Aid To Burma Suffers

High percentage of people in lower Burma have diabetes: UN survey

Britain Pressured To Increase Aid For Burma As Christians Flee ...

The House of Commons International Development Committee published a report urging the British Government "to quadruple aid to Burma" also known as Myanmar, to fund cross-border humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people (IDPs) and support pro-democracy initiatives.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a major Christian advocacy group investigating the plight of Christians in Burma, described the latest report as "hard-hitting." The document has criticized the UK ’s Department for International Development (DFID) for allegedly failing to provide adequate aid to Burma.

"This crisis-stricken country, which suffers from immense poverty and pernicious human rights abuses, receives the lowest aid of all least Developed Countries," the Committee argued. "We believe this level of assistance is unacceptable...We believe that UK aid to Burma should be scaled up substantially."

SMALL BUDGET

The DFID’s budget for Burma, amounts to just a quarter of its budget for Zimbabwe and the report notes that in 2004, Burma received just US$2.40 of aid per head, "by far the lowest per capita aid level" for the world’s poorest countries, according to the report. Neighboring countries such as Cambodia and Laos receive 15-20 times the amount Burma receives. The DFID should therefore "quadruple aid to Burma" by 2013, the Committee said.

"Cross-border assistance to Burmese IDPs could be extended if more financial resources were available...We believe that, as a high priority, DFID should maximize relief to IDPs in eastern Burma," it added.

It called on the DFID to “look at the options for starting to fund assistance over the Indian border” to the Chin people, and “scale up” support for aid on the China border, as well as providing aid to the IDPs across the Thai border, where many predominantly Christian Karen people are fleeing attacks by forces supporting the military government of Burma.

Over 25,000 civilians, many of them Christian Karens, were forced to flee their villages in the past year, following "the worst" military crackdown in a decade, CSW and other observers have said. "Since 1996, over 3,000 villages in eastern Burma have been destroyed [and] there are over one million IDPs in eastern Burma, and over 150,000 refugees in Thailand," CSW told BosNewsLife earlier.

HUMAN RIGHTS

The Committee report also noticed that funding for Burmese human rights and pro-democracy groups working in exile, in particular women’s organizations and the exiled trade union govement, should be provided by DFID. “Rape is used as a weapon of war by the Burmese Army...DFID should fund women’s groups working on and across the border who document rape and other human rights abuses, and provide women’s health and education services.

International Organizations, Assistance Programs Constrained in Burma

DFID asistance to Burmese internally displaced people and refugees on the Thai-Burma border, tenth report of session 2006-07, Vol. 1: Report, together with formal minutes

United Nations technical aid in Burma, a short survey

Promoting human rights in Burma, a critique of Western sanctions policy

Far Eastern economic review