone, show what intelligent, courageous leadership can
achieve. One hopes such individuals exist somewhere and will emerge.
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