Haunted wasteland saps spirits, lives after cyclone

from the Boston Globe

8 out of 10 families lived in poverty before the cyclone hit Burma. The devastation can still be seen in the area, and many things have not been restored. - Kale

By Seth Mydans,

BANGKOK - Nearly four months after the cyclone, the Irrawaddy Delta in Burma is a flat, dark expanse of ruin populated by dazed survivors, unburied bodies and visions of wandering, moaning ghosts.

The region seems to have avoided mass starvation and epidemic, and people are rebuilding their precarious lives in this vast and often flooded marshland where the margin between survival and death has always been thin.

Within that thin margin, recent visitors say, many of the survivors seem to have lost their spark of life, and some of the dead seem not yet to have disappeared as they haunt the minds of those they left behind.

"There is a weariness in people's eyes here," said a photographer who has been chronicling the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which struck on May 3. He spoke on condition of anonymity because access to the region is forbidden to foreign journalists.

"There's a lost feeling that you get," he said. "People are physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. Some of them don't have the strength to start over."

After an international furor over the government's refusal to admit foreign relief workers, a tightly controlled system has been put in place, and aid is reaching much of the area, where the United Nations says 2.4 million people were affected.

The cyclone left 138,000 people dead or missing and 800,000 homeless, according to UN figures, after tremendous winds and a storm surge that resembled a tsunami.

It leveled most of the fragile thatch homes in its path, uprooted trees, swept away the livestock and fishing boats that provided a livelihood and polluted many rice fields with salt.

For those fields that survived, this year's planting season has now passed, and experts say it may be more than a year before many people see their next decent harvest.

Although some houses are being rebuilt and some fields are being worked, the delta remains a vista of ruin and debris, where human and animal bones and the last decomposing bodies still cluster at the edges of waterways.

Fantastical tales circulate among the survivors, the photographer said, weaving a tapestry of stories from this world and the next.

There is the tale of the boy who survived by clinging to the back of a crocodile, and the story of the boatload of people stranded at low tide who sat waiting on the silt for the water to rise, surrounded by stranded corpses.

There is the story of the mother who was reunited with her baby after it was swept away in a washtub, and the story of the woman who gave birth as the cyclone hit and pulled her baby from the water by its umbilical cord.

And there are the stories of wandering ghosts, whose cries for help can be heard at night in haunted places that no villager dares to enter.

Among these phantoms and traumas, international relief workers have become the survivors' lifeline, delivering aid to all but the most remote parts of the delta.

More than 1,800 visas have been issued to these workers, aid officials say, though access to the hard-hit delta is slowed by an ever-more-complicated process of permissions and paperwork.

By now, most survivors have received aid, said Andrew Kirkwood, country director for the aid group Save the Children. "But very few people have received enough assistance to get them through the next three months, and almost no one has received enough assistance to enable them to rebuild their lives."

He said the reconstruction of schools, clinics and other infrastructure, which should be well underway by now, still lagged because of delays in delivering basic emergency assistance.

The xenophobic military junta that holds Burma in its grip prevented large-scale foreign aid deliveries for the first three crucial weeks after the cyclone, then loosened its controls only gradually and partially. It never did allow US and French naval vessels to bring in tons of aid and equipment.

But despite the early demands from around the world that the Burmese government permit open deliveries of aid, the United Nations says that nearly half the assistance pledged by foreign donors has yet to appear. Recently it said it had received $339 million in international donations, a shortfall of $300 million.

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Myanmar cyclone damage estimated at $4 billion

from the Guardian

Estimates are now being made about the damage of the cyclone that hit Myanmar earlier this year. Along with criticisms of it's government. - Kale

By VIJAY JOSHI

SINGAPORE - Myanmar needs at least $1 billion over the next three years to put the survivors of Cyclone Nargis back on their feet, a U.N.-led report said Monday in the first comprehensive assessment of damage caused by the disaster that killed more than 84,000 people.

The May 3-4 cyclone caused damage estimated at $4 billion, said the report prepared by the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the military junta that governs Myanmar. Damage to assets was determined to be about $1.7 billion and loss of income was estimated at $2.3 billion.

The cyclone devastated large swathes of the Irrawaddy delta and the Yangon region, killing at least 84,537 people and leaving 53,836 missing and presumed dead.

ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan told a news conference the three parties involved in the report are seeking at least $1 billion in international aid for humanitarian relief efforts alone over the next three years to deal with ``a tragedy of immense proportions.''

``The task ahead is clearly enormous and will take a lot of time, a lot of effort,'' Surin said, flanked by the foreign ministers of ASEAN's 10 members and the United Nations' humanitarian chief, John Holmes. Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win was also on the panel.

Despite the grim statistics, the report makes no mention of the junta's limited action in the first week of the disaster, which drew worldwide criticism.

The junta initially refused to allow foreign relief workers in and pictures of bodies floating in the water amid reports that soldiers were standing by idly horrified people around the world. The junta was also slammed for failing to accept international aid quickly and even physically preventing them from going to the hardest hit areas.

The military government had also insisted on full access to international relief, holding up delivery for weeks while survivors waited in desperate conditions. ASEAN helped facilitate exchanges between international donors and Myanmar's governing military junta.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo, who chaired the news conference to release the report, refused to allow an Associated Press reporter's question to Myanmar's foreign minister about whether the junta felt that many lives could have been saved had it acted differently.

Yeo said that while ``political questions'' are relevant, the news conference was only about the assessment report.

Nyan Win said the junta hoped the international community will provide increased assistance.

``Even if we do not receive adequate assistance, we are determined to proceed with our limited resources,'' he said.

Members of ASEAN, the region's main bloc, usually stick to a policy of not interfering in each other's domestic affairs. But the group opened its annual meeting in Singapore Monday after issuing its strongest rebuke ever to Myanmar over the junta's failure to make progress on political reform.

ASEAN experts said the worst is still not over and the cyclone hit area remains in a state of emergency.

``People live in a very precarious condition now. If we fail to sustain the recovery efforts, they may face a second emergency,'' said Puji Pujiono, a recovery assessment specialist in the ASEAN team.

At a donor conference after the cyclone, participants demanded full access to storm-hit areas and an independent assessment of aid to ensure it was not being wasted or stolen.

``Both of those things are in place,'' Holmes said.

``It is important to have a report of this quality so that donors are sure their resources are being well spent,'' Holmes said, appealing to donors to ``continue to be generous.''

He said the U.N. had appealed for $482 million in immediate assistance but is still short $300 million.

The report paints a dismal picture of the devastation caused by the cyclone, saying it is expected to wipe out about 2.7 percent of Myanmar's projected gross domestic product in 2008. Myanmar is one of the world's 20 poorest countries with some 32 percent of its 54 million people living below the poverty line -- meaning they don't earn enough to eat two meals a day.

The wall of water destroyed 450,000 homes and damaged 350,000. About 75 percent of health facilities were damaged, as were 4,000 or more schools.

About 1.5 million acres of farmlands and 60 percent of agricultural implements were destroyed. In mid-June, 55 percent of survivors had rations enough for only one day or less.

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“Ten million malaria patients in Myanmar”

from Radio Netherlands

by an RNW reporter

According to the World Health Organisation, malaria and AIDS are the two most devastating global health problems of our time. Together they cause more than four million deaths a year. They are both diseases of poverty and both of them cause poverty.

However, according to Professor Willem Takken, one of the pre-eminent malaria specialists in the Netherlands, the overall effect of malaria is greater than that of AIDS. This is chiefly because HIV/AIDS has also hit the western world, so there has been a stronger push to come up with successful treatments for the disease, which is not the case for malaria. Professor Takken explains:

"There are five to six million people who get malaria every year. A million die from it every year, but for those who don't, it still makes them seriously ill for a couple of weeks which means that they can't work."

And for people who are living on a daily wage, the loss of a week's wages has a direct impact on the family's food input.

Médecins Sans Frontières
In Myanmar, malaria is cited by medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as being the number one cause of death. MSF has been fighting the disease for years in Myanmar where it now has 30 clinics that treat some 200,000 patients. Dr Frank Smithuis, himself a malaria specialist, is MSF Head of Mission in Yangon, the country's capital. He says:

"The WHO says that there are 500,000 malaria patients in Myanmar, but I know for a fact that's not true. I estimate it to be closer to ten million."

Mr Smithuis backs up the enormous discrepancy with the figures of MSF's own centre of operations in Rakhine state.

"Previously the clinics in this area used to see 30 patients a month. Since we started our diagnosis and treatment - which we give at a very low price of about eight cents per treatment - the number of patients seeking help in our clinics has increased 30-50 fold. So we saw the numbers of malaria patients increasing from 30 to 1800 in a month."

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Burmese farmers face rice shortage

from The Daily Express

A United Nations agency has warned that time is running out to help Burma's cyclone-stricken farmers plant rice for the next growing season.

Some 52,000 farmers in Burma's storm-hit Irrawaddy delta will be unable to grow a 2008 rainy season rice crop unless they are supplied with farming equipment and seed within the next two months, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.

But while failure to do so will pose social and economic problems, it will cause just a 2% shortfall in projected national rice production, much less than previously feared, FAO consultant Albert Lieberg said.

The warning came as more attention is being turned toward recovery and rebuilding after initial emergency relief efforts to help survivors of the May cyclone. More than 78,000 people were killed and another 56,000 are missing.

The FAO's deputy regional representative, Hiroyuki Konuma, said that without external support, the worst-off farmers and fishermen in the Irrawaddy delta "will suffer from hunger and poverty for a long time and they will remain dependent on external aid for a long time."

Mr Lieberg said 52,000 farmers will not be able to plant rice this season if they do not receive immediate aid, meaning that almost 450,000 acres of farmland will go uncultivated. That would mean about half a million metric tons of rice will not be harvested, he said.

Mr Lieberg led a three-week FAO assessment mission in Burma that targeted the worst hit areas of the 11 most severely affected townships. About 70% of land in the 11 townships was submerged in flood water, he said.

He said that that fears over flooding and salinity problems - sea water contaminating the soil - had been exaggerated.

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[Comment] The boom in private giving

from the International Herald Tribune

By Carol C. Adelman

The big story of the cyclone that ravaged Myanmar's delta region and the earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan Province in May is not only how the Chinese government outperformed the Burmese military junta in responding to natural disaster. It is also how private citizens, companies, charities and religious organizations from many countries have emerged as a frontline force in helping victims of such tragedies, even within government-dominated states.

In the case of China, donations from American corporations alone totaled $90 million, compared to a modest $3.1 million in U.S. government aid. Private giving from British corporations and private citizens to help the more than 368,000 injured and 5 million homeless victims of the earthquake was almost four times larger than Britain's official aid. And Beijing estimates that aid from its own private citizens amounted to at least $192 million - double that of the American contributions.

In Myanmar, the aid levels are lower because the country's xenophobic rulers blocked most outside help and virtually all foreign aid workers for almost three weeks after the cyclone hit. Yet, even in this shameful situation where private philanthropy was discouraged, Americans donated $30.1 million through private charities, more than the official U.S. government aid of $24 million.

While government aid is particularly useful in large-scale disasters like earthquakes or the Asian tsunami, it has become a minority shareholder in overall financial flows to the developing world. In the 1950s and 1960s, the majority of the West's economic engagement with developing countries was through public aid and other governmental financial activity. Today, private financial flows from all donor nations - philanthropy, investment and remittances - the funds that migrant workers send back to their home countries for their families and local projects - now account for over 75 percent of the industrialized world's economic dealings with poor countries. (Although remittances by foreign workers would normally not fall under the broad category of foreign aid, they have grown so tremendously in our age of globalization that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international institutions consider them a major tool in reducing poverty.)

Besides being bigger, this private flow is better. With its focus on local ownership, low transaction costs and accountability, these contributions are more likely to have lasting results. That is why the savviest government aid agencies are beginning to leverage official aid through public/private partnerships - programs run by businesses, foundations, charities, religious groups, universities and even migrant associations that pool workers donations to build schools, roads and businesses abroad.

As documented by the Hudson Institute, American private philanthropy to poor countries, including remittances, comes to four-and-a-half times U.S. government foreign aid. Even when excluding remittances, private philanthropy was $34.8 billion in 2006, compared to official aid at $23.5 billion.

This American tradition has not waned, even as the international image of the United States has suffered in recent years. America, which is the single biggest donor of foreign aid, gave $23.5 billion for poverty relief and development assistance abroad in 2006, almost twice that of the next largest donor, Britain, which gave $12.5 billion that year.

Even when measured as a percent of gross national income, the U.S. ranks in the top third when all forms of international giving - official aid, philanthropy and remittances - are counted. (The top two givers are Sweden and Luxembourg.)

American generosity through its religious organizations of all denominations is even higher than previously thought. In partnership with the University of Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Religion and Society, the Center of Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute published results of the first-ever national random sample of giving by U.S. religious congregations to poor countries. The results, combined with other data, put religious giving to developing countries at a remarkable new high of $8.8 billion.

More than half of all religious congregations in the United States give donations for international work, mostly in the form of food, medicines, and cash for small business loans, clinics, schools and roads.

But they're not alone. U.S. foundations, corporations, universities, colleges and charities also give large sums abroad. Official aid should go to foster ongoing local partnerships. "Joining Hands for El Salvador," is a partnership among El Salvador's Banco Agricola, the Pan American Development Foundation, and 39 El Salvadoran "Home Town Associations" established by migrants in the United States to help their villages back home. An estimated 28,500 students in El Salvador have benefited from schools, computer centers and science labs since the project began in 2004.

Helping people survive after massive cyclones and earthquakes is one thing. Partnerships to help them prosper is another. The British charity, Tools for Self-Reliance, for example, provides tools and training for Africans to repair farm equipment, cars and sewing machines to keep local economies functioning.

The hottest trends in development assistance - dubbed "creative capitalism" by Bill Gates - focus on this entrepreneurial spirit. The New York-based Acumen Fund brings investment banking skills to bear on development projects, while Ashoka Fellows have been instrumental in fostering microlending.

The tragic disasters in Myanmar and China have shown that the spirit of philanthropy cannot be dampened, even in countries where independent non-governmental organizations are banned.

Carol C. Adelman is director of the Center of Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute, and former assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

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[Comment] The Burma dilemma

from The International Herald Tribune

By Thant Myint-U

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon arrives in Yangon on Thursday at the invitation of Myanmar's ruling generals, the first official visit by a UN chief in over 40 years. He will tour the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy River delta and work to persuade the government to allow greater international access to the hundreds of thousands of people in need of life-saving assistance.

But he will not just be visiting a country reeling from its worst natural disaster ever. He will be in a country only now emerging from decades of armed conflict, where aid has long been politicized and where the urgent tasks of emergency relief may soon be coupled with the immeasurably more complex challenges of recovery and reconstruction.

As early at 1990, Rolf Carriere, then Unicef director in Yangon argued that there was a desperate need for humanitarian and development aid in Myanmar, and that it could not wait for democratic change.

His call went largely unheeded. The military government pleaded for assistance, especially from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to reform the economy. But Western governments had just begun to impose sanctions in the hope of nudging the junta towards democracy, and nearly all aid - including through the UN - was cut off.

Only in the last several years have things begun to change. Several UN agencies and international charities have tried hard to expand help to the country's most vulnerable people, with support from a few governments like Britain and Norway. But it's hardly been enough.

Myanmar is one of the poorest nations in the world, with millions living in extreme poverty. But the average Myanmar citizen receives less than $2 a year in international aid - about a 10th of per capita aid to Vietnam and a 20th of per capita aid to Laos and Cambodia. Thousands, mainly children, die every year from treatable diseases like malaria.

Though the government had once looked forward to aid, it eventually became suspicious, especially when allegations of a humanitarian crisis in Myanmar were used to press for UN Security Council action. The government worried that humanitarian issues would serve as camouflage for a "regime-change" agenda and that aid workers themselves were a "fifth column." They knew that foreign funds were also helping pro-democracy dissidents both at home and abroad, and feared that aid programs were part of a conspiracy to unseat them.

Many of the regime's opponents were also suspicious, believing that any aid would further entrench the status quo. They pointed to the government's long record of economic mismanagement. A fierce debate ensued. At the very time the UN was trying to scale up assistance, Myanmar's authorities began to tighten restrictions.

Cyclone Nargis struck at a time of particularly sensitive relations between the junta and the aid community.

The outrage felt at the lack of international access is more than understandable. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake. But the actions of the generals should also come as no surprise.

Myanmar's ruling junta is not simply a military government. At its core is a security machine developed over a half- century of civil war and foreign intervention. Everything is viewed through a security lens.

The idea of throwing open the country's borders to international aid teams goes against the most basic instincts of the men in power. It will never happen.

If the diplomacy around securing access seems tough, the dilemmas around any future recovery may be thornier still. Once the immediate crisis is over, the Irrawaddy delta will require a gargantuan reconstruction effort, lasting months if not years. Entire towns have been wrecked, millions displaced, livelihoods ruined. With rice prices sky-high, the lives of millions more could become untenable.

Should the United Nations and others only provide emergency humanitarian aid and then leave? Or can the world help revive the Irrawaddy delta, once Asia's greatest rice exporter? Can there be any logic to maintaining sweeping U.S. and European economic sanctions on aid, trade and investment while also trying to rebuild the devastated areas?

And what of the rest of the country? The delta is obviously the priority, but huge numbers of other people live in terrible poverty. Should not aid be increased for them as well? The north and the east - especially the uplands inhabited by Myanmar's many ethnic minorities - have suffered from decades of war, with enormous humanitarian challenges of their own.

Can any rehabilitation of the delta's economy be possible without a more general vision of Myanmar's economic development? What sorts of reforms are needed and what kind of economic dialogue is possible with the ruling junta?

There are of course political challenges as well, until recently the nearly sole focus of international attention. Myanmar's generals will want to push ahead with their new constitution, one that ensures the military a dominant position, like past constitutions in Indonesia and Thailand. Dozens of ethnic-based insurgent armies have agreed to ceasefires with the Myanmar army, but there is no permanent peace and moves towards disarmament and demobilization are just beginning.

Can the UN both push for political change and be the institution working on humanitarian and development issues? As Rolf Carriere questioned years ago, does help for the poorest have to wait for democracy? Does a policy of further isolation make sense?

Thant Myint-U is the author of "The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma."

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World Bank won't provide aid to lax loan repayer Myanmar

from Monsters and Critics

Singapore - The World Bank is currently not in a position to give aid to cyclone-wracked Myanmar because the country has fallen behind in its debt repayments, Managing Director Juan Jose Daboub said on Tuesday.

Noting the country has been in arrears since 1998, Daboub said, 'At this time we are not in a position of providing resources to Myanmar.'

Daboub told reporters following a talk at a Singapore university that the bank's policy is not to provide funds 'to countries that have fallen behind' in repayments.

Daboub's comments came one day after after Myanmar agreed to let the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) lead an international aid effort for cyclone-hit areas.

Damage wrought by Cyclone Nargis, which struck on May 2, is estimated by Myanmar at more than 10 billion US dollars.

During the special ASEAN conference on the emergency triggered by Myanmar's earlier refusal to allow aid and medical workers from Western countries, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said there would be major roles for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan had a good discussion with World Bank chief Robert Zoellick when he visited Washington recently, Yeo said, adding Zoellick issued a statement 'expressing willingness to help Myanmar in its recovery effort.'

Daboub said the bank is working with ASEAN in the capacity of providing technical support in assessing damage and formulating a reconstruction plan.

The cyclone has left an estimated 134,000 dead or missing.

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78,000 dead in Myanmar - 56,000 missing

from The London News

Myanmar's state media say the death toll from cyclone Nargis has reached almost 78,000 and that another 56,000 people are missing.

The previous official death toll was 43,000.

State television announced the huge increase Friday, two weeks after the disaster. Diplomats and independent experts said earlier the numbers could go higher.

Myanmar's military-ruled government has rejected the help of most foreign aid workers and has been slow to allow international relief supplies into the country.

The international Red Cross said Friday that 20 - 30 percent of survivors have received aid. It also warned that a lack of clean water could Myanmar's state media say the death toll from cyclone Nargis has reached almost 78,000 and that another 56,000 people are missing.
The previous official death toll was 43,000.
State television announced the huge increase Friday, two weeks after the disaster. Diplomats and independent experts said earlier the numbers could go higher.

Humanitarian officials have warned that widespread hunger and disease could push the numbers even higher.

Nargis has affected an estimated two-and-a-half million people and the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, says up to 40 percent of the storm's victims are children.

UNICEF said that as many as one million children may be at risk of physical and emotional illness following the storm.

A spokeswoman Friday said that in addition to a lack of food and, especially, clean water, the destruction of homes, schools and sanitation systems remains a threat to surviving children.
Also Friday, diplomatic sources in Myanmar said the country's Foreign Ministry will take a group of foreign diplomats on a tour of the cyclone-hit area on Saturday.

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"Invisible" Burmese migrants face poverty and deportation

from IRIN

Charm Tong does not remember fleeing into Thailand - she was only six years old when her parents took her across the border from Myanmar.

Her home in Shan State - Myanmar's largest region - was a conflict zone, with government troops battling rebels of the Shan State Army.

Tong was educated in northern Thailand at a Catholic orphanage. She speaks English, Thai, Chinese and Burmese, and now in her mid-20s, runs a school in Thailand that offers counselling, education and support to other migrants.

Tong’s story is happier than many of at least a million people who left Myanmar for Thailand.

"[Migrants] can be deported at any time because they have no documents," said Tong. "It is a difficult life for them - they have to live in hiding.”

The Migrant Assistance Programme (MAP), a Thai NGO, estimates that 1.5 to 2 million Burmese live in Thailand.

The Thai government considers most to be economic migrants, rather than political refugees, and requires them to obtain registration cards to stay legally. In practice, only a small number can afford the registration fees or produce the necessary documentation, so their lives are a constant battle to avoid government detection, according to MAP. Many live and work illegally and have no access to education, healthcare or basic services.

According to Tong, some live in the forests near the border in makeshift settlements to avoid police detection.

Refugee status

However, the fear of violence, and not just the prospect of jobs and opportunity, drove many Burmese into Thailand, according to a report by Tufts University, Invisible in Thailand. It stated that a significant number of Burmese migrants should be classified as refugees and granted asylum.

"Many Burmese have credible, well-founded fears of persecution …The Thai government, however, steadfastly refuses to acknowledge international legal standards governing refugees," stated the report, produced with the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

More than 1,700 migrants in three locations near the border were interviewed and the report found that many should be entitled to refugee status.

"Only a small number of Burmese who warrant refugee status and attendant services actually receive any aid or protection from the Thai government or international agencies," stated the report.

Migrants were unwilling to talk about possible political reasons for their departure. “Respondents would not answer questions about their political views or specific activities in Burma because they worried that their families would get into trouble.”

Lack of rights

"The situation of Burmese migrants in Thailand is pretty abysmal," said David Mathieson, a New York-based consultant for Human Rights Watch. "Only one-quarter to one-third are registered [with the Thai government] and even for the registered ones, there is a limit to what they can do," he said.

According to Jackie Pollack, director of MAP, unregistered Burmese effectively have no access to healthcare, education or protection under Thai law. Many are forced to work in sweatshops, or in high-risk jobs on construction sites and fishing boats. It was not uncommon for employers to simply refuse to pay wages, or to subject them to workplace abuse.

Even documented workers were susceptible as employers often confiscated their passports and registration papers, said Pollack. Undocumented workers were particularly vulnerable. "If they report [workplace] violations, they are arrested and deported for being in Thailand illegally."

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22,000 feared dead in Myanmar

from Balita

Cylcone Nargis devastates large areas of what was known as Burma.

THE Burma Campaign UK has reported on Tuesday, May 6, that Cyclone Nargis may have killed more than 22,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

One of the groups responsible for promoting democracy in the military junta-run country said the Irrawaddy Delta of Myanmar bore the brunt of the cyclone, that was largely inhabited by farmers and fisher-people who live in bamboo huts held together with dried grass. Cycline Nargis hit the country that used to be called Burma on Saturday, May 3, packing winds of more than 120 miles per hour, the Burma Campaign UK said.

The Burma Campaing UK said in their official website that most people have no electricity and most roads are made from dirt and in bad condition. “Delivery of aid would be extremely challenging even if the government was co-operating,” it said.
It said that what little communications infrastructure that exists has been severely damaged, making contact in the low lying Irrawaddy Delta around Rangoon difficult. “It is this area where the worst devastation is likely to have occurred, with most people living in homes made of bamboo that would struggle to survive torrential rains and strong winds,” the group said.

It added, “Sea levels could also have risen by up to 3.5 metres (about four yards) in coastal areas, causing severe flooding. In addition to potential loss of life, livestock, food stocks and crops are likely to have been severely damaged.”
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said it is providing an initial $250,000 for emergency relief assistance to help those who have been affected by Tropical Cyclone Nargis. USAID said it also pre-positioned emergency response experts nearby and is prepared to deploy a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to assist the people of Burma.
The Burma Campaign UK said it fears the death-toll in Burma will escalate dramatically unless aid is delivered to victims in the next few days. Most people already live in poverty, and have no resources to cope with a disaster on this scale, it said. The group also said what makes rescue and relief efforts very difficult is due to the government’s “severe restrictions on the delivery of aid, and this has largely gone unchallenged by the international community.”
“This is a major humanitarian disaster,” said Mark Farmaner, Director of the Burma Campaign UK. “The British government must provide extra aid to help cope with this crisis. We also need to see the United Kingdom and other governments do more to challenge restrictions on the delivery of aid. Unless aid arrives soon thousands more will die.”
Reports said that although the regime has said it will accept aid, there is no information on what aid it will allow and where it can be delivered. It is highly unlikely that the regime will allow aid to be delivered freely on the basis of need.
Burma Campaign UK said, “It is essential that aid is delivered through independent agencies such as the UN and aid agencies, rather than the regime, which is likely to misuse or steal aid.”
“Thousands more will die unless the international community insists on immediate access for aid, and then puts its money where its mouth is,” said Farmaner. “We appreciate the challenges there are in delivering aid in Burma, but given the scale of this disaster the response from the United Nations and governments is pathetic, and the people of Burma will pay with their lives.”
In its official website, the Burma Campaign UK condemned the regime in Burma for what it claimed as “failing to give adequate warnings to the population about the cyclone that hit Burma on Saturday, and failing to adequately help victims.”
“This is yet another example of how the regime ignores the welfare of the people of Burma,” said Farmaner. “Instead of warning people about the potential danger, state-owned newspapers were full of propaganda telling people that they must vote for a sham constitution that will keep the military in power.” The regime is holding a referendum on Saturday 10 May on a constitution that the military has designed to give a civilian face to continued military rule.
Burma Campaign UK said its sources reported devastation in Rangoon, with roofs torn from buildings and widespread damage. It said aid to states with ethnic minorities face even more restrictions, especially in the east of Burma where the regime is engaged in a war against ethnic Karen, Karenni and Shan populations.
“We know the regime won’t look after people, and instead is likely to block delivery of aid. The international community must stand up to the regime and insist that aid is allowed to be delivered to those in need.”
Over 90 percent of the population of Burma are believed to live in poverty, while the regime spends around half of its income on the military. Aid agencies are not allowed to operate freely in the country. Several agencies have been forced out of Burma, including the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, which was forced to withdraw from the country because of unacceptable conditions by the military. The regime also restricted humanitarian access following the 2004 tsunami, and does not allow aid in areas of Eastern Burma where it is engaged in a war of ethnic cleansing.
As the death toll in Burma rises to at least 22,000, new satellite maps released by the United Nations show the devastating scale of floods affecting Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta.
The maps show large swathes of the South coast under water. Residents in these areas mainly live in bamboo huts that would not be able to withstand the force of the floods.
“Most of the attention so far has been on Rangoon, but this shows that it is difficult to reach areas on the coast that have been most badly affected,” said Johnny Chatterton, Campaigns Officer at Burma Campaign UK. “Helicopters and boats are urgently needed to deliver aid, but it is unlikely the regime will agree to this kind of assistance unless more pressure is put on them.”
According to Burma Campaign UK, India has confirmed it had given two days notice to the regime about the cyclone, but the authorities did virtually nothing to warn the population and put aid in place.

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Burmese victims face peril from enemy within

from The Scotsman

By EMILY PYKETT
A CHILD orphaned by Cyclone Nargis sits crying in Pathein, right at the heart of the flooded Irrawaddy delta zone.
He desperately needs help if he is to survive.

Nine hundred miles away, British Red Cross workers fret impotently at a warehouse in Kuala Lumpur.

Planes loaded with shelter kits, tarpaulins and jerry cans are scheduled to fly to Rangoon the next day.

Will the vital supplies reach survivors of Cyclone Nargis in time? Or will they be seized by Burma's military rulers, who see everyone as a potential enemy – even foreign aid workers?

Aid agency flights into Burma were temporarily halted yesterday by the State Peace and Development Council. In some cases authorities refused to grant clearance for them to land and have rationed aid trucks to just two litres of fuel each.

Charities say their hands are tied because of delays caused by visa backlogs. And US defence chiefs have ruled out air drops of aid, claiming they are bound to respect sovereignty of Burma's airspace.

The Burmese junta is made up of 11 reclusive, paranoid, xenophobic generals who despise the western world.

They are currently building a brand-new sprawling capital city 300 miles north of Rangoon at Naypyidaw, known as the Abode of Kings. It has reliable electricity and water supplies, eight lane motorways and luxurious government buildings.

But while the junta leader General Than Shwe lives in a massive military complex and is happy to pay £25 million for his daughter's wedding, 90 per cent of Burma's population live on 50p a day.

The army recruits boy soldiers and is not afraid to deploy its stocks of antiquated military equipment to quell any uprisings, whether that is Buddhist monks peacefully demonstrating or the Karen ethnic minority defending themselves against state-sponsored massacres in the jungle.

The armed forces – and former rebels co-opted by the government – have been accused of large-scale trafficking in heroin, of which Burma is a major exporter.

Despite the military might, experts say the junta is afraid of everything – internal uprisings, a US invasion, globalisation and its capacity to dilute traditional Burmese culture.

International commentators agree that denying access to US military planes and withholding visas for aid workers all fits the same pattern – the military regime simply cannot reconcile the need for a massive international aid programme with the openness necessary to direct it.

Sean Turnell, a Burma expert at Australia's Macquarie University, said: "The military regime is extraordinarily xenophobic. If they can't handle the situation and they let westerners come in with helicopters, this will demonstrate to their own people the shortcomings of the military. They are more concerned with control and maintaining an omniscience in front of their people than saving lives."

Josef Silverstein, a retired Rutgers University professor who studied Burma for more than a half century, said aid workers could also be seen as a threat.

"From the junta's perspective, aid workers could be carrying weapons to give to the people, they could give them ideas of how to overthrow the government. They're afraid that if foreign soldiers come in they are the spearhead for revolution," he said.

Mark Farmaner, the director of Burma Campaign UK, said: "The council is basically dictatorship by committee.

"They have doubled the size of the army and spend half their annual budget on defence. They have never allowed free access – why should they start now?"

The junta has long mistrusted the western world, stemming from more than a century of British colonial rule that ended in 1948, with Burma deciding not to join the Commonwealth.

A parliamentary democracy survived until the ruthless dictator General Ne Win seized power in a 1962 coup.

During his 26-year rule, Ne Win's regime curtailed human rights and political opposition and closed the country off to outsiders.

Tourists were not allowed in for years until the 1970s when visitors were given strict, seven-day visas.

These days, tourists get one-month visas, but journalists are welcome only during carefully scripted occasions, such as the annual celebration of Armed Forces Day.

Burma, which used to be called "the rice bowl of Asia", is full of natural resources which mean it should be one of the continent's richest nations.

Before the cyclone destroyed the harvests, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation expected 600,000 tonnes of rice exports from Burma this year.

Yet 90 per cent of the population were living in poverty.

The government does not care about an economy already crippled through decades of military rule, and it does not care about the people.

Professor Bill McGuire, the director of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre at University College London, said: "This was a disaster waiting to happen, with millions of people occupying poorly built homes on a river delta barely above sea level and in the cyclone belt. Clearly, the government will have known about the approaching storm, but seems to have chosen to do nothing about it."

But although other large-scale natural disasters have acted as political catalysts, Cyclone Nargis will not help to change the Burma regime, according to observers.

And even under this level of international scrutiny, it is doubtful the catastrophe will persuade the government to open up the borders.

In fact, it could even play to their advantage, says Robert Heath, associate professor from the school of management at the University of South Australia.

The consultant in risk, intelligence and crisis and emergency management said: "The Burmese government junta may see this event as a politically convenient way to account for people who may be missing and dispossessed for other reasons including social decay."

So what can be done next to try to break down the barriers in Burma?

Dr Kerry Brown, an associate fellow on the Asia programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, said: "They are pretty introverted and have been very enclosed for many years. They have not got a great deal of contact with the outside world.

"We have tried applied pressure through the United Nations, tourism embargoes, breaking off political contact.

"Perhaps we should be pressing for the Chinese to talk to them – they seem to listen."

Dr Gareth Price, his colleague at Chatham House, added: "The cyclone has made some two to three million people homeless. Even with Burma's 500,000 strong army, the co-ordination and delivery of aid is lacking, the junta needs international organisations to step in.

"If the military is unable to provide food and shelter to those affected, it could see renewed protests on a much larger scale. But thus far, the junta has appeared immune from foreign pressure."

Andrew Kirkwood, Save the Children, Rangoon

OUR staff are treated like spies. Even under normal circumstances, all our staff need travel permits to go outside Rangoon, and we have to be accompanied by officials from the ministry of welfare and health.

But now, possibly because of international pressure to get aid out there to survivors of Cyclone Nargis, those rules seem to be relaxed. A number of international staff are being allowed to leave the capital.

Save the Children continues to stress that issuing visas for humanitarian workers and easing customs rules for the delivery of aid as soon as possible will greatly enhance the international community's ability to meet the needs of people who survived the cyclone.

However, in my view, it's not the lack of international people on the ground that has been the major constraint – the lack of logistics has hampered us most. The infrastructure is simply not there.

We've just heard that the French oil firm Total can give us the use of two helicopters, with pilots, two days a week. I am speechless – that is great news.

Once the immediate aid efforts are over, we need to start looking at the long term.

More than 3,000 primary schools have been destroyed – that means half a million students have no prospect of going back to school.

We have been working with Unicef to assess damage to schools and are starting to plan for education to resume on 1 June.

JUNTA

This term is used to refer to the ruling body of a country where it is considered the government, normally made up of military officers, who take power after a revolution or coup d'état. A junta normally governs in a dictatorship. It can also mean a council or assembly that deliberates in secret.

MYANMAR

The country achieved independence from the UK on 4 January, 1948, as the Union of Burma. It became the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma in 1974, before reverting to the Union of Burma in 1988. The following year the government adopted the name Union of Myanmar, but the controversial name change has not been not recognised by the opposition groups and many English-speaking nations, as the government which decreed it is unrecognised.

Mark Farmaner director, Burma Campaign UK

THE most senior general, Than Shwe, is 73, very sick – and quite crazy. Many people hope that when he dies the regime will shift, but we think the generals under him are just as hardline.

So there is no real option but for the junta in Burma to be forced to change. We need the United Nations Security Council to overrule it. Trade embargoes, sanctions, the "softly-softly" diplomatic approach – nothing else has worked so far. It is time for individual governments to start getting in there. By this, I mean infiltrate Burma if they have to – we can't wait for permission any more.

Agencies should start delivering aid to cyclone survivors regardless of the junta's position because the alternative is to stand by and watch thousands of people die.

The international community is making the same mistake as it has done for the past 20 years: assuming that somehow reason and logic will work.

But these are brutal generals who are more concerned with fighting in the jungle so they can wipe out civilians and ethnic minorities.

They are not diplomats or politicians; they will not come round and realise people are really suffering.

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Crisis in Myanmar relief camps: Mass exodus sets stage for public health emergency

from World Vision

* Hundreds of thousands of homeless forced to migrate north for aid
* World Vision has assisted 78,000 people so far with water, rice, survival items

YANGON, Myanmar, The lives of thousands of cyclone survivors are at extreme risk as people scramble out of the shattered Irrawaddy Delta to find food and shelter, according to a recent assessment of 26 shelters across the Myaung Mya region of Myanmar.

Assessment teams from humanitarian organization World Vision found displaced people living in appalling conditions in make-shift shelters and camps where overcrowding and unsanitary conditions are prevalent.

As thousands of villagers leave the hardest-hit areas of the Delta region, they embark on a journey where food and shelter are scarce and water is contaminated by salt, human bodies and animal carcasses.

In Myaung Mya, an area some 30 miles north of the devastated town of Labutta, World Vision’s national staff report that some 30,000 people are seeking food, water and medical attention. Children — many of them orphans — are suffering from fever, diarrhea and respiratory infections.

Samson Jeyakumar, World Vision program manager, said, “In this situation, the most vulnerable people are children under five because they have the highest mortality rates in emergency situations and suffer the effects most quickly.”

World Vision has been supplying clean water to survivors in the Irrawaddy area. The agency also has started chlorinating wells, providing water tanks and disinfecting camps sites with bleaching powder. Meanwhile, in Yangon, more than 78,000 people have received clean water, rice and other emergency aid such as clothing, blankets and tarpaulins. Diesel fuel is being distributed to operate water pumps.

World Vision has also distributed sterile dressings, anti-bacterial medicines, mosquito nets and disinfectants, but additional resources are needed. Much of this equipment is available and could be within the country in hours from World Vision’s global warehouses in Dubai and Frankfurt.

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Burma: Lives on the line

from IC Wales

Thousands of Burmese people have perished. Thousands more are at risk. Yet despite worldwide efforts to help the cyclone-torn country, LAURA WRIGHT reports that Burma’s isolationist government are still making the delivery of critical supplies as difficult as possible...

AID should be pouring into Burma after a cyclone devastated the country, killing as many as 100,000 people.

But it was not until Thursday, five days after the cyclone hit that the first major international aid airlift was let into the country. And still Burma’s isolationist government were blocking the delivery of critical supplies and delaying granting visas to aid workers desperately seeking entry to help the country when it needs it most.

Burma, which has a population of around 48 million, is a country reeling from political unrest and extreme poverty.

It is ruled by a military junta accused of human rights abuses and which has attracted international condemnation and sanctions for its ruthless suppression of dissent.

Despite a wealth of natural resources, including gas, timber and precious gems, decades of economic mismanagement has left almost a third of Burma’s population living below the poverty line.

While the ruling military Junta have been accused of letting Burma down by denying access to aid, there have been reports that the country’s leader has spent just £2.5m to save his people after he lavished £25m – ten times that figure –on his daughter’s wedding.

General Than Shwe and his regime have come under fire after an internet video of the wedding showed bride Thandar receiving diamonds for her hair and celebrating with champagne.

The footage shows guests wrapped in their finest clothing and most expensive jewels. And the bride was not treated to the sort of presents you get on a department store wedding list – she received a fleet of cars and luxury homes at the 2006 bash.

The amount spent on the marriage was more than three times Burma’s state health budget. Less than two years later, 100,000 of Shwe’s people are thought to have died, a million are homeless, penniless and desperate for food, water, medicine and shelter – but he still lives in the lap of luxury.

The commander in chief of the Burmese armed forces has been notably absent since the cyclone struck. As head of state, Than Shwe has not even responded to world leaders who sent messages of condolences to the people of Burma.

The World Health Organisation has received reports of malaria outbreaks in the worst-affected area.

A WHO spokeswoman said: “Safe water, sanitation, safe food. These are things that we feel are priorities at the moment.”

Cyclone Nargis smashed into Burma last Saturday, bringing winds of up to 120mph

Shari Villarosa, the charge d’affaires of the US embassy in Burma, said there may be “over 100,000 deaths” in the badly hit Irrawaddy Delta area.

UN officials have described the region as a “major, major disaster”.

A spokesman for the UN Children’s Fund said its staff in Burma had reported seeing people huddled in roughly built shelters, and children who lost their parents.

He said: “There’s widespread devastation. Buildings and health centres are flattened and bloated dead animals are floating around, which is an alarm for spreading disease. These are massive and horrific scenes.”

Entire villages in the delta were submerged from the storm, and bodies could be seen stuck in the mangroves.

Mark Farmaner, director of the Burma Campaign UK, said: “The obscene show of wealth at the wedding typifies the shameless greed of this regime. Not only are they blocking international aid, they’re not mobilising their own resources.”

Burma has been run by military governments since 1962. The opposition National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in a 1990 election but was not allowed to assume power.

Burma’s generals, traditionally paranoid about foreign influence, appealed for international help after the storm struck on Saturday, but have dragged their feet on issuing visas to relief workers even as survivors faced hunger, disease and flooding. Shadow International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell told MPs the disaster was a “massive humanitarian catastrophe”. It was clear the death toll would rise “much further” and it was “deeply regrettable” that the Burmese Government had consistently run down and undermined the UN mission in Burma.

He said: “The Burmese people and the international relief effort are both the losers from that misjudgement by the Burmese junta. It is a scandal that following the disaster only a trickle of aid is getting in from the outside world.”

He said the Burmese Government must give “unfettered access” to the international humanitarian relief effort.

International researchers have accused Burmese authorities of knowing about the cyclone as much as 72 hours in advance. But they say authorities were unable or unwilling to warn the public or advise them how to protect themselves.

The comments follow reports that many Burmese learned of the approaching cyclone from international media and the fact that Indian authorities warned Burma 48 hours before Nargis hit landfall.

Australian natural hazards expert Dr Dale Dominey-Howes, from the University of New South Wales, says the actions of the Burmese junta would have played a critical role in the impact of the huge storm surge.

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Myanmar Cyclone Survivors Face Disease Risk as Aid Trickles In

from Bloomberg

By Demian McLean and Paul Tighe

Survivors of the Myanmar cyclone that may have killed as many as 60,000 people were at risk of cholera and other infectious diseases as the United Nations urged the military government to allow relief agencies to start work.

More than 1 million people may be homeless after Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the country formerly known as Burma on May 3. Teams from Doctors Without Borders found 80 percent of houses damaged and meter-high flood (3-foot) waters in some areas of Daala and Twante townships, where 300,000 people lived.

``Under these circumstances, infectious diseases such as cholera can spread easily,'' the group said in a statement.

The United Nations called on Mynamar's military rulers to allow international aid workers to begin relief operations as the prospect of a humanitarian disaster looms. Aid officials said the number of dead will rise without quick distribution of drinking water, food and medicine.

``We are in close contact with the government on the response,'' said Chris Kaye of the UN World Food Program. ``Much more cooperation will be required.'' The WFP is distributing the 800 metric tons of food stocks it holds in Yangon, the former capital, Kaye said in an e-mail from Thailand.

Myanmar's state television reported that 22,000 people died and more than 40,000 are missing since the southern Irrawaddy delta that feeds into the Andaman Sea was swamped by a surge of water as high as 12 feet, the UN's IRIN news agency said.

`Wiped Out'

``People are expecting that it will be more than 100,000 killed, especially because the delta region that was hit hardest is a very poor region mostly populated by the working class,'' said Bo Hla-Tint, a former member of parliament and a spokesman for the country's Rockville, Maryland-based government-in-exile. ``In some areas whole towns are wiped out.''

The U.K. government has pledged 5 million pounds ($9.78 million) in aid for the former British colony and is ready to offer more, said a spokesman for the Department for International Development. The U.S. offered $3.25 million, and Australia pledged $2.8 million toward providing clean water and shelters, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said today.

Other countries offering aid include Canada, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, China and the European Union.

Myanmar's military rulers are ``suspicious of outsiders and very sensitive to foreign influences,'' Maureen Aung-Thwin, director of the Burma Project, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. ``They admitted to 22,000'' people killed, she said. ``I believe the figure is higher than that. Somebody said 150,000 and I don't think that's untrue.''

Sunken Ships

The organization, set up by the Open Society Institute, a New York-based pro-democracy body founded by billionaire investor George Soros, says it aims to raise international awareness of conditions in Myanmar.

``The port, as we understand it, is blocked or even closed because of sunken ships following the cyclone, and also damage from that cyclone,'' Richard Horsey, spokesman for the United Nations disaster response unit, said in a telephone interview from Bangkok.

Fuel supplies will be hit, Horsey said, ``because Myanmar has to import not only most of its diesel but its compressed gas for cooking as well, and that normally comes in through'' the port at Yangon.

International Sanctions

The Red Cross had also hoped to send supplies via ship containers.

``We were planning to put quite a bit of stuff on the water,'' John Sparrow, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, today. The ship ``may take up to a couple of weeks to move,'' Sparrow said.

The country of 47.8 million people is regularly hit by cyclones that form in the Bay of Bengal between April and November. It has been under international sanctions since the military rejected the results of elections in 1990.

Such measures have restricted economic growth in Myanmar, which had proven gas reserves of 17.7 trillion cubic feet at the end of 2005, or 0.3 percent of the world's total, according to BP Plc, and resources including teak, zinc, copper and precious stones. Almost 33 percent of people live below the poverty line, according to U.S. government data.

Transparency International last year ranked Myanmar as the most corrupt nation in the world along with Somalia.

`Very Relieved'

Myanmar today gave permission for the Red Cross to send a plane load of supplies from Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, Sparrow said. The flight will deliver 300 shelter kits containing tarpaulins, mosquito nets, water, and cooking utensils, he said. The Red Cross has 20,000 more kits in its Kuala Lumpur warehouse, the Geneva-based organization said in a statement. ``We're very relieved,'' Sparrow said.

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Myanmar May Import Rice After Cyclone; Price Rebounds

from Bloomberg

By Rattaphol Onsanit and Catherine Yang

Myanmar may be forced to import rice after crops were wiped out by a cyclone that may have killed as many as 20,000 people, potentially adding further pressure to global food supplies as prices gain. Rice futures rebounded.

``We know that the damage is huge,'' Chookiat Ophaswongse, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. ``It's possible for them that they have to import,'' he said.

Rice futures rose to a record last month as some exporters, including Vietnam, curbed shipments. Cyclone Nargis, which slammed into Myanmar at the weekend, may be Southeast Asia's deadliest natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami, according to a preliminary death toll released by Myanmar's military government.

``After the cyclone, we don't know if Myanmar can export,'' Anthony S. Lam, regional general manager of rice-trading company Golden Resources Development International Ltd., said by phone from Hong Kong. ``It gives a good excuse to push the price up.''

Rice, the staple food for half the world, has surged more than 90 percent over the past year, touching a record $25.07 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade on April 24. The most- active contract erased losses of as much as 0.8 percent today to rise as much as 1.1 percent to $21.225, gaining for a third day.

Myanmar would probably have exported about 400,000 metric tons of rice this year to try and profit from the soaring prices, compared with normal shipments of less than 100,000 tons, Chookiat said. The storm will ``jeopardize'' exports, he said.

`Hitting the Poor'

The jump in rice and energy costs has stoked concern that social unrest, poverty and hunger may spread worldwide as the poor can't afford to eat. ``Soaring food prices are hitting the poor very hard,'' Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda told delegates yesterday at the bank's annual meeting in Madrid.

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had agreed to import rice from Myanmar, according to Paul Risley, the Bangkok-based spokesman for the World Food Programme.

``This is the sort of storm that likely will have destroyed family and community supplies of rice and other stocks, so there will probably be a need at least over the next six months for food assistance,'' Risley said in an interview. ``The bigger issue is whether this will affect the harvest prospects for this year.''

Sri Lanka, which had agreed to buy 50,000 tons of Myanmar rice, still expected the cargo to arrive this month, Trade and Consumer Services Minister Bandula Gunawardena said in a telephone interview today. The assurance was provided yesterday by the Sri Lankan ambassador in Myanmar, Gunawardena said.

Myanmar planned to export 500,000 tons of rice this year, according to a ``tentative'' April forecast from the Food and Agriculture Organization.

`Self-Sufficient'

``Normally, they are self-sufficient'' in rice, Chookiat said from Bangkok, the Thai capital. Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, shares a border with Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. ``We will have to wait for a while'' to know the extent of the devastation, the Thai rice group's president said.

Myanmar was forecast to export 400,000 tons of rice in 2007- 08, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on April 9. That was double the agency's March estimate. The country was expected to produce 11.3 million tons in the current year, up from 10.6 million tons the year before, the USDA said.

Death Toll

The death toll from the disaster ranges ``anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000,'' according to Pamela Sitko, a Bangkok-based worker with the Christian relief group World Vision, citing state radio reports. The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper put the toll at 15,000, Agence France-Presse reported.

About 3,000 people are missing in the Irrawaddy delta region alone, an important rice-growing area, government ministers told diplomats yesterday, according to United Nations news agency IRIN. Power was knocked out in the former capital, Yangon, and drinking water was contaminated in the city of 5 million people.

``The lessons learned from the tsunami of 2004 certainly have given us a wake-up call, and has triggered a sense of urgency,'' Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, told reporters today in Singapore. ``We cannot be complacent any longer about this kind of disaster.''

Cyclone Nargis packed winds of 120 miles (190 kilometers) per hour when it struck the coast May 3, sending the sea surging as much 12 feet (3.5 meters). The government declared a state of emergency in five low-lying provinces, mostly in the Irrawaddy delta, where villages were flattened by winds and rain, the UN said. Myanmar has a population of 47.8 million.

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MYANMAR: UK announces doubling of aid

from IRIN

BANGKOK - One of the main aid donors to Myanmar (formerly Burma), the UK government, has announced it is doubling its humanitarian aid to the impoverished country over the next three years, in response to what it describes as a "staggering" humanitarian crisis.

The UK provided around £8 million in humanitarian aid in 2007, supporting projects run by UN agencies and non-governmental organisations in the fields of health, basic education and poverty alleviation. It also provided nearly £1 million to help Burmese refugees who have fled the country.

Over the next three years, the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) will gradually increase aid to Myanmar's most needy people to around £18 million per year by 2010/2011.

USAID requested US$7 million for the 2007 financial year but it is not yet clear whether this sum has been officially earmarked. Earlier the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) had pledged 18 million euros for Myanmar and Burmese refugees in Thailand in December 2007.

"The scale of humanitarian crisis afflicting the Burmese people is, quite simply, staggering," Douglas Alexander, the UK's secretary of state for international development, said during a recent visit to Bangkok.

Challenging environment

Myanmar is a highly challenging environment for international humanitarian work, according to most observers. They say the military regime is highly suspicious of foreign aid workers, and domestic civil society groups, and seeks to tightly control their activities.

However, Alexander said DFID's partners, including UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), were already successfully delivering aid to Myanmar's needy, without channelling assistance through the government.

"There are very clear and established mechanisms which we use in a range of environments in which we are not able to work with the government, and those are fully implemented in Myanmar," he said.

"Notwithstanding the difficulties of the operating environment, it is important that what efforts can be made are made to address the appalling circumstances [facing] too large a proportion of the Burmese population," he said.

According to the UN, around one-third of Myanmar's people survive on less than US$1 a day, half of all children fail to complete primary school, and HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria claim hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

In ethnic minority border areas, where the army is still battling armed ethnic minority insurgents, many civilians have been displaced by fighting and conflict, and are living in desperate poverty, the UN and aid groups along the border say.

Myanmar's economic conditions, political repression and conflict have also pushed an estimated 1.5 million people into neighbouring Thailand, where around 140,000 are living in refugee camps, while the rest toil as poorly paid labourers, vulnerable to official harassment and exploitation, UN agencies say.

How the money will be spent

Alexander, who travelled to the Thai-Myanmar border to visit refugee camps, clinics and other facilities assisting the Burmese in Thailand, said he could not yet say precisely how the increased British humanitarian funding would be spent.

"We have not yet reached a judgement as to the balance of funding between in-country support and cross-border support," he said. "There are urgent pressing humanitarian needs for people both who have crossed the border people... and those suffering [inside]."

"We'll take quite a careful look at where we can secure the maximum return for our investment," he said.

Burma Campaign UK, an activist group, has been calling on DFID to provide greater support for Thailand-based groups that seek to aid people living in the sensitive but highly porous Myanmar border areas, where the military regime restricts aid agencies in-country from working.

Alexander said one of the purposes of his trip was to assess "the ability of the organisations working on the border to scale up their capacity" to address humanitarian needs in the otherwise off-limits border zones.

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Myanmar criticises UN envoy, decries new sanctions

from Yahoo News

By IANS

Yangon, Nov 7 (Xinhua) Myanmar's information minister has strongly criticised new sanctions against the country, saying it has resulted in delayed development and hindered poverty alleviation, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Wednesday.

'It is true, the economy and the socio-economic situation are not improving as they should, even though the government has been making efforts,' said Information Minister Brigadier-General Kyaw Hsan, during a meeting with the visiting UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari in the new capital of Nay Pyi Taw Tuesday.

'Collective attempts inside and outside the country to impose sanctions on investment, monetary aid and trade are some of the main causes for this situation,' he said, referring to the new sanctions imposed by the US, the European Union and Australia.

Hsan said he was disappointed at Gambari's previous trip to Myanmar, as it did not bear any constructive outcome, but brought about further sanctions instead.

'If you bring along the instructions of the leaders of a big power (referring to the US) and only listen to the demands of anti-government groups, it will not help to solve Myanmar's problems,' he told Gambari.

'We will not accept external pressure any longer,' he said.

Hsan rejected the formation of a poverty alleviation commission for Myanmar by the UN as proposed by Gambari, saying that the commission would not be required if sanctions were lifted.

He maintained that 'previous pressures and sanctions did not provide any help to our democratisation process, nor did the new pressures and sanctions'.

He said Myanmar welcomes positive cooperation, but will never accept any interference that may harm its sovereignty.

'There should be cooperation instead of sanctions and only then can we alleviate poverty,' he emphasised.

On Tuesday, Gambari also met Minister of National Planning and Economic Development U Soe Tha and Minister of Religious Affairs Brigadier-General Thura Myint Maung separately in the capital.

Gambari is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Lieutenant-General Thein Sein and SPDC first secretary Lieutenant-General Tin Aung Myint Oo Wednesday.

Gambari will also meet Aung San Suu Kyi, representatives of the National Unity Party (NLD) and other interlocutors, as well as the UN country team and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Gambari arrived at Yangon Saturday afternoon on a second visit to the country at the invitation of the Myanmar government to mediate for the country's national reconciliation.

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A rich nation crippled by poverty

from Al Jazeera




By Dinah Gardner in Yangon

Min Lwin U was 5-years-old when he found out he was HIV positive. That was three years ago. His doctors now say he has three months to live unless he gets anti-retro viral therapy (ART) soon.

Every day Lwin U is at a Medicins Sans Frontieres-run clinic in one of the poorest suburbs of Yangon. He comes to eat the three free meals of rice and curry the humanitarian organisation dishes out a day to malnourished and HIV positive children.

Even so his tiny arms are like sticks. His growth has been so stunted by the virus that he looks no more than four.

His dirty T-shirt and shorts hang loosely on his tiny, bony body. He scoops up the rice with his fingers and stares listlessly at some infants sprawled on bamboo mats being fed their meals.

Mismanagement

According to the World Health Organisation, 32 per cent of all children under five in Myanmar are seriously malnourished.

Decades of economic misrule by Myanmar's military government have made this resource-rich country one of the poorest in the world.

The ruling generals earned more than $2bn from natural gas exports last year, but the country's impoverished millions do not have free access to even basic healthcare.

And with the average daily income around $1 a day, many families cannot afford to pay doctor's fees – around $1-2 – when they get sick, much less the $35 price tag on a month's worth of ART.

The poverty here is crippling. In many ways it was the trigger that ignited September's protests.

Ten of thousands of people followed marching monks in the country's main cities and towns until the army moved in to crush the rallies on September 27.

While Western media stressed a public desire for democracy, for most in Myanmar, the demonstrations were about having enough food to eat and the right to basic healthcare.

"Most people here don't care about politics," says Su Hlaing Htwe, a doctor at the MSF clinic in Yangon's slum suburb of Hlang Thayar.

She waves her hand at the wooden and corrugated iron homes clustered behind the centre; an emaciated dog leaps over a ditch - a swill of filthy water cluttered with rotting debris.

Survival

"The people just want a chance to earn enough money to survive. Many of them can barely write. Mostly their education is very basic – just primary level."

Myanmar does not publish its budget but most experts agree that it probably spends less than a paltry dollar a person on health each year.

That's among the lowest level in the world.

It's left to a few UN agencies, MSF and a handful of other NGOs to do what they can, but their efforts are just a drop in the ocean.

Myanmar's poor suffer not just because their military government ignores them but also because the international community – citing discomfort over working with the generals – has been giving the country the cold shoulder for years.

And even among the few agencies that entered the country, some have pulled out.

Global Fund and MSF-France quit in the past two years citing excessive government interference in their humanitarian programmes.

According to 2005 World Bank figures, overseas development aid (ODA) per capita in Myanmar was about $2.90.

In nearby Cambodia, ODA per person in 2005 was about $38.50.

Double blow

"So now you have a people with a government that doesn't do anything for them, and an international community that also doesn't do anything for them," one long-term expatriate NGO worker in Yangon says.

"What little ODA you do have goes mostly on UN salaries anyway. So the people get nothing."

The four doctors at MSF-Holland's Hlang Thayar clinic see around 200 patients a day – mainly malnourished children and sufferers of HIV and TB.

Despite the surrounding slums and the plainness of the centre – basically a large wooden shed on stilts – the staff have made the place a comfortable escape from despair.

Doctors joke with their patients, local pop songs are piped over the speakers and there is a television in the waiting room.

But there is real suffering beneath the smiles.

Many of the women are widows – husbands already dead from Aids, their only legacy the virus in their wives' bodies.

Too sick to work, many of the women with HIV sport cropped hair, transforming them into teenage boys, because they can earn about $1.50 from selling their locks.

But their shaven heads act as a badge, alerting their neighbours to their likely HIV status.

Many are wholly reliant on the MSF's daily handout of rice and beans to its patients on ART.

Aids challenge

Min Min comes into the consulting room with a brilliant smile but within minutes her eyes begin to mist up and she crumples into her chair.

The 24-year-old mother is recovering from stage 4 HIV – the point at which a patient's immune system is so battered she is on the brink of being diagnosed with full-blown Aids.

Her soldier husband – dead now for four months – gave her the disease.

She is pleading with her doctor to let her have a month's worth of ART so she can leave Yangon for the southern city of Mawlamyine where her parents-in-law live with her five-year-old son.

But her doctor wants her to stay in Yangon. She is too sick and needs to stay close to the MSF clinic.

UNAIDS estimates there are around 360,000 people living with HIV/Aids in Myanmar and only a fraction of those can ever hope to get treated.

The bulk of the care is carried out by MSF. The group has committed to treating 16,000 sufferers but has reached the limit of its resources and announced a cap onnew patients in July.

But that still means "tens of thousands of people die from Aids every year and nobody does anything about it", says Frank Smithuis, MSF-Holland's country director.

In some ways Lwin U is one of the lucky ones. He is already on MSF's list.

The organisation put him on ART when he was first diagnosed with HIV. But two years later, his mother, who is also HIV positive, took him out of the city, cutting him off from the drug that was keeping him alive.

Now he's back and very sick. But the clinic cannot restart his treatment until it is sure his family will stay put in Yangon and properly administer the therapy to him.

Stopping and starting ART can render it ineffective as the virus may become resistant to the cocktail of drugs.

"This situation is very common," says Hlaing Htwe. "Many patients here are poorly educated; they don't understand how important the drug is, and how important it is to take it properly."

The international community may be focusing on UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari's visit and meeting with the generals to persuade them to start a dialogue with the opposition, but Hlaing Htwe is concentrating on getting Lwin U's family to oversee his treatment.

"We are trying to persuade Lwin U's parents to commit to giving him the drug. But it is very difficult."

She smiles as she watches him take his bowl into the kitchen to be washed.

"But we are trying our best."

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