An ad hoc grassroots aid network in Burma has had some success working around the country's repressive leaders.
BurmaThough the junta has attempted to commandeer every level of the
relief effort--backed by its legions of foot soldiers in the army and police--some
local groups have found detours around the blockades, helped by ground-level
officials willing to look the other way. On a Wednesday afternoon last month, a
group of volunteers visited a makeshift shelter in Shwebaukan, an area in the
outlying districts of Rangoon.
Inside a government school--the only concrete building in the neighborhood--500
homeless cyclone victims were huddled, “being threatened by the local army guy [who
was saying] that they could not stay there for long,” according to a Western expatriate
who accompanied the group. The military man turned out to be a member of Suan
Aa Shin, the local “brute force” contingent. Two days later, the victims were
evicted from the school, left to patch together lean-to shacks from the
wreckage of ruined huts.
Despite the clampdown, no one stopped volunteers from
returning to the area the next weekend to pass out rice, beans, and oral
rehydration solution to the evicted residents. The volunteers were able to do
their work because they had an established history with area leaders. Before
the cyclone, they had worked on educational activities in the neighborhood,
building local ties. “Local authorities are in many ways our biggest allies,”
said Beth Jones, program director of the Foundation for the People of Burma (FPB), a
U.S.–based humanitarian group funding some of these grassroots relief efforts.
“They sit on these [township] councils, participate in military activities on
occasion. But there are people who have hearts and minds, concern for their
fellow citizens. They’re the smokescreens between the small civic groups and
the higher-ups who don’t want any of this going on, on the ground.”
Since coming to power in 1962, Burma’s junta has maintained an
unyielding grip on the country’s politics, media outlets, schools, public
gatherings, and commercial industries. Over the past decade, however, it has
conceded limited opportunities for humanitarian and educational activities to
take place. Alongside a small number of international NGOs, a loose network of
local advocates and community leaders has conducted public health campaigns,
cultural programs, and religious activities. The regime has maintained a harsh
and capricious attitude toward these civic groups, frequently cutting off
access and closely monitoring their members. But their work has been
provisionally tolerated, if not openly embraced, so long as the groups steer clear
of politics.