US embassy cable - 03RANGOON71

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 RANGOON 000071 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/BCLTV 
BEIJING PASS CHENGDU 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/15/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, EAID, BM, Human Rights, Ethnics, NGO 
SUBJECT: BAD GOVERNANCE HAMPERS UNICEF'S EFFORTS IN BURMA 
 
Classified By: CDA, a.i. RON MCMULLEN FOR REASON 1.5(D) 
 
1.  (C) SUMMARY:  UNICEF's $12m annual program in Burma is 
striving to improve child welfare in a country where 35% of 
children under the age of 5 are malnourished.  It has 
achieved some laudable successes, but overall prospects are 
severely constrained by an inept, illegitimate, and corrupt 
military regime.  DCM participated in a UNICEF-organized trip 
to normally restricted areas of Shan State January 9-12.  End 
Summary. 
 
2.  (SBU) UNICEF'S EFFORTS WELL-RECEIVED IN SHAN STATE: 
UNICEF organized a familiarization visit for diplomats to 
Shan State January 9-12 to coincide with National 
Immunization Day.  The group visited schools, rural clinics, 
and administrative centers southeast of Taunggyi in townships 
normally off limits to foreigners.  These rugged hill tracts 
are populated by non-Burman ethnic groups, particularly Shan 
and Pa-O, that have bridled at rule from Rangoon.  The UNICEF 
group was everywhere warmly received by the local people, who 
appeared genuinely grateful for UNICEF's health and education 
programs. 
 
3.  (U) JAPANESE AID EVIDENT:  The Japanese ambassador was 
given something of a hero's welcome, as many nurses opened 
nearly empty medicine cabinets in rural clinics to show 
essential drugs donated by Japan in conjunction with UNICEF 
programs.  At one stop a grateful health worker pulled up on 
a Japanese-donated motorcycle, offering to give the Japanese 
ambassador a lift to the next site.  At every school the 
group passed out Japanese pencils to students--all donated to 
UNICEF by Japan for this purpose. 
 
4.  (SBU) COMMUNITIES PITCHING IN:  Villagers nearly 
everywhere add their own resources to supplement or build on 
UNICEF projects.  Most UNICEF-assisted schools had certified 
government teachers who spoke Burmese; younger students spoke 
Shan or Pa-O, but little or no Burmese.  Parents in most 
cases hired local, non-certified teachers (fluent in the 
vernacular) to augment the Ministry of Education provided 
faculty.  At one school the community replaced the hand pump 
on a UNICEF-provided tube well with a diesel-powered pump to 
supply safe water to the entire community (see below).  Local 
residents often assist government nurses and doctors at rural 
clinics, who make about $5 and $8 per month, with food and 
other in-kind support. 
 
5. (C) BUT POOR GOVERNANCE UNDERMINES PROSPECTS:  UNICEF is 
perhaps the most effective of the various UN agencies 
operating in Burma and has made notable progress in 
eradicating polio, iodizing salt, and providing vitamin A 
supplements to children.  The diplomats on this trip 
personally administered oral polio immunizations and vitamin 
A supplements to scores of two-year olds at various UNICEF 
locations.  Next month the GOB Ministry of Health is going to 
announce that wild polio has been eradicated in Burma. 
 
--  However, just as an ebb tide lowers all boats, so too 
does poor governance in Burma harm overall levels of child 
welfare despite a few specific improvements brokered by 
UNICEF. 
 
-- At the school with the diesel-powered water pump, the 
village has seen the price of diesel fuel quadruple since 
they bought the pump 16 months ago.  Due to soaring fuel 
costs, the village can only afford to run the pump for an 
inadequate ten hours per month.  The SPDC's economic 
mismanagement is causing inflation and other hardships for 
the country's rural poor (i.e., most Burmese). 
 
-- In one Pa-O township the (ethnic Burman) health officials 
told us they could not access the southern third of the 
region readily, due to an uneasy relationship with the Pa-O 
National Organization, an ethnic rebel group that signed a 
cease-fire with the SPDC.  An edgy truce is better than 
active combat, but the advent of a legitimate, representative 
administration would improve access to child welfare programs 
particularly in ethnic minority regions. 
 
-- The Shan State Guest House in Taunggyi is a beautiful 
colonial-era structure.  Situated a thousand feet above it on 
a cliff is a sprawling mansion called "Mount Pleasant."  The 
group of diplomats, having just spent 3 days visiting bare 
local clinics staffed by dedicated nurses making $5 per 
month, discovered that Mount Pleasant is a new military 
guesthouse reserved for senior generals.  Secretary 1 Khin 
Nyunt particularly favors it, we were told.  Oddly, the 
guesthouse sports a large megalithic structure rather like 
Stonehenge in its front yard.  Such SPDC resource 
allocations, i.e., building itself posh mountaintop retreats 
while 35% of the country's children are malnourished, 
according to UN figures, ought to give pause to international 
donors when asked by Burma for concessional aid. 
 
6.  (C) COMMENT:  If UNICEF and its sister UN organizations 
were better funded and more flexible, they might be able to 
make marginal improvements in child welfare and other aspects 
of human development in this poor country.  Absent a 
representative and accountable government, however, their 
efforts are likely to be minimized or undone by a military 
regime more intent on its own well-being than on that of the 
people of Burma.  End Comment. 
McMullen