Junta causing hunger in Burma
New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Food shortages have affected Myanmar for the past three years because of drought. Things could get worse as a result of unpredictable weather, which has led farmers to plant at the wrong time. According to the outgoing country director for the World Health Organisation (WHO), the situation will get worse. Making matters worse, the despotic regime of General Than Shwe is preventing long-term action that could bring a solution, thus putting millions at risk.
AsiaNews spoke to Tint Swe, a member of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) that was set up in exile after the military junta cancelled the 1990 elections won by the National League for Democracy. After finding refuge in India in 1990, he settled in New Delhi on 21 December 1991.
Disasters are unavoidable and unfortunate natural events occur in every part of the world. Fingers point to climate change and global warming as well as new large-scale constructions. It is more accurate to lay the blame in the authorities for other, man-made tragedies taking place in Burma.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has correctly pointed out that food shortages in central Burma are due to excessive restrictions imposed by the military junta. However, this has been the regime’s standard practice since the military seized power in 1988. Aid groups, including UN agencies, are seen as a security threat, not in terms of the national interest, but as potential challengers to the regime’s grip on power.
The Burmese people were once proud of their rich resources and abundant wealth. According to a traditional saying, Burma had enough cooking oil to have a bath and mountain-size heaps of paddy. But it was true before the military took power and the economy.
Led by Ne Win, the first generation of military rulers turned well-to-do Burma into a Least Developed Country (LCD) by 1987.
Under Saw Maung and Than Shwe, a new generation of generals led the country to the bottom third position in terms of development in the world.
In recent years, the current regime opened the doors to the market economy and direct foreign investment. On its website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs updated that Myanmar's development endeavours gained further momentum. In 1999-2000, the GDP grew by 10.9 per cent so that the value of foreign approved investment reached US$ 7.4 billion million by 31 December 2002. According to the latest figures by the World Bank’s World Development Indicators released on 27 July 2010, Burma received US 283 millions in foreign direct investment.
Unfortunately, a UN 2009 report titled Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission to Myanmar said that 52 townships in the states of Shan, Chin State and Kachin are deemed highly vulnerable in terms of food security. Devastatingly, one in ten people in Burma, that is more than 5 million, suffer from chronic hunger (going without adequate food on a daily basis), the report said, especially in Rangoon, Irrawaddy, Arakan and Chin. The recent WFP report mentioned that the states of Arakan, Chin, Kachin and Shan as well as the Magwe and Irrawaddy Divisions are in urgent need of emergency food assistance.
Once regarded as the rice bowl of Southeast Asia when Burma was a democracy, the Irrawaddy Delta was dealt a heavy blow in May 2008 when Cyclone Nargis hit the area and killed 140,000 people. Despite the great need, the military regime deliberately initially barred all international aid. When it allowed foreign aid to come in, late, it politicised it. State-run television endlessly broadcast images of Generals handing out disaster relief as if those were personal gifts.
The regime effectively blocked the foreigners whilst arresting and imprisoning local aid workers, including distinguished comedian Zaganar who, on 21 November 2008, was sentenced to 45 years imprisonment. On 29 November 2008, he received an additional 14 years. On 16 February 2009, the Yangon Divisional Court reduced the prison sentence by 24 years, bringing it down to 35 years.
According to a WFP assessment undertaken in June 2008, the people in northern Arakan State face malnutrition because of a 75 per cent jump in rice prices compared to the previous year. As of 25 June this year, at least 63 people have been confirmed dead after heavy rain caused flooding and landslides in the state.
In Chin State, there are reports of food shortage due to a rat infestation triggered by the flowering of bamboo, beginning in the early 2006. A Chin news group reported on 3 August 2010 that with the rat infestation on the rise again, the rodents are destroying crops in more than 20 villages in the southern townships of Chin state.
Stories about the food crisis in Pa’an District in Karan State were published in March 2005. Before that, Rich Periphery, Poor Center: Myanmar Rural Economy was published in March 2004.
On 4 Aug 2010, an NGO said that HIV-positive rates in areas controlled by cease-fire groups in Kachin State were more than 16 times the national average.
In January 2006, Deserted Fields: The destruction of agriculture in Mong Nai Township, Shan State was published. It highlighted wrong-headed agricultural and development policies, counter-insurgency activities, as well as corruption and cronyism by the Burmese military regime.
Currently, an unreported humanitarian crisis is looming in Burma and the culprit is chronic mismanagement by military authorities. All reliable figures show that infant mortality rate is 76 per thousand births. About 31.8 per cent of children under the age of five are undernourished, the obvious result of the government spending just 2.8 per cent on health care, which is among the lowest anywhere in the world.
Natural disasters prevail in central and lower Burma. Areas inhabited by the country’s ethnic minorities, which are characterised by armed resistance, people are deprived from both natural and man-made disasters. In any event, no square mile of Burma is free from dictatorial control.
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24/10/2022 15:30
