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UN visit to Myanmar under
scrutiny
By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK - The visit to Myanmar of a
top-ranking United Nations official on Monday is
being closely watched because it comes at a time
when the country's military rulers are restive at
the role of the world body in pushing democracy.
Jim Morris, executive director of the
World Food Program (WFP), is the most senior UN
official to visit Myanmar since pro-democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house
arrest in May 2003 after pro-government people
violently attacked her car as she was touring the
north of the country.
Suu Kyi, the world's
only Nobel Laureate in detention, was first placed
under house arrest after her National League for
Democracy (NLD) won popular elections in 1990 and
the generals refused to accept the result.
Morris will visit the humanitarian
agency's projects in Myanmar, especially in
northern Shan state where the UN has been
supporting former poppy growers who lost their
main livelihood when authorities banned opium
production two years ago.
"The purpose of
my trip is to review WFP humanitarian operations
in Myanmar," Morris said.
However, the
trip comes at a sensitive time when most UN
agencies and international non-government
organizations (NGOs) working inside the country
have had their activities severely restricted by
the military regime.
The UN Security
Council a week ago named Myanmar among 54
governments and regimes that could likely face
sanctions for recruiting child soldiers.
International pressure also compelled the
military regime to renounce last week Myanmar's
turn at chairing the 10-nation Southeast Asian
bloc, ASEAN, in 2006. The bloc includes Thailand,
Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines,
Brunei, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Over
the past six months, volunteers have been
prevented from visiting projects, especially in
the ethnic border areas. The head of the UN Drug
Control Program in Yangon has not been allowed to
visit project areas since last year, though the
WFP chief will now be able to visit the same
areas.
Regional military commanders have
been instructed to make it difficult for foreign
workers to operate, especially in the border
areas. Even the Red Cross finds it difficult to
function, especially in Shan state, according to
Western diplomats based in Yangon.
About
three months ago several government ministries,
including legal and financial departments, were
ordered by the regime to prepare briefing papers
on the effect and implications of a pullout by the
International Labor Organization (ILO), which has
charged the regime with failing to stop forced
labor.
Following that, there has been an
orchestrated campaign against the ILO, with
several pro-regime bodies - those of veteran
soldiers, women's groups and the United Solidarity
and Development Association - urging the
government to withdraw from the ILO.
A few
months ago, Myanmar's top general, Than Shwe,
asked a former Myanmar ambassador to a European
country whether Myanmar could withdraw from the
UN, according to a source close to the senior
general.
When the diplomat replied in the
negative, Than Shwe reportedly flew into a rage.
"The restrictions on the UN and international NGOs
will be among issues I will be raising in my
discussions with the Burmese authorities during my
visit," WFP chief Morris said.
UN efforts
to help broker political change in Myanmar are now
in danger of being derailed. Both the UN special
envoy for Myanmar, Razali Ismail, and the UN
special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar,
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, have been denied access to
Yangon for well over a year.
The Myanmar
foreign minister even refused to meet Razali last
week in the Lao capital of Vientiane.
UN
officials in New York have been seeking ways to
revive the world body's role in promoting
democracy in Myanmar. A key initiative seems to be
a possible visit to Yangon by the UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan.
Than Shwe invited
Annan to visit Myanmar when they met in Jakarta
earlier this year. But the UN needs guarantees
before the UN head contemplates any trip to Yangon
and these include an opportunity to meet Suu Kyi.
The NLD, led by Suu Kyi, has told the UN
that the visit should be made before the National
Convention reconvenes in November, say opposition
sources. The convention is drafting the country's
new constitution, but the NLD and other
pro-democracy parties have been excluded.
The UN may be using the WFP chief's trip
to Yangon to courier a message to Myanmar's top
leaders, including the proposed visit by Annan,
according to diplomats in New York. It may be a
verbal message rather than a letter, said a UN
source.
Morris declined to reveal whether
Annan had asked him to deliver a message to the
junta. "This is a private matter, unless the
secretary general decides otherwise," he said.
Many UN officials and diplomats in Yangon
remain uneasy about Morris's visit at this time
and many of them were taken by surprise by the
planned visit. "There is nothing special about the
timing of my visit," Morris told reporters in
Bangkok.
"With WFP operations and staff in
more than 80 countries, I have an obligation to
visit them and see their work. After more than
three years in the job, I now have the opportunity
to schedule a trip to Myanmar," he said.
The program has a number of humanitarian
assistance projects in Myanmar, including working
with refugees and marginalized people in the
remote western regions of the country. Two years
ago it began an important food-assistance program
for people living with HIV/AIDS in central
Myanmar.
"WFP is a humanitarian
organization with no political mandate. We are
concerned with the food security and hunger,"
Morris said. "WFP food assistance is based on the
findings of proper assessment missions to the
areas, in consultation with local communities," he
added.
The WFP also provides food
assistance to former poppy growers in the northern
border region. Under pressure from Beijing and
Yangon, the ethnic Kokang stopped poppy
cultivation in mid-2002. The following year the
WFP started an emergency operation to provide rice
to more than 50,000 affected people.
This
program has since been extended to cover another
200,000 people and includes school-feeding schemes
and food-for-work projects. This is now being
extended into the Wa area, where poppy farmers are
now vulnerable after the Wa authorities imposed a
ban on cultivation a month ago.
But
Myanmar opposition groups and ethnic organizations
along the Thai-Myanmar border fear that the WFP's
programs, especially in the former poppy-growing
areas in Shan state, could only help prop up the
military government and result in more forced
labor.
However, Morris said, "WFP programs
are directly assessed, implemented and monitored
through its NGO partners, mostly international.
Neither government authorities nor military
personnel are involved in its programs."
(Inter Press
Service) |
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