Myanmar: As Japan’s Aid Money Pours In – Community Groups Raise Concerns

Jul 15, 2014 | John Arterbury, Karen News
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When three villagers from rural Myanmar visited Tokyo earlier this month they came equipped with an unusual itinerary. Rather than spend time exploring the city’s urban jungle, the first trip any of them made out of Southeast Asia was to hand-deliver a complaint letter to the obscure compliance department of Japan’s overseas aid coordinator, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Brought to Tokyo with the help of Japanese NGO Mekong Watch and other groups, the villagers came to lodge a formal complaint for grievances they said were brought on in part by JICA’s massive development efforts in their home nation — namely, the joint Japan-Myanmar consortium that evicted them from their homes in November to make way for a sprawling industrial estate.