Myanmar Abusing UN Aid, Says Human Rights Group
April 24, 2007
Bernama
Original Source: http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=258460

BANGKOK, April 24 (Bernama) -- The military junta in Myanmar has embarked on forced labour, extortion and land confiscation in several projects funded or supported by United Nations agencies, the Karen Human Rights Group claimed today.

The 15-year-old organisation said in its 121-page report launched today that some of the UN agencies failed to respond to KRHG's query on how the funds were utilised and if they were aware of any abuses by the country's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

Stephen Hull, the author of the Development by Decree: The politics of poverty and control in Karen State, said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) gave US$14 million (RM47.9 million) to the SPDC to implement the Oil Crop Cultivation Programme.

This is despite them knowing that SPDC consistently implements agricultural programmes using extortion and forced labour, including the latest nationwide compulsory castor cultivation scheme, he said at the launch of the report, here.

Hull said the SPDC has also perpetrated uncompensated land confiscation and forced labour in the development of the Asian Highway, for which the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Unescap) has appealed for external project funding on behalf of SPDC.

But most of the time, locals are being left out. Even some UN agencies like UNDP are talking about engagement with the regime ... addressing poverty without talking about politics, he added.

Asda Jayanama, former Thailand Permanent Representative to the UN and an outspoken critic of the Myanmar military government, said it was not easy to channel assistance to the people along the border areas without going through the central government.

He said that in the past, the Thai Government had difficulty in channelling funds directly to people along the border while former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra increased its cooperation by contract farming and building of dams.

But he said it would be more beneficial if the Thai Government could provide more humanitarian aid rather than contract farming.

On UN agencies giving funds through SPDC, Asda said that maybe the agencies felt that the people will get something rather than nothing at all.