Burma: Opportunity Amid the Destruction

On May 2, 2008, Cyclone Nargis swept through Burma’s delta region, devastating a country that was already on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. The death toll is likely to mount to over 70,000, and as many as two million people have been displaced from their homes. There are alarming reports of entire villages destroyed, their populations missing.

The international community must rally around a UN-led response to the crisis, set aside political disputes with the government of Burma, and begin preparing for not only immediate assistance, but also medium- and long-term stabilization and reconstruction plans.

Burma was ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world before Nargis hit. (See Burma: A New Way Forward). Though comprehensive assessments in the aftermath of the cyclone have yet to get underway, the delays in response are raising fears of cholera, malaria, malnutrition, and even starvation in isolated parts of the delta.

The International Community

The international community must present a unified voice to convince the government of Burma that it needs to respond, and to allow experts with decades of experience, led by the UN, to manage that response. The regime, however, is suspicious of the UN, especially after statements by the UN Country Team linking the September 2007 protests to poverty, and will be reluctant to accept their assessments and recommendations.

The governments of China, India, and ASEAN countries must step forward to facilitate Burmese acquiescence to increased international involvement. They should also take the lead in insisting that visas be granted as quickly as possible to international aid workers, and that import procedures be waived for humanitarian goods entering the country. Because of its experience with the tsunami response, Indonesia should play a constructive role by emphasizing the importance of strong collaboration between central government, local governments, UN agencies, and local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

In-Country Agencies

Experienced relief organizations with extensive local staff are in the best position to respond immediately to the current emergency, and a number of them have already begun to do so. Ten UN agencies and 48 international NGOs are already operating inside the country with government permission. In many cases, through patient work over many years, these organizations have devised ways of operating independently of the government, mainly through their local staff working closely with Burmese community-based organizations. These staff are hired free of government interference, and they deliver assistance directly at the village level. (See Burma: A New Way Forward [1])

Given the difficult working environment in Burma, and the regime’s mistrust of international actors, donor governments should initially rely on the capacity of organizations inside the country as the quickest route to providing services to disaster-affected communities. Donors should ensure that NGO appeals are fully funded, and that priority be given to agencies already working inside the country.

In the medium-term, adequate response in Burma will require the presence of new international agencies. The UN should lead discussions with the government on streamlining procedures to register new operational agencies and managing access. In the meantime, new agencies should explore partnerships with organizations already present and the possibility of integrating their staff with these partners until they can set up their own official presence inside Burma.

The Government of Burma

The role of the Burmese government is inevitably problematic. The country’s military leaders are out of touch with the desperate conditions of the people, as evidenced by their shock at the poverty-driven protests of the Buddhist monks last September. The authoritarian system in Burma discourages local initiative, which is critical to any emergency response. Early reports from Rangoon indicate that soldiers and police are inactive, presumably awaiting instructions on how to provide assistance from officials that have been caught by surprise by the magnitude of the disaster.

The Burmese government does not have the institutional capacity to provide relief on a massive scale. While the government has indicated that it welcomes international aid, it has not yet begun to grant adequate numbers of visas to aid workers who will need to enter the country, make assessments, and oversee the assistance provided. The combination of institutional weakness and suspicion of outsiders has the potential to cripple the emergency response.

Given the lack of technical capacity within the government of Burma and past instances of misappropriation of international resources by the government, the international community should carefully monitor any bilateral assistance provided.

Long-Term Challenges

A major long-term challenge will be the need for recovery and development assistance. Cyclone Nargis has left several million Burmese homeless. Many villages are flattened and delta communities are reporting 90-95 percent damage. Rangoon, the country’s largest city and economic hub, has also been directly affected. Large investments will be required to rebuild its infrastructure. A long-term commitment from donors is required for the stabilization of the disaster-affected population and for the reconstruction of cities and villages throughout the delta, including Rangoon.

Currently, most donor nations have restrictions on development assistance to Burma, as this type of aid is usually provided for cooperative projects with the government. These restrictions largely ensure money is not misused by the Burmese regime. The demands for reconstruction aid will be substantial, however, and the UN, in cooperation with international NGOs, will need to define how best to carry out this work while ensuring the greatest degree of independence possible.

It will also be important to extend humanitarian programs beyond the disaster-affected areas to the country as a whole. The delta region is the nation’s rice bowl and the loss of food supplies and farmland there could have negative consequences for highly vulnerable people in other parts of the country. Similarly, the sapping of Rangoon’s economic strength in an anemic economy could further jeopardize livelihoods in parts of the country that were not directly affected by Cyclone Nargis.

Room for Dialogue

The political impact of the cyclone is impossible to predict. The differing post-tsunami experiences of Indonesia and Sri Lanka point to the difficulty of judging the cyclone’s ramifications in Burma. In Aceh, the severity of the tsunami broke the political impasse between the armed resistance and the Indonesian government, freeing both parties from long-held rigid positions as they gradually coalesced in the interests of the welfare of the people. A dramatically increased international presence helped create the environment for these developments. In Sri Lanka, in contrast, the tsunami response quickly became politicized, amid mutual accusations of unjust aid allocations and donor bias, which contributed to the return to open warfare between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government.

The cyclone offers the possibility of revitalizing the relationship of the Burmese government and the international community as the world’s generosity manifests itself in the coming days and weeks. The scale of the disaster is so immense that even the reclusive military leaders will eventually have no choice but to accept a large-scale international aid presence. For mid-level civilian officials, the new engagement with the outside world will be a welcome opportunity. Even if the generals who run Burma make it difficult for the aid agencies to respond to needs in keeping with humanitarian principles and practice, new relationships will be forged at the local level that will bring a measure of hope to the long-suffering Burmese people.