Opinion by Armand Houanye (ouagadougou, burkina faso)
Inter Press Service
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso, Mar 14 (IPS) – The writer is Regional Executive Secretary of the Global Water Partnership in West Africa (GWP-WA)Burkina Faso’s interim President Captain Ibrahim Traoré spoke late last year of the conflicts that are now blighting his country and much of his region. He described the situation in Burkina Faso as predictable given the endemic weaknesses in governance that he believes have led to the economic abandonment of many young people, particularly outside of urban areas.
He delivered these remarks on November 13th to political parties, civil society organizations, and traditional and customary leaders in Ouagadougou to raise awareness of Burkina Faso’s rapidly degrading security situation. Of particular note was his focus on water, as he described seeing people throughout the Southwest, Northwest and Sahel regions including Gorom-Gorom, Tinasane and Markoye carrying jerry cans to fetch water.
This led him to question why there were no development projects in these impoverished regions. The people walk, he lamented, for miles to get water for the cattle that die on the way.
There are no roads for trucks to even transport livestock feed to sustain livestock, he reflected, before referring to the Kongoussi-Djibo road bridge built in the 1950s that has fallen into such dilapidation that it can no longer support the trucks that would otherwise take the now rotting local produce to market.
All he says, because of a lack of investment in the construction and the maintenance of essential infrastructure.
His speech depicts a reality across the Sahel region where terrorist attacks have been rampant since 2012, following Mouammar Kadhafi’s assassination and the subsequent looting of Libya’s weapons deposits. Many villages have since been abandoned in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, with thousands of people having been displaced with no proper government intervention to curb the violence.
As clean drinking water is a basic need, lack of access to it triggers many problems at every level of society. Traditionally, villages are located close to waterways to allow for the smooth provisioning of water, as well as the practice of gardening to produce basic ingredients for food which can be consumed and sold for cash for the community.
With the rise of terrorist attacks mostly in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso but reaching coastal countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Togo and Benin, many villages have been abandoned or are under the control of armed terrorist groups who impose their own rules and dictates on the local people.
Displaced populations are deprived of their traditional water sources, be they natural water courses, standpipes or boreholes, cutting off their water supply and therefore the access to their means of physical and economic sustenance.
“They lay down the law for the management and use of water and other natural resources by delimiting areas to be exploited,” said a local elected authority to me in a terrorist dominated zone in the Central-Southern part of Mali, adding that, “the cultivable areas are reduced and they occupy the wooded areas suitable for agriculture and which contain the local water reserves.”
The chiefs of villages occupied under duress are obliged to cooperate with these groups. They are therefore the preferred interlocutors of all those who “seek permission to operate” in these controlled areas.
The opinion of the village chief is conditional to the prior agreement of the group to which the village belongs. There are real negotiations with these terrorist groups before any projects or partners are allowed to enter the territory.
The reality in Sahelian countries in general is that successive governments since independence have concentrated their “administration” on urban areas. But once you leave the urban areas the populations are left to their own devices with an administration that is more oppressive and not in the least concerned with providing sustainable responses to the development needs of these localities.
The agents of the land registry (customs), law enforcement (police, gendarmes), and nature protection (water and forests) are quicker to find ways to engage in racketeering than to offer the poor the services they require.
“We have lost a lot of funding which has been transferred to other localities deemed more accessible,” explained a local government official to me recently in one of the areas under control. “Given the fact that the groups themselves need to have privileged access to drinking water, they facilitate the arrival of certain partners to install water supply systems,” he added.
Water management and development is but one of many sectors affected by terrorist activities in the region, but water, unlike some other sectors, is a matter of survival.
There is therefore a critical need to enhance and improve the governance of water resources and land while ensuring that required investments are put in place to sustainably respond to the water related development needs of people living in urban and rural areas at all levels in Sahelian countries.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Mar 06 (IPS) – Putin’s regime recently suspended Russia’s participation in a nuclear arms agreement with Washington. After the decision Putin declared that the move was a retaliation for the US’s, France’s and Britain’s “targeting” of Russia with nuclear weapons. He was forced to take action to “preserve our country, ensure security and strategic stability”:
“the West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression, and today it admits it openly, no longer embarrassed. And they cynically use Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia.”
Such rhetoric finds fertile ground in Latin America and Africa, which suffer from a long tradition of Western exploitation carried out under the false flag of peace keeping, democratization and progress. On 26 February, Putin added that a:
“new world is taking shape, being built only on the interests of just one country, the United States. I do not even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people will be able to survive in the form in which it exists today.”
The statement is part of a recurrent discourse suggesting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an act of self-defence, an answer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization/NATO’s expansion. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were added to NATO; in 2009 they were followed by Albania and Croatia, in 2017 by Montenegro and in 2020 by North Macedonia.
In 2014, after Ukraine’s corrupt president Viktor Yanukovych had been ousted, pro-Russian unrest erupted in eastern and southern parts of the country. Unmarked Russian tanks and troops moved into Crimea, taking over government buildings, strategic sites and infrastructure. Meanwhile, armed pro-Russian separatists seized government buildings in the Donbas region.
In 2014 the Donbas was the industrial heartland of Ukraine with 35 per cent of the country’s mining, 22 per cent of its manufacturing industry, providing 20 per cent of energy supply and 18 per cent of water supply. Recently vast amounts of natural gas have been detected underground.
The separatists received considerable support from Russia and Ukrainian attempts to retake separatist-held areas were unsuccessful. In October 2014, Ukraine’s new government made joining NATO a priority. Putin at once declared that the Russian involvement in Crimea and Donbas was a reaction to NATO’s threatening expansion.
Part of Putin’s discourse, repeated by influencers all over the world, is that during a summit in 1990 when Mikhail Gorbachov accepted the reunification of Germany within the framework of NATO, he was given an assurance that NATO would not expand further. The Historian Mary Elise Sarotte has recently tried to disentangle the thorny issue, underlining that no written document of the promise exists. Gorbachov later declared that:
“the topic of NATO-expansion was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. was that NATO’s military structures would not advance in the sense that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR, after German reunification. Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
During a 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin declared himself to be a stout defender of democracy, nuclear disarmament and international solidarity. Contrary to the US, which had “promised” that NATO was not going to expand beyond the borders of Germany. Putin stated that:
“unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. a situation in which countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other, dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And as a matter of fact, these conflicts are killing people – hundreds and thousands of civilians! As Franklin D. Roosevelt said during the first few days that the Second World War was breaking out: “When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.” I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself, or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: Against whom is this expansion intended?
The answer is beyond doubt. However, as a proverb states “Evil cannot with evil be defended.” Can Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine actually be defended by alluding to the encroachment and support to brutal dictatorships that “democracies” like the US, France and Britain have been guilty of around the globe?
Putin repeatedly refers to “history”. He labels Ukrainian leaders as Nazis, while stating that Ukraine has always been part of Russia. Glaring exaggerations – if not outright lies.
History tells us that Russia’s past, like that of other nations, has its hidden skeletons. In 1939, the Soviet Union annexed more than 50 per cent of Polish territory. From 1939 to 1941 about one million Polish citizens were arrested, or deported; including approximately 200,000 Polish military personnel held as prisoners of war; 100,000 Polish citizens were arrested and imprisoned of whom approximately 30,000 were executed. The total loss of lives was 150 000.
On 30 November 1939 the Soviet army attacked Finland. The war ended after three months. The Soviets suffered severe losses and made little headway. To avoid more bloodshed Finland ceded 9 per cent of its territory. In spite of superior air force and heavy tanks the Soviet losses had been considerable – 168 000 dead or missing. The Finns lost 26 000 dead or missing.
In the previously independent Baltic States the Soviets had during 1940-41 carried out mass deportations. They became even more extensive after Soviet Union finally conquered the area. In March 1949, Soviet authorities organised a mass deportation of 90,000 Baltic nationals. The total number deported from 1944 to 1955 is estimated at over half a million: 124,000 from Estonia, 136,000 from Latvia, and 245,000 from Lithuania. The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees had between1945 and 1958 been more than 20,000, including 5,000 children.
When the Soviet Union fell apart and archives were declassified it was revealed that, between 1921 and 1953, 799,455 executions had been officially recorded. Approximately 1.7 million prisoners had died in Gulag camps, some 390,000 were reported dead during forced resettlements in the 1930s, and during the 1940s at least 400,000 persons died during deportations.
After World War II, the Soviet Union subdued several nations in Eastern Europe, introducing a political system aspiring to gain total control of all citizens and backed by an extensive, repressive apparatus.
Opposition was initially essentially liquidated, while steps towards an authoritative communism were enforced. The General Secretary of a nation’s Central Committee became the most powerful figure, while a Politburo held sway over a party machine lacking a popular foundation, since it in accordance to Leninist ideology favoured a group of three to fourteen per cent of a country’s population. Members of this exclusive group enjoyed considerable rewards, like access to shops with a selection of high-quality foreign goods, as well as special schools, holiday facilities, well-equipped housing, pensions, permission to travel abroad, and official cars with distinct license plates.
Suppression of opposition was a prerequisite for retaining power. Citizens were kept under surveillance by political police with raw power and violent persecution of dissidents. In East Germany were Stasi, Volkpolizei, and KdA, in Soviet Union the KGB, in Czechoslovakia STB and LM, in Bulgaria KDS, in Hungary AVH and Munkásörség, in Romania Securitate and GP, in Poland Ministerstwo Bezpiecze?stwa Publicznego, S?u?ba, and ZOMO. Nevertheless, people occasionally revolted.
During one day in 1953 an uprising took place in Berlin. It was violently suppressed by tanks and soldiers of the Soviet German forces. More than 150 persons were killed, or missing.
In 1956, a two day protest in Polish Poznan resulted in more than 100 deaths. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers under the command of the Polish-Soviet general Popalavsky suppressed the demonstration. Among the dead was a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzalakowski, eventually hailed as a patriotic martyr.
During two weeks in November 1956, USSR troops killed 2,500 revolting Hungarians, while 200,000 sought political refuge abroad. Some 26,000 Hungarians were put on trial by the Soviet-installed János Kádár government, of those 13,000 were imprisoned.
During the night between 20 and 21 August 1968, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia came to an abrupt end when Eastern Bloc armies under Soviet command invaded Prague. The invasion comported with the Brezhnev Doctrine, compelling Eastern Bloc states to subordinate national interests to a Soviet right to intervene. A wave of emigration followed, with a total eventually reaching 300,000.
The pattern of Soviet invasions of neighbouring states has continued, for example in Georgia and Moldova. In 1991 Tjetjenia declared itself independent and in 1994, 40 000 Russian soldiers invaded the recently proclaimed Tjetjenien Republic. After a year of harsh fighting the capital Grozny was conquered, but another war erupted in 1999. The rebels were vanquished after an effective but exceedingly brutal war. Tjetjenia is now governed by a Moscow-allied clan leader.
Estimated losses of the two wars are 14 000 Russian and 16 000 Tjetjenien soldiers killed, while at least 25,000 civilians were killed and 5,000 disappeared.
One month before the Russian attack on Ukraine, Kazakhstan plunged into political unrest. At the request of President Tokayev, Russian forces headed an intergovernmental Eurasian military alliance, CSTO, which invaded the country. After “pacifying” the protests, CSTO forces evacuated the country after a month.
Considering this history, paired with the Russian destruction of Syrian and Ukrainian towns, it is somewhat difficult to consider Russia as threatened by NATO’s expansion. It is actually not so strange that Russia is feared by its neighbours and that Finland and Sweden are seeking membership in NATO.
The Swedish government is currently supporting an expansion and restoration of Sweden’s once comprehensive, but now neglected network of nuclear shelters, introducing obligatory conscription of youngsters fit for military service, and strengthening the defence of Gotland, a strategically important island located in the middle of the Baltic Sea.
After World War II, the Soviet Union usurped an enclave which actually ought to have belonged to either Poland or Lithuania – Kaliningrad, situated by the Baltic coast and equipped it with the highest density of military installations in Europe. It became headquarter of the large Russian Baltic fleet. In Kaliningrad, Russia has recently built up a formidable military presence encompassing nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of soldiers.
Not being a supporter of policies and actions United States has exercised in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, cannot overshadow the fear that most Europeans nurture while facing the powerful giant of the East, which, admittedly, does not have an impressive record when it comes to protecting human rights.
Some sources: Putin, Vladimir (2007) Speech delivered at the MSChttp://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/copy/24034 Sarotte, Mary Elise (2022) Not One Inch: America, Russia and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pucci, Molly (2020) Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
In the southern city of Taiz, 11-month-old Ameer Hellal receives WFP supplementary food for malnutrition. Photo: WFP/Albaraa Mansoor
by Alexander Kozul-Wright (geneva)
Inter Press Service
GENEVA, Mar 03 (IPS) – At a high-level UN event, global donors pledged US$1.2 billion in aid operations to Yemen in 2023. Millions of Yemenis require humanitarian assistance as the country continues to suffer from the fallout of a prolonged civil war.
While the Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths noted that the UN had received 31 commitments during the conference on February 30, 2023, in Geneva, the amount pledged remains well below the organisation’s target of US$4.3 billion.
The conflict in Yemen started in 2014 when Iranian-backed Houthi rebels – representing the country’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority – seized the capital, Sanaa. The war intensified in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition intervened on behalf of the government against the Houthis.
Owing to repeated Saudi-led bombardment campaigns and deep territorial divisions (half of the country remains under Houthi control in the north and the other half under government control in the south), Yemen’s economy has ground to a halt.
Last year, exogenous factors also led to steep falls in Yemen’s Rial relative to the U.S. dollar, pushing inflation up to 45 percent. Elsewhere, food prices surged by 58 percent. In 2022, 13 million people in Yemen relied on the UN’s World Food Program for basic staples.
To date, the conflict has killed more than 375,000 people, sixty percent from indirect causes (mainly from malnutrition and disease). The war has also razed the country’s civilian and physical infrastructure, including its oil sector – Yemen’s only source of foreign exchange.
Last year, warring parties agreed to an UN-brokered cease-fire. Though it expired in October, the six-month truce led to a reduction in casualties. It also enabled commercial traffic to flow through the port of Hodeida, increasing the supply of goods and aid into the country.
A slight improvement in food security at the end of last year meant two million fewer Yemenis suffered from acute hunger. The number of people in famine-like conditions also dropped from 161,000 to zero. But progress remains fragile.
Yemen continues to rely on foreign aid. “More than 21 million people, or two-thirds of the country’s population, will need humanitarian assistance in 2023,” said UN secretary-general António Guterres.
Among those in need, more than 17 million are understood to be living below Yemen’s poverty line. Meanwhile, an estimated 4.5 million Yemenis are internally displaced, largely due to climate-change-related events.
According to the UN, Yemen is “highly vulnerable” to the effects of rising global temperatures (notably arid weather). In recent years, severe droughts have exacerbated food shortages caused by the war.
Yemen Remains in Need of External Support
The UN’s US$4.3 billion funding objective is nearly double what it received last year. Looking ahead, reliance on external aid will be particularly acute in 2023 due to constrained oil exports linked to Houthi attacks on government-held oil terminals last October.
This week’s conference took place as the country’s rival groups agreed to an informal suspension of hostilities. Efforts are underway to declare a lasting peace after the parties failed to extend their UN-backed peace agreement last year.
“We have a real opportunity to change Yemen’s trajectory and move toward peace by renewing and expanding the truce,” noted Guterres at the pledging event, co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland.
The meeting was attended by officials worldwide, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. In his speech, Blinken called on donors to step up their contributions, citing last year’s funding shortages.
The UN missed its financing target for Yemen by US$2 billion last year. Blinken also urged the international community to help restore Yemen’s economy, suggesting this would “reduce people’s suffering over the long term.”
“Large-scale investment will be needed to rebuild Yemen’s physical infrastructure. Securing peace, however, remains the top priority. “Without it, millions will continue to face extreme levels of poverty, hunger and suffering,” added Blinken.
Meanwhile, the UN secretary-general warned that aid funding would not provide a panacea for Yemen.
“Humanitarian assistance is a band-aid. It saves people’s lives but cannot resolve the conflict itself.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
Mangroves in Tai O, Hong Kong. Coastal wetland protection and restoration is an example of the kind of multifunctional solution that is needed to address multiple global crises together. Credit: Chunyip Wong / iStock
Opinion by Paula Harrison – Pamela McElwee – David Obura (bonn)
Inter Press Service
BONN, Mar 02 (IPS) – When global crises are interlinked, they overlap and compound each other. In such cases, the most effective solutions are those that work at the nexus of all these challenges.
In September, almost every Government on Earth will gather at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York to take stock at the halfway mark of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of what has been achieved and what remains to be done.
Despite some progress, global development efforts have been hamstrung by unprecedented environmental, social and economic crises, in particular biodiversity loss and climate change, compounded of course by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tackling these interlinked challenges separately risks creating situations even more damaging to people and communities around the world, and exacerbates the already high risk of not meeting the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This is especially true because the myriad drivers of risk and damage affect many different sectors at once, across scales from local to global, and can result in negative impacts being compounded. For example, when demands for food and timber combine with the effects of pollution and climate change, they can decimate already degraded ecosystems, driving species to extinction and severely reducing nature’s contributions to people.
The global food system offers another example of this negative spiral of interlocking crises – where food that is produced unsustainably leads to water overconsumption and waste, pollution, increased health risks and loss of biodiversity. It also leads to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change.
Yet policies often treat each of these global threats in isolation, resulting in separate, uncoordinated actions that typically address only one of the root causes and fail to take advantage of the many potential solution synergies. In the worst cases, actions taken on one challenge directly undermine those needed to tackle another because they fail to account for trade-offs, resulting in unintended consequences, or the impacts being externalised, as someone else’s problem.
This is why almost 140 Governments turned to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – requesting IPBES to undertake a major multiyear assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health in the context of the rapidly-changing climate. This ‘Nexus Assessment’ is among the most complex and important expert assessments ever undertaken – crossing key biophysical domains of climate and biodiversity and elements central to human wellbeing like food, water and health. It will also address how interactions are affected by energy, pollution, conflict and other socio-political challenges.
To fully address this ‘nexus’, the assessment is considering interactions across scales, geographic regions and ecosystems. It also covers past, present and future trends in these interlinkages. And, most importantly, it will offer concrete options for responses to the crises that address the interactions of risk and damage jointly and equitably – providing a vital set of possible solutions for the more sustainable future we want for people and our planet.
One example of the mutifunctional solutions that will be explored is nature-based solutions – such as coastal wetland protection and restoration. When coastal wetland ecosystems are healthy – whether conserved or where necessary, restored – they are a refuge and habitat for biodiversity, improving fish stocks for greater food security and contributing to improve human health and wellbeing. They can also sequester carbon, helping to mitigate climate change, and protect adjacent communities and settlements from flooding and sea level rise.
To develop and implement these kinds of multi-functional solutions, responses for dealing with the major global crises need to be better coordinated, integrated, and made more synergistic across sectors, both public and private. Decision-makers at all levels need better evidence and knowledge to implement such solutions.
Work on the nexus assessment began in 2021 – with the final report expected to be considered and adopted by IPBES member States in 2024. A majority of the 170 expert authors and review editors from around the world are meeting in March in the Kruger National Park in South Africa to further strengthen the draft report, responding to the many thousands of comments received during a first external review period.
The assessment will also include evidence and expertise contributed by indigenous peoples and local communities – whose rich and varied direct experiences and knowledge systems that consider humans and nature as an interconnected whole have embodied a nexus approach for generations.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the recently-agreed Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework provide the roadmaps for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. The IPBES nexus assessment will offer policymakers a practical guide to bridge the vital interlinkages across the two challenges, to other relevant frameworks, and link to the sustainable development agenda.
For more information about IPBES or about the ongoing progress on the nexus assessment, go to www.ipbes.net or follow @ipbes on social media.
Prof. Paula Harrison is a Principal Natural Capital Scientist and Professor of Land and Water Modelling at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, United Kingdom.
Prof. Pamela McElwee is a Professor in the Department of Human Ecology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA.
Dr. David Obura is a Founding Director of CORDIO (Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean) East Africa, Kenya.
US weapons to Ukraine include 100 M-113 armored personnel carriers and 50 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles. Credit: US Department of Defense (DoD)
by Thalif Deen (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 27 (IPS) – The overwhelming political, economic and military support for war-ravaged Ukraine seems never ending—even as the Russian invasion moved into its second-year last week.
The US and Western allies have vowed to help Ukraine “as long as necessary” with no reservations or deadlines.
According to a report in the New York Times last week, the total amount of US humanitarian, financial and military aid approved for Ukraine has risen to a hefty $113 billion.
But still, it has been never enough, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky keeps asking for “more, more, more — and faster, faster, faster.”
Asked how much longer this would continue – and perhaps reach $200 billion or $300 billion over the years?– US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said: “This is going to have to go on as long as it takes for Ukraine to defend itself and for Russia to stop its aggression against Ukraine”.
In an Interview with Roland Martin on the Black Star Network, she said: “And I think we’ve heard it said over and over again: freedom is not free. We have to pay for freedom. We have to fight for freedom. And that’s what we’re fighting for”.
“Ukraine is a smaller country having been attacked by a larger neighbor. Russia is a bully, and if Russia gets away with bullying Ukraine, then who will be next? And then who will be next after that? And suddenly we’re all engaged in this,” she declared.
The rising costs of the war in Ukraine comes amid complaints from the United Nations of a massive shortfall in funding, mostly from rich donor nations, for sustainable development, including climate change and the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2030.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the world is failing to protect people from the disastrous impacts of climate change—particularly in the world’s poorer countries.
“Adaptation needs in the developing world are set to skyrocket to as much as $340 billion a year by 2030. Yet adaptation support today stands at less than one-tenth of that amount,” he said last November.
“The most vulnerable people and communities are paying the price. This is unacceptable,” he declared. According to a UN report released last year, progress on climate adaptation has been “slow and spotty”.
Since Russia’s invasion last February, Ukraine has become far and away the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
“It’s the first time that a European country has held the top spot since the Harry S. Truman administration directed vast sums into rebuilding the continent through the Marshall Plan after World War II”, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The uninterrupted flow of US and Western weapons has also triggered a debate among academics and civil society organizations (CSOs).
But defense contractors argue it has boosted the American arms industry and will provide employment to hundreds and thousands.
Dr. Natalie J. Goldring, a Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, told IPS there are huge risks in an endless continued supply of military materiel to Ukraine.
“Although the Biden administration asserts that the government of Ukraine has committed not to transfer the weapons we’re supplying to other countries or unauthorized users, that’s not the only risk associated with these transfers,” she added.
There is a significant risk of weapons being stolen or captured. The more weapons that are transferred, the more difficult it is to assure that they aren’t falling into the wrong hands, she warned.
It’s not at all clear how the US government thinks that this war will end, or when. In a recent interview, UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stated, “This is going to have to go on as long as it takes for Ukraine to defend itself and for Russia to stop its aggression against Ukraine.”
“That statement seems to assume that Ukraine can win this conflict, but doesn’t indicate whether US officials think that this is likely to take weeks, months, or years.”
“It also doesn’t make clear what it means for Ukraine to defend itself. Does that mean gaining back all of the territory lost in the last year, all of the territory lost since 2014, or something else?” asked Dr Goldring, who also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations on conventional weapons and arms trade issues.
Meanwhile, the White House released its long-awaited Conventional Arms Transfer policy on February 23, 2023.
One highlight of the policy is the establishment of the standard that the United States will not authorize arms transfers when the US government assesses that “it is more likely than not” that the arms transferred would be used to commit or facilitate the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law.
The Biden administration’s new conventional arms transfer policy raises the standard for US arms transfers. This is evident in contrast with a State Department fact sheet issued just three days earlier that dealt with using Presidential drawdown authority to release materiel from Defense Department stocks.
That fact sheet had a significantly lower standard: “…the Department works to ensure assistance does not go to units credibly implicated in gross violations of human rights.”
Elaborating further, Dr Goldring said that US military contractors continue to profit extensively from the war. Remarkably, they’re even willing to admit publicly that the war suits their business purposes.
Last week, at an international arms exposition in Abu Dhabi, a US defense contractor told CNBC that “From our perspective, Putin is the best weapons salesman there is.”
This ghoulish statement, she pointed out, treats weapons sales as simply another commodity to be sold, like computers or toasters. It doesn’t consider the human costs when these weapons are used.
The Biden administration’s new conventional arms transfer policy has welcome language on giving human rights concerns a higher priority when deciding whether to transfer weapons.
But the real test will be how the policy is applied. Which transfers that were previously approved would not be allowed now? Will this new policy have any effect on the seemingly open-ended supply of weapons to Ukraine?, asked Dr Goldring.
A Fact Sheet from the US State Department provides a long list of American weapons to Ukraine, including: 20 Mi-17 helicopters; 31 Abrams tanks; 45 T-72B tanks; 109 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles; Over 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft systems; Over 8,500 Javelin anti-armor systems; Over 54,000 other anti-armor systems and munitions; Over 700 Switchblade tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems; 160 155mm Howitzers and over 1,000,000 155mm artillery rounds; Over 6,000 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds; Over 13,000 grenade launchers and small arms; Over 100,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition; Over 75,000 sets of body armor and helmets; and approximately 1,800 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems.
The Western European states have collectively pledged over $50 billion in financial aid, and played host to more than eight million refugees from Ukraine.
As of September 9, 2022, nearly 50 allies and partner countries have provided security assistance to Ukraine.
Among their many contributions to Ukraine, were 10 long-range Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), 178 long-range artillery systems, nearly 100,000 rounds of long-range artillery ammunition, nearly 250,000 anti-tank munitions, 359 tanks, 629 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), 8,214 short-range air defense missiles, and 88 lethal UAVs.
Youth represents more than 39 percent of the registered 93,4 million voters in Nigeria. Credit: INEC, Nigeria
by IPS Correspondent (abuja)
Inter Press Service
ABUJA, Feb 24 (IPS) – From all indications, President Muhammadu Buhari will be handing over a fractured nation that is deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines when he formally hands over to his successor on May 29, 2023. This would-be successor will be inheriting a country mired in economic woes threatening its corporate existence if he’s not assuming the job prepared to address these problems headlong.
Since the inauguration of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the forthcoming poll slated for February 25, 2023, will be the most challenging in so many ways.
Besides the fact that the three leading presidential candidates – Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is Yoruba, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) is Hausa/Fulani, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party is of Igbo ethnic stock, tribe, and religion after all, may not be the deciding factors in who wins at the poll.
Nigeria, the once giant of Africa, is at a tipping point. Almost all the economic indicators are negative. The security of lives and property is at its lowest. Non-state actors are having a field day.
With a more than 33 percent unemployment rate, the national currency severally devalued, the inflationary rate as of the end of January this year put at 21.8% by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), corruption index spiraling with the organized theft of the nation’s major foreign exchange earner – earner crude oil, at an all-time high, the outgoing administration is suffering trust deficit.
National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), Emmanuel Onwubiko
The picture is grim if one considers the agitation by some ethnic nationalities, such as the outlawed Independent People Of Biafra (IPOB) and Oduduwa Ethnic Nationality Movement pushing for a breakaway as independent states.
Worse still, the insecurity and banditry ravaging Northern parts of the country pose a significant challenge. The porous borders, especially in the northern flank, coupled with climate change and the aftermath of the crisis in Libya, have heightened insecurity in the country. Consequently, the herders/farmers clashes and kidnapping for ransom have made the country a doubtful destination for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
The business climate does not favor local investors, either. They are instead migrating offshore to invest, leaving an army of unemployed university graduates to roam the streets in search of non-available jobs.
In November 2022, the Nigerian government announced that 133 million Nigerians out of an estimated population of 211 million are living in multidimensional poverty. The #EndSars protest of October 2020, which was triggered by Police brutality of the civilian populace, even though it was a non-partisan protest, reawakened youth consciousness in the polity.
Its organization and execution of the goals, especially in mobilizing youths across most parts of the country, indicated that if mobilized under a political platform, these youths can play a determining role in political leadership.
Indeed, out of the 93.5 million registered voters by the Electoral Commission, the youth demography is about 70 percent. The implication of this demographic dominance is that votes cast by youths could largely decide the outcome of the February 25 presidential poll.
Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Head of Transparency International (Nigeria), Auwal Ibrahim Musa
Per the Electoral Act 2022, the three leading presidential candidates have been on roadshows, traversing the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, wooing voters.
Remarkably, the ordinarily dominant campaign issues of religion and tribe have largely been relegated to the background, with the twin issues of economy and insecurity taking center stage.
The nation’s economy is in a parlous state, with insecurity ravaging most parts of the country.
Corrupt practices are mutating in all the subsectors of the economy, while the unemployment rate is at an all-time high.
National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), Emmanuel Onwubiko, warns that voters should not be carried away by soapbox promises by these candidates. Instead, he advises that voters be guided by their antecedents concerning the country’s socioeconomic problems.
“I think what Nigerians need to look at before making their choices is the antecedents of the candidates vis-à-vis the socioeconomic reality on the ground and the prospect of proffering solutions whether in the short- or long-term. These qualities will include accountability, competence, capacity, and capability to accomplish what they promise.”
The Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Head of Transparency International (Nigeria), Auwal Ibrahim Musa, fears that the electorate is not presented with various genuine choices given the processes that threw up some of these candidates.
Nonetheless, Musa challenges the electorates to vote for “a candidate who possesses the capacity and capability to pull the country from the brink.
“It’s important that Nigerians do not elect a person who’ll mortgage their future, loot our common patrimony and trample on the Rule of Law. It’s instructive that they do not vote for a person with liability, so the International community will not laugh at us. Nigeria is a key player in the comity of nations, and it will be pleasing if she gets the right leadership.”
Whether this poll is decided on the first ballot or runs into a run-off, besides being a referendum on the ruling All Progressive Congress, whoever wins will inherit a prostrate country that needs quick fixes to retain its corporate existence.
LONDON, Feb 24 (IPS) – Over the year since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine, on one side of the border civil society has shown itself to be a vital part of the effort to save lives and protect rights – but on the other, it’s been repressed more ruthlessly than ever.
Ukraine’s civil society is doing things it never imagined it would. An immense voluntary effort has seen people step forward to provide help.
Overnight, relief programmes and online platforms to raise funds and coordinate aid sprang up. Numerous initiatives are evacuating people from occupied areas, rehabilitating wounded civilians and soldiers and repairing damaged buildings. Support Ukraine Now is coordinating support, mobilising a community of activists in Ukraine and abroad and providing information on how to donate, volunteer and help Ukrainian refugees in host countries.
In a war in which truth is a casualty, many responses are trying to offer an accurate picture of the situation. Among these are the 2402 Fund, providing safety equipment and training to journalists so they can report on the war, and the Freefilmers initiative, which has built a solidarity network of independent filmmakers to tell independent stories of the struggle in Ukraine.
Alongside these have come efforts to gather evidence of human rights violations, such as the Ukraine 5am Coalition, bringing together human rights networks to document war crimes and crimes against humanity, and OSINT for Ukraine, where students and other young people collect evidence of atrocities.
The hope is to one day hold Putin and his circle to account for their crimes. The evidence collected by civil society could be vital for the work of United Nations monitoring mechanisms and the International Criminal Court investigation launched last March.
As is so often the case in times of crisis, women are playing a huge role: overwhelmingly it’s men who’ve taken up arms, leaving women taking responsibility for pretty much everything else. Existing civil society organisations (CSOs) have been vital too, quickly repurposing their resources towards the humanitarian and human rights response.
Ukraine is showing that an investment in civil society, as part of the essential social fabric, is an investment in resilience. It can quite literally mean the difference between life and death. Continued support is needed so civil society can maintain its energy and be ready to play its full part in rebuilding the country and democracy once the war is over.
Russia’s crackdown
Vladimir Putin also knows what a difference an enabled and active civil society can make, which is why he’s moved to further shut down Russia’s already severely restricted civic space.
One of the latest victims is Meduza, one of the few remaining independent media outlets. In January it was declared an ‘undesirable organisation’. This in effect bans the company from operating in Russia and criminalises anyone who even shares a link to its content.
Independent broadcaster TV Rain and radio station Echo of Moscow were earlier victims, both blocked last March. They continue broadcasting online, as Meduza will keep working from its base in Latvia, but their reach across Russia and ability to provide independent news to a public otherwise fed a diet of Kremlin disinformation and propaganda is sharply diminished.
It’s all part of Putin’s attempt to control the narrative. Last March a law was passed imposing long jail sentences for spreading what the state calls ‘false information’ about the war. Even calling it a war is a criminal act.
The dangers were made clear when journalist Maria Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in jail over a Telegram post criticising the Russian army’s bombing of a theatre where people were sheltering in Mariupol last March. She’s one of a reported 141 people so far prosecuted for spreading supposedly ‘fake’ information about the Russian army.
CSOs are in the firing line too. The latest targeted is the Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia’s oldest human rights organisation. In January, a court ordered its shutdown. Several other CSOs have been forced out of existence.
In December an enhanced law on ‘foreign agents’ came into force, giving the state virtually unlimited power to brand any person or organisation who expresses dissent as a ‘foreign agent’, a label that stigmatises them.
The state outrageously mischaracterises its imperial war as a fight against the imposition of ‘western values’, making LGBTQI+ people another convenient target. In November a law was passed widening the state’s restriction of what it calls ‘LGBT propaganda’. Already the impacts are being felt with heavy censorship and the disappearance of LGBTQI+ people from public life.
The chilling effect of all these repressive measures and systematic disinformation have helped damp down protest pressure.
But despite expectation of detention and violence, people have protested. Thousands took to the streets across Russia to call for peace as the war began. Further protests came on Russia’s Independence Day in June and in September, following the introduction of a partial mobilisation of reservists.
Criminalisation has been the predictable response: over 19,500 people have so far been detained at anti-war protests. People have been arrested even for holding up blank signs in solo protests.
It’s clear there are many Russians Putin doesn’t speak for. One day his time will end and there’ll be a need to rebuild Russia’s democracy. The reconstruction will need to come from the ground up, with investment in civil society. Those speaking out, whether in Russia or in exile, need to be supported as the future builders of Russian democracy.
“A child in North Syria passing by the ruins, after the earthquake hit his town.” – Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
by Baher Kamal (madrid)
Inter Press Service
MADRID, Feb 23 (IPS) – While the world’s biggest powers and their giant private corporations continue to attach high priority to their military –and commercial– dominance, both of them being shockingly profitable, entire generations are being lost to deadly armed conflicts, devastating climate catastrophes, diseases, hunger and more imposed impoverishment.
Part I of this series of two articles focussed on the unprecedented suffering of the most innocent and helpless human beings – children– in 11 countries. But there are many more.
According to the UN Children Fund (UNICEF), hundreds of thousands of children continue to pay the highest price of a mixture of man-made brutalities, with their lives, apart from the unfolding proxy war in Ukraine, and the not yet final account of victims of the Türkiye and Syria earthquakes, which are forcing children to sleep in the streets under the rumble, amid the chilling cold.
Nigeria
Nigeria is just one of the already reported cases of 11 countries. UNICEF on 11 February 2023 appealed for 1.3 billion US dollars to stop what it calls “the ticking bomb of child malnutrition.”
The appeal is meant to help six million people severely affected by conflict, disease, and disaster in Northeast Nigeria.
“The large-scale humanitarian and protection crisis shows no sign of abating,” said Matthias Schmale, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria. “An estimated 2.4 million people are in acute need – impacted by conflict, disaster and disease – and require urgent support.”
The “ticking time bomb” of child malnutrition is escalating in Nigeria’s Northeast, with the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition projected to increase to two million in 2023, up from 1.74 million last year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.
Already high levels of severe acute malnutrition are projected to more than double from 2022 to a projected 697,000 this year. Women and girls are the hardest hit, said Schmale.
“Over 80% of people in need of humanitarian assistance across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are women and children. They face increased risks of violence, abduction, rape and abuse.”
The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Nderitu raised concerns about a worsening security situation, calling for urgent action to address conflicts and prevent “atrocity crimes.”
Urgent immediate actions must be taken now, both to address the crisis in the short-term and long-term. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
Horn of Africa: the suffering of over 20 million children
By the end of 2022, UNICEF warned of a funding shortfall as the region faces an unprecedented fifth consecutive failed rainy season and a poor outlook for the sixth.
The number of children suffering dire drought conditions across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia has “more than doubled in five months,” according to UNICEF.
“Around 20.2 million children are now facing the threat of severe hunger, thirst and disease, compared to 10 million in July , as climate change, conflict, global inflation and grain shortages devastate the region.”
While collective and accelerated efforts have mitigated some of the worst impacts of what had been feared, “children in the Horn of Africa are still facing the most severe drought in more than two generations,” said UNICEF Deputy Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Lieke van de Wiel.
“Humanitarian assistance must be continued to save lives and build the resilience of the staggering number of children and families who are being pushed to the edge – dying from hunger and disease and being displaced in search of food, water and pasture for their livestock.”
More than two million people are displaced internally because of drought.
Water insecurity has more than doubled with close to 24 million people now confronting dire water shortages.
Approximately 2.7 million children are out of school because of the drought, with an additional estimated 4 million children at risk of dropping out.
As families are driven to the edge dealing with increased stress, children face a range of protection risks – including child labour, child marriage and female genital mutilation.
Gender-based violence, including sexual violence, exploitation and abuse, is also increasing due to widespread food insecurity and displacement.
UNICEF’s 2023 emergency appeal of US$759 million to provide life-saving support to children and their families will require timely and flexible funding support, especially in the areas of education, water and sanitation, and child protection, which were ”severely underfunded” during UNICEF’s 2022 response.
An additional US$690 million is required to support long-term investments to help children and their families to recover and adapt to climate change.
Meanwhile, more unfolding tragedies for children
The above-reported suffering for the most defenceless human beings–children, does not end here. Indeed, two more major tragedies continue unfolding. Such is the case of the brutal proxy war in Ukraine and the most destructive earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.
“A child in North Syria passing by the ruins, after the earthquake hit his town.” – Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
Türkiye-Syria Earthquakes
A steady flow of UN aid trucks filled with vital humanitarian relief continues to cross the border from Southern Türkiye into Northwest Syria to help communities enduring “terrible trauma” caused by the earthquake disaster, UN aid teams on 17 February 2023 reported.
As UN aid convoys continue to deliver more relief to quake-hit Northwest Syria via additional land routes from Türkiye, UN humanitarians warned that “many thousands of children have likely been killed,” while millions more vulnerable people urgently need support.
“Even without verified numbers, it’s tragically clear the number of children killed, the number of children orphaned is going to keep on rising,” on 14 February 2023 said UN Children Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder.
In Türkiye, the total number of children living in the 10 provinces before the emergency was 4.6 million, and 2.5 million in Syria.
And as the humanitarian focus shifts from rescue to recovery, eight days after the disaster, Elder warned that cases of “hypothermia and respiratory infections” were rising among youngsters, as he appealed for continued solidarity with all those affected by the emergency.
“Everyone, everywhere, needs more support, more safe water, more warmth, more shelter, more fuel, more medicines, more funding,” he said.
“Families with children are sleeping in streets, malls, mosques, schools, under bridges, staying out in the open for fear of returning to their homes.”
“Unimaginable hardship”
“The children and families of Türkiye and Syria are facing unimaginable hardship in the aftermath of these devastating earthquakes,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“We must do everything in our power to ensure that everyone who survived this catastrophe receives life-saving support, including safe water, sanitation, critical nutrition and health supplies, and support for children’s mental health. Not only now, but over the long term.”
The number of children killed and injured during the quakes and their aftermath has not yet been confirmed but is likely to be in the many thousands. The official total death toll has now passed 45,000.
Freezing
Many families have lost their homes and are now living in temporary shelters, “often in freezing conditions and with snow and rain adding to their suffering.” Access to safe water and sanitation is also a major concern, as are the health needs of the affected population.
Hundreds of thousands of people have seen their homes, businesses or schools damaged or destroyed while continuing attacks on critical energy infrastructure have left millions of children without sustained access to electricity, heating and water.
The list of brutalities committed against the world’s children goes on. The funds desperately needed to save their lives represent a tiny faction of all that is being spent on wars.
MADRID, Feb 22 (IPS) – Today, there are more children in need of desperate humanitarian assistance than at any other time since World War II.
“Across the globe, children and their families are facing a deadly mix of crises, from conflict and displacement to disease, outbreaks and soaring rates of malnutrition. Meanwhile, climate change is making these crises worse and unleashing new ones.”
Tragically enough, UNICEF – the world’s body which was created in the aftermath of the Second World War to save the lives of millions of children who fell prey to the devastating weapons used by their own continent: Europe – could not depict more accurately the current situation of the most innocent humans.
The UN Children Fund in fact reports on the pressing need to provide life-saving help to millions of children trapped in continuing atrocities committed by adults.
Unprecedented flooding in South Sudan has taken a devastating toll on families. Crops have been destroyed, grazing spaces for cattle and other livestock have been submerged and families have been forced to flee their homes.
With hunger and malnutrition on the rise across the flooded regions, some communities are likely to face starvation without sustained humanitarian assistance.
UNICEF is working to screen and treat children with severe acute malnutrition, also known as severe wasting – the most lethal form of undernutrition, and one of the top threats to child survival. Read the latest appeal for South Sudan
Yemen
After eight years of conflict, the systems that Yemen’s families depend on remain on the edge of total collapse. More than 23.4 million people, including 12.9 million children, have, so far, fallen victim to such a brutal war.
In addition, more than 11,000 children have been killed or maimed since 2015, while conflict, massive displacement and recurring climate shocks have left more than 2 million children “acutely malnourished and struggling to survive.” Read the latest appeal for Yemen
Haiti
Political turmoil, civil unrest and gang violence, crippling poverty and natural disasters, a deadly combination of threats are already posing a massive challenge for families in Haiti. A surge in cholera in 2022 is posing yet another risk for children’s health – and their lives.
“There is an urgent need to step up efforts to protect families against cholera by delivering cholera kits and water purifying tablets and trucking in clean water.”
To contain malnutrition, UNICEF is also screening children for wasting to ensure that those who need help can be treated in mobile clinics and other facilities. Read the latest appeal for Haiti
DR Congo
An escalation in armed conflict and recurrent outbreaks of deadly diseases are taking a heavy toll on millions of children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The country hosts the “second-highest number of internally displaced people in the world.”
A father and son remove their belonging from their flooded home in Taluka, Shujabad, District Mirpurkhas, Pakistan. Credit: RDF
Pakistan
The rains that brought historic flooding to much of Pakistan in 2022 may have ended, but the crisis for children has not.
Months after floods ravaged the country, vast swathes of cropland and villages remain under water, while millions of girls and boys are still in need of immediate lifesaving support.
Around 8 million people are still exposed to flood waters or living close to flooded areas. “Many of these families are still living in makeshift tents alongside the road or near the rubble of their home – often in the open, right next to contaminated and stagnant water.”
Political fragility, the impacts of climate change and economic and health crises have contributed to the internal displacement of around 1.7 million people in Burkina Faso – 60% of them are children.
“The anxiety, depression and other stress-related problems associated with displacement can take a lifelong toll on children’s emotional and physical health.” Read the latest appeal for Burkina Faso
Rohingya IDPs confined to a Sittwe camp in Rakhine State wait for international intervention. More than 1.5 million people are displaced in Myanmar. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS
Myanmar
Deepening conflict in Myanmar continues to impact children and their families, with some 5.6 million children in need of humanitarian assistance.
The conflict has undermined the delivery of child health services, including routine immunisation, threatening to take a long-lasting toll on children’s health and well-being. Read the latest appeal for Myanmar
Palestine
“Children in the State of Palestine continue to face a protracted protection crisis and an ongoing occupation.” Around 2.1 million people – more than half of them children – now require humanitarian assistance.
Since 2009, UNICEF has been supporting family centres across the Gaza Strip to provide psychosocial care for children.
Children in need of more specialised services – such as those facing violence at home, school or work – are provided with a case manager who works directly with them and their families. Read the latest appeal for the State of Palestine
Bangladesh
As the Rohingya refugee crisis enters its fifth year, Bangladesh still hosts hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who settled in the Cox’s Bazar District after fleeing “extreme violence” in Myanmar.
While basic services have been provided in the camps, “children still face disease outbreaks, malnutrition, inadequate educational opportunities and other risks like exploitation and violence.” Read the latest appeal for Bangladesh
Syria
The situation was already dire far earlier to the recent earthquakes. In fact, “more than a decade of humanitarian crises and hostilities has left children in Syria facing one of the most complex emergencies in the world.”
“Two thirds of the population require assistance” due to the worsening economic crisis, continued localised hostilities, mass displacement and devastated public infrastructure.
The conflict has seen one of the largest education crises in recent history, with “a whole generation of Syrian children paying a devastating price.” Read the latest appeal for Syria
Kenya
Four failed rainy seasons in a row have left Kenya experiencing its worst drought in 40 years. Without water, crops cannot grow, and animals and livestock die.
The resulting loss of nutritious food, combined with poor sanitation, has left “hundreds of thousands of children requiring treatment for wasting.”
Children with wasting are too thin and their immune systems are weak, leaving them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death. Read the latest appeal for Kenya
Millions more
In addition to these 11 nations so far identified by UNICEF as needing urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance, with millions of children being the most vulnerable, there are several other countries where they live in dire situations, on which IPS reports in Part II of this two-part series.
Rohingya IDPs confined to a Sittwe camp in Rakhine State wait for international intervention. More than 1.5 million people are displaced in Myanmar. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS
by Guy Dinmore, Thompson Chau (bangkok)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Feb 21 (IPS) – Nearly 18 million people – about one-third of Myanmar’s population – need humanitarian aid this year because of civil war and the post-coup economic crisis, according to the latest United Nations estimates.
The numbers needing support continue to rise from the estimated 14 million people needing aid last year. More than 10,000 people were displaced by fighting in southern Kayin State in early January alone, joining more than 1.5 million IDPs across the country.
The UN says it recognises the urgent need to remain in Myanmar and step up humanitarian operations, but it is caught between a hostile military junta imposing restrictions on its activities and a loose network of resistance groups accusing the world body of legitimising an illegal regime.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also facing increasing criticism for his apparent hands-off leadership in the crisis.
“Almost 18 million people – nearly one-third of the Myanmar population – are estimated to be in humanitarian need nationwide in 2023, with conflict continuing to threaten the lives of civilians in many parts of the country,” said Ramanathan Balakrishnan, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Myanmar.
He told IPS that international and local humanitarian aid organisations are “using a range of approaches” in different areas and had reached over four million people in 2022 despite severe underfunding and what he called “heavy bureaucratic and access constraints”.
Balakrishnan defended the importance of the UN’s engagement with General Min Aung Hlaing’s regime, which has ruthlessly crushed dissent since seizing power two years ago and overthrowing the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
“Principled engagement with all sides is a must to negotiate access and also to advocate on key protection issues. Advocacy to stop the heavy fighting and airstrikes in populated areas that are threatening the safety of both civilians and aid workers is as important as reaching people in need with humanitarian aid,” he said.
Aid workers accuse the junta of further restricting aid operations and blocking urgently needed aid from reaching millions of people. The regime admitted this month it cannot effectively administer about one-third of Myanmar’s townships. But it is able to choke access to some areas controlled by resistance groups and ethnic armed organisations that have been fighting the military for decades.
The junta is seeking to impose its authority with a new law making registration compulsory for national and international non-governmental organizations and associations and introducing criminal penalties for non-registered entities with up to five years of imprisonment.
“Civic space has been decimated in the country already due to the military’s actions, particularly its systematic harassment, arrest, and prosecution of anyone who opposed their coup,” said James Rodehaver, chief of the UN Human Rights Office for South-East Asia (OHCHR) Myanmar Team. “These new rules could greatly diminish what operational space is left for civic organisations to deliver essential goods and services to a population that is struggling to survive.”
Muslim Rohingya IDPs wait for aid to be unloaded in Pawktaw camp in Rakhine State, an hour by boat from the main city of Sittwe. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS
Many of the more than one million refugees outside Myanmar also need help. Most are stateless Rohingya Muslims forced out of Rakhine State into Bangladesh in waves of ethnic cleansing before the 2021 coup, with many held in border camps.
The UN’s reputation was already battered before the coup over its handling of the long-festering Rohingya crisis in which it was accused by aid workers and activists of being too accommodating with the Myanmar military. And it has come under further fire since.
In a joint letter last September, more than 600 Burmese civil society organisations said they “condemn in the strongest terms the recent public signing of new agreements and presenting of letters of appointment to the illegitimate Myanmar military junta by UN agencies, funds, programmes and other entities working inside Myanmar.”
“We call on you and all UN entities to immediately cease all forms of cooperation and engagement that lends legitimacy to the illegal, murderous junta,” said the letter addressed to the UN Secretary-General. The signatories argued that letters of appointment and agreements should be presented to what they regard as the legitimate government of Myanmar – the parallel National Unity Government established by ousted lawmakers – and “ethnic revolutionary organisations.”
A Myanmar researcher specialising in civil society and international assistance highlighted the role of Burmese CSOs in delivering aid. “Local CSOs comprehend the complexity of specific local needs in the current crisis as the communities they serve struggle with security concerns and essential public services, including healthcare and education,” said the researcher, who goes by the name Kyaw Swar for fear of security reprisals.
He said that donors and foreign organisations had adopted risk aversion arrangements post-coup, referring to UN and INGO’s costs for capacity-building components and disproportionate country-office operations. “Local CSOs have fewer operations, and risk management options have no choice but to channel international aid to their respective communities.”
UN officials reject the notion that they are legitimising the regime and insist that only by operating in the junta-controlled heartland and also through cross-border assistance can aid be delivered to a substantial part of the population in desperate need.
“The UN finds itself in an almost existential bind. It can’t engage with an oppressive regime without being seen to condone its actions,” commented Charles Petrie, former UN Assistant Secretary-General and former UN chief in Myanmar.
“Somehow, the UN’s senior leadership needs to convince all that engaging in a dialogue with a pariah regime is not the same as supporting it and that it should be judged on the outcome of the discussions rather than being condemned for the simple fact of engaging,” he said.
“But being able to do so successfully implies that it has the level of credibility that right now it still needs to rebuild,” he added.
Questions have also been raised about the apparent lack of hands-on leadership on the part of Guterres. The UN Secretary-General seems to have made little personal intervention beyond routine statements, such as the latest marking the second anniversary of the coup in which he condemned “all forms of violence” and said he “continues to stand in solidarity with the people of Myanmar and to support their democratic aspirations for an inclusive, peaceful and just society and the protection of all communities, including the Rohingya.”
Since the coup and despite the unfolding humanitarian crisis, Guterres is seen as having taken a back seat and delegating to two successive special envoys. This stands in contrast to his predecessor Ban Ki-moon who actively intervened during the Cyclone Nargis disaster in 2008, personally meeting then-junta leader General Than Shwe and negotiating the opening of Myanmar to aid workers.
Petrie suggested Guterres should take a page out of Ban’s book and provide much more active leadership on Myanmar and be “more openly engaged and supportive of the work done by his special envoy.”
While China and Russia lend military and other support to the junta, much of the rest of the diplomatic world has taken a step back from the Myanmar crisis, leaning instead on ASEAN to assume the lead.
But the 10-member bloc has been ineffective so far. It has coordinated an unprecedented shunning of the junta’s leadership in regional meetings, but neighbouring countries – with their own blemished democratic records – are unwilling to penalise the regime. The ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) has been charged to respond to the humanitarian crisis, but with no success.
Laetitia van den Assum, the former Dutch ambassador to Myanmar and Thailand, said the aid response would have been more effective if ASEAN had set up a partnership between AHA and experienced UN and other organisations.
“That, in fact, is what happened in the aftermath of Nargis, when under the strong leadership of Dr Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN and UN worked in tandem. It took time to put the effort together, but ultimately it took off,” van den Assum told IPS.
As with the UN leadership, Lim Jock Hoi, a Bruneian government official who was ASEAN chief until last month, was barely noticed on the issue of Myanmar, in stark contrast to Pitsuwan, who helped persuade Than Shwe to accept humanitarian assistance in 2008 when Cyclone Nargis killed over 100,000 people.
“UN agencies like OCHA, WFP and UNICEF, as well as many dedicated INGOs, continue to provide assistance, more often than not under difficult circumstances, and with countless Myanmar civil society organisations playing critical roles,” Van den Assum observed.
“But until now, the SAC has stood in the way of more effective aid,” she added. “What is missing is an overall agreement between Myanmar and ASEAN about such assistance, how to expand it and how to guarantee that all those in need are served. ASEAN and AHA have not been able to deliver on this.”
Observers point out that AHA is set up to respond to natural disasters and has no experience in intervening with aid in conflict situations.
“That had already become clear in 2018 when AHA was tasked to make recommendations for ASEAN assistance to northern Rakhine state after the enforced deportation of more than 750,000 Rohingya. The initiative died a slow death,” Van den Assum said.
“AHA was not to blame. Rather, ASEAN politicians had taken a decision without first considering whether it was the most advisable approach,” the veteran diplomat said.
No breakthrough is in sight. The junta has extended a state of emergency for another six months, admitting that it lacks control over many areas for the new elections it says it wants to stage but which have already been widely denounced by the resistance as a sham.
“Heavy fighting, including airstrikes, tight security, access restrictions, and threats against aid workers have continued unabated, particularly in the Southeast, endangering lives and hampering humanitarian operations,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in its latest update.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
