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CHRO

By Feliz Solomon

 

 
 

MAE SOT, Thailand—A few times each month, Saw Khu wakes before dawn and sets out on a dangerous mission to deliver sacks full of Western aid money to conflict-torn areas deep inside Myanmar.

After sneaking across the border from Thailand in a wooden canoe, he is driven through a mountain range strewn with soldiers from Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a coup last year. Arriving at a rendezvous point, he divvies up the cash among colleagues who either hand it over to families in need or use it to buy rice, instant noodles, tarps, mosquito nets, soap and other essentials for them.

“I’m not afraid,” said Mr. Khu, a 47-year-old Myanmar national whose nonprofit has around 200 members across southeast Myanmar and a handful in Thailand. “It’s something that has to be done.”

Mr. Khu’s missions are illegal in both countries. They are one of the few precarious avenues being used to get aid to Myanmar’s most vulnerable populations since the 2021 coup ended a nascent transition to democracy and aggravated conflict between the army and its opponents, according to interviews with more than a dozen representatives of local and international aid organizations, human-rights advocates and officials from the U.S. and Thailand.

Aid arriving for people who settled temporarily by the Moei River to escape fighting between the Myanmar army and insurgent groups.PHOTO: ATHIT PERAWONGMETHA/REUTERS

While the U.S. Agency for International Development and United Nations agencies continue to operate inside Myanmar, their reach is limited because the junta controls where they can go and to a large degree what they can do. Getting permission to move around involved complex processes even before the coup, but representatives of three aid organizations said there is now an intentional regime tactic of denying them access to large populations to cut off resources to areas where opposition to military rule is strongest. They cited the regime’s denial of travel authorizations and arbitrary delays in issuing staff visas as obstacles.

 

To reach vulnerable communities, Western governments often take the cross-border route—but it is convoluted. Myanmar-focused groups like Mr. Khu’s aren’t eligible for legal status in Thailand, which means most foreign governments can’t send funds directly to them. Instead, the governments contribute to larger, registered organizations that, while primarily focused on Thailand, channel some of the funds to the dozens of smaller groups operating inside Myanmar.

Donors have little visibility on how the aid is ultimately distributed but say that the smaller groups that are capable of navigating Myanmar’s tough conditions are their best hope of reaching at least some hard-hit locations. Aid workers like Mr. Khu operate with the help of armed rebel groups in Myanmar that are fighting the junta, traveling through their territories and under their protection.

Displaced people from Myanmar living in makeshift tents on the Thai side of the Moei River, in Mae Sot, Thailand.PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Myanmar’s regime continues to deny humanitarian access to many populations in need and urged all countries to press them for more. “At the same time, we and others in the international community are identifying alternate means of providing lifesaving assistance that is not dependent upon access permission,” the spokesperson said.

U.S.-based advocacy group Refugees International estimates some $10 million worth of aid has entered Myanmar through Thailand since the coup via these informal channels. It is a fraction of overall aid to the country, which is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Large parts of Myanmar remain inaccessible, such as central-northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region where more than half of those displaced since the coup are located.

The U.N. says the number of people who need aid ballooned from one million before the coup to 14.4 million in its aftermath—more than a quarter of the entire population. Before the coup, roughly 350,000 people were internally displaced by earlier conflicts, forced to flee their homes but staying inside Myanmar. That number has now surpassed 1.2 million. Half of the country’s school-age children have had no access to education for two years.

Nationwide protests broke out last year after Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup, which ended a nascent transition to democracy.PHOTO: EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Many live in warzones that have no clear front lines. The coup sparked nationwide protests that were met with lethal force by the military, hardening the resolve of the army’s opponents, some of whom turned to guerrilla-style armed resistance. The military responded by bombing and burning villages suspected of harboring insurgents. Conflict is concentrated near the country’s northwest and southeast borders, and increasingly its central plains.

The Myanmar military didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Conditions for the displaced are desperate. Eh Htoo Say, a 30-year-old teacher from Myanmar’s southeast Karen state, fled in December with her 5-year-old son when the Myanmar military bombed and occupied their village, Au Kree Hta. Sometimes they stay under a tarp propped up by bamboo on the bank of a river that separates Myanmar from Thailand. At other times, they hide in a rickety wooden barn just across the river, in Thailand.

She can’t cook after dark because fire would betray her location. She and her son bathe in the open, either in the river or a flooded rice field. She uses banana leaves to collect rainwater to drink and survives on rice and canned fish brought by local charities—part of the patchwork of organizations like Mr. Khu’s.

“I can keep living as long as I have aid,” she said. “But if I don’t get more I’ll really be in trouble.”

Eh Htoo Say, a displaced villager from southeast Myanmar, stands in Thailand looking across the border to Myanmar.PHOTO: FELIZ SOLOMON/WALL STREET JOURNAL

Thailand Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said that cross-border aid is allowed through legally registered groups like the Thai Red Cross Society. But human-rights advocates and aid workers say delivering aid to populations deep inside Myanmar requires familiarity with the country’s languages, terrain and conflict dynamics.

The Myanmar nationals who do that work described living in constant fear of being caught crossing the border. They can’t use Myanmar’s banks or mobile transfer apps, which they believe are monitored by the military.

In early July, an aid worker who was using aid money to buy rice for displaced people in southeast Myanmar’s Bago region was abducted by the Myanmar military and killed, the worker’s organization said. Nearly all of the aid workers interviewed requested anonymity due to fear of arrest, deportation or further restrictions on access.

“We’re just trying to help people, but to do that we have to be tricky, creative, and risk our lives,” said Mr. Khu’s supervisor. “There’s no guarantee—if we die, we die.”

Write to Feliz Solomon at [email protected]

The Dangerous Mission to Sneak Sacks of Cash in Western Aid Into Myanmar – WSJ

Date: July 20, 2022

Testimony_Oral_Presentation

Testimony of Salai Za Uk Ling, Deputy Executive Director of CHRO at the 4th Hearing of International Parliamentary Inquiry on Myanmar

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you this evening to speak about the situation of Chin people under military junta of Myanmar, which calls itself the State Administrative Council. My name is Salai Za Uk Ling and I represent the Chin Human Rights Organization, a group that has been documenting the human rights situation of Chin people for the last 27 years with a UN ECOSOC Special Consultative Status since 2018.

I am here to speak about the humanitarian consequences of the attempted coup with specific regards to the situation in Chin State, where I come from. I am doing so with the view of reminding all of us to stay laser-focused on who is responsible for the horrors of the past year and a half, and the urgent need for accountability and justice for the crimes committed, thus far with complete impunity. Let us be very clear that as we speak here today, the chief criminal mastermind who presided over the killings and mass atrocities against the people of Myanmar, General Min Aung Hlaing, is freely travelling internationally and visiting Russia, and the arm of international justice system is yet to reach him for the crimes he has committed. But I hope that this hearing will be the beginning of laying an important groundwork and providing impetus for advancing accountability and justice process in Myanmar.

That said, for the past year and half, Chin State with a Christian majority and a population of just below half a million, or one percent of the country’s population, has not escaped the kinds of atrocities and terrors at the hands of the Myanmar Army. In fact, the state has been one of the primary targets of military’s campaign of annihilation. I am using the word annihilation here because this is the exact word used by the junta’s spokesperson right before the start of their brutal military campaign around April last year. This should be emphasized because it was a public expression of criminal intent for what the army would do in the ensuing months. Our organization has closely monitored and documented incidents and patterns of the gross violations by the military over the period, and this is what we have found as of this month.

  • The unlawful deaths or extrajudicial killings of over 250 Chin civilians
  • Unlawful arrests and arbitrary detention of over 1100 people
  • The deliberate and intentional destruction of livelihood and civilian properties, including the burning of over 1800 houses across Chin State, the vast majority of which took place in my hometown Thantlang over the course of more than 30 separate attacks
  • The destruction of 65 religious buildings, including over 50 churches or places of worship
  • The forced displacement of an estimated 120,000 people, which constitute 20 percent of the entire population of Chin State

As you can see, despite being only 1 percent of the entire population, Chin State has suffered from disproportionate share of serious rights violations and related humanitarian crisis. The Tatmadaw is currently sending in two large military columns into Chin State, and there has been intense fighting in the north over the past three weeks. Soldiers from LID 22 have burned down three villages in Falam and Hakha Townships and summarily executed two civilians during this latest expedition. Fighting is also flaring up in the south as the reinforcement convoy is traveling from Pakhoku as we speak. The SAC troops are blocking all access routes to Chin State and preventing commercial traffics and basic commodities from entering to the area, including international humanitarian aid. This is all part of a strategy aimed at collective punishment under the four cuts practice. The objective is to establish strategic military dominance in the region by depopulating the entire region or pushing people into starvation, and eventually forcing them into submission under the military’s control. There is no end in sight for these gross violations being committed with impunity. The international community must act swiftly and decisively to tackle the culture of impunity and address the humanitarian needs of the people in the region. Everyday that action is delayed is another day that more people are dying and suffering. Something consequential needs to be urgently done to address the unfolding humanitarian disaster.

CHRO recommends the following course of action for the international community:

  • To take all measures to reject the legitimacy of SAC and deny their participation at any regional, multilateral or international spaces, including all the ASEAN platforms. We applaud countries that have boycotted the security summit in Russia this week, including New Zealand, Australia and the United States, and possibly South Korea and Japan
  • Adopt a more proactive, coordinated and direct approach towards Myanmar by stopping the usual approach of deferring everything to ASEAN, which has failed miserably
  • Directly engage with, and urgently make flexible funding and resources available for local CBOs and CSO networks who are providing humanitarian assistance to IDPs and refugee communities, especially via cross-border operations
  • Enable or increase funding for monitoring and human rights documentation work towards accountability and justice for international crimes committed by the military junta
  • Designate the civil servants across the country who continue to boldly defy the junta through the Civil Disobedience Movement as Frontline Human Rights Defenders to enable them to access channels for direct financial support for their brave human rights work.

 

Thank you

Chin State Food Running Out as Myanmar Junta Blocks Roads (irrawaddy.com)

By THE IRRAWADDY 13 July 2022

Residents in Matupi and Mindat townships in southern Chin State are running out of food as Myanmar’s regime has blocked supplies.

The regime has blocked the Paletwa-Matupi, Matupi-Mindat, and Mindat-Kyaukhtu roads which supply the townships.

A Matupi volunteer said communities have almost run out of rice.

“The prices of oil and salt have increased. Three eggs cost 1,000 kyats [compared to around 150 kyats per egg in Yangon] and they are scarce. Most people can’t afford them,” she said.

The roads are blocked by the regime although there is no fighting with the Chinland Defense Force (CDF). A 61-liter rice sack was around 4,000 kyats before the coup in Matupi and they are now 66,000-70,000 kyats, when they are available, according to residents.

Residents are buying broken rice for around 45,000 kyats per sack. The regime is beginning to allow some residents to leave the town in private vehicles, said a Matupi resident.

“Patients who need hospital treatment can leave. Neighbors ask them to bring back food. They bring back eggs and dried fish but no rice and oil,” she said.

Mindat has been isolated and surrounding villages are often shelled, despite the lack of fighting, residents said.

“We have left our villages and farms. We are struggling to survive and concerned for our safety and food,” a villager told The Irrawaddy.

The Mindat CDF said junta helicopters and Light Infantry Battalion 274 based in Mindat are bombing villages.

More than 60 Mindat residents are reportedly in Pakokku Prison and around 30 are being held at Battalion 274 in Mindat.

It called for international charities to help displaced Mindat civilians.

Mindat residents said junta soldiers detained a man and woman in Kyawttaw village on July 6. Some villagers were reportedly injured when two helicopters dropped bombs on two villages on July 2. A school, church and some houses were damaged.

The regime shells villagers because it only controls Mindat town and adjacent villages, said the CDF.

The Protection and Humanitarian Affairs Division has been created within CHRO to lead the organization’s efforts to respond to unfolding humanitarian crisis in Chin State, which is now literally a disaster in waiting.

The Division aims to address the emerging humanitarian and protection needs of the already vulnerable population of western Myanmar, particularly, Chin State, where new armed conflicts and worsening COVID-19 spread have brought new levels of humanitarian crisis and human insecurity to the region since the February 1 coup in Myanmar. The new Division seeks to bridge the widening gaps in the humanitarian response measures towards the rapidly deteriorating conflict situation and the fast-spreading deadly Coronavirus in the region, by working together with new and existing local partners to try and coordinate intervention strategies and provide synergy to the work of various humanitarian actors operating in the region. The Division also aims to assist with protection issues arising from the ongoing political crackdown, as well as those confronting internally displaced population and refugees, including special protection for women in armed conflict situation. Under the purview of the new Division will be advocacy work associated with protection issues faced by refugee communities in India and Malaysia.

Programmatically, this new division will operate under the management and supervision of the Peace, Development and Democratization Program (PDDP) of CHRO. The Division oversees two operation units, tasked with specific mandates and functions: Protection Unit and Humanitarian Affairs Unit.

To protect and promote human rights and democratic principles

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