Burma Campaign

Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA calls on the Australian government to fund cross-border aid programs that work with the most vulnerable and isolated communities in Burma

Currently, the Australian Government provides aid to Burma in cooperation with the Burmese military regime and does not support aid that is delivered across international borders. Cross-border aid is the only effective way to reach people in eastern Burma. We must work in solidarity with those communities to help provide access to medical care and education. Changes are needed in the aid program to support cross-border aid. Because of severe restrictions on humanitarian assistance, aid administered via Rangoon does not reach communities in ethnic minority states, especially in eastern Burma.

In eastern Burma, communities struggle to survive persecution from the military. They are more likely to suffer from infectious diseases, be displaced from their homes and have a higher infant mortality rate than the rest of Burma.

60.0% of deaths in children under 5 are from preventable and treatable diseases.

The under 5 mortality rate for eastern Burma is almost twice that of Burma as a whole.

41.2% of children are acutely malnourished.

Currently, the UK, USA, Norway, Canada, Denmark, Ireland and Spain all support cross-border aid programs. Without a change in Australia's aid policy, the lives of internally displaced people and ethnic communities in eastern Burma will continue to be threatened by military attacks and subject to persecution and human rights abuses.

Australia operates under the Principals and Good Practices of Good Humanitarian donor ship, including "the implementation of actions solely on the basis of need" and "the autonomy of humanitarian objectives from the political, economic, military or other objectives that any actor may hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented". Current Australian aid practices in Burma exclude and isolate vulnerable people living in ethnic minority states.

Maung Maung, General Secretary of the Federation of Trade Unions - Burma, describes the junta's ongoing campaign of human rights violations. "The regime uses slave labor, rape and torture to stay in power. Unions are banned and the jails are full with those who have dared to speak out."

What is Cross-border Aid?

Towns such as Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border are home to organizations such as the Back Pack Health Worker Teams, who travel by foot into eastern Burma in order to provide medical care and support to communities, especially those displaced by the regime. Cross-border aid also means supporting long term community based initiatives run by people and organizations based permanently in Burma's Eastern States.

Cross-border aid can include health care, education, political cooperation and support and the delivery of other essential services. Cross-border aid also provides a line of communication for communities and displaced peoples. Without that line of communication, those communities will be further cut off from the world and the regime will continue to persecute them without scrutiny.

The Benefits of Cross-border Aid

• Cross-border programs are community-run and therefore strategic and sustainable

  Support and capacity building of these community-based programs is the most sustainable form of assistance, and is laying the foundation for development of a future peaceful Burma.

• Aid provided cross-border to community-run programs is highly cost-effective

  The majority of funds go towards medical and education supplies and target childhood and maternal mortality and combating infectious diseases.

• Cross-border health programs are a key component of any efforts to combat infectious disease in Burma

  Efforts to combat infectious disease will be ineffective if large areas are excluded. In eastern Burma, Malaria is the leading cause of death across all ages. Official treatment and control programs are non-existent or inaccessible, and international assistance, including the 3 Disease Fund, is barred from the most severely affected communities in Eastern Burma.

• Donors can simultaneously support aid cross-border and through Rangoon

  Donors such as the USA, Norway, Denmark and Britain are currently supporting cross-border programs, and this has not had any negative impacts on their programs through Rangoon. In fact, providing aid both via Rangoon and via neighboring countries enables donors to access a greater area of the country, and assess and address needs more holistically. In 2006 a British Parliamentary report on Cross-border Aid concluded that "Burma is a complex problem that cannot be dealt with through a onesided approach; it requires a coordinated effort from within the country and across its borders to address the scale of poverty and displacement".

• Cross-border aid programs have well-developed monitoring mechanisms

  The community based organizations running cross-border programs have extensive internal monitoring mechanisms. For example, health programs conduct regular detailed reviews of medical case log books to ensure that treatment is in accordance with internationally recognized medical protocols. Extensive community surveys are also carried out to assess program impacts and prioritize needs.

• Cross-border aid programs benefit Thailand

  The humanitarian crisis in Burma has resulted in high rates of infectious disease near to the border, close to 150,000 Burmese residing in border refugee sites and countless more living illegally in Thailand. Cross-border aid programs support those within Burma and work towards a peaceful and stable Burma in the future.

1. Examine AusAID's Burma Policy and their spending priorities;
2. Investigate if Australia has provided cross-border assistance at other times and what was the criteria used to deem this acceptable; and
3. Raise questions in parliament regarding Australia's aid to Burma

What can you do?

Send an e-mail to Foreign Minister Bob Carr

Here is some suggested text:

Dear Mr. Carr,

I am writing in regards to Australia's aid program in Burma. Currently Australia does not support cross-border aid programs. By not supporting cross-border aid, Australia neglects vulnerable communities and efforts towards a peaceful, safe, democratic Burma.

Australia's current program of aid to Burma fails to address the needs of some of the most vulnerable people in Burma. Aid directed through the Military regime in Rangoon does not reach persecuted and displaced peoples in conflict areas. In the ethnic minority states of eastern Burma, 41.2% of children are acutely malnourished. If Australia is truly committed to the Principals and Good Practices of Humanitarian donor ship then you will reevaluate the current policy and support cross-border aid.

The current review of AusAID's Burma policy is an excellent opportunity to make sure aid going to Burma is as effective as possible and helps those most in need. I hope that you take this opportunity to support cross-border aid programs.

Sincerely,

Other Contacts

Contact your local, state or federal representatives with your concern for the situation in Burma and why Australia does not support cross-border aid.

Groups

Meetings, events and actions can be used to raise awareness and put pressure on the government to change Australia's aid policy. If you are interested in holding an event, such as a film screening, discussion group or talk, important reports, news articles and links to videos are provided below.

Important Reports

In 2010 the Back Pack Health Worker team released Diagnosis Critical: Health and Human Rights in Eastern Burma. The report, compiled with data collected through cross-border work with local communities and organizations, documents the health and humanitarian crisis in eastern Burma.

Published May 2009 by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, Crimes in Burma examines more than 15 years of the documentation produced by the United Nations of human rights abuses in Burma. On the basis of its review of the UN's own documentation, the report calls for the UN Security Council to establish a Commission of Inquiry into potential war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma.

Village Agency: Rural Rights and Resistance in a Militarized Karen State, released by the Karen Human Rights Group in November 2008, documents the success of villagers in Karen State and elsewhere in rural Burma in resisting abuse and transforming their own lives for the better. The report argues for the inclusion of villagers in the political processes that affect them.

In 2002 the Shan Women's Action Network and Shan Human Rights Network jointly released the License to Rape Report, which documents the Burmese military regime's systematic use of sexual violence in Shan State.

Videos

Filmed in 2005, Season of Fear documents the communities in eastern Burma displaced by the military. Troops burned villages and food stores, and tortures and killed villagers. The displacement of these communities continues today.

The film Crossing Midnight is about cross-border aid and displaced communities along the Thai-Burma border. This is the trailer for the film.

Always on the Run documents the Internally Displaced People of Karen State. The video, produced in 2005, includes interviews with three Internally Displaced People.

Burma Campaign News

Background Information