Australia Says ‘No’ to Cross-border Relief

CANBERRA/Australia—Dr Cynthia Maung knows what pain looks like. Since 1988, her Mae Tao clinic has served as a crucial sanctuary for Burmese refugees and migrant workers seeking health care and emergency treatment at the Thai-Burmese border.

“Over the past 20 years, the civil war has been ongoing,” said Dr Cynthia. “And so has the displacement of villagers from their homes.

Charm Tong, left, from Shan Women’s Action Network, and Dr Cynthia Maung, the founder of the Mae Tao clinic, joined a delegation to Australia last week. (Photo: The Sydney Morning Herald)

“Today more than 500,000 people are internally displaced in Burma, and another 2 million are living in Thailand. We try to address this crisis as best we can,” she told a conference in Sydney, Australia, last week.

One of the world’s longest running yet least reported conflicts has turned the mountainous jungles of the Thai-Burmese border region into a lethal game of hide and seek for generations of villagers from ethnic groups such as Mon, Karen, Karenni and Shan.

Since independence in 1948, the Burmese military has battled the various insurgent armies of the ethnic minorities, which have refused to accept subjugation to the central government.

The conflict has left thousands dead and a steady wave of refugees continues into Thailand to this day—a recent escalation of fighting in Shan and Karen states the latest catalyst for another surge in numbers fleeing the conflict zones.

Those who have made it across the border to jungle refugee camps or towns such as Mae Sot are by bureaucratic definition mostly “illegal.”

Unable to obtain official papers from the Thai authorities and therefore under constant threat of deportation, their personal limbo has by default created a ready source of sweatshop labor readily exploited by Thai manufacturers.

“Those [Burmese living in Thailand] without papers go into hiding if Manchester United loses a game of football,” said Burma expert Dr Jane Ferguson rather cryptically at last week’s Burma Update Conference at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Then she explained how Thai police generally support Manchester United and have a syndicate betting on the team. If their team loses, they often feel aggrieved and have gambling debts, so they “threaten the [Burmese] workers with deportation if they don't pay up,” she said.
 
The main objective of Dr Cynthia’s visit last week to Australia as part of a delegation of prominent humanitarian workers was to seek a government review of Australia’s aid commitment to Burma. More specifically, her presence boosted a request for a moderate increase in the funding received by the cross-border organizations (CBOs) in Thailand.

“The Australian government has committed $29 million dollars [Australian] in aid to Burma this year, but of that less than 1 million will make it to the eastern border region—the region that needs it the most,” said Zoe Bedford of Union Aid Abroad (APHEDA), who helped bring the delegation to Australia for a series of conferences and meetings with Australian government authorities.

It is believed that the Burmese junta provides about US 70 cents per person each year for health care, and little if any of that nominal sum makes it to the conflict zones in the volatile eastern region.

“It is very difficult to take any official numbers too seriously,” said Dr Sean Turnell, the head of Burma Economic Watch at Macquarie University in Sydney. “At best 70 cents is making it to the people of Burma not in these conflict zones. You need to remember we are dealing with officially the second most corrupt country in the world … [therefore] the work done by these CBOs is crucial.”
 
The establishment in 1997 of the Backpacker Health Worker teams in Mae Sot is a clear example of the sheer determination to help that exists on the border.

The teams receive training at Dr Cynthia’s clinic from medical trainers before crossing the border—often at great risk to their personal safety and in defiance of the Burmese military—with backpacks of medical supplies to provide primary health care to those in need.

In the wake of last year’s Cyclone Nargis disaster, the Backpack group had teams providing relief in the disaster areas within days, while the international aid community was held up by Burmese red tape at the airport in Bangkok.

The parallels with official aid policy are reflective of this situation.