Mizzima
Aid workers and activists are worried that aid handed by the Thai Red Cross to the Myanmar Red Cross Society (MRCS) may not reach many of those most in need in Myanmar.
On the morning of 25 March, ten trucks carrying aid intended for about 20,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Karen State was handed over to the MRCS by the Thai Red Cross at the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge No. 2 border crossing, between Mae Sot in Thailand and Myawaddy in Myanmar. The trucks were carrying over 4,000 assorted items, including bags of rice and other food provisions.
Present at the handover ceremony on the border were the Thai Deputy Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow, the Executive Director of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre), representatives from the Thai Red Cross Society, the Myanmar Red Cross Society, the General Administration Department of the Military Council and other dignitaries.
“We hope very much to see peace in Myanmar, internal issues certainly will be resolved by Myanmar themselves,” Sihasak said at the aid ceremony. “We want every side, all sides, to overcome their differences so that we can be led to reconciliation and peace in the near future”, he added.
Four thousand packages were delivered to three villages in Kayin state, namely Na Bu in Kawkareik district, and Thar Ma Nya and Paingkyon in Hpa-An District, according to RFA.
From there the aid will be distributed to 20,000 people in the most acute need in towns specially selected to be part of this pilot project, according to Sihasak Phuangketkeow.
The aid will be distributed by the MRCS and the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Centre (AHA Centre). under the supervision of the Myanmar junta.
Unfortunately, the MRCS is under the control of the junta and as Tom Andrews, the U.N. independent human rights expert on Myanmar said last week: “That [aid] corridor [from Thailand] puts humanitarian aid into the hands of the junta because it goes into the hands of the junta-controlled Myanmar Red Cross.”
Because of the junta’s involvement in the aid distribution process, activists and aid workers are concerned that the aid will not reach the most vulnerable or people not in areas fully controlled by the junta.
Ma Christian, the head of Burma Affairs and Conflict Studies (BACS), which reports on and analyses the junta’s political and military movements, said: “I’m concerned about two primary issues. Firstly, whether
the aid will effectively reach those in desperate need. Secondly, I am apprehensive about the politics of the situation. I worry that the Military Council might exploit the aid for their own agenda.”
An aid worker based on the border in Thailand who works on Myanmar migrant labour issues was very sceptical about the MRCS’s independence from the junta and its ability to effectively distribute the aid.
They said: “The military leader Min Aung Hlaing recently bestowed an honorary award upon a senior official from MRCS. Considering that MRCS operates under the Military Council, the current situation where humanitarian aid is entrusted to such an entity is deeply concerning.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) there are over 2.8 million IDPs in Myanmar, and of those, just over 182,000 are in Karen Stat
