The Trouble with the EU and EC

This argument is not credible, as the British government and other EU members with strict monitoring requirements are satisfied with monitoring of cross-border aid.”

Burma Campaign UK also said: “There are around 100,000 Internally Displaced People in Eastern Burma who are in need of cross-border aid, and around 2.5 million people in Eastern Burma for whom cross-border assistance is the only or easiest way to deliver aid. Cross-border aid is also needed in other states in Burma.”

On May 20, the European Parliament called on the EC “to reverse cuts in funding for refugees on the Thailand-Burma border and immediately start funding cross-border aid, especially medical assistance.”

However, after Thailand's foreign minister said in June that the Bangkok government hoped to send Burmese refugees home after the elections a EU official told The Irrawaddy: “The EU does not expect that the elections in Myanmar [Burma] in 2010 will create conditions conducive to an immediate return of the predominantly Karen to eastern Burma, particularly since a ceasefire between SPDC [the Burmese government] and the Karen leadership seems unlikely to materialize and armed conflict persists to this day.”

So just what do the EU and EC currently stand for?

EU observers believe that internal confusion and rifts within the community have also compounded its Burma position and its very reputation.

The Irrawaddy has recently learned that some EC officials and bureaucrats take personal positions that go against not only EU common policy but also democratic principles.

They are said to be highly critical of Suu Kyi and her party's decision not to contest the coming election. Moreover, these EC officials and bureaucrats also see civil society groups, campaigners on the border and ethnic campaign movements as troublemakers.

If this is true, the integrity and dignity of the EU and its democratic principles have to be questioned. We assume these officials and bureaucrats were born in a democratic society. The irony is that they have expressed a dislike of civil society and campaign groups working for a better Burma.

The regime keeps over 2,000 political prisoners in gulags, soldiers continue to commit human rights abuses in the ethnic regions and refugees and displaced persons are stranded along the border. A climate of fear pervades the country.

However, the EU is sending conflicting signals to Burma and the pro-democracy movement—a shameful state of affairs, which has contributed to
deep unhappiness among Burmese inside and outside Burma when discussing EU policy.

In a recent letter to EU foreign ministers, European-based Burma lobby groups said they were “deeply concerned that European Commission staff openly and publicly advocate against the agreed Common Position of EU member states and against the positions taken by the European Parliament in its resolutions. We believe that it is unacceptable that Commission officials who have no democratic mandate undermine the official position of democratically accountable member states and the European Parliament."

The EU and EC should now officially clarify the issues outlined above—and
Burmese democratic forces, campaign groups and exiled news groups should investigate more thoroughly EU and EC Burma policies, in order to make those organizations more accountable in this critical time for Burma.