Choosing Sides: Five Local Takes on Aid Neutrality in Myanmar

In the aftermath of the 1 February military coup in Myanmar, neutrality – one of the core principles of humanitarian aid – is being vigorously challenged.

This is especially the case for local staff working for international aid agencies, who find themselves caught between organisational policies emphasising neutrality and a populace swept up in an anti-coup resistance movement.

“Asking us to remain neutral is not the way,” said Tun Tun, a staff member at a UN field office in Myanmar. “Of course, it’s easy to remain neutral when the act of injustice doesn’t affect you.”

Neutrality is vital to establishing aid access in disasters and conflicts, according to the UN’s humanitarian aid coordination arm, OCHA, which defines the concept as not taking sides or engaging in “controversies of a political, racial, religious, or ideological nature”. 

But it has garnered little public support in post-coup Myanmar, where military crackdowns have killed more than 1,000 people and triggered fresh accusations of crimes against humanity.