The military coup of Feb 1, 2021 plunged Myanmar into a political crisis. Two years on, this has become a humanitarian crisis. Half of our population does not have enough food, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). At least 1.6 million are internally displaced, due to military operations, including the destruction of over 55,000 civilian homes.
An estimated 70,000 people have fled to Thailand or India. During the coming months, hunger and displacement will grow, as the military steps up its campaign to eradicate dissent.
Only a well-coordinated regional humanitarian response will save lives in Myanmar and avert a full-blown refugee crisis. The member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), particularly Thailand, which shares a 2,416-kilometre border with Myanmar, have a crucial role to play.
Asean has committed itself to finding a solution in Myanmar, including provision of humanitarian aid. As Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said at the Asean Summit in November 2022, greater international cooperation on humanitarian aid to Myanmar is essential. Only a well-coordinated regional response can achieve what is necessary: sending significant volumes of aid into the country through the most efficient channels, including via Myanmar's borders, and in collaboration with those who can deliver it effectively.
If realised, Asean's commitment at the summit to engage all key stakeholders presents a pragmatic way forward. The commercial capital Yangon cannot be the sole point of entry, and the military's State Administration Council (SAC) cannot be the sole interlocutor.
The SAC controls less than half of all the territory in Myanmar. The National Unity Government (NUG), which I have the privilege to serve, and our ethnic allies control half the country. Since its formation in April 2021, the NUG has been distributing aid. Many of the areas of greatest displacement and hunger, in Chin, Karenni, Karen, and Rakhine states, are closer to the Indian, Bangladeshi and Thai borders than to Yangon. The ethnic organisations that administer these areas have decades of humanitarian experience. Overland aid will be faster, cheaper and more efficient.
The junta has no interest in the well-being of Myanmar's people. It has imposed draconian regulations on aid delivery, which present aid organisations with the cruel choice of following these rules or curtailing their efforts. The military has imprisoned nearly 600 health workers and killed dozens.
It has attacked relief convoys and burned goods. Two staff of the international organisation Save the Children were among 35 travellers massacred in Karenni State on Christmas Eve 2021. The SAC also has little interest in international cooperation, as evidenced by its unwillingness to implement the Five-Point Consensus plan it agreed with Asean leaders in April 2021. The plan called for the cessation of violence, dialogue, and humanitarian assistance.
The military regime sharply limits where aid through Yangon can go. For 2022 the UN reported distributing aid to 2 million people in Yangon. But it could only reach 54,000 people in Sagaing, to the west, where 700,000 people are displaced. The lesson is clear: aid through Yangon alone cannot reach many of those who need it most.
Furthermore, the Myanmar military has created this humanitarian crisis. In its misguided attempt to rule the country, it has crashed the economy and impoverished the population. The economy contracted by an annual 18% in the year after the coup and has clearly not recovered. The Myanmar kyat has lost half its value. Inflation has reached as much as 20%. Millions of people are out of work.
Thousands were leaving each month to look for work abroad until the regime stopped issuing passports in January. Almost half the population now lives below the poverty line. In urban areas, the military has destroyed the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people through arbitrary evictions. Many of the largest international investors have left, including Telenor, Kirin, Woodside Petroleum, and TotalEnergies.
In an effort to stamp out opposition, the military deliberately attacks civilian communities. In September 2022, a helicopter attacked a school in Let Yet Kone village in Sagaing, killing 11 children. Systematically burning villages, the military deprives entire communities of food, livestock, and assets, the basic means of survival. Sagaing Region, a major rice-producing area in Myanmar's heartland, has been subjected to a particularly brutal scorched earth campaign.
From a geostrategic standpoint, Asean is well-placed to lead an international humanitarian effort, as it did after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in 2008, killing an estimated 140,000 people.
International pressure to provide humanitarian access must be maintained. But working with Myanmar partners who have the will and capacity to address this crisis will produce better results. That includes the NUG, our ethnic allies, and civil society organisations. If there is no collective effort, the fallout from the Myanmar military's brutality will hit countries in the region as well as Myanmar's people.
Duwa Lashi La is acting President of the National Unity Government (NUG).
