Burma: On the Road to Mandalay

Monasteries in Burma, as in many Buddhist countries, are places where those in need go for help: for religious education, meditation skills, counseling and, increasingly in this underdeveloped country, for food, education, shelter, and health care. The 2007 demonstrations by the monks were in protest of the increasing impoverishment of the Burmese people and the government’s failure to help its people.

On a bright sunny day during Burma’s rainy season, we reached a large monastery in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city. The monastery was home to one of Burma’s largest free monastic schools, Phaung Daw OO, where 7,000 children are being educated.Thousands of children dressed in white and green – Burma’s traditional school uniform colors -- swarmed amid the crowded grounds. Some were rushing to start their afternoon shift at school, others to the hundreds of bicycles and lines of vehicles waiting to take them home. Many travelled miles to get to school, while students from more distant areas, as well as some orphaned and very poor children are accommodated in simple dormitory buildings.

After visiting a well-equipped audio visual center and library, we met with the star English students who chatted away in English about their interests, favorite videos and classes. In the computer rooms we saw an assortment of aging and new computers, where older students learned word processing and web research, and the IT support staff developed skills to operate networks and find employment.

The abbot commented on the August visit of President and Mrs. Bush to Thailand and their interest and support for US humanitarian aid to Burmese refugees and to conflict- affected areas along the Thai border. “This is wonderful humanitarian work and is much appreciated,” he said. “Your help for the Cyclone victims is very good, but I do not understand why your country does not help with the humanitarian needs inside the country,” said the monk. “We have many poor and sick, too.”

The monastery school, health clinics and 200 Buddhist novices are supported by local contributions and by some European and other foreign donors and friends. The 300 local teachers and the administrative staff receive only a small stipend or volunteer. Foreign teachers have volunteered some years. Local volunteer doctors and nurses staff the monastery’s large modern health clinics. Specialists come from Germany each month to perform major eye surgery.

This monastery like many others had organized relief assistance to cyclone victims in the Irrawaddy delta area after Cyclone Nargis struck in May. The abbot decided to bring some survivors of the storm to the monastery for education and counseling. These youth had lost family and friends as well as their homes and belongings. With the consent of their families, 39 children came to Mandalay to live in a safe and secure place with access to free education for a year or until they completed secondary school.

One young woman told us her father and a sister had drowned and her village was heavily damaged. She wanted to continue her education, and hoped to return one day to her mother and sister back in the delta and support them. Others we spoke to seemed still in shock, with no idea of what the future would hold or how their communities would recover.

The abbot’s vision for the future of Burma was education. “The key to changing this country is education, not sanctions. You should help us to do this… Our children learn English and foreign languages, they learn about the world, and how it works. They are the future of Burma.”

-Dawn Calabia

Dawn Calabia and Megan Fowler assessed the cyclone response effort in Burma in August 2008.

Northern Uganda: Assisting the Elderly

October 1st was the United Nations International Day of Older Persons, which this year called for a “Convention on the Rights of Older People.” 

In displacement situations, the elderly have particular needs that are often forgotten, which made me think back on my recent mission to Uganda. My colleague, Melanie Teff, and I had a chance to speak with many elderly displaced people who are living in camps and transit sites in the north.  While we were in northern Uganda, we conducted several day trips around Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts to meet with displaced people.  Often when we would reach a displacement camp in the afternoon it was only the elderly and some mothers with their young children who were present, since most of the adults were out working in the fields and the majority of children were attending school. 

After more than two decades of conflict in northern Uganda between the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda forces, there is now relative peace and stability in the north.  Many of the more than 1.8 million people displaced by the conflict are taking steps towards returning home.  But while many of the displaced people we met are starting to cultivate their land and rebuild huts destroyed by the fighting, basic services remain scarce, particularly water and access to education and health care. 

Among the displaced population in northern Uganda, older people are particularly vulnerable since they are often not physically able to farm their land or to rebuild their homes.  Also, although they may have been able to receive medical assistance in the camps, if they return to their home areas, it’s likely that the closest health center will be miles away.  Many of the older people we met with were disabled as well and were dependent on the kindness of the other displaced people in the camp to help them with basic things like collecting food rations.  

Almost all of the older persons we spoke with in the displacement camps wanted to return back home now, but they needed help to do so.  In a previous post I detailed a conversation I had with Ojok, an 80-year-old Ugandan man who has been living in a displacement camp in Gulu for several years.  Ojok, like other elderly displaced people we met, still requires food assistance to be delivered in the camp, since he is unable to return home and farm his fields. 

While the World Food Program does continue to assist vulnerable people like the elderly in most of the camps, there is also increasingly strong rhetoric coming from the Government of Uganda that the camps will be phased out and everyone must go home.  The international community, particularly the UN Refugee Agency, must continue to push the Government of Uganda to adhere to its National Policy on Internally Displaced Persons and ensure that returns are voluntary, in safety and dignity.  And for those elderly displaced people like Ojok who remain in the camps hoping to return home soon, basic services must continue while planning is done to help them return to their original lands. 

--Camilla Olson

AFRICOM: Disparity Between Aid and Defense

Today marks the launch of AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command that was created to consolidate and coordinate U.S. Security programs in Africa, but which could also lead to a greater militarization of aid on the continent. In July, Refugees International released a report that highlighted the disparity in funding between the Defense and State Departments. AFRICOM is just one example of how the Pentagon controls an increasing amount of foreign aid that used to be directed towards civilian agencies. Refugees International’s report noted that the percentage of Official Development Assistance that the Pentagon controls has skyrocketed from 3.5% to nearly 22% in the last decade. The percentage controlled by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) shrunk from 65% to 40%.

As Refugees International’s peacekeeping advocate, Erin Weir, told the Associated Press, “AFRICOM has become a lightning rod for a bigger concern, which is that U.S. foreign policy is being dictated almost entirely by the Department of Defense.”

There is a risk that AFRICOM will take over many humanitarian and development activities that soldiers aren’t trained to perform. Refugees International is calling on the next Administration to strengthen civilian agencies like the State Department so they can accomplish the kind of aid and development work they do best.

--Vanessa Parra

Kuwait Voices: Stateless in Jahra

Along a quiet city street in Jahra, some 50 kilometers west of Kuwait City, the father of a young and growing family glanced quickly over his shoulder to see whether anyone is observing our conversation. “I’m afraid,” he told me. Mohammed* and his wife are bidun, stateless people.

The origin of Mohammed’s predicament dates back to the establishment of Kuwait’s 1959 nationality law, which defined nationals as persons who settled in the country before 1920 and maintained normal residence there until enactment of the law. At that time, about one third of the population was recognized as founding families, another third was naturalized, and the remainder was classified as bidun jinsiya (without nationality), now estimated to number about 80,000-140,000. Today, the ongoing lack of legal status impacts all areas of life for bidun: individual identity, mental health, family life, housing, health, employment, and political voice. And most, if not all, administrative processes require a security review for bidun.

In one way, Mohammed might be considered lucky. He has steady work right now, even if he is severely under employed. But he hasn’t always had a job and easily recalls the time when he provided for his family by selling fruit and vegetables on the street illegally. One time he was caught and detained for several days until he was able to pay his way out with KD 50 ($186). As the cost of release rises with each subsequent arrest, Mohammed is grateful to be gainfully employed.

Nonetheless, lack of access to formal sector employment also puts bidun at a disadvantage in the housing market. Mohammed said he pays about KD 70 ($ 261) per month for their small apartment where several child-size mattresses fill the small space between the living room chairs, leaving little walkway to the furniture. Nevertheless the family is happy to have their tiny home for otherwise they would still be sharing the residence of Mohammed’s parents, where the family of 27 adults and children, now 22 in number, live together under one roof.

Due to express need, the Kuwaiti Red Crescent provides food assistance on a bi-monthly basis to a limited number of bidun families and also distributes clothes at Ramadan. Mohammed’s wife Rania* showed me the family ration card and reported, “We can usually pick up new provisions about once every three months, but the goods only last for about a month.” With three active youngsters playing on the floor as we talk and a new little one obviously on the way, Rania was anxious about the deficit.

I asked Rania about her access to prenatal care. She explained that like any expectant mother in the country, she has had a sonogram. But she also identified important differences between the service she received and the typical process for a pregnant Kuwaiti citizen. First, the location of service was different and second, Rania had to pay for what should be routine screening, whereas it is part of the national health care services provided for Kuwaiti citizens. Mohammed was also concerned about his family and said he wants his children to be happy. Then pointing toward his chest he said it hurts that he can’t give them things other children have -- like a bicycle or games.

Despite the everyday challenges that weigh heavily on them, there is little Mohammed or Rania can do to change their situation. Until the government of Kuwait issues a decision to honor the nationality rights of the bidun, this family and many others are stuck. Mohammed admitted that several years ago he did succumb to trying to find another way out by buying a counterfeit passport. The document has now expired, so he’s back to his stateless status.

Later, as he walked me out the front door and to the apartment gate, Mohammed monitored the presence of people and cars on the street. “It’s a political crime to talk about issues of national security,” he explained.

--Maureen Lynch

Ennui and Encouragement at a UN Conference

Earlier this month, I participated in a workshop on statelessness and the right to nationality at a UN conference in Paris, France. The three-day conference was an experience full of contradictions, but the event’s theme, “Reaffirming Human Rights for All: The Universal Declaration at 60,” compels one to focus wearily but ultimately on the positives. After all, human rights are as important now as they have ever been.

The official title of the conference, the 61st Annual DPI/NGO Conference, is revealing in what it does not tell you. Ironically, “DPI/NGO,” one of countless acronyms in international organization-speak, is meant to express the transparent relationship between the UN’s Department of Public Information (DPI) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The term implies that some sort of dialogue between senior UN officials and NGOs will take place at the event. Higher-ups were certainly present, but their role was limited, either appearing via videoconference or addressing large audiences with little to no opportunity to take questions.

That said, around 1,200 participants from about 90 countries came to the event and the roundtable sessions were filled over capacity. Being surrounded by individuals of so many nationalities and hearing snippets of four or five languages coming from translation headsets generated a utopian, John Lennon-y buzz. Catholic priests, Buddhist nuns, gay rights activists, sociologists, youth leaders, lawyers, and artists, among others, converged to seek affirmation for their causes. Our own statelessness panel consisted of an American, a Swede, a Serbian, and a Dominican, people from different corners of the world who had come together to discuss solutions to shared problems.

It made you feel good to think that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) “remains the most cited and most translated document in the world,” according to DPI. That might be true. Framed provisions of the Universal Declaration decorated the office of a human rights organization for which I worked in New Delhi, India. During one session, a former UN official presented from his coat pocket his miniature copy of the UDHR, printed in 1948 and signed by Eleanor Roosevelt.

But over the course of three days, the same problems we’ve heard for decades were repeated: “Political will is absent”; “Civil society is muzzled”; “the Security Council is just a talk shop”; “Why, 60 years after the Second World War, are we still unable to stop genocide?” Marek Halter, the Polish-born French novelist who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Soviet Union, asked in the closing session: “Can we truly say that man has learned his lesson? No. Men and women are neither good nor bad. They just are. That’s what Solzhenitsyn told me.” Francois Zimeray, Ambassador for Human Rights of France, observed that “The UDHR could not be passed today. No diplomat alive would dare write it.” So what is there to celebrate after 60 years of the UDHR?

The last two speakers of the closing session provided a response. The speakers were Stéphane Hessel, a 90-year-old French diplomat who had participated in the French Resistance and survived Buchenwald, and Ingrid Betancourt, the Colombian-French politician who was rescued last July from Colombian rebels after six years in captivity. Their experiences fortified their simple messages that the voices of non-governmental organizations are powerful, that the courage of such groups is fundamental, and that the work for human rights remains unfinished. “There are at least 3,000 hostages still in Colombia,” Betancourt reminded the audience, “with no voice, no life, cut off.”

Bringing multiple organizations together from time to time to cogitate on where the UDHR has been and where it’s going is a healthy thing. But more importantly, Hessel’s and Betancourt’s reflections convey that NGOs are supremely relevant wherever the document is ignored. For such contexts, as Betancourt said, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is “more than a law.”

--Katherine Southwick 

Burmese Voices: Preparing for the Future

In the surprisingly orderly offices of an international aid agency in Burma, Dr. Thant Zin Myint (name changed to protect his identity) took a brief break from the relief and recovery work for communities afflicted by Cyclone Nargis. Amidst white boards detailing the latest statistics of how many baskets of rice had been delivered and the number of villages reached, the doctor told me his story.

Dr. Thant Zin Myint became a political activist after the Burmese army opened fire on peaceful pro-democracy protestors on August 8, 1988 and killed more than 1,000 people. The uprising ended a month later with a bloody military coup, and the new government used the army to suppress the demonstrations by killing some 3,000 and forcing over 10,000 students to flee. After these incidents, the doctor became a human rights and political activist.

In 1993, he successfully applied for a Masters in Public Policy abroad. Near the end of his third term, he returned to Burma to conduct interviews for his thesis, but as he returned to his university, he was arrested at the airport. He was sentenced to fifteen years of prison.

During his imprisonment, he was held for many months in a compound at the back of a prison that also held enclosures for military dogs. He was forced to sleep on bare concrete floors without any bedding, and denied all family visits. Yet, while he was in prison, he had frequent discussions with other political prisoners. He heard news reports from a radio source and he became frustrated as he listened to opportunities slipping away for dialogue between the government and the political opposition.

The doctor served eleven years of his fifteen-year sentence. In 2005, the government agreed to a massive release of more than 240 political prisoners and the charges against him were revoked. When he got out, he saw that things had only gotten worse in his country. He continues to be concerned that the political system is moving in a very extremist direction, and said he voted against the new constitution in May.

Dr. Thant Zin Myint was glad to see Refugees International in Burma and supported our efforts to advocate for more aid inside the country. He was well aware that many Burmese activists argue that international assistance only supports the military regime that imprisoned him. He disagrees.

As he wrote a few years ago, “attempting to keep the country poor and undeveloped is not the way to any kind of political solution, democratic or otherwise.”

The doctor noted that international aid agencies have been able to operate in dramatically more areas in the last five years. In particular, he could see how much the government had opened up to international support after Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy delta. He believes that this assistance has an important role to play, not just in meeting the vast needs of the people in border areas and elsewhere, but in developing his country into a more free and open society.

He pointed out that the assistance “lays the foundation for a more plural society.” It can help community groups and volunteers build leadership skills and increase their capacity to help others. It also allows for more information to be collected and shared on atrocities committed by government soldiers.

“We are not doing this [providing aid], because we like this government,” the doctor told me that day. “But we must prepare a new generation for the future.”

-Megan Fowler

Somalia: Failure to Sanction

Sanctions – economic embargoes, travel bans, freezing of assets – are popular measures used by diplomats to target countries, organizations and individuals violating international law. The effectiveness of sanctions is a matter of debate, but what is clear is that it is the commitment to enforcement that determines success. It’s one thing to ban the import of Cuban cigars; it’s another to prevent small arms from entering a country with porous borders and 3,200km of unguarded coastline.
A new report by Security Council Report (SCR), a think tank housed at Columbia University, details the failure to enforce the UN arms embargo in Somalia. Calling the embargo “quite possibly the least successful example of [UN Security] Council imposed sanctions,” the report goes on to list the various ineffective mechanisms that the UN put in place over the past sixteen years to evaluate, monitor and enforce the sanctions.

As noted earlier, it’s an uphill battle to monitor shipments entering a country with no central government, not least when neighboring states with political interests in Somalia’s civil war are charged with monitoring embargo infractions. But what is most striking in the report is the apparent unwillingness of the UN Security Council to effectively tackle the problem. Security Council members passed several resolutions and issued numerous presidential statements on the escalating conflict in Somalia; but at the end of the day no forceful action has been taken to prevent the flow of arms into the country. Tragically, despite sixteen years of sanctions, there are now more arms in Somalia than in 1992.

The arms embargo is just another example of the international community’s hands-off approach to Somalia. As the Security Council Report puts it, “for many years the arms embargo became a substitute for an active policy on Somalia following the failure of peacekeeping missions in the early 1990s.”

The Security Council is now contemplating a new peacekeeping mission, but as we argued in our bulletin in March 2008 and before the Security Council, the lack of political will to seriously address the Somali crisis ultimately undermines the chances of success for peacekeepers. In our conclusion we stated: “a Security Council mandate that amounts to no more than a symbolic gesture would be one more betrayal in two decades of missed opportunities and broken promises.” Worse, a failed peacekeeping mission could have grave consequences for future UN interventions. In that case, the Security Council would only have itself to blame.

--Patrick Duplat