As the dark clouds of the monsoon loom, many citizens in the west of Myanmar - recently bludgeoned by Cyclone Mocha - are living in dire straits.

As both international and local humanitarian aid organizations seek to deliver aid to those whose houses and possessions were destroyed by the recent cyclone, the generals in Naypyitaw are using aid as a tool to consolidate their tenuous grip on the country.

Millions of people are now pawns in the hands of Myanmar’s military junta.

Caught in the middle are the “angels of mercy” – big players like the UN, World Food Programme and EU – who are trying to deliver aid to people across a swathe of the country from Rakhine, Sagaing, Magway, Chin and Kachin who to various degrees were hammered by Cyclone Mocha last month.

While the total death toll stands at around 150 – a far cry from the 2008 Cyclone Nargis toll of 138,000 – many battered by the cyclone face the challenge of erecting shelter and finding food and water.

Now as we enter June, the stakes have ratcheted up as another storm appears to be barreling towards Myanmar and the heavy rains and winds of the monsoon loom.

Cyclone Mocha was a catastrophe for millions.

Now is Myanmar about to see another catastrophe as the monsoon sweeps in and only limited aid is handed out?

GAMES GENERALS PLAY

The Myanmar generals are desperate as their February 2021 power grab is not going to plan over two years in. Back in 2021, the generals hoped for a repeat of the “uprisings” of 1988 and 1990. They expected an initial outcry, then a petering out of outrage. What they did not expect was that the peaceful demonstrations would morph into outright armed resistance - under the banner of the Spring Revolution – an angry movement that continues to grow, with well over half of the country effectively out of their control.

While the junta struggles militarily to keep a grip, the generals have a trick up their sleeve – namely playing local communities and the international community in a chess game where aid is a useful pawn.

For the junta, Cyclone Mocha, and the coming storms and heavy monsoon rains, are in fact a godsend.

Safely ensconced in “fortress Naypyidaw”, the brutal generals are using a carrot-and-stick strategy to push their hegemony – particularly over areas that are out of their control or torn between the resistance forces and their embattled forces.

So, how did we get here?

REPEATING 2008?

Questions hang in the air as to whether the military junta is repeating its response to 2008 Cyclone Nargis, a seemingly dire response to a national crisis in what was then, relatively-speaking, “peacetime”.

During Cyclone Nargis, the military junta was accused of initially delaying and restricting international assistance, which hindered the delivery of aid to the affected areas. The regime's response to the disaster was widely criticized for its lack of transparency, coordination, and willingness to accept external assistance promptly. These actions by what was viewed as a xenophobic regime were seen as exacerbating the human suffering caused by the cyclone.

Are we now witnessing a replay of the Cyclone Nargis debacle under the banner of “Cyclone Mocha”?

Or might the stance of the regime actually be worse?

To some extent, the failures of 2008 are being repeated in the wake of Cyclone Mocha. But this time round, the generals are deliberately using aid as a “weapon of war” – claiming to help, and shaking hands with donors, but seemingly restricting and controlling the aid to make sure it goes to communities that demonstrate allegiance to the “men in green”.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

The United Nations estimates that more than 5 million people were negatively affected and 1.6 million seriously affected by Cyclone Mocha, and with the monsoon and possible storms looming in June, the cry for action to deliver aid is growing shrill – at least in the “diplomatic speak” of international donors, the UN, World Food Programme, EU and others who have to tread carefully with their words to maintain access to the South East Asian basket case that is Myanmar.

UNOCHA has called on the international community to contribute towards an emergency fund of US$333 million to help the 1.6 million people directly affected by the storm in northwestern part of Myanmar, some parts of Kachin State and Rakhine State.

The angels of mercy are making the right noises. But they are faced with a dilemma.

UNOCHA and the others feel they are obligated to liaise with the Myanmar junta. In fact, they would appear to have no other option if they hope to deliver aid into the arms of the needy.

That process is underway. Ms. Danielle Parry, acting UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Yangon and Acting Head of the UNOCHA met recently and discussed how to provide assistance to people affected by Cyclone Mocha with Ko Ko Hlaing, the junta’s minister of international cooperation. At a meeting in Naypyidaw on 31 May, UN organizations reportedly discussed coordination and cooperation in order to facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid to people affected by the cyclone.

It is unclear whether access approval has been given for large-scale relief distributions, but humanitarian organizations are already providing shelter, water, cleaning aid, basic health care and emergency food in accessible areas, according to UNOCHA. These players include a range of local CSOs and the World Food Programme.

Aid is being given to some communities but international aid organizations are clearly caught in the middle when attempting to provide humanitarian aid, given that they have to deal with the military junta, yet over half the country is not in junta hands. Sizeable areas of the country are under the control of the National Unity Government (NUG), the Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (ERO), and other ethnic groups, the latter with a full spectrum of standing in dealing with the junta.

WEAPONIZED AID

Given this, international aid practices come under the spotlight.

Igor Blazevic, a European democracy activist closely following developments in the Myanmar crisis, recently expressed anger over the “weaponization of aid and unpleasant truths about protecting

future markets" – the “future markets” referring to the desire of international agencies to remain rooted in host countries whoever is in charge.

Blazevic does not mince words. In a post on Facebook, he said: “It is outrageous how UNOCHA and other UN agencies are constantly in their communication misinterpreting [the] reality of what they do and how they do aid in Myanmar. At the same time, they are helping [the] junta create [a] humanitarian incentive [to] pull the population of the country away from [the] resistance.

Critics such as Blazevic express concern that international aid agencies are inadvertently supporting the junta that is clearly pursuing “carrot-and-stick” policies against the Myanmar population – despite their egalitarian public rhetoric.

Bomb and burn the resisters, hand bread crumbs to the desperate. That is the junta approach.

“So, on one side there is a stick heavily hitting the population. On the other side is a carrot of aid. Offer to population and to every single actor in Myanmar is constantly on the table - come to our side of the line and you will be able to deliver aid (if you are either local CSO, international NGO, UN agency or ethnic armed organization), or you will receive aid (if you are IDP whose house and livelihood has been destroyed by junta),” says Blazevic.

And where is the money coming from?

“This carrot is not funded by money junta gets from selling gas to Thailand or from cash they get from transporting Russian oil to China through Myanmar pipelines. That money is used to buy weapons from Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Iran. This carrot is funded by the EU, USAID, Japan and other major donor countries which are main contributors to the UN agencies and humanitarian INGOs. Gas and oil money is paying [the] junta's stick and money from democratic [countries] is paying [for the] junta's carrot,” says Blazevic.

The irony of the situation is not lost on Blazevic who highlighted the ludicrous situation of three Myanmar military generals visiting Chin State last month to provide a humanitarian aid response – while at the same time, their soldiers and air force are attacking citizens and destroying their homes in the state.

DILEMMA FOR DONORS

On the face of it, international donors are caught in a dilemma – deal with the junta or have your aid blocked.

The donors tend to adhere to diplomatic norms and make decisions based on long-term goals.

A cornerstone of the long-term donor goal is to maintain a presence in Myanmar, the argument being it is better to keep the door open to dialogue with the junta than having it slammed shut.

That is the reality today as the UN and other donors seek to support Cyclone Mocha victims and other people living in poverty, including internally displaced people (IDPs).

Blazevic says he has no problem with “UNOCHA meeting the junta and trying to negotiate the access to as many victims of Cyclone Mocha as possible, IF AT THE SAME TIME, there will be some other high ranking UN representative PUBLICLY MEETING representatives of NUG, ERO and civil society organizations which are providing as much aid as possible with extremely meagre resources, mainly fundraised from diaspora and through self-help of local communities.” (Blazevic’s capitalization)

HUMANITARIAN AID CONUNDRUM

Whether it is due to the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha or the dire situation in impoverished sectors of Myanmar, there is a “humanitarian aid conundrum”.

What Blazevic argues is that international donors should use the NUG and other resistance-related actors to deliver aid to those in need.

“With substantial funding coming from major aid donors, these actors will be able to deliver huge amounts of aid which are out of reach of agencies based in Yangon and it will be at least 10 times more ‘cost effective’,” he claims.

All this, however, may be easier said than done. And the Myanmar junta knows it.

The reality is that the bulk of the aid that is allowed through to those in need will be used by the junta in a PR push to bolster the junta’s standing in certain areas, whereas resistance-held or influenced areas will – as Blazevic notes “ –receive peanuts”.

The Myanmar generals know what they are doing and they have been doing it for decades, so there should be no surprise.

As the UN notes: The military employs its so-called four-cuts approach - including through indiscriminate airstrikes and artillery shelling, razing villages to displace civilian populations, and

denial of humanitarian access - to cut off non-State organized armed groups and other anti-military armed elements from access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits.

Students of Myanmar’s troubled history know the score.

Therefore, given the reality on the ground, the humanitarian aid conundrum really needs to be addressed. This ought to involve concerted efforts to complement the aid being delivered through the front door via the Myanmar junta with aid delivered through the back door, cross-border through the NUG, EROs, and NGOs.

This puts the UN and other international donors in a quandary. This challenge will not be new to them as they have dealt with countries caught in conflict. But nobody will say this will be easy.

Andrew Landen is the pseudonym for a writer who covers Asian affairs.