GENEVA — Myanmar’s people are already feeling the “crushing impact” from the “sudden, chaotic withdrawal” of U.S. and other humanitarian aid, an independent human rights expert said Monday, calling on the world community to do more.
Tom Andrews, a monitor on rights in Myanmar commissioned by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, said he would appeal to its 47 member countries to issue a “declaration of conscience against this unfolding disaster” — a humanitarian crisis — “and I will urge them to follow up those words with action.”
“Action that includes funding vital, life-sustaining programs that are being slashed and burned and jeopardized,” he told reporters on Monday, before addressing the council on Wednesday. ”If the Human Rights Council does not (take action), then who will?”
Andrews, a former Democratic congressman from the U.S. state of Maine, acknowledged that the specific fallout wasn’t clear so far. The American embassy in Myanmar said on its website, in a statement dated Oct. 25, that the U.S. had provided $141 million in humanitarian aid since Oct. 1, 2023.
Andrews said the cut in aid was “unnecessary and cruel” and ill-timed: A strong movement of national resistance and a weakening of Myanmar’s military rulers has raised hopes of its people.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, triggering widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.
The violence is continuing: An airstrike Friday reportedly killed and injured dozens in a village held by resistance forces.
Tuberculosis and HIV patients have been missing their medication for weeks; disabled children have been locked out of rehabilitation centers; rights groups have faced cuts in their ability to distribute food and water to people, he said.
“The sudden, chaotic withdrawal of support — support principally by the government of the United States — is already having a crushing impact on the people of Myanmar,” Andrews said
The Trump administration and many of its supporters have argued that the United States, the world’s single largest humanitarian aid provider, has shouldered too much of the burden for too long.
Andrews alluded to efforts by a chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk through the Department of Government Efficiency to reduce waste and spending in the U.S. government, including at the U.S. Agency for International Development, known as USAID — which has distributed many billions of dollars in foreign aid over the years.
“You have this incredible rhetoric that is based upon nothing except creating headlines,” Andrews said, to show how “this entire program is going to be thrown into a wood chipper … Well, it’s innocent people who are being tossed into that wood chipper.”
“We need to take a stand about this,” he added.