UK to review £100m aid to Burma over regime fears

‘Dramatic change in our engagement’

PENNY Mordaunt last night pledged to review the £100million the UK gives to Burma after MPs said she must do more to ensure it is not falling into the hands of the brutal regime.

The International Development Secretary said money was being redirected to victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

And she vowed that no money would be given directly to the Burmese government, which has been accused of human rights abuses.

It came after the Commons international development select committee called for a ‘dramatic change’ in Britain’s approach to the Burma crisis.

It also called on the Government to admit that Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is ‘becoming part of the problem’. The committee highlighted the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Rohingya Muslim population.

The MPs said the main Department for International Development aid pro- grammes were drawn up at a time of ‘high optimism’ after Miss Suu Kyi became the de facto president in 2016.

‘Since then there has been ethnic cleansing, the breaking of ceasefires, a closing of civil society space, including restrictions on media freedoms and the persecution of journalists, and a reduction in religious freedom,’ the MPs’ report said.

‘The situation has now dramatically changed and as a result we need to see dramatic change in our engagement with Burma.’

The MPs said some would argue the action against the Rohingya population, hundreds of thousands of whom have been forced to flee to Bangladesh, amounted to genocide.

The report added: ‘There also needs to be a recognition by the UK Government that state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi herself is now becoming part of the problem.’

Committee chairman Stephen Twigg said: ‘British taxpayers must be assured that their money is not being used to subsidise a government accused of crimes against humanity.’