Thailand sends aid to conflict-torn Myanmar

Thailand delivered its first batch of humanitarian aid to conflict-torn Myanmar on Monday, in what officials hope would be a continuing effort to ease the plight of millions of people displaced by fighting.

But critics charge that the aid would benefit only people in areas under the Myanmar junta’s control, providing it with a propaganda boost while leaving the vast majority of displaced people in contested areas without access to assistance.

Myanmar is wracked by a nationwide armed conflict that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule. The fighting has not only displaced millions, but also battered the Southeast Asian country’s economy.

Thailand sent 10 trucks over the border from northwestern Tak province, carrying some 4,000 packages of aid to three towns in Karen state, where it will be distributed to approximately 20,000 displaced people.

The packages, worth about 5 million baht ($138,000), contain mostly food, instant beverages and other basic items such as toiletries.

More than 2.8 million people in Myanmar are displaced, United Nations agencies say, most by fighting that arose after the military coup. They add that 18.6 million people, including 6 million children, require humanitarian aid.

Carl Skau, chief operating officer of the UN’s World Food Program, said earlier this month that one in four of the displaced is at risk of acute food insecurity.

The initiative for what has been called a humanitarian corridor is being carried out by the Thai Red Cross, with funding from Bangkok’s Foreign Ministry and logistical support from the army, which traditionally has played a major role in border activities.

Officials from Thailand and Karen attended a sendoff ceremony, which was presided over by Thai Vice Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow. Myanmar’s Red Cross will distribute the aid.

Drivers from Myanmar took the trucks across the Second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, which crosses the Moei River on the border.

“That corridor puts humanitarian aid into the hands of the junta because it goes into the hands of the junta-controlled Myanmar Red Cross,”Tom Andrews, the UN’s independent human rights expert on Myanmar, said last week.

“So we know that the junta takes these resources, including humanitarian, and weaponizes them, uses them for their own military strategic advantage. The fact of the matter is, is that the reason that humanitarian aid is in such desperate need is precisely because of the junta,” he added.

Andrews also said the areas in desperate need were “conflict areas in which the junta has absolutely no influence or control whatsoever. So those are the areas we need to focus on.”

Large areas of the country, especially frontier areas, are now contested or controlled by anti-military resistance forces, including pro-democracy fighters allied with armed ethnic minority organizations that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades.

Thai officials say the distribution will be monitored by the Asean Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management to ensure it reaches people fairly and equally.