It has been almost a year and a half since the termination of the Global Fund Round 3 grant to Myanmar. The fingerpointing continues. One wonders why someone of Mr Neier’s stature would be drawn into the thick of the fray. ICG reports used to be reviewed by OSI before publication but this one clearly wasn’t.
It is worth remembering that in situations of conflict there are many sides to a story and sometimes many versions of truth. This critique provides one. And in posting it the [him] moderator hopes we all may get closer to truth. U Thant’s words are as valid today as when he said them forty years ago: “in times of war and of hostilities the first casualty is truth.”
ICG report [him] 178 http://www.hivinfo4mm.org/blog/_archives/2006/12/12/2566449.html
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Sent to the [him] moderator by:
Jonathan Hulland
Open Society Institute
Burma Project / Southeast Asia Initiative
jhulland@sorosny.org
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Aryeh Neier
January 17, 2007
Critique of ICG Briefing on Burma
On December 8, the International Crisis Group issued a “Briefing” entitled, “Myanmar: New Threats to Humanitarian Aid.” A main focus of the Briefing was a decision in August 2005 by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to withdraw a grant of $98 million over five years for Burma after, according to ICG, “intense pressure from U.S.-based groups undermined sensitive negotiations with the government over operational conditions.” The consequence, said the Crisis Group “was a serious setback, which put thousands of lives in jeopardy.” The report bears a dateline of Yangon/Brussels and was written by a consultant for ICG who conducted research in Yangon (or Rangoon) but, it appears, not elsewhere. It is extensively footnoted but the footnotes that should provide the crucial information needed to back up the ICG’s allegation do not do so as all they say is ‘Crisis Group interview, Yangon,” or words to that effect, with no indication of who was interviewed or what basis the interviewee had for making certain comments. To the extent that the purpose of footnotes is to allow a reader to verify information by checking sources, these footnotes are of no value. (As the author and editor of many human rights reports, I sometimes withheld names or other identifying information in circumstances when those being quoted were susceptible to reprisals. If ICG had withheld the names of Burmese speaking critically of their government, that would have been understandable. But it appears ICG conducted no such interviews. Those quoted anonymously seem to have been articulating views that would not have antagonized the Burmese authorities. Hence, it is difficult to understand why they were withheld.)
The Briefing also contains many footnotes to public documents but generally leaves out information in those documents that is inconsistent with the story it presents. Thereby, it distorts the positions of the groups to which views are attributed, among them the Global Fund and the Open Society Institute.
Although the Briefing contends that the decision to cancel the Global Fund grant was made by the Global Fund on the basis of U.S.-based pressure, there are no footnotes in the Briefing to interviews with either identified or unidentified sources at the Global Fund itself or with any individuals or groups in the United States. Accordingly, what is presented in the Briefing is a version of what happened exclusively as seen by unidentified persons in Yangon. That version is in part misleading, in part incomplete and in part flatly contradicted by the key official who made the decision on behalf of the Global Fund to cancel the grant. He was not interviewed by ICG.
First, the misleading. Though it appears that no one at the Global Fund was interviewed by ICG, the Briefing says that “Fund spokespeople claimed the August 2005 withdrawal was motivated by technical considerations only…..” A footnote refers to a “Fact Sheet” issued by the Global Fund on August 18, 2005. It quotes this as saying that, “Given new restrictions recently imposed by the government which contravene earlier written assurances it has provided the Global Fund, the Global Fund has now concluded that the grants cannot be implemented in a way that ensures effective program implementation.” What is left out, however, is any mention of what those “new restrictions” were that led to so serious a decision as cancellation of a grant.
Actually, what the Global Fund Fact Sheet stated is that the government had issued new travel clearance procedures that contravened earlier written assurances and that would have restricted access by the Principal Recipient (UNDP), implementing partners and staff of the Global Fund to project implementation areas so as to visit the sites where the programs it was funding were being carried out. Although funding agencies customarily regard the ability to monitor the use of their funds as central to the fulfillment of their mission, ICG characterizes the reversal of the agreement to allow this as “technical considerations only.” It is difficult to understand why ICG would choose to use such dismissive language and then leave out entirely the Global Fund’s stated reason for cancelling its grant as a central point of the Briefing is the cancellation of the grant. In another section of the Briefing, ICG cites what it refers to as “basic humanitarian principles” to which UN agencies and International NGOs operating in Burma confirmed their commitment “to dispel the misconception among government leaders that they are under the control of U.S. government and other political actors.” (These principles are cited at fn. 76 of ICG’s Briefing as ‘Guiding Principles for the Provision of Humanitarian Assistance,” UN Resident Coordinator’s Office, February 2006.) ICG neglects to point out that one of those principles, not spelled out in the Briefing, states: “Effective humanitarian operations require unhindered, sustained access for humanitarian personnel participating in relief activities to deliver, monitor, and assess humanitarian aid, enabling them to reach targeted members of the population in need of assistance.” It is this “basic humanitarian principle” that ICG denigrates as “technical considerations only.” What makes this even worse, of course, is that ICG says that the Global Fund “claimed” that its motive was “technical considerations only.” This is false. The Global Fund claimed nothing of the sort.
Though ICG did not interview the Global Fund official who decided to cancel the grant, I did interview him. The decision was made by Brad Herbert who served at the time as Chief of Operations of the Global Fund. Previously, he had served with the World Bank for 27 years and, a few months after his decision to cancel the grant to Burma, he left the Global Fund to start his own consulting firm.
Herbert told me that he made the initial decision to make the grant to Burma and, subsequently, to withdraw it. In negotiating the grant, he said that the Burmese agreed to the Global Fund’s standard requirement that Global Fund personnel should be able to conduct site visits without notice to inspect programs. He revoked the grant, according to Herbert, when the Burmese informed him that site visits would have to be scheduled six weeks in advance. He pointed out that a grant to North Korea, where tuberculosis is prevalent, could never be made because, at the outset, the North
Koreans had insisted on a similar advance notice requirement.
Herbert told me that he believes the Burmese health minister negotiated in good faith the arrangements for unimpeded site visits and that the decision to reverse the agreement was made by the military.
It is worth noting that there is at least one consideration that requires the Global Fund to be able to monitor implementation of programs it funds in Burma according to its customary standards that goes beyond the concerns that any funding agency would have about proper implementation. That consideration, which ICG may not have known about, was brought to my attention several years ago by an official of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control who led an investigation of HIV/AIDS in Burma. He pointed out to me that some Burmese resist testing for HIV/AIDS because they fear that if they are shown to be HIV positive, the information will be used against them punitively by the military regime. At the time, we agreed that it would be helpful if opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi were to endorse testing and could assure Burmese that they would not face reprisals if they were HIV positive. I undertook to discuss the mater with Aung San Suu Kyi and, on a visit to Burma in August 2002, spoke to her about it. She was receptive to the suggestion that she should indicate her readiness to play a leading role in efforts to see to it that programs against HIV/AIDS, including testing, could be implemented effectively in Burma. Subsequently, however, she was detained again by the regime and has been held incommunicado ever since. Accordingly, it has not been possible for her to contribute in any way to the effort to limit the spread of HIV/AIDS. It seems likely that many Burmese still fear that they will suffer harmful consequences if tests show that they are HIV positive. I don’t know whether they have good reasons for such fears. From the standpoint of the Global Fund, it is, of course, essential that there should be no reprisals. Yet if notification of visits had to take place six weeks in advance, Global Fund representatives would be unable to make such determinations any more than they would be able to monitor programs to see that they are being implemented effectively or to see if funds are being diverted for improper purposes.
Second, the incomplete. The Briefing says that, “U.S.-based advocacy groups led by the Open Society Institute put strong pressure on the Global Fund to institute additional safeguards on its Myanmar programs. Although OSI indicated that in principle it favored Global Fund grants to Myanmar, it insisted, among other things, that ‘none of [its] programs should be conducted by or with financial assistance to the ruling military junta or government sponsored NGOs (GONGOs)’.” A footnote states, “Memorandum in Crisis Group’s possession, Aryeh Neier (OSI) to Brad Herbert (Global Fund), 24 September 2005 [actually, the date was 24 September 2004]. ICG says that, “As a result, the Global Fund introduced tighter restrictions on use of its funds” although, as neither I nor anyone at the Global Fund was interviewed, it is not clear to me how ICG determined that there was a cause and effect relationship between my memo and the Global Fund restrictions. Was there something else done by OSI or did my memo itself constitute “strong pressure” or as the introductory language of the Briefing has it, “intense pressure”? ICG presents no evidence to substantiate its allegation of intense pressure so there is nothing that can be rebutted. The Global Fund itself says that it institutes an Additional Safeguards Policy “in certain countries where conditions suggest that Global Fund monies could be placed in jeopardy without the use of such additional measures.” (Statement, August 18, 2005)
More important, however, is what ICG says and does not say about my memo, which I sent to UNDP and the Gates Foundation as well as to the Global Fund and colleagues at OSI. First, the memo does not use the words “in principle” or words to that effect. Those words were inserted by ICG. The memo says that: “We are in favor of the Global Fund grants moving forward, but with one condition” – that is, no funding for the military or GONGOs. It then adds a point that ICG leaves out. It says: “This condition should not impede progress in the short term. There are legitimate NGOs that are in a position to undertake this work. Population Services International, for example, is already a sub-recipient of the Global Fund grant. Other NGOs can be engaged, among them Catholic Relief Services, Care International, Save the Children (US), MSF Holland, World Vision and World Concern.” In setting forth these options, it is obvious that OSI was doing more than endorsing Global Fund support for programs in Burma “in principle.” OSI was identifying practical alternatives to funding that would otherwise have gone to the military regime and GONGOs. In this connection, I should note that – as ICG could have learned if I had been interviewed about the memo - OSI has made similar recommendations to the Global Fund in other countries. For example, in a number of countries of the former Soviet Union, governments treat injecting drug users in punitive ways that impede efforts to limit the spread of HIV. Accordingly, OSI has recommended to the Global Fund that funding in some of these countries should go to NGOs that support a harm reduction approach to drug addiction and, in fact, Global Fund grants have been awarded to a number of such groups. An example is the Russian Harm Reduction Network which was awarded a grant of $10 million by the Global Fund in 2006. In Russia, as in Burma, OSI support for such funding was not just endorsement in principle; rather it was endorsement of a practical alternative in circumstances in which we strongly supported funding but thought that support for government programs would be inappropriate or counterproductive. ICG’s selective treatment of OSI’s memo has the effect of distortion. Also, although ICG refers to “U.S.-based advocacy groups led by OSI,” that allegedly put pressure on the Global Fund, it cites no other advocacy group. As its reference to OSI is distorted, one is left wondering who else played such a role. ICG does not say.
Another example of incompleteness in the Briefing is its failure to state why ICG treats the withdrawal of the Global Fund from Burma in an entirely different manner than the withdrawal in the same period of two other major international humanitarian agencies: the International Committee of the Red Cross and MSF France. The Briefing notes that MSF France left the country in November 2005 “due to constraints on travel and cooperation with local doctors regarding its malaria projects in Kachin and Mon states”; and that, in November 2006, the ICRC “was ordered by the government to close all its field offices around the country.” Yet neither MSF France or the ICRC is criticized in the Briefing. Were the reasons for the closure of the Global Fund program similar to the reasons for the termination of the programs of MSF France and the ICRC? At least so far as MSF France was concerned, that appears to be the case. MSF France issued a statement – left out by ICG – saying that, “By the end of 2005, the military authorities had imposed so many travel restrictions on MSF and applied such pressure on local health authorities not to work with our teams that it became impossible for MSF to work in an acceptable manner.” MSF added a comment, also not noted by ICG, that may provide a clue to the Burmese military’s reason for imposing these travel restrictions. According to Dr. Hervé Isambert, p
rogram manager of MSF in Myanmar: “It appears that the Burmese authorities do not want anyone to witness the abuses they are committing against their own population.” (MSF Press Release, March 29, 2006) In keeping with its practice, the ICRC was not comparably outspoken. Its director of operations, Pierre Krähenbül limited himself to saying that, “the ICRC is seriously worried that those most in need…will bear the brunt of this standoff.” (Press Release, November 27, 2006) As noted by The Economist, “Jealously guarding its reputation for discretion and impartiality [the ICRC] manages to work with the least tractable governments. But not Myanmar’s.” (November 30, 2006). Though ICG implies that the Global Fund acted hastily in withdrawing from Burma, and might have been able to sustain its programs there if it had been patient and negotiated further, the withdrawal of MSF France and the closure of ICRC’s programs both took place subsequent to the withdrawal of the Global Fund. This suggests that more extended negotiation would not have been productive.
Another way in which the Briefing is incomplete is that it does not even mention the Burmese government’s failure to use it own resources to address HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, all of which are prevalent in the country. Though current information is somewhat elusive, as of 2000 the World Health Organization ranked Burma 190th out of 191 states in its spending on health care. (Part of the difficulty in providing more up-to-date figures is the enormous disparity between the official rate of exchange and the unofficial rate. As of September 2005, the official rate was 1 U.S. $ = K6.42; the unofficial (but tolerated) rate at the same time was 1 U.S. $ =K1, 205.) As vast off-shore natural gas reserves have been identified in recent years, it is clear that Burma will obtain an enormous amount of revenue from exploitation of these reserves in the years ahead and is already deriving very substantial income from energy production. In comparison, to Burma’s own resources, the Global Fund grant was a pittance.
If ICG’s purpose in issuing its Briefing was to argue that meeting the humanitarian crisis should take precedence over other concerns, it is difficult to understand why it omitted any discussion of the Burmese government’s failure to use its own resources for this purpose. The Briefing devotes a substantial amount of space to tepid comments on Burmese government policies that hamper the delivery of humanitarian assistance. But, there is not a word in the Briefing criticizing the Burmese regime either for helping to create the humanitarian crisis, as through its policy of encouraging Chinese loggers and truckers to come to the country to cut down its hardwood forests and, thereby, promoting a sex industry to serve them that contributes to the HIV/AIDS epidemic; nor criticizing the regime for devoting the lion’s share of its budget to payment for its 485,000 person military, and for equipment for the armed forces, while providing derisory support for health care. It is astonishing that the Burmese government’s unwillingness to devote even a negligible part of its own resources to health care is not discussed at length in a Briefing supposedly concerned with the need to address a humanitarian crisis. Failing to point this out is like pointing to a couple of worn spots in a carpet while neglecting to mention that there is an elephant sitting in the middle of the living room.
Third, the information in ICG’s Briefing that is flatly contradicted. ICG makes it clear that it considers that the main reason the Global Fund withdrew from Burma was threats to its funding from Senator Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky. ICG goes on to state, however, that: “Suggestions by aid officials in Yangon that members of the Congress directly threatened the Global Fund secretariat with withdrawing part of the US contribution if the Fund insisted on pursuing its programs cannot be confirmed.” Why could they not be confirmed? Why were those involved not called to comment?
As it happens, those “suggestions” can be contradicted. Several months prior to the publication of the ICG’s Briefing, I asked Brad Herbert about this as I knew about the rumors circulating in Rangoon. He told me that Paul Grove, McConnell’s aide, had opposed the grant to Burma in the first instance but subsequently let him know that McConnell would not attempt to take reprisals against the Global Fund because of the grant. Herbert said that no one associated with McConnell had any part in the decision to cancel the grant.
As ICG did not interview Herbert, Grove, McConnell or, apparently, anyone else in Washington, and there is no indication that ICG ever made an attempt to conduct such an interview, on what basis does it say that the suggestions, or gossip, of unnamed aid officials in Yangon “cannot be confirmed”? A more accurate statement would have been that ICG made no attempt to confirm the speculations of aid officials in Yangon. If ICG had made such an attempt, it would have found that those “suggestions” were contradicted.
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There is a useful debate to be had about how far it is appropriate to depart from basic humanitarian principles in order to provide humanitarian assistance in addressing a man-made, or government-made, disaster such as that in Burma. Rather than contribute to such a debate, ICG’s Briefing mis-states and distorts the views and actions of those whose positions do not comport with those of the author(s) of its Briefing. It also leaves out information that is crucial in making judgments about the issues it addresses. ICG does a disservice to the cause of fair-minded debate by publishing this shoddy Briefing which relies on gossip in place of evidence.
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