Burma under pressure
Wednesday 10 January 2008
1PM On board a 747 flying somewhere over Asia
Travel is a big part of this job. It’s the only way to get a real understanding of the challenges being faced by people suffering in dire poverty and to see what DFID, aid agencies and the country’s Government is doing to help. This two-day visit is no different but it is special. As a Government minister, I’m not allowed to visit Burma myself because of an EU ban. But I want to meet Burmese people who have been exiled by the military regime and hear first hand what is happening in Burma. The plight of the Burmese people is something that we in this country care deeply about. Images of the monks protesting, being tear-gassed and arrested by Burmese security forces in September are still vivid. On this visit I want to demonstrate UK
10.30PM British Ambassador’s Residence, Bangkok
Met a group of leading Burmese experts for dinner to hear their views on the situation. They included Burmese exiles, academic experts, journalists and NGO representatives. The picture they painted was chilling. There is a seriously declining humanitarian situation in Burma, no one could say just how bad it is, there are no reliable statistics, but the health service can’t cope and is tragically underfunded. Less than £2 per person, per year is what the Government spends on the Burmese nation’s health. It doesn’t have the drugs it needs, HIV/AIDS is rampant because people are poorly educated and don’t have access to condoms, and there are millions living a hand-to-mouth existence. People disappear regularly, villages are torched and children are being recruited as soldiers. There is no civil society to speak of, other than the military regime, so the few NGOs that are able work there have a big job to do. And even then, they are limited as to where they can go and what they can do, fearful that their offices may be closed down in an instant, so cutting off the life-saving work. We agreed that politics has created this humanitarian crisis. And while I am convinced that our aid can help and is helping to alleviate some of the problems, it’s not the answer. Real change can only come from within.
Thursday 11 January 2008 10.30AM Bangkok Airport
Even in sunny climes fog can shut airports. We’re grounded until it clears.
1PM Mae La Refugee camp, Mae Sot
Ironically the camp’s sign said it was a ‘temporary shelter’ but I soon met people who had been living there since 1984! Others had arrived in the past few weeks. Before entering into the sparsely furnished ‘home’ of newly arrived refugees I kicked off my shoes as a sign of respect. The people I met told me stories which were harrowing, moving and indeed appalling. One man told me how, like millions of others, out of a job and desperately poor, the military tried to force him to work for nothing carrying their equipment. His choice was either to do it, or pay the army off. With no money he tried to hide, but the military carry out night-time raids on the homes of defaulters. Instead, he and his family fled for the Thai border. Another woman had organised an armed group of mothers to protect their villages from forced labour. A widow, she took her three daughters across the border when the military started targeting her children in retaliation. I have been in refugee camps around the world and listened to similar stories but this was different. Usually refugees tell you the action they want you to take to let them return home. But in Mae Sot most seemed unable to imagine a Burma they could return to.
5.20PM Mae Sot Airport
On the way back from the refugee camp I stopped to visit a school and a clinic used by Burmese migrant workers and their families – those who, mainly illegally, live outwith refugee camps. About 30 children – boys and girls wearing the traditional dress of ethnic groups – lined the drive on our arrival. It was a colourful and warm welcome and it showed just how many different ethnic groups there are in Burma. Mao Tae clinic was buzzing with patients and family carers. Dr Cynthia Maung showed me round the well organised, busy clinic. I spoke to three monks who, like most of the patients sitting in chairs in the courtyard, had walked for nearly four days, taking risks in crossing the mined border to reach the clinic for treatment. Coincidently they were waiting for a Scot to arrive, not me, but a surgeon called Frank from Aberdeen. Frank and two others from the UK give up two weeks’ leave every year to travel here and perform up to 300 eye operations for free. Three hundred people, mostly from Burma, had travelled days for treatment, mainly for cataracts, which is simply not available in Burma.
7.45PM British Ambassador’s Residence, Bangkok
Just given a press conference to tell the media what I’ve seen today and express the UK’s continued support to the Burmese people. Questions to me ranged from details of DFID’s programme – which we’re doubling from £9 million to £18 million a year – to how I thought our aid could help. I explained how we’re working with a range of people from the UN and NGOs, such as Save the Children, to Burmese people within the country and those who were refugees in Thailand. I underlined the fact that our aid would not benefit the regime in any way and we’re at pains to ensure that remains the case. The day’s not yet over as I’m meeting a group of mainly European Ambassadors and senior officials over dinner to get their take on the situation and the refugee problem.
11.35PM Bangkok Airport
Rumour has it Gordon Ramsay is on our flight back to the UK. From the reality of life and death in Burma to reality TV in an instant! I am going back to DFID with a much better understanding of the scale of the humanitarian crisis. Humanitarian work inside Burma is like no other environment: the need to work through NGOs as there is no other civil society to speak of, and their constant worry of being closed down by the military at any moment means that ensuring our aid can be really effective is more important than its volume – there is only so much that a relative few NGOs based in Burma can do. And I am going home with a renewed resolve, shared by many, that we have to keep up the pressure on the Burmese regime to live up to their promises and deliver reform. Even though the people of Burma are kept in a vacuum, sealed off from the outside world, we know the regime can still hear us.