By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Bangkok
For the aid agencies who have struggled for more than two weeks to get relief supplies to the victims of Cyclone Nargis, there is now a new factor that could compromise their ability to operate effectively.
Their staff are exhausted.
What makes this disaster different from others before is the fact that those trying to deal with this emergency have had to rely so heavily on local staff.
Burma's initial decision not to allow foreign relief workers in, and to prevent foreigners already in Burma from entering the Irrawaddy Delta, meant the international relief organisations were forced to tear up the rulebook and instead do the best they could with the resources they already had in place in the country.
Many of these Burmese staff are experienced operators who know the area well, but the pressure on them has been relentless.
One Burmese relief worker working with Christian Aid said she has been working non-stop since the cyclone.
"How can we take a day off when we know how many of our fellow citizens our suffering?" she asked.
The charity says its local staff feel all the responsibility is on their shoulders. Another relief worker lost his wife and three sons in the cyclone.
"He has not stopped working since the cyclone struck," his colleague said. "He has thrown himself into helping others as a way of coping with his grief."
'Shocked and numb'
Experience from other disasters suggests that people who identify more readily with the victims are at greater risk of developing psychological problems.
The symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in one society might be quite different from those in other cultures, who might express stress differently
Dr Peter Salama,
Unicef
Local staff, likely to identify more readily with the victims than those from overseas, are more likely to have higher rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Those who deal with traumatic events like handling dead bodies also have a higher likelihood of developing psychological problems.
Research into the aftermath of the Kosovo war in 1999 suggests two groups of relief workers are most at risk of developing stress-related problems.
First time volunteers who may be wholly unprepared for the job, who do not know what to expect or who have unrealistic expectations of their ability to make an impact are the most at risk.
The other group is the more experienced experts from overseas, who travel from disaster to disaster and who as a result may have built up cumulative amounts of stress.
Doctors say those facing extremes of stress often change their behaviour in an effort to find a new internal equilibrium.
"People feel shocked and numb, fearful and anxious, sometimes helpless and hopeless," said Professor Richard Williams from the University of Glamorgan in South Wales. "They feel guilty. Sometimes they feel angry."
As well as emotional reactions, there are psychological reactions to look out for, like poor concentration or poor memory.
Some lose confidence. Others feel they have to be over-vigilant. People regress into less mature patterns of behaviour.
"The key here is not that you have bad reactions, it's how quickly you get over them," the professor said. "If these feelings persist for a few weeks then it's worth taking much greater notice of them."
Although there has been a fair amount of research in recent years into the effects of severe stress on expatriate relief workers in disaster zones, there has been less work done on how local staff are affected.
Other studies have suggested that in Asia stress often triggers psychosomatic disorders - people start to display physical symptoms.
"We will need to look out for this when trying to help staff working in Myanmar [Burma]," said Dr Peter Salama, Chief of Health at Unicef.
"The symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in one society might be quite different from those in other cultures who might express stress differently."
'Watchful waiting'
The Australian charity CARE International is already looking at how to support those of its staff who have been working in the delta for the last two weeks without a break.
A family sit in a tent on 20 May 2008 (Image: Unicef)
Survivors could also face stress-related difficulties, experts say
Its representative in Rangoon, Peter Newson, says they are aware these people will need a lot of psycho-social support.
"We have to be very careful, though, to tailor that support to the Myanmar [Burmese] culture in order to make it effective," he says.
That means encouraging them to talk to monks, to their families and to each other. In some cases writing down their experiences too.
"And that's not only important for our staff," Mr Newson said. "It will be important for the survivors in the delta too."
Dr Salama says when it comes to trying to reduce the stress on the front line staff, there are "common sense responses".
These include making telecommunications equipment available so it is easier to call home, setting up peer to peer networks so people can discuss with others what they have been through, teaching stress management techniques and creating a culture where people can talk more readily.
The doctors agree it is not unusual to experience some or all of the symptoms of severe or acute psychiatric trauma after dealing with a disaster like this.
But these days, according to Professor Williams, the approach that is often taken is to undertake what he calls "a month of watchful waiting or psychological first aid".
"We give people a lot of support, help them to return to a more normal set of arrangements as quickly as possible," he said.
"With that, most people will soon begin to recover and their stress levels will start to come down. If after a month they are still highly stressed then that is something to be taken more seriously."
As Burma agrees to allow more outside experts in from neighbouring countries, the pressure on the aid agencies' local staff should begin to ease.
But such is the scale of the disaster and the size of the task still to be done, the stress on front line staff and others will still be considerable for many weeks and months to come, making it all the more important that agencies have plans in place to recognise and deal with the problem.
Got it from here.
ေအာက္မွာထားမွာက ဒီစာကိုဖ်က္ျပီးေရး
Cyclone Nargis
May the generations learn how to protect from the disaster...
May the generations learn how to work together as Burmese
Citizens, as we do now for the Cyclone Nargis's relief.
May the generations know the world is with us..........
May the generations know the darkness can't overcome the Light....
May the generations realize that they are part of history......
May the sky of Burma free from darkness cloud.
We shall not forget this sadness movement.
** You can almost find ever thing here and here about Cyclone Nargis relief works.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Trauma risk for Burma aid workers
Hollywood celebrities urge human rights in Myanmar
Stars including Will Ferrell and Jennifer Aniston call for release of the Southeast Asian country's Nobel-winning Aung San Suu Kyi and establishment of democracy there.
By Richard C. Paddock, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 23, 2008
Dozens of Hollywood celebrities have joined together to call attention to the repressive military regime in Myanmar and the plight of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than a decade under house arrest.
In more than 30 public-service spots that are being released online daily this month, actors and artists including Will Ferrell, Sarah Silverman, Ellen Page and Sylvester Stallone call for Suu Kyi's release and the establishment of democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
"A human rights crisis is happening right now in the Southeast Asian country of Burma," Ferrell says in the first of the series. "Every now and again a single person or event captures the imagination and inspiration of the world. This moment belongs to Burma and to Aung San Suu Kyi."
Myanmar has been ruled by military regimes for nearly all of the past 46 years. Suu Kyi's political party won a landslide victory in a 1990 election and she was slated to become the country's next leader, but the regime threw out the results and arrested her. Suu Kyi, who will turn 63 next month, is the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Most recently, the reclusive regime has come under harsh international criticism for refusing to accept foreign aid for victims of Cyclone Nargis, which killed at least 78,000 earlier this month and left hundreds of thousands more without adequate food, water or shelter.
The Web-based celebrity campaign, called "Burma: It Can't Wait," began May 1 but has been overshadowed by the cyclone, which struck Myanmar two days later. Organizers hope to raise Myanmar's profile in the same way that activists have put Chinese control of Tibet and the Darfur genocide on the map.
Another goal of the project is to sign up a million new members for the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a Washington-based organization that promotes democratic change in Myanmar.
The videos can be found at uscampaignforburma.org.
Some of the spots are sketches that try to draw attention to the troubled nation by injecting humor, such as one featuring Jennifer Aniston and a recalcitrant Woody Harrelson, who refuses to leave his trailer. "I'm not coming out until Burma is free," he shouts.
Others are serious, such as one directed by Anjelica Huston in which comedian Eddie Izzard praises the young people of Myanmar who led protests against the regime last year. "We must use our freedom to help them get theirs," he says.
Huston said in an interview that she took part in the project to highlight the injustices of the regime. "I am particularly drawn to the idea of this small, extraordinarily beautiful country that has been suppressed in this terrible way for so long and the fact that the leader of the democratic party has been shut up under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years," Huston said.
The campaign has attracted such celebrities as director Judd Apatow, Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona, actor Joseph Fiennes, singer Sheryl Crow, action star Steven Seagal, actress Felicity Huffman and producer Norman Lear.
One 90-second video features Iranian artist Davood, who is shown in time-elapsed photography painting a portrait of Suu Kyi. Only at the end does it become clear that she is wearing handcuffs.
In another, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" star Eric Szmanda and alumna Jorja Fox play a card game called "Forced Labor," in which he holds the cards of a Burmese soldier and she is dealt the hand of a civilian, who suffers rape, torture and murder.
"I don't think I like this game," Fox says.
"No one does," Szmanda replies.
Szmanda, who visited refugees along the Thai border and briefly crossed into Myanmar last year, said he was stunned by the heart-wrenching accounts of civilians who escaped the regime.
"Something came over me while I was there. I didn't feel a sense of pity, I felt a sense of urgency," he said. "I had a chance to meet a lot of former political prisoners who are now living on the border of Thailand. It's unbelievable what some of them had to do endure for nine or 10 years."
Actress Rosanna Arquette, who appears in a spot condemning the destruction of 3,200 villages by the regime, said she was moved to participate in the project because of the plight of Suu Kyi.
"She has done so much and she is still a prisoner," Arquette said in an interview. "And the world doesn't really know. There are no Americans there to help. It's really like a creepy secret."
Jack Healey, the former head of Amnesty International who helped raise that group's profile through celebrity concerts, had a key role in organizing the Burma project. He said one of his goals is to give Suu Kyi the kind of profile that Nelson Mandela had while he was imprisoned in South Africa.
"We want her to be the Mandela of her time," he said. "Maybe by the end we will all know who she is."
Fanista, a new "social commerce" shopping website, underwrote and produced many of the spots and offers customers a 10% rebate that they can donate to the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
In his spot, Stallone talks about his fourth "Rambo" movie, which was released earlier this year and casts the Myanmar dictatorship as the villain. The film depicts "atrocity de-mining," in which civilians are forced to walk ahead of the army at gunpoint to uncover hidden land mines. The regime banned the movie.
"While it is flattering to be part of a movie that is giving the Burmese people hope and it is cool to say 'I'm banned in Burma,' these people need real hope," Stallone says in the 80-second spot. "Let's do something we can be proud about."
ASEAN Warns Burma to Boost Confidence Ahead of Donors Meeting
By Ron Corben
Bangkok, Thailand
22 May 2008
The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) says that claims by Burma's
government that rescue efforts from cyclone Nargis were over was undermining international confidence with the total death toll still unknown. As Ron Corben reports from Bangkok the ASEAN chief's comments came as the United Nations secretary general met with Burma's Prime Minister in efforts to speed up relief efforts and ahead of a donors meeting on Sunday.Association of South East Asian Nations Secretary-General, Surin Pitsuwan, speaking to reporters Thursday, said claims by Burma's military that relief efforts were over and for reconstruction to go ahead was undermining international confidence.
Mr. Surin said international agencies were still saying the full extent of the disaster has yet to be "fully verified."
"This discrepancy is a confidence gap that has to be verified, that has to be reconciled because that is the gap that is going to create confidence or lack of confidence for the claim that the rescue and relief phase is over," he said. "The shared concern is we don't know the extent of the damage, we don't know the numbers of the dead, the numbers of the missing or the numbers of the displaced."
Burmese authorities say the cyclone that hit May 2 and May 3 killed an estimated 78,000 people, and that 56,000 others are still missing. Some 2.5 million people remain in need of critical aid and the United Nations says just 30 percent of those in need have received assistance.
ASEAN foreign ministers reached agreement this week with Burma for greater access for regional assistance. ASEAN and the U.N. formed the "coalition of the mercy" with the purpose of stepping up relief. Burma's military has been widely criticized for restricting access to international aid agencies to the worst affected regions.
On Thursday U.N. Secretary, General Ban Ki-moon, met with Burma's Prime Minister, Thein Sein, to press the military to open the country to greater access to international relief. Mr. Ban is due to meet with Burma's senior General Than Shwe Friday.
Mr. Ban's visit comes ahead of a donor's conference scheduled for Sunday. Burma says the total cost from the cyclone now stands at $11 billion.
Non-government aid organizations are calling on the international community to support the ASEAN initiative to assist Burma by way of the donor's meeting. Dr. Jermail Mahmood is president of Mercy Malaysia.
"ASEAN must know that it is not alone and it must know that it has the support from international aid agencies who have the experience behind them to play an active role in ensuring that the humanitarian response imperative comes first and beyond that the recovery and reconstruction as well," said Dr. Mahmood.
But human rights groups are concerned aid funds are accounted for and meet international standards amid fears of corruption. Debbie Stothardt, is spokeswomen for the rights group, the Alternative ASEAN Network. She says transparency and accountability will be foremost in donor's minds.
"What we need to see from the aid community is a very strong, united response not just a call for money but to actually insist that rules and criteria be adopted," she said.
Aid organizations say Burma is allowing more aid to be flown in planes carrying emergency supplies, including from the United States. But they say more relief is needed given the scale of the disaster.
Got it here.
Ban Ki-moon to meet Burma leader
P.S: Please go to the original link if you would like to see a clip.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is to meet with Burma's military leader, Gen Than Shwe, after touring cyclone-hit areas of the country.
On a tour of the Irrawaddy Delta, Mr Ban flew over flooded rice fields and destroyed villages and visited a relief camp set up by the government.
Mr Ban said his mission was to urge the Burma's rulers to accept more aid.
About 78,000 people have died and another 56,000 are missing from Cyclone Nargis which struck on 2 May.
'Show camp'
"I am so sorry, but don't lose your hope," Mr Ban told a woman at the Kyonday relief camp in the Irrawaddy Delta.
A UN official privately called it a "show camp", says the BBC's Laura Trevelyan, in Burma with the secretary general.
"The United Nations is here to help you. The whole world is trying to save Myanmar [Burma]," Mr Ban said, looking into her blue tent.
Mr Ban told reporters he was "very upset" by the devastation he had seen.
"Many human lives have been lost, houses are destroyed, roads and streets are washed away, and all rice paddies flooded with water. I'm very much concerned. These farmers may lose their planting season," he said.
But in a meeting earlier with Burma's Prime Minister Thein Sein, Mr Ban was told that the relief phase of the aid operation was over and that the government was now focusing on reconstruction, a UN official said.
Mr Ban told the prime minister that the disaster was beyond Burma's ability to handle on its own and that foreign aid experts should be rushed javascript:void(0)
Publish Postin.
"The United Nations and all the international community stand ready to help to overcome the tragedy," Mr Ban is quoted as saying.
Got it from here.
UN chief tours still-flooded Myanmar delta
KYONDAH, Myanmar (AP) — U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon flew over Myanmar's flooded Irrawaddy delta on Thursday, where the ravages of a cyclone stretched as far as the eye could see: Villages were empty of life, flattened huts dissolved into vast areas of water and people perched on rooftops.
Nearly three weeks after the storm, life was grim even at a refugee camp showcased by Myanmar's junta during the carefully scripted tour.
"I'm very upset by what I've seen," Ban said, visibly shaken by the firsthand look at the devastation, even though the areas to which he was taken were far from those worst-hit by Cyclone Nargis.
Before his helicopter flyover, Ban had said he was bringing a "message of hope," to Myanmar's people following the May 2-3 cyclone, which claimed more than 78,000 lives, according to government figures, and left more than 56,000 missing.
Myanmar's military rulers have been eager to show they have the relief effort under control despite spurning the help of foreign disaster experts, and much of the tour was taken up by statistics-laden lectures to make that point.
The U.N. says up to 2.5 million cyclone survivors face hunger, homelessness and potential outbreaks of deadly diseases, especially in the low-lying areas of the Irrawaddy Delta close to the sea. It estimates that aid has reached only about 25 percent of victims.
The four-hour tour Thursday included two stops — one at Mawlamyinegyun, an aid distribution point stocked with bags of rice and cartons of bottled drinking water and the other at a makeshift camp where 500 people huddled in tents in the village of Kyondah, about 45 miles southwest of Yangon.
Still, the destruction in the region was relatively mild compared to Labutta and Bogalay to the south, where the Red Cross said rivers and ponds were full of corpses and many people have received no aid. Officials gave no explanation for why Ban was not taken to those areas, where most of the dead and missing were reported.
By contrast, Kyondah — which has electricity and clean water — is somewhat of a showcase and was selected for visits by senior junta members, foreign embassy officials and international aid organizations last week.
At the camp, the secretary-general was given a detailed explanation by Maj. Gen. Lun Thi of how Kyondah, formerly a cluster of seven villages with a population of 5,228, has expertly handled relief efforts. The village had 122 dead and missing, he said.
He displayed charts saying the camp had 300 bags of rice, 64 boxes of instant noodles, 1,500 eggs, 12,000 bottles of drinking water and 1,240 pieces of preserved meat. Also listed were napkins, steel bowls, blankets, T-shirts, tarps and men's and ladies' underwear.
While the general spoke, Ban sat in the front row of an elaborately constructed sitting room where bowls of fruit and soda were served. Ban ate and drank nothing.
Once the lecture was over, Ban strode into the camp, stopping at tents to look in on the homeless families, some with children as young as a day old.
"The whole world is trying to help Myanmar," he told one family in the camp, where inhabitants had cooking pots and blankets that appeared to be new stacked neatly in their tents. Some smiled at him, but said little.
An idea of the storm's destructive force was more obvious from the air.
The two helicopters carrying Ban's party flew over seemingly endless fields surrounded by flood waters, villages with destroyed houses, rivers swollen past their banks, people huddled on rooftops or in makeshift tents, or moving around in boats.
In some areas, the flooding stretched as far as the eye could see, with people living in damaged homes that looked completely cut off.
So far, no one at the U.N. has ventured an estimate of how long the delta is expected to remain submerged. But on Thursday, Ban said he expected the relief operations to be needed for at least six months.
The question of pumps and levees, and whether they could be used to make the flooding less extensive, is an issue U.N. officials say they might raise at a regional aid conference Sunday.
Much of the area is normally planted with rice, but the water level is far too high for that and the paddies are inundated with damaging salt water, U.N. officials said.
The monsoon, bringing seasonal rains, is part of the normal cycle, but doesn't usually cause flooding in the delta, they said.
Heavy rains have followed the cyclone, bringing more flooding and hardship to survivors, but Ban expressed hope the rain might also cleanse the rice paddies of the salt water.
"I praise the will, resilience and the courage of the people of Myanmar. I bring a message of hope for the people of Myanmar," he said.
U.N. officials traveling with Ban said they were discussing with Chinese authorities whether Ban could tour the earthquake zone in Sichuan after leaving Myanmar. The officials requested anonymity, citing protocol.
Such a trip would give Ban a chance to compare the two countries' responses and urge China — Myanmar's biggest ally — to put its weight behind opening the flow of aid workers.
Ban tried to keep political issues off his plate.
Activists called on the U.N. chief to meet with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and seek her release. The Nobel Peace prize laureate has been confined to her Yangon villa for most of the last 18 years and her current period of detention is due to expire Monday. But a meeting with Suu Kyi was not on Ban's official itinerary.
In a meeting earlier Thursday with Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein, Ban stressed international aid experts should be rushed in because the crisis is too much for Myanmar to handle alone, according to a U.N. official at the talks.
"The United Nations and all the international community stand ready to help to overcome the tragedy," Ban said.
Thein Sein said the relief phase of the government's operation was ending and that the focus had shifted to reconstruction, according to the U.N. official at the talks who requested anonymity for reasons of protocol.
U.N. official Dan Baker said junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe would meet with Ban on Friday at Naypyitaw. Ban earlier said Than Shwe had refused to take his telephone calls and did not respond to two letters.
Yangon citizens did not seem optimistic that Ban's visit would make a difference.
"Don't just talk, you must take action," said Eain Daw Bar Tha, abbot of a Buddhist monastery on Yangon's outskirts. "The U.N. must directly help the people with helicopters to bring food, clothes and clean water to the really damaged places."
got it form here.
For Cyclone Victims, Private Aid vs. a Showcase
HLINETHAYA RELIEF CAMP, Myanmar — The 68 blue tents are lined up in a row, with a brand-new water purifier and boxes of relief supplies, stacked neatly but as yet undelivered and not even opened. “If you don’t keep clean, you’ll be expelled from here,” a camp manager barked at families in some tents.
The moment, at what has been billed as a model camp for survivors of Cyclone Nargis, captured a common complaint among refugees and aid volunteers: that the military junta that rules Myanmar cares more about the appearance of providing aid than actually providing it.
As a result of heavy international pressure, the junta has embarked on a campaign to show itself as responsive and open to aid as China has been in the wake of the earthquake that killed tens of thousands in Sichuan Province. On Thursday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, arrived in Myanmar, as United Nations officials said that, nearly three weeks after the cyclone that left 134,000 dead or missing, they were finally seeing some small improvement.
The first 10 helicopters loaded with supplies from the World Food Program arrived Thursday. But of the 2.4 million survivors, United Nations officials say, only 500,000 have received any aid to date.
Mr. Ban received guided tours of apparently well-run government camps like this one for survivors, presenting one vision of the junta’s response to its people and the outside world. But interviews with survivors and Burmese breaking rules to help them suggest a different story: of a government that seems to have assisted little and, at times, with startling callousness, has even expelled homeless refugees from shelters that the junta needs for other purposes.
This relief camp in the western outskirts of Yangon, the country’s main city, made headlines in Myanmar’s state-run press when the junta’s leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, showed up there on Sunday to inspect the government relief effort.
A few days after the general’s inspection, the camp’s tidy blue tents were still set up but bottles of cooking oil inside many of them remained in their boxes. Pots and pans still bore their brand-name stickers.
The camp’s sole “medical” tent, identified by a Red Cross flag, held neither patients nor medicine. Its desk was staffed by two teenagers in uniform. Police officers armed with rifles guarded the entrance, where a new water purification tank donated by a local company was on prominent display.
Just a short ride down a potholed road, a striking divide is evident, one between the model relief camp and the continuing plight of many victims.
In the village of Ar Pyin Padan, a few minutes’ walk from here and just an hour’s drive from the center of Yangon, 40 families who lost nearly everything they owned crowded a rundown two-story school building. They had pushed desks together to serve as makeshift beds.
Here, deliveries of relief supplies are so infrequent that the refugees say they draw lots to get a small share whenever a donation comes in. For drinking water, one said, the township authorities “threw some medicine” into a nearby pond and told the villagers to drink from it.
Now the authorities are allowing no more refugees into the school. Instead they are trying to evict those who are already there so that the building can be used as a balloting station on Saturday. Despite the devastation and misery left by the cyclone, the junta is pressing ahead with voting in the two hardest-hit administrative divisions, Yangon and the Irrawaddy Delta, to complete a referendum on a new Constitution intended to perpetuate military rule. The Constitution was already overwhelmingly approved in other parts of the country.
“They want us to move out,” said one man in the school shelter. “But we have nowhere to go. Maybe if I had four or five sticks of bamboo, I could rebuild my house and start over but they don’t even give us that. So please donate to us. We need urgent help.”
He called the blue tents a short distance away beyond the rice paddies a “V.I.P. camp” — hastily constructed and occupied by villagers tutored to receive visiting junta generals or envoys from the United Nations.
In the past week, the state-run news media have given lavish coverage to General Shwe and other generals visiting areas devastated by the storm. At the same time, some critics say the junta has been obstructing attempts by Burmese to deliver assistance to isolated villages.
“The government is not really interested in helping people,” said U Thura, a dissident comedian who has been jailed four times in the past two decades for his outspokenness. “What they want is to show to the rest of the country and the world that they have saved the people and now it’s time to go back to business as usual.”
Mr. Thura and other volunteers have been lugging relief goods into remote villages in the Irrawaddy Delta over the past two weeks.
“Only a very small percentage of the victims get help at government-run camps,” he said in an interview. “Those fortunate enough to live near roads and rivers also get help. But people in remote villages that are hard to reach don’t get anything. To make it worse, the people in the Irrawaddy Delta have traditionally been antigovernment, so the junta doesn’t like them.”
“Even if they die,” he said, “the generals won’t feel sorry for them.”
For these outlying villagers in the delta, occasional visits by people like Mr. Thura have been virtually the only help they could get. But even people like the ones much closer to Yangon, like Ar Pyin Padan, do not appear to be faring much better.
“If they don’t get help soon, so many of them will die,” said a 36-year-old Yangon resident who has made four private aid runs into villages near Hpayapon, a delta town. “It’s hot when the sun shines and cold when it rains. When you see the villages, you just wonder how these people sleep at night in the rain. They have no shelter to speak of.”
“They are still so stunned by what had happened to them that they show no emotion,” he said. “They don’t even thank us when we give them food. They just accept the help with no expression in their faces.”
He said that during their aid runs he and his friends saw people with pneumonia, cholera and diarrhea. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the private aid deliveries that his group conducts are prohibited.
Mr. Thura and other aid runners said they were hampered by reinforced military checkpoints as well as by roads washed away and streams clogged with storm debris. Those who reach towns with aid are told that such goods must be distributed through the authorities. Many groups like Mr. Thura’s break away and head deeper into the delta on their own.
“We usually drive from Yangon in five hours, switch to a boat and travel four more hours and then we carry whatever we can — rice, noodles, energy drinks, medicine, gaslights — on our backs and walk,” he said. “You really need helicopters and boats to help these people.”
One of his recent trips took him to a village called Mangay. The village, whose name means “gaze at” in Burmese, was a sorry sight, he said. Once a prosperous community of 1,000 families who supplied dried fish throughout Myanmar, Mangay was virtually wiped out: 700 families were left homeless and 500 people were reportedly dead or missing.
Mr. Thura said more than 400 people were making donations for his aid runs as a way of helping the victims directly. Still, his five teams of renegade aid runners, who often use Buddhist monks as scouts, could only manage to deliver 6.5 million kyats, about $6,500, of relief a day into 32 villages.
The aid runners are coming under increasing pressure from the government.
Twenty of Mr. Thura’s team members have received calls from the police warning that they will be punished if they continue their work. On Sunday, he said, his photographer, U Kyaw Swar Aung, was arrested and has not been heard from since. He had been traveling around the delta making videos of dead bodies, crying children and villagers who went insane after the storm and distributing them as DVDs.
Meanwhile, Mr. Thura said the government seemed less focused on aid than on making sure there were no more scenes like those to film. In one place, he said he saw a pile of floating bodies clogging the narrow mouth of a stream after they were dumped into the water by soldiers on a cleanup operation.
“Then the soldiers used dynamite to blow up the bodies into shreds,” he said.
Got it from here.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Charity worker’s Burma mission
May 20 2008 by Katie Norman, South Wales Echo
A CHARITY campaigner is today poised for emergency deployment to disaster-struck Burma.
Jessica Camburn, left, who works for Save the Children, is heading to Burma to support the team of international emergency workers who are trying to ease the devastating impact of Cyclone Nargis.
The Burmese government says at least 78,000 people have died because of the cyclone on May 2 with a further million people homeless. However, the United Nations has put the death toll at 216,000, with around two million homeless and 220,000 missing.
Jess, 29, from Adamsdown, Cardiff, has been called up to travel to Burma at short notice to help develop funding proposals for projects helping children fighting for survival. She is due to fly out today.
She said: “It’s hard to find the right words or even know how to feel about this.
“The scale of this emergency is difficult to comprehend, despite the news reports that we are getting from Myanmar (Burma). I don’t think I’ll really be able to understand the situation until I’m out there.”
Jess, who is originally from Edinburgh, has worked for Save the Children for four years. She has previously worked in Uganda and spent a year training to be part of Save the Children’s General Emergency Standby Team. Her first two-month mission was to war-torn Afghanistan last year, but this is her first rapid-response call-out.
She said: “To be honest I never thought I would get the call to join the Myanmar team because it was proving to be difficult to get visas for international staff.
“However, it seems that finally visas are being granted and I was asked how quickly I could get my passport to London.”
Save the Children’s 500-strong workforce in Burma has spent the last week distributing food, clean water, shelter, blankets, cooking materials and oral-rehydration solution to treat diarrhoea.
Wales’ leading international aid charities have joined forces to launch an emergency DEC Myanmar (Burma) Cyclone Appeal, which has already raised £8m, but more cash is urgently needed.
To donate, call 0870 6060900 or visit www.dec.org.uk.
katie.norman@mediawales.co.uk
I got it from here.
World Bank won't lend to Myanmar, cites old debts
INGAPORE — A top World Bank official says the bank won't give financial aid or a loan to cyclone-hit Myanmar because of its outstanding debts.
Managing Director Juan Jose Daboub says the World Bank is working with Southeast Asian countries by providing technical support to assess damages in Myanmar and to help them to plan rehabilitation efforts.
But he says it is "not in a position to provide (financial) resources to Myanmar" because the military-ruled nation has been in arrears with the World Bank since 1998.
His comments Tuesday come ahead of an aid donors' conference in Yangon on Sunday to pledge funds for Myanmar.
The country has said that losses from the recent Cyclone Nargis exceeded $10 billion.
Flags at half-mast as U.N. aid envoy presses Myanmar
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Flags across Myanmar flew at half-mast on Tuesday for the victims of Cyclone Nargis as the U.N.'s top aid envoy pressed the military government to allow foreign helicopters to fly in supplies to survivors.
The army declared three days of mourning after a visit by 75-year-old junta supremo Than Shwe to the stricken Irrawaddy Delta on Monday, his first since the cyclone struck two weeks ago, leaving nearly 134,000 dead or missing.
Diplomats, aid workers and some citizens took it as a possible sign the reclusive leadership had woken up to the scale of the catastrophe and would allow in more international aid.
U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told reporters he had discussed the use of helicopters with Prime Minister Thein Sein, who had said his government would consider it. Myanmar has allowed relief flights to deliver supplies to Yangon but baulked at any aerial access to the delta.
"Myanmar's government is very grateful for the U.N. and international support," Holmes said at a news conference.
Asked whether U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would meet Senior General Than Shwe when he visits Myanmar on Thursday, Holmes said: "I think he will".
The bespectacled Senior General, who has run the country since 2005 from a bunker in a new capital 250 miles (390 km) north of Yangon, was shown on state-run TV touring hard-hit towns.
"The old man must have been shocked to see the real situation with his own eyes," one retired government official said in Yangon, the former capital where torrential rain is causing more flooding and misery for storm victims.
he government's toll stands at 77,738 killed and 55,917 missing, although the United Nations says that could rise dramatically if the 2.4 million people left destitute by the May 2 cyclone do not get a lot of aid quickly.
Until the last few days, the junta's attention appears to have been on a May 10 referendum on an army-drafted constitution that is meant to precede multiparty elections in 2010. The vote was postponed to May 24 in areas worst-hit by the cyclone.
JOINT PLEDGING CONFERENCE
The top general's visit also coincided with moves by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, and the U.N. to convene an aid pledging conference on Sunday in Yangon and work on a bigger aid delivery plan.
"There are obviously some in the military who see how enormous this is, and how enormously wrong it could go without further support," one Yangon-based diplomat said.
Across the Southeast Asian country, flags flew at half mast from government buildings and a few private buildings amid growing criticism of the slow and insufficient measures mustered by the military.
But the New Light of Myanmar, the junta's main mouthpiece, quoted Than Shwe as saying the government "took prompt action to carry out the relief and rehabilitation work shortly after the storm".
The onset of the monsoon season is making life even more miserable for those in need.
Some donors returning from the worst-hit areas on the outskirts of Yangon said the authorities were handing out leaflets telling people not to hand donations directly to victims, but to do it under their management.
"There were victims waiting in the torrential rains along the road for donors to come," one man said.
The leaflets said the handouts might make victims "lazy and more dependent on others", people who were given them said.
"One young man felt very sad to see what was written in the leaflet," one woman said. "He murmured 'what are we supposed to do if we don't depend on donations in this situation?'."
The diplomatic effort to deliver more aid and expertise has picked up a little pace, but the World Bank said it could not provide financial aid to Myanmar because it has made no debt repayments since 1998.
The United States and France have naval vessels waiting in waters near Myanmar ready to deliver supplies.
Although there is little detail of how ASEAN will carry out what it called an aid "mechanism", Western governments and relief groups know it is the only option acceptable to the generals.
"It's a face-saving way to get them to admit outside help, but we'll have to wait and see if it works or if it's fudge," one humanitarian official told Reuters.
Historically the military in the former Burma has been suspicious of foreign interference. That distrust has deepened since the wave of international outrage and tighter sanctions following last year's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley)
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Myanmar Mourns Victims of Cyclone
BANGKOK — Myanmar began three days of national mourning for cyclone victims Tuesday, one day after agreeing to let its Southeast Asian neighbors help coordinate foreign relief assistance following the devastating Cyclone Nargis more than two weeks ago.
The supply of aid and the entry of relief workers from countries outside the Southeast Asian bloc will continue to be limited, said Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo after an emergency meeting in Singapore of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, which includes Myanmar. But the move was taken as a signal that Myanmar’s reclusive military rulers had bowed somewhat to international pressure to allow more outside aid.
“We will establish a mechanism so that aid from all over the world can flow into Myanmar,” Mr. Yeo said.
“Myanmar is also prepared to accept the expertise of international and regional agencies to help in its rehabilitation efforts,” he said at a news conference Monday. Referring to the continuing limits on help from countries outside Southeast Asia, he said, “We have to look at specific needs — there will not be uncontrolled access.”
Since the cyclone, which struck Myanmar on May 3, Western nations and major relief groups have expressed alarm about Myanmar’s refusal to allow in large-scale shipments to the estimated 2.5 million victims in need of aid.
Myanmar has permitted a small flow of aid from several nations, including the United States. But relief officials say that this amounts to only 20 percent of the needed supplies. Without more aid, they say, many more people may yet die of disease and starvation.
In an echo of China’s public response to its earthquake disaster, Myanmar lowered flags on Tuesday to begin a three-day mourning period for the tens of thousands of people who lost their lives in the cyclone. China observed an official silence Monday for those who perished in the quake just one week earlier.
International pressure continued to build on Tuesday from several directions after the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, warned Monday that the ruling junta could be guilty of “crimes against humanity” if it continued to restrict the supply of aid into the country.
In New York, the human rights group Human Rights Watch Tuesday urged the United Nations Security Council to insist that “aid deliveries and humanitarian workers be given unfettered access” to Myanmar.
However, despite the international criticism, Myanmar’s foreign minister, Nyan Win, was quoted by Reuters as telling reporters that there had been no delay in accepting aid. “We always welcomed international aid,” he said.
After failing to receive a reply to letters and telephone calls made to the military junta, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations was to travel to Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, this week in hopes of meeting the country’s leader, Senior General Than Shwe.
On Sunday, state-run television broadcast the first public video images of the general since the cyclone, showing him meeting ministers involved in the rescue effort and touring some affected areas.
The United Nations under secretary for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, toured the Irrawaddy Delta region by helicopter on Monday, according to Michèle Montas, Mr. Ban’s spokeswoman.
Mr. Yeo, the foreign minister, said Asean would work with the United Nations at the conference in Yangon on Sunday to coordinate aid deliveries. He said Myanmar had agreed to allow in medical teams from any of its nine neighbors in Asean. Thailand has already sent a contingent of more than 30 medical workers.
In addition, Myanmar has allowed in 50 medical workers from India. China’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported that a team of 50 Chinese medics arrived in Yangon on Sunday night.
Mr. Yeo said the Myanmar government estimated losses at $10 billion in the cyclone, which swept through the Irrawaddy Delta and Yangon.
Myanmar has raised its official death toll to 78,000. The United Nations and the Red Cross estimate that the toll is more than 100,000, and that it might be as high as 138,000.
Representatives of United Nations relief agencies said that some of their supplies were getting into Myanmar but that the authorities were still severely limiting delivery and withholding many visas from foreign relief experts.
The United Nations World Food Program said it had managed to deliver food aid to just 212,000 of the 750,000 people it thinks are most in need.
The United States and France have naval vessels just outside Myanmar’s territorial waters, and are prepared to deliver supplies directly to affected areas along the coast, but they have not received clearance from the government.
In a column in the French newspaper Le Monde, Mr. Kouchner said the United Nations should intervene by force, or would be guilty of cowardice in the eyes of the world.
“What we need to bring is hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart help, not donor conferences with all their bowing and scraping,” he said later in an interview with French radio. “In the meantime, people are dying.”
Mr. Yeo rejected the idea of delivery by force. “That will create unnecessary complication,” he said at the news conference. “It will only lead to more suffering for Myanmar’s people.”
Seth Mydans reported from Bangkok and Alan Cowell from Paris.
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Starvation threatens in once fertile Myanmar
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- Farmer U Han Nyunt stands on some of the most fertile land in the world -- and fears that he will starve to death.
Acres and acres of rice fields surround him. Once they were his source of livelihood. Now they lie submerged and useless, after a devastating cyclone tore through Myanmar in early May.
Cyclone Nargis claimed more than 130,000 lives and left more than 2 million homeless, the U.N. says.
Now a second catastrophe awaits if new rice is not planted in the coming weeks -- potentially inviting a massive food shortage.
"We are all going to die here," Nyunt said. "But not because of the cyclone. We will die because we have no food."
The low-lying Irrawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the storm, is known as Myanmar's rice bowl region and produces up to 60 percent of the country's crop, the U.N .Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates.
By the time the storm hit, farmers had harvested their dry season crop.
"But the problem," says Concepcion Calpe, a senior economist with the FAO, "is that a lot of it was still in the field and it was completely wiped out."
Farmers tried to salvage some of the yield by drying it, but the country has entered its rainy season -- and downpours have dampened that prospect.
Calpe's organization estimates that 200,000 tons of rice may have been damaged by the cyclone.
She says the government has enough rice in its reserves to offset the loss. The challenge is to deliver it to hard-to-reach areas.
"The problem is not of supply," she says. "It is now a problem of logistics because you have to reach people and provide some minimum supply of rice."
The bigger worry for aid groups is what lies ahead.
With the rainy season here, farmers will need to plant in the next two months if they stand any hope of a second yield.
Salt from the cyclone flooding has seeped into the soil, preventing planting in some areas altogether, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.
"No rice will grow here for a very long time," said Han Nyunt. "The soil is dead because of the flood water that the storm brought.
"We are trying to dry the seeds in the sun," he said. "But it is hopeless. Once the seeds have started sprouting like this, we can't plant them anymore. All we can do is feed them to the animals." Video Watch footage on aid bottleneck »
There is also a lack of animals to help plow the crop.
A boat trip down the delta's rivers revealed bloated carcasses of water buffaloes, the main farming animals in the area.
Soon after its independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar -- then known as Burma -- was the world's largest rice exporter.
But decades of economic policies by the ruling military junta, which came into power in 1962, stripped it of the title. Still, it produces a significant amount.
This year, the secretive junta had granted private companies licenses to export excess rice to Myanmar's neighbors.
The government had expected to export about 600,000 tons. And aid groups had hoped that the delivery would help mollify the recent global panic over scarce rice.
Now, however, it is unlikely that Myanmar will be selling rice to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or other countries.
People in Myanmar consume about 44 pounds of rice every month, compared with 15 pounds in Asia as a whole, according to the FAO.
Yet there may be one silver lining in the cyclone's dark cloud: the same rainfall that prevents farmers from drying their harvest will also, with time, wash away the salinity from the soil.
Calpe was optimistic the fields could recover in time for a healthy, albeit slightly smaller, rice yield.
The USDA estimates Myanmar's rainy season rice yield at 10 million tons.
But to achieve that, farmers -- homeless and hungry -- need help.
Aid agencies have struggled to gain access to the country, and only a limited number of relief flights have landed. The regime has indicated it would like supplies but not international aid workers.
The message may slowly be sinking in.
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Even as it began a three-day mourning period Tuesday for the victims of the cyclone, Myanmar agreed to let its South Asian neighbors send medical personnel and an assessment team to the country.
Myanmar's decision to accept aid from its neighbors came after an emergency meeting in Singapore of the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
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Myanmar cyclone: plan to beat Burmese block on Western aid
By David Blair and Thomas Bell
Last Updated: 8:37PM BST 19/05/2008
An international relief operation designed to help victims of Burma's cyclone, exploiting loopholes in the regime's ban on Western aid, should begin soon, Britain said.
Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office minister responsible for Asia, returned to London after visiting Burma and neighbouring countries. A relief effort led by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean), in co-operation with the UN, had been agreed, he said.
"It was clear that the Burmese had more confidence in their Asian neighbours than they did in a Western-directed operation," said Lord Malloch-Brown.
Aid from Western countries will go to Burma's neighbours, from where it will be transferred to the devastated areas of the Irrawaddy Delta.
This "Asean-UN" approach was the "best show in town and we're putting our eggs in that basket," said the minister. But he added: "We can't afford to have this snagged up in Burmese delays."
If this method failed, Lord Malloch-Brown said that other options remained open.
Western aid agencies and Burma's military regime hold diametrically opposing views on the scale of the crisis. Foreign relief workers think that between 1.5 million and two million people need help – and only 500,000 are being reached at present.
But Lord Malloch-Brown said that when he met Burmese ministers "their insistence was 'what crisis? All the emergency needs are met and what we need from the Asean nations is assistance for the recovery phase'."
The minister said this was a "panglossian view", adding that a "needs assessment" should be completed before a donors' meeting on Monday.
Meanwhile, Burma's generals have followed China and belatedly announced three days of national mourning. General Than Shwe, the junta leader, appeared on television for the first time since the cyclone struck. State radio boasted that the regime had spent £1 million on aid.
got this from here.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Starvation warning for Myanmar's children
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Thousands of children in Myanmar will starve to death in two to three weeks unless food is rushed to them, an aid agency warned Sunday as an increasingly angry international community pleaded for approval to mount an all-out effort to help cyclone survivors.
art.survivor.
A cyclone survivor reacts after receiving donated clothing and sheets in Myanmar's capital, Yangon.
The United Nations said Myanmar's isolationist ruling generals were even forbidding the import of communications equipment, hampering already difficult contact among relief agencies.
A U.N. situation report said Saturday that emergency relief from the international community had reached an estimated 500,000 people. But the regime insists it will handle distribution to victims of Cyclone Nargis.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has been unable to sway Myanmar's leaders by telephone, said he was sending U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes to Myanmar this weekend.
Holmes was expected to arrive Sunday evening in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, said Amanda Pitt, a U.N. spokeswoman in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring Thailand.
"He's going at the request of the secretary-general to find out what's really going on the ground, to get a much better picture of how the response is going and ... to see how much we can help them scale up this response," Pitt said. Details of the visit, she said, were still being worked out.
The U.N. report said all communications equipment used by foreign agencies must be purchased through Myanmar's Ministry of Posts and Communications -- with a maximum of 10 telephones per agency -- for US$1,500 (euro960) each. Importing equipment is not allowed.
State-run radio said the government has so far spent 20 billion kyat (about US$2 million; euro1.3 million) for relief work and has received millions of dollars (euros) worth of relief supplies from local and international donors. It said the government was distributing assistance promptly and efficiently to the affected areas.
Aid agencies were not convinced.
Save the Children, a global aid agency, said Sunday that thousands of young children face starvation without quick food aid.
"We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger," said Jasmine Whitbread, who heads the agency's operation in Britain. "When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days."
International outrage mounted over Myanmar's handling of the disaster.
Britain's prime minister accused authorities in the country, also known as Burma, of preventing foreign aid from reaching victims and said the military regime cares more about its own survival than it's people's welfare.
"This is inhuman," Gordon Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp.
In one town near Yangon, tired and hungry refugees stood in the baking sun beside flooded rice paddies, demolished monasteries and thatched huts. With the arrival of each vehicle carrying precious food and water, they jumped with excitement and surged ahead to get a share. Video Watch villagers struggle to find food, clothing »
At least they were getting something.
"The farther you go, the worse the situation," said an overwhelmed doctor in the town of Twante, just southwest of Yangon, Myanmar's main city. "Near Yangon, people are getting a lot of help and it's still bad. In the remote delta villages, we don't even want to imagine." The doctor declined to give her name, fearing government reprisal.
The government flew 60 diplomats and U.S. officials in helicopters to three places in the Irrawaddy delta, the hardest-hit area, on Saturday to show them progress in the relief effort.
The diplomats were not all swayed.
"It was a show," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press by telephone after returning to Yangon. "That's what they wanted us to see." Video Watch an analyst compare Myanmar's disaster response to China »
A French navy ship that arrived Saturday off Myanmar's shores loaded with food, medication and fresh water -- a potentially lifesaving cargo -- was given the now-familiar red light. France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called it "nonsense."
"We have small boats, which could allow us to go through the delta to most of the regions where no one has accessed yet," he said. "We have small helicopters to drop food, and we have doctors."
The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and its battle group also have been waiting to join the relief effort. U.S. Marine flights to Yangon from their makeshift headquarters in Utapao, Thailand, continued Saturday -- bringing the total to 500,000 pounds of aid delivered -- but negotiations to allow helicopters to fly directly to the disaster zone were stalled.
Myanmar's state-run television, which has repeatedly broadcast footage of generals reassuring refugees calmly sitting in clean tents, announced Friday that the cyclone death toll had nearly doubled to 78,000 with about 56,000 missing.
Aid groups say even those estimates are low.
The international Red Cross says the death toll alone is probably about 128,000, with many more deaths possible from disease and starvation unless help gets quickly to some 2.5 million survivors.
But seeing that help gets to the victims does not appear to be a top priority for Myanmar's rulers. The military, which took power in a 1962 coup, has even barred foreigners from traveling outside of Yangon, putting up a security cordon around the city. Myanmar has been slightly more open to aid from its neighbors, accepting Thai and Indian medical teams, which arrived Saturday. The 32-member Thai team was expected to travel to the delta in the coming days, said Dr. Surachet Satitniramai, director of Thailand's National Medical Emergency Services Institute.
The Indian team consists of 50 doctors and paramedics from the Army Medical Corp., said Indian Air Force spokesman Wing Cmdr. Manish Gandhi. He could not immediately say if they would be allowed to go to the delta.
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Saturday, May 17, 2008
As cyclone refugees wait, Myanmar refuses aid
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's junta kept a French navy ship laden with aid waiting outside its maritime border on Saturday, and showed off neatly laid out state relief camps to diplomats.
The stage-managed tour appeared aimed at countering global criticism of the junta's failure to provide for survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which left at least 134,000 people dead or missing.
The junta flew 60 diplomats and U.N. officials in helicopters to three places in the Irrawaddy delta where camps, aid and survivors were put on display. The diplomats were not swayed.
"It was a show," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told The Associated Press by telephone after returning to Yangon. "That's what they wanted us to see."
The relief group Save the Children UK warned that thousands of children could die of starvation within two or three weeks unless more aid gets into the country quickly.
"With hundreds of thousands of people still not receiving aid many of these children will not survive much longer," the charity said in a statement. "Children may already be dying as a result of a lack of food."
Meanwhile, a French navy ship that arrived Saturday off Myanmar's shores loaded with food, medication and fresh water was given the now familiar red light, a response that France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called "nonsense."
"We have small boats which could allow us to go through the delta to most of the regions where no one has accessed yet," he said a day earlier at U.N. headquarters. "We have small helicopters to drop food, and we have doctors."
The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and its battle group have been waiting to join in the relief effort as well. U.S. Marine flights from their makeshift headquarters in Utapao, Thailand, continued Saturday — bringing the total to 500,000 pounds of aid delivered — but negotiations to allow helicopters to fly directly to the disaster zone were stalled.
Britain's prime minister accused authorities in Myanmar of behaving inhumanely by preventing foreign aid from reaching victims, and said the country's regime cares more about its own survival than the welfare of its people.
"This is inhuman," Gordon Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp. in his strongest criticism yet of Myanmar's authoritarian government.
Brown said a natural disaster "is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do."
Britain's Ministry of Defense said it had dispatched a Royal Navy frigate to the area "as a contingency." The HMS Westminster broke away from an exercise with the French and Indian navies, a ministry spokesman said, speaking anonymously in line with military policy.
The spokesman said the ship carried a crew of 98 and was equipped with a communications facility, a Merlin helicopter, two sea boats, a doctor and a paramedic. The spokesman added that crew members are all trained in disaster relief.
Myanmar's media, which has repeatedly broadcast footage of generals reassuring refugees calmly sitting in clean tents, announced Friday that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis had nearly doubled to 78,000 with about 56,000 missing.
Aid groups say even those estimates are low.
According to the international Red Cross, the death toll alone is probably about 128,000, with many more deaths possible from disease and starvation unless help gets quickly to some 2.5 million survivors of the disaster.
But seeing that help gets to the victims is not the first priority of Myanmar's rulers. The military, which took power in a 1962 coup, says all aid must be delivered to the government for distribution and has barred foreigners from leaving Yangon, putting up a security cordon around the country's main city.
Myanmar has been slightly more open to aid from its neighbors.
It has accepted Thai and Indian medical teams, which arrived in Yangon on Saturday. The 32-member Thai team was expected to travel to the delta in the coming days, said Dr. Surachet Satitniramai, director of Thailand's National Medical Emergency Services Institute.
The Indian team consists of 50 doctors and paramedics from the Army Medical Corp., said Indian Air Force spokesman Wing Cmdr. Manish Gandhi. He could not immediately say if they will be allowed to go to the delta.
With the monsoon season coming, Myanmar was bracing for a long haul ahead.
Though patches of hot sun broke through Saturday, heavy rains since the cyclone have hampered relief efforts. Despite the overabundance of water in the flooded delta, shortages of water that is fresh enough to drink grew more severe by the day.
Access to regular supplies of safe drinking water and proper sanitation is essential for preventing waterborne diseases like cholera. Malaria and dengue fever outbreaks also will be a major concern in the coming weeks after mosquitoes have time to breed in the stagnant water.
In one town, tired and hungry refugees stood in the baking sun beside flooded rice paddies, demolished monasteries and thatched huts awaiting food and water. With the arrival of each vehicle carrying precious supplies, they jumped with excitement and surged ahead to get a share.
They were among the lucky ones — aid was actually coming.
"The further you go, the worse the situation," said an overwhelmed doctor in the town of Twante, just southwest of the country's largest city, Yangon, helping a locally organized relief effort there.
"Near Yangon, people are getting a lot of help and it's still bad," said the doctor, who refused to give her name for fear of being punished by the regime. "In the remote delta villages, we don't even want to imagine."
Myanmar gov't keeping out aid for cyclone victims
By The Associated Press
YANGON - Despite signs everywhere to the contrary, Myanmar's military government tried yesterday to show the world that all was under control, leading diplomats on their first tour through the Irrawaddy Delta, where more than 130,000 people were killed or are still missing after the May 2-3 cyclone.
The junta flew 60 diplomats and United Nations officials in helicopters to three places in the delta where camps, aid and survivors were put on display.
Authorities said they have almost finished carrying out relief work and are moving toward reconstruction and rebuilding.
The underlying message was that they welcome international assistance but there is no need for foreign personnel.
The diplomats were not all swayed.
"It was a show," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, told the AP by telephone after returning to Yangon. "That's what they wanted us to see."
A French navy ship that arrived yesterday off Myanmar's shores loaded with food, medication and fresh water - a potentially lifesaving cargo - was given the now familiar red light, a response which France's UN ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, called nonsense.
"We have small boats, which could allow us to go through the delta to most of the regions where no one has accessed yet," he said.
The USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, and its battle group have been waiting to join in the relief effort as well.
U.S. Marine flights to Yangon from their makeshift headquarters in Utapao, Thailand, continued yesterday - bringing the total to 500,000 pounds of aid delivered - but negotiations to allow helicopters to fly directly to the disaster zone were stalled.
According to the International Red Cross, the death toll alone is probably about 128,000, with many more deaths possible from disease and starvation unless help gets quickly to some 2.5 million survivors of the disaster.
But seeing that help gets to the victims does not appear to be the first priority of Myanmar's rulers.
The military, which took power in a 1962 coup, says all aid must be delivered to the government for distribution and has barred foreigners from leaving Yangon, putting up a security cordon around the country's main city.
got it from here.
International Pressure on Myanmar Junta Is Building
YANGON, Myanmar — International pressure on the ruling military junta in Myanmar continued to grow over the weekend as a senior United Nations envoy was due to arrive in Yangon on Sunday to talk with government officials about what the United Nations has called a slow response to international aid offers after Cyclone Nargis.
John Holmes, under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, has talks scheduled with top members of the government, although diplomats in Yangon said it was unlikely that Mr. Holmes would be allowed to meet with the junta’s leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. The general has remained in the remote capital of Naypyidaw, far from the storm-damaged delta in the south.
In the two weeks since the cyclone hit, the junta has allowed in a modest amount of supplies from a number of nations, but relief workers say it is far short of what they need to fend off starvation and disease. The United Nations says only 20 percent of the survivors have received even “rudimentary aid.”
In some of the harshest comments, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain told the BBC on Saturday that a natural disaster “is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do.”
The French ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, warned on Friday that the government’s refusal to allow aid to be delivered to people “could lead to a true crime against humanity,” according to The Associated Press.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations also called an emergency meeting of its foreign ministers for Monday in Singapore.
The association has asked to see a disaster report from the junta and wants to discuss the regime’s refusal to accept more aid and its refusal to allow foreign relief experts into the country. Traditionally, however, the bloc’s political clout with individual members has been weak; one of its founding principles is “non-interference in the internal affairs of one another.”
A French government statement said a navy ship was waiting about 15 miles outside Myanmar’s territorial waters on Saturday, hoping to go in and unload its cargo of 1,000 tons of food — enough to feed 100,000 people for 15 days. The aid also includes shelters for 15,000 people, according to the statement.
France is negotiating with Myanmar on delivering the aid, Rear Adm. Alain Hinden, the ship’s commander said, The A.P. reported.
India also sent 50 Army doctors and paramedics, along with medical supplies to set up emergency medical clinics, to Yangon on Saturday, although it is unclear if they had government approval to travel to affected areas.
All foreigners have been expelled and banned from the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta, even humanitarian aid workers with long experience in Myanmar. Impromptu aid convoys by local groups and private citizens — often with supplies donated by Burmese companies — have been turned back at military checkpoints.
“These guys are xenophobic,” Shari Villarosa, the senior diplomat at the United States Embassy in Yangon, said in a recent interview, referring to the military leadership.
The government said that almost 78,000 people have died and nearly 56,000 more are missing. The Red Cross put the possible death toll at 128,000.
Ms. Villarosa was able to tour parts of the delta on Saturday with Myanmar’s foreign minister, Nyan Win, riding in one of the government’s few working helicopters. They left Yangon at 7 a.m. and returned early in the afternoon; it was the first chance for an American diplomat to see the area since the storm.
“It was a show. That’s what they wanted us to see,” Ms. Villarosa told The A.P. in a telephone interview.
In addition to roadblocks and checkpoints, the junta’s shutdown of the country has included an Internet firewall that blocks most e-mail access. It also has disabled access to a number of computer programs that can evade firewalls, as well as access to dissident Web sites run by exiled Burmese.
Many residents of Myanmar get their daily news from the Burmese-language radio services run by broadcasters like the BBC and Voice of America. They listen to shortwave radios at home, away from neighborhood snitches. If they are discovered listening to the foreign stations, several Yangon residents said, they could be detained or beaten, or they could lose their jobs.
Parts of Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, were still without power Saturday night, two weeks after the storm, and water supplies were sporadic. Gasoline was still being rationed and prices in the market continued to rise — along with civic anger and frustration.
A large banner was hung on the outside of a seven-story apartment building in Yangon that read: “We don’t want gold, we just need water.” In the Burmese language, the written words for gold and water are nearly identical. The banner also took a swipe at General Shwe. In Burmese, shwe means gold.
When a soldier passing through the neighborhood saw the sign, a local resident quickly tore it down.
Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New Delhi.
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Saturday, May 10, 2008
Myanmar Votes as Junta Curbs Cyclone Relief
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: May 11, 2008
YANGON, Myanmar — The military junta continued to restrict foreign aid shipments to survivors of last week’s devastating cyclone but forged ahead on Saturday with a constitutional referendum intended to cement its power after a campaign of arm-twisting and intimidation.
The junta is refusing to grant entry to foreign aid workers that relief officials say are crucial to preventing further deaths from disease among an estimated 1.5 million victims.
By Saturday, the military had not released two United Nations World Food Program aid shipments that arrived on Friday, according to a spokesman for the program. Several aid flights have landed in Yangon or are en route, the spokesman said, and supplies from other countries were also on the way. But the aid amounted to about one-tenth of what is needed, along with a major logistical operation, said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the World Food Program.
The focus for the military junta was on the referendum for a constitution that is designed to legitimize and perpetuate military rule. Residents said the vote followed a campaign of coercion mixed with propaganda. The military appeared to be diverting some resources from cyclone victims to the referendum. A resident of Yangon, speaking by telephone, said that refugees seeking shelter in schoolhouses were evicted so they could be used as polling places. She said refugees had also been evicted from other buildings. In Datgyigone, a farming village 35 miles north of the capital, a precinct captain burst into laughter when asked if he thought most people would vote for the constitution. “Everyone will vote yes,” he said after he had controlled himself. “Of course yes. Hundred percent.”
But he said most of the voters had no idea what they were voting for, and that neither he nor most people he knew had actually read the proposed constitution.
“The government says vote, so we vote,” he said with a shrug. He spoke openly, but asked that his name not be used for fear of government retribution.
Most villagers, when asked about their votes, declined to speak. A man selling batteries, combs and flip-flops from a small pushcart hurried off when he was asked about the referendum. “I cannot speak about this,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m afraid.”
There were a number of reports of “pre-balloting,” in which employees of enterprises or government offices were required to vote ahead of time under the eye of their supervisors.
The product of a 14-year stop-and-start convention, the referendum is intended to lead to a multiparty election and a nominally civilian government. But it allots 25 percent of parliamentary seats to the military, gives the military control of key ministries and allows the military to seize control in a time of emergency. It would also bar Aung San Suu Kyi, an opposition leader whose party won a general election in 1990, from public office. She has been under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.
There was no obvious police or military presence in Datgyigone or at another dozen polling stations visited during the day.
The polls closed at 4 p.m., just as a torrential rainstorm was lashing the area.
Thousands of soldiers were on the roads and in towns near the village, using axes, machetes and two-handled cross-cut saws to clear trees from towns and roadways. Long convoys of green Chinese-made military trucks hauled away stumps and branches.
Small groups of residents in the main city, Yangon, banded together to distribute aid, but one of them said authorities were sometimes confiscating their relief supplies.
The Yangon resident said that some victims sheltered in Buddhist monasteries, which had been a target during the violent suppression of protests, led by monks, last September. Monks cooked and distributed donations of fish and rice.
The United States was preparing to send in its first aircraft with relief supplies on Monday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross sent its first aid flight to Myanmar on Saturday, loaded with pups, generators, water treatment material and medical equipment.
But these deliveries were tiny in the face of a such widespread destruction. Relief officials warned of an epidemic of cholera and said there is generally a 10-day window after a disaster before the death rate rises steeply.
While major shipments of supplies remained blocked, the local staffs of international agencies struggled to coordinate their work and to distribute the limited emergency stocks available in the country.
State television showed military officers handing out supplies, to the applause of bystanders. It also broadcast a video of two women singing a pop song whose lyrics translated as: “Let’s go to cast a vote. With sincere thoughts for happy days. Let’s go to cast a vote.”
The government mouthpiece The New Light of Myanmar devoted much of its front page to photographs of military leaders distributing aid and comforting survivors, under the headline: “Lt.-Gen. Myint Swe provides food, medicines to storm-hit regions.”
But above the pictures was a reminder: “To approve the state constitution is a national duty of the entire people today. Let us all cast ‘Yes’ vote in the national interest.”
got it from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/world/asia/11myanmar.html?ref=world
In Flooded Delta, a Want as Pervasive as Death
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: May 10, 2008
BOGALE, Myanmar — The water has not receded fully, and few aid trucks have made it here. Only one helicopter, from the Myanmar military, was spotted all Friday, dropping off packages of instant noodles around a devastated delta that needs much more. Win Kyi, a mother looking for a lost son, was crying, her body shaking and her arms outstretched for food, money, water — anything.
“I have nothing,” she said, shuffling in a state of shock. “Everything is gone.”
Six days after a cyclone churned through the coastal plain of Myanmar, it was clear that the damage was great and that little aid had made it to the thousands of Burmese villagers along the sea south of the largest city, Yangon. The smell of rot and death was in the air here, part of a single district where the military government says 10,000 people died.
It is difficult to assess the actual human toll, even in a landscape of toppled trees and houses and bloated farm animals that resembles the devastation of the 2004 tsunami, which killed 181,000 in Asia. Along the 70 miles of road — the only one — from Yangon to Bogale, there was not a single human body visible. Still, aid groups and the few reporters in the country have had little access to some of the areas that were reportedly hardest hit, especially directly on the Andaman Sea.
And people spoke of villages wiped off the map, the damage tallied not by the dead but by the survivors, so few they were easier to count.
In the village of Day Da Nam, 33 miles from Yangon, residents said the remains of 28 farmers killed by the storm were still floating in the falling floodwaters. Thein Tun, a 44-year-old bus driver who is out of work because all the buses were destroyed, said food was scarce and the well water was contaminated.
“The diarrhea is coming,” he said, echoing a grave concern among aid officials that the death toll could rise quickly if clean water and medicine do not arrive here soon.
Lacking alternatives, villagers are eating waterlogged bananas and other rotting fruit, he said. “Normally we have two meals,” Mr. Thein Tun said. “Now we eat only once.”
Yet of the two dozen people interviewed in the flattened villages and flooded rice fields along the road, none said they were starving. Most rice reserves were soaked during the storm, but villagers have laid the grain on large plastic mats to dry. The rice has a musty smell, but farmers say they have no choice but to eat it.
“It tastes bad, but if we can eat it we will,” said Than Tun, 43, a rice farmer. “If not, we will throw it to the pigs.”
Like hundreds of other farmers here, he has lived in an A-frame, three-foot-high bamboo structure along the side of the road since his house was destroyed. Many villagers fled to the relative safety of the road when the storm came because it rests on an embankment higher than the surrounding countryside.
But the water has not completely pulled back to the sea. It is brackish, a problem for humans, but not so much for rice: A little salt, they say, does not hurt the plants. The more long-range problem is that many farmers have no seeds.
“Everything is gone with the wind,” said Zaw Win, a farmer in Leyaim, a half-hour drive from the city limits of Yangon. His rice reserves, which would have lasted him until November, were blown and washed away by the storm. The main crop is normally planted in May and harvested in November.
To help with immediate needs, the monastery in Painal Kone village distributed rice from its stocks on Friday. Some villagers, especially in areas farther south, said the government was also giving out rice rations.
“Anyone with a broken roof gets one or two cups of rice,” said Htayl Lwin, a trader in duck eggs. At the entrance to his stilt house, built on the river that runs beside Bogale, his smudged and still-damp account books were laid out to dry. He counts himself lucky that no one from his family died.
In the days after the storm, several bodies floated past his house.
Mr. Htayl Lwin said the areas affected worst were along the coast. In one village, Kyme Kyoung, only two people survived. The police were limiting access to that area.
About 400 people without homes have sought shelter in the prayer hall of a local monastery, including Ms. Win Kyi, who was separated from two sons when the cyclone hit. She also lost her house and all her water buffalo.
Every day since then she has traveled to the police checkpoint to scour the list of names of the dead. On Friday, the police told her that one of her sons had been located, injured in the storm. When they were united, they hugged for a long time, she said.
“He told me, ‘I’m alive. My whole body hurts. But I’ve come back to Mama,’ ” she said.
For the other son, she is still waiting.
I got it from here.
China shows little desire to exert pressure on Burma
Jane Macartney in Beijing
Many countries are looking to China to play a role in persuading cyclone-devastated Burma to open its doors to foreign aid workers in addition to emergency relief supplies.
But it is unlikely that Beijing would take such an active part. Its principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries has for decades been the linchpin of its foreign policy.
However, Chinese officials, clearly shocked at the extent of a disaster that has received widespread coverage in the domestic media, have already displayed unusual interest in relief efforts in Burma, which lies on China’s southern border.
Qin Gang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, has urged Burma to work with the international community. “We hope Myanmar will co-operate with the international community, will have consultation with the international community.”Those apparently mild words mark a rare effort by Beijing to put some pressure on its neighbour.
But the spokesman reiterated China’s policy principle, saying: “We should take full consideration of Myanmar’s willingness and sovereignty.”
China does not waver from its principle of non-interference – in part because it does not want to attract pressure from other countries that it would regard as unwarranted meddling in its own domestic business.
China this week rejected France's idea of having the Security Council ratchet up the pressure on Burma to grant full access to foreign aid workers, saying the issue should not be politicised.
Beijing's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Liu Zhenmin, made it clear that China, with veto powers on the council, opposed any involvement of the UN Security Council.
He said: “The current issue of Myanmar is a natural disaster. It's not an issue for the Security Council. It might be a good issue for other forums of the UN." The said the council should "let the humanitarian assistance go on."
Chinese aid has already started to arrive – it has already added $4.3 million in aid to its initial $1 million.
However, China has in the past tried to bring some pressure to bear on the Burmese junta. Beijing’s encouragement prompted the generals to speed up the issuing of a visa to the UN special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, after demonstrations by monks last year.
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