*EPF306 06/19/2002
Text: USAID Official Outlines Agency's Objectives in Burma
(Karen Turner's June 19 remarks to House Subcommittee) (1730)

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) seeks to meet Burma's humanitarian needs in health and education and to build capacity among Burmese ethnic groups to play a meaningful role in helping build a stable, democratic country, says Karen D. Turner.

Turner, the deputy assistant administrator for USAID's Bureau of Asia and the Near East, outlined her agency's objectives in Burma during a June 19 hearing before the House International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific.

Turner called Burma "the epicenter for HIV-AIDs in Southeast Asia."

While acknowledging the difficulty of getting sound figures, Turner said USAID estimates that the HIV-AIDS epidemic in Burma "is now generalized in the population at rates that are estimated up to 4%."

Porous borders, population movements, and trafficking in persons make the spread of HIV-AIDS in Burma a threat to the Southeast Asia region, Turner said.

"HIV-AIDS also follows the drug trafficking routes out of Burma into Asia and injecting drug users have the highest HIV-AIDS prevalence rates," she noted. Turner said the United States has the opportunity to take a leadership role in containing the disease.

"On the democracy front, we're supporting the training of journalists and media development to improve the accuracy and content of media reports on issues of relevance to the Burmese refugees," Turner said.

Following is the text of Turner's testimony:

(begin text)

ORAL REMARKS FOR KAREN D. TURNER
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 19, 2002

Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to have this opportunity to appear before you today to speak about the U.S. Government's assistance to the Burmese people.

I have prepared a few brief oral remarks and a more comprehensive written statement I would like introduced into the record.

CROSS-BORDER PROGRAM

Mr. Chairman, first I would like to touch on US assistance to Burmese refugees. Virtually all of USAID's assistance to Burmese refugees is concentrated on those refugees residing inside Thailand along the border, thus my remarks are focused on that target group. For these refugees, USAID and State's Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugee Assistance have coordinated their assistance. State/PRM is largely focusing on providing food and medicine for the refugees, while USAID is targeting capacity building.

The principal objectives of USAID's assistance for the Burmese refugees are to (1) meet humanitarian needs in health and education; and (2) build capacity among Burmese ethnic groups to play a meaningful role in helping build a stable, democratic Burma.

We are addressing these objectives by equipping Burmese health practitioners in the refugee camps with the skills and systems needed to provide primary health care services to refugees in the camps. This capacity development will be of lasting benefit, if and when these practitioners and others are able to return and help build a viable, democratic Burma. The US is collaborating with other donors to provide education for over 30,000 children in the camps. We're training teachers and administrators, developing curriculum and producing education materials. We expect the education system that is being put in place in the camps can be transferred inside Burma, if and when the refugees can return.

On the democracy front, we're supporting the training of journalists and media development to improve the accuracy and content of media reports on issues of relevance to the Burmese refugees. We're building the capacity of ethnic Burmese refugees by financing scholarships for degree training in areas such as social sciences, public health, medicine, and political science as well as for promising high school students. Using funds under the Burma earmark, the National Endowment for Democracy is financing a variety of activities to build experience among the refugees with democratic processes and principles such as human rights advocacy; dialogue between ethnic groups; information dissemination about political prisoners as well as humanitarian assistance to these prisoners and their families.

The principal residents inside the refugee camps are members of various Burmese ethnic groups, particularly the Karen and Karenni, who have fled violence inside Burma. By helping these ethnic groups, we're helping meet their needs today and helping equip them to have a seat at the table in a future democratic Burma, where historically ethnic divisions and persecution have been at the heart of rifts in the Burmese political and social structure.

To date USAID's humanitarian program has concentrated inside the camps because Thailand has considered those outside the camps as economic migrants not official refugees. Now that Thailand is broadening its thinking on how to approach the issue of the Burmese along the border, in recognition of their potential adverse impact on Thailand, there are now more opportunities to work with Burmese who are residing outside the camps. We are now discussing with other donors and the Thais health sector assistance we might provide to these individuals.

As we begin to explore opportunities and needs for assistance inside Burma, it will be important that, in parallel, we continue our assistance to Burmese refugees inside Thailand. First, the Burmese in border areas of Thailand - both inside and outside the camps - represent diverse Burmese ethnic groups. Any realistic and meaningful return to a stable democracy in Burma depends on inclusion of these ethnic groups in the democratic process inside Burma and their ability to participate meaningfully in this process. Continuity of our assistance to these refugees - while we also initiate assistance inside Burma - will be a sign to them and others that these ethnic groups are an important element of the nation re-building process and will have the practical benefit of equipping them to play a meaningful role in that process.

Second, only recently has the Thailand government given donors an opening to work more broadly with refugees outside the camps. As compared with refugees inside the camps, most of those outside the camps live in abject poverty, have vast unmet basic humanitarian needs and are subject to exploitation as illegal migrants. They should continue to be a focus of our humanitarian assistance.

HIV-AIDS IN BURMA

Now I would like turn to the subject of HIV-AIDS in Burma for which data are poor; surveillance nascent; and knowledge of the disease and how to avoid it among the Burmese limited. Because of restrictions most donors have had on assistance in Burma, we all are at the same stage -- basic analysis of the situation and beginning efforts to develop strategies and programs to aggressively tackle the problem.

The good news is that both the SPDC and the NLD are taking the threat of the epidemic seriously and have publicly identified HIV-AIDS as one of Burma's three top public health problems -- together with tuberculosis and malaria -- and both have specifically asked that donors assist Burma in tackling the problem.

We estimate that the HIV-AIDS epidemic in Burma has spread beyond the most at risk groups, such as injecting drug users among whom prevalence rates range as high as 74%. We believe that HIV-AIDS is now generalized in the population at rates that are estimated up to 4%. We think Burma, not Cambodia, may now be the epicenter for HIV-AIDS in Southeast Asia. Porous borders; population movements for employment and due to conflict and violence; and trafficking in persons make the spread of HIV-AIDS in Burma a threat to the Southeast Asia region and USAID's efforts to contain the epidemic in the region. Also, HIV-AIDS also follows the drug trafficking routes out of Burma into Asia and injecting drug users have the highest HIV-AIDS prevalence rates.

Given that all donors are essentially at the same stage of taking on HIV-AIDS in Burma, USAID and the USG have an opportunity to play a leadership role in the assistance effort.

USAID is proposing an HIV-AIDS program that will work principally through international NGOs and the private sector. USAID would provide no funds or commodities to the Burmese government. Participation of individuals from the public sector will be selective -- meaning where such inclusion is essential to the success of the program's objectives. More specifically what is being contemplated regarding involvement with the public sector under USAID's HIV-AIDS program is:

-- ability to have a dialogue with public sector health practitioners and technical staff in order to guide changes in the government's policies and systems for service, support and other aspects of a sound HIV-AIDS program and to broaden their awareness of best practices;

-- provide training to public sector health practitioners and school teachers as front line actors in the HIV-AIDS response, education and behavioral change process; and

-- careful monitoring of any assistance in which public sector staff might participate to ensure assistance is being used to accomplish the program's HIV-AIDS objectives and not the government's own political aims.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my oral remarks. I would be pleased to take questions.


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(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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