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HEADLINES
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Reuters - Aid groups press Myanmar on camp evictions
AP - One month after Myanmar cyclone, fewer than half of survivors getting relief
AFP - A month on, sickness and sadness in Myanmar's neglected villages
AFP - ASEAN says 'rapid' response team starts work in Myanmar
AFP - Myanmar denies delays to cyclone aid, as relief effort lags
AFP - Myanmar charter 'washes away' Suu Kyi victory: state media
Outlook India - India to help renovate Shwedagon pagoda complex in Myanmar
Straits Times - UN: 9 helicopters to enter Myanmar this week
IRIN - MYANMAR: Concerns over premature returns
Philadelphia Daily News - Myanmar, Darfur: Are we getting used to it?
Al Jazeera - Aid 'lottery' for Myanmar survivors
Independent online (SA) - Burma: survivors scavenging for food
The Nation - UK still worried over distribution of aid in burma
Irrawaddy - Burmese Volunteers Struggle to Bring Aid to Cyclone Survivors
Irrawaddy - Junta Ignores Complaints of Corruption
DVB News - Ethnic organisations appeal for border aid
DVB News - Meikhtila NLD denounces referendum result

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Aid groups press Myanmar on camp evictions
By Aung Hla Tun
Tue Jun 3, 8:13 AM ET

YANGON (Reuters) - International aid groups pressed Myanmar on Tuesday to stop closing cyclone relief camps as southeast Asian experts kicked off a mission to pin down the scale of the devastation a month after the storm.

Cyclone Nargis, the world's most deadly natural disaster since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, is officially thought to have left 134,000 people dead or missing and 2.4 million destitute.

But many survivors have not yet been reached and Western nations and foreign aid groups complain the relief effort is being hampered by the inflexibility of Myanmar's military rulers.

"They've had a cyclone but they're not changing the rules. It's business as usual," said one official at an aid agency in Yangon, who asked not to be named.

Cumbersome regulations were blocking more vehicles and boats being used to distribute vital aid and even access to satellite communications was being made difficult, the official added.

Authorities have pushed ahead with a campaign, condemned by human rights groups and deemed "unacceptable" by the U.N., of evictions of displaced people from government shelters.

"If populations are on the move all the time, it's very hard to reach them," said Chris Webster, a spokesman for the charity World Vision in Yangon.

Closing the camps, usually clusters of tents around schools or other buildings, meant that growing numbers of displaced were returning to areas where the situation was already bad, said the first aid worker.

The last camp in Kawhmu, a district south of Yangon, was shut on Monday, witnesses said of the closures which appeared aimed at stopping the tented villages from becoming permanent.

International relief groups, the U.N. and government disaster officials met in Yangon, but little progress was reported on key issues affecting the delivery of aid.

They had sought details on camp evictions and the government's repatriation policy, but got no answers, said a senior Western aid worker who declined to be named.

Foreign aid workers would be allowed to stay for two days in the badly-hit delta area but it was not clear if they would be accompanied by official minders.

"To be honest it's still not clear how it will work," the aid worker said.

SITUATION ON THE GROUND MURKY

The United Nations estimates that 1.3 million people had been given some assistance, although this was patchy and only half of those in the worst-hit delta had been reached.

"There remains a serious lack of sufficient and sustained humanitarian assistance for the affected populations, " the U.N.'s humanitarian arm said in a report.

In the last week around 15 international staff had been allowed to travel to the delta, but agencies still had no permanent presence, it said.

World Food Program boss Josette Sheeran said its $70 million food aid program faced a 64 percent funding shortfall, as did its logistics plan which includes boats, trucks and helicopters.

A United Nations "flash appeal" also remains well short of its $201 million target a month after the disaster.

The level of aid stands in stark contrast with the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia's Aceh, when governments around the world promised $2 billion within the first week for a disaster which killed at least 232,000 people.

With the needs on the ground still so murky, an assessment team of experts led by Southeast Asian nations and the United Nations arrived in Yangon on Monday.

"Based on the assessment report that they will produce, we will be able to identify the needs of the Cyclone Nargis' victims and intensify our efforts in the most needed areas," said Surin Pitsuwan, secretary general of the Southeast Asian body ASEAN.

Southeast Asian nations have been seeking to take a leading role in relief efforts, particularly since Myanmar's generals have often been wary of accepting help from Western countries, whose patience also appears to have been wearing thin.

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One month after Myanmar cyclone, fewer than half of survivors getting relief
By MICHAEL CASEY,Associated Press Writer
AP - Wednesday, June 4

BANGKOK, Thailand - One month after the devastating cyclone hit Myanmar, the United Nations said Tuesday that more than 1 million survivors were still without basic relief.

The groups say they still faced government delays in sending disaster experts and vital equipment into the country. The hurdles have resulted in only a trickle of the necessary aid reaching the storm's estimated 2.4 million survivors, and left the relief efforts unable to move beyond providing the most immediate needs.

"People need basic relief, which is shocking after four weeks," said Sarah Ireland, the regional director of Oxfam, a U.K.-based humanitarian agency that is still trying to gain permission to work in Myanmar.

"If we were in a normal response by week four, those affected should be working toward recovery," she said Monday. "They would be in a position perhaps to think about what they need to restart their lives. But we know people on the ground don't have food to eat."

Tidal surges as high as 12-foot (3 1/2-meter) on May 2-3 reached some 25 miles (40 kilometers) inland, laying waste to entire villages and leaving 78,000 people dead and another 56,000 missing, according to the government's count.

But the relief has yet to match the scale of the disaster.

"There remains a serious lack of sufficient and sustained humanitarian assistance for the affected populations, " the United Nations said in its latest assessment report. It said the world body also lacked "a clear understanding of the support being provided by the Government of Myanmar to its people."

Aid groups were still unable to reach 1.3 million of the 2.4 million survivors with sufficient food and clean water, while trying to prevent a second wave of deaths from malnutrition and disease, the U.N. said. And of the million getting help, most have been "reached with inconsistent levels of assistance," it said.

A big obstacle in providing relief has been reaching the delta. With only seven government helicopters flying, relief supplies are mostly being transported along dirt roads and then by boat. Boats able to navigate the debris-filled canals are also scarce and efforts to import trucks and other vehicles have been hampered by government red tape.

"For aid agencies it is very important that those affected receive a full complement of appropriate aid," said James East, a spokesman for World Vision, a major private aid agency that had operations in Myanmar even before the disaster. "To say that a certain percentage of people have received aid means little because some survivors may have received a tarpaulin but no food and vice versa."

One small sign of progress was registered Monday: except in the areas most devastated by the cyclone, most schools opened as scheduled at the end of the hot season vacation, that started in March.

In many cases, the school buildings were still missing windows and parts of their roofs blown off by the storm, but UNICEF and other educational experts agreed that getting children back to their studies as soon as possible was an important part of the healing process.

The junta's response was in stark contrast to that of Indonesia's Aceh province during the 2004 tsunami and Pakistan during the 2005 earthquake. Both countries opened the doors to hundred of international aid groups and set aside their suspicions to allow American troops to ferry aid and help evacuate survivors from remote areas.

Myanmar's xenophobic military regime _ rivaling only that of North Korea _ left survivors to largely fend for themselves. It barred foreigners from the delta until last week and refused entry to U.S. and French naval vessels, which have been off the country's coast, laden with aid.

Compounding the logistics challenges has been a shortage of foreign experts in the field. It has resulted in a chaotic and uneven aid effort, with charity groups complaining it has nearly impossible to asses needs of survivors or set up systems that are normally in place by now to provide clean water and sanitation.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies had to wait until Monday for government approval to send six foreign experts into the field to help run its water treatment facilities. Until now, it has been able to provide only 5,000 people each day with clean water.

"It was much easier to get medical supplies, clean water, engineers and psychological consultants into the field in Aceh within the first month," IFRC spokesman France Hurtubise said. "Human resources and expertise remain a challenge in Myanmar."

Stories continue to emerge of survivors going days without food or being forced to drink from dirty canals. The Associated Press has interviewed survivors in recent days who still have not received any government or international assistance and turned to the country's revered monks for help.

Human rights groups have also accused Myanmar's military rulers of kicking homeless cyclone survivors out of schools and monasteries and sending them back to villages as part of an effort to restore the country's devastated agriculture sector.

"It's unconscionable for Burma's generals to force cyclone victims back to their devastated homes," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Claiming a 'return to normalcy' is no basis for returning people to greater misery and possible death."

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A month on, sickness and sadness in Myanmar's neglected villages
AFP - Wednesday, June 4

ANGU, Myanmar (AFP) — The Irrawaddy delta bore the brunt when Cyclone Nargis struck on May 2 and 3, instantly killing more than 20 people in Angu village, while dozens of villagers have since fallen ill with coughs, colds and diarrhoea as vital aid fails to reach the survivors.

Nearly all the 700 villagers of Angu, a farming and fishing community, are in a state of shock, many of them just staring blankly into nothing or lying motionless in makeshift tents which they share with farm animals and pets.

Khin Hle sits motionless under the shade of her once-happy two-storey home, which was reduced to a shell of broken wooden frames when Cyclone Nargis hit one month ago.

She is eagerly anticipating when the next rains might come so she can have clean water for her three young grandchildren to drink, while around her fellow villagers succumb to sickness, and occasionally to death.

For food, the children are sharing three packets of dried sunflower seeds, their only meal until their father returns from across the swollen Mhaw Win river which he has been criss-crossing using a rickety boat in search of elusive aid for nearly three weeks now.

"We have no money. We have no food, no water, no shelter. Just a portion of this house that will also soon fall down," 61-year-old Khin told AFP.

"I have not heard the children laugh" in weeks, she said, looking at the thick mud that coats much of Angu, one of many small hamlets and villages on the network of river channels that snake out of the Irrawaddy Delta.

The ruling junta has said more than 133,000 people died or went missing in the cyclone. Aid agencies say 2.4 million people are in need of food, medicine and shelter, and many live in tents or along the roadside.

The United Nations estimates that about 60 percent of them still have no foreign aid, and despite some easing of restrictions, the junta is under fire for its continued hampering of the flow of supplies to the worst-hit delta region.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned at the weekend that unless the military regime changed its approach, more people would die.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders has said that people are increasingly at risk of respiratory diseases as the monsoon rains arrive.

Khin said the villagers tried to cross the river for the nearest port town to seek official help, with little luck.

Despite boasts from the junta that it has been systematically sending aid to desperate survivors "no one has come to help us," Khin said, the cracked and calloused skin on her bare feet caked in drying mud.

"My son has been looking for food for a long time. The government has told us to wait. But people are sick," she said.

Nearby, farmer Hla Tang, 55, gathered scrap wood for a night fire. His cancer-stricken wife died at the height of Nargis, and her remains were washed away by the floodwaters.

His five children have been feverish and he has no access to any medication.

"We have been left out on our own," he said, as a small group gathered around him to help salvage what they can from the village's only rice mill.

Khin said villagers who made it to refugee camps were later told to return under threat of being arrested.

Provisions given by private donors shortly after the cyclone struck are already gone. Only Khin's packets of sunflower seeds remain.

The government, through its newspaper the New Light of Myanmar, has said that volunteers may make "donations freely" to any person or any area, and insisted international relief supplies are arriving, including tonnes of tents, medicines, food and blankets.

Few of these items, however, have made it to villages, where survivors still live among rotting human remains and animal carcasses.

"This is inhumane. Why are our people being made to live this?" said Thin, a Myanmar volunteer providing aid to the stricken.

"The Irrawaddy has for generations been the lifeblood of this country and villages there have provided us with food, why are the survivors now being made to suffer?"

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ASEAN says 'rapid' response team starts work in Myanmar
AFP - Tuesday, June 3

JAKARTA, June 3, 2008 (AFP) - A team of experts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has started work in Myanmar to assess the country's aid needs a month after a devastating cyclone, ASEAN said Tuesday.

ASEAN chief Surin Pitsuwan said the so-called "Emergency Rapid Assessment Team" would produce an initial report in about three weeks but would not complete its work until mid-July.

"I have high hopes on the joint assessment team," Surin said in a statement released from the Jakarta-based ASEAN secretariat.

"Based on the assessment report that they will produce, we will be able to identify the needs of the Cyclone Nargis' victims and intensify our efforts in the most needed areas."

ASEAN has been criticised for failing to respond soon enough to the May 2-3 storm in member country Myanmar, where the military regime has been reluctant to cooperate with international aid workers.

The United Nations says more than one million people are still waiting for aid after the storm that left 133,000 dead or missing.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met personally with junta leader Than Shwe on May 23 and reported that the general had agreed to allow foreign aid experts full access to the devastated Irrawaddy Delta.

More than a week later aid agencies say access remains patchy and security forces continue to block roads throughout the vast disaster area, allowing in only a handful of foreign aid workers.

The junta has agreed however to allow ASEAN to help coordinate relief efforts, and Surin said he would visit Yangon on Wednesday to visit the ASEAN "Task Force Office" there.

The assessment team, working in cooperation with the UN, would produce a "comprehensive report" on the relief, recovery, and rehabilitation effort by mid-July, more than two months after the storm hit.

A progress report would be available by June 24-25.

"ASEAN is committed to helping our friends in Myanmar and will continue to do so," Surin said, adding that the assessment team was "just the beginning of our commitments. "

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Myanmar denies delays to cyclone aid, as relief effort lags
AFP - Wednesday, June 4

YANGON (AFP) - - Myanmar denied Tuesday any delays to cyclone aid, but the United Nations said the operation to help 2.4 million survivors is still moving too slowly one month after the deadly storm.
Cyclone Nargis left 133,000 people dead or missing when it ploughed across Myanmar one month ago, laying waste to vital farmlands and wiping remote villages off the map.

For the first three weeks after the storm, Myanmar stonewalled international efforts to deliver aid, yielding only after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon paid a personal visit here to meet with junta leader Than Shwe.

Ban left Myanmar saying he had convinced the senior general to allow a full-scale relief effort, but 11 days later, UN agencies say access remains spotty, with only a handful of foreign aid workers actually in the worst-hit parts of the Irrawaddy Delta.

Elisabeth Byrs, a UN spokeswoman in Geneva, said that about 1.3 million people out of the 2.4 million affected by the cyclone have now received some form of foreign aid.

Many of the one million survivors still languishing with little help live in remote villages inaccessible by land, aid agencies say.

But the government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar newspaper insisted that the recovery was on track, and that farmers were ploughing devastated fields that have been soaked in sea water and littered with human and animal corpses.

"Myanmar was able to successfully carry out the relief and rehabilitation operation in a short time although it was hit hard by the severe storm," it said.

"Relief supplies from abroad to be donated to the storm victims are flowing continuously to the country by planes," the paper said.

"The relief supplies team accepted the items at the airport and transported them to the storm-hit regions without delay."

Chris Kaye, the country chief for the World Food Programme, said the aid effort was improving, but warned more needs to be done.

"It's gathering pace, it's gathering momentum. It's not enough, it's still not enough," he told AFP.

"We know that we haven't been able to access all areas in terms of the way we would like, the way we would have done in another situation, but we're making progress," he said.

Highlighting the difficulties, the first WFP helicopter to arrive in Yangon on May 22 only made its first trip to the delta on Monday, spokesman Paul Risley said.

Nine other helicopters have spent days waiting in Thailand, expected to fly to Myanmar at the end of the week, but it remained unclear when they could actually go into the delta, he added.

Myanmar has created a task force with UN and Southeast Asian officials to clear obstacles to delivering aid.

But the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN ) said that its so-called "Emergency Rapid Assessment Team" deployed on Friday would take three weeks to prepare its initial report, and that complete findings might not be ready until mid-July.

AFP reporters who have entered the delta say that military and police continue to stage roadblocks throughout the region.

Many villages visited by AFP are still devastated, with people scavenging for food and struggling to stay dry under makeshift shelters in the monsoon rains.

Many of the villagers are farmers whose fields have been flooded with sea water. The animals they used for ploughing have drowned and their stocks of seeds and fertiliser destroyed.

But the New Light insisted Tuesday that farmers had already begun starting to plant the new rice crop, which must get into the ground before the end of June.

"Farmers of storm-hit regions are able to resume their agricultural work," the paper said, claiming that sea water had already been washed from the fields.

Experts warn that Myanmar faces food shortages or even famine if the new crop is not planted on time.

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Myanmar charter 'washes away' Suu Kyi victory: state media
AFP - Tuesday, June 3

YANGON (AFP) - - A referendum approving a new military-backed constitution for Myanmar has "washed away" the victory claimed by Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party in 1990 elections, state media said Tuesday.

Her National League for Democracy won by a landslide 18 years ago, but the military never recognised the result and has kept the Nobel peace prize winner under house arrest for most of the years since then.

The government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar said Tuesday that the NLD's election mandate was "outdated" after the constitution was approved last month in a controversial referendum -- held while the impoverished nation was still reeling from the devastating effects of Cyclone Nargis.

"What will those who claimed themselves to have the mandate of the people according to the 1990 election results have to do? Will they have to throw the mandate down the drain?" the English-language paper asked.

"Now, their hope was washed away along the current of the vote of the people," it added.

The paper, which did not refer to Aung San Suu Kyi or the NLD by name, said the party would now have to seek a new election mandate in polls promised for 2010.

"If they want to have the mandate of the people in the new nation with the new system, they should stand for election in accordance with the rules and regulations" and display a sense of discipline and democracy, it added.

The NLD has rejected the result of the referendum, which Myanmar claims was approved by more than 92 percent of voters on a 98 percent turnout.

The party condemned the junta for holding the vote instead of focusing on the humanitarian crisis, and accused officials of rigging the outcome.

The cyclone left 133,000 dead or missing when it pounded the country on May 2-3, flooding entire villages and devastating the Irrawaddy Delta.

But the newspaper dismissed "the complaints of those who cling on to the outdated mandate," and warned that they should not "build castles in the air while ignoring the prevailing situations."

Myanmar says the constitution will clear the way for democratic elections, but the NLD insists it will merely enshrine military rule.

The new charter bans Aung San Suu Kyi from holding elected office, while reserving one quarter of the seats in parliament for serving soldiers.

The junta has come under fierce international pressure for its response to the cyclone, notably for sweeping restrictions on foreign aid designed to help some 2.4 million people the United Nations says are in dire need of shelter, food and medicine.

UN officials estimate 60 percent of them still have not received any help.

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India to help renovate Shwedagon pagoda complex in Myanmar
Outlook India

NEW DELHI, JUN 3 (PTI) India will help renovate the Shwedagon pagoda complex, an ancient Buddhist shrine in Yangon damaged by the devastating cyclone Nargis which hit Myanmar last month.

It has decided to contribute two lakh dollars for repairs and renovation work at the shrine considered as one of the holiest by Buddhists.

Minister of State for Power Jairam Ramesh made the announcement during his visit to Myanmar last month.

The minister toured the pagoda complex and witnessed the damage to some of its structures caused by the cyclone.

India has been in the forefront in carrying out relief work in Myanmar in the aftermath of the deadly cyclone that claimed tens of thousands of lives.

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UN: 9 helicopters to enter Myanmar this week
The Straits Times - June 3, 2008 

BANGKOK - NINE UN helicopters able to ferry aid to remote cyclone victims should enter Myanmar this week, officials said on Tuesday, but it was unclear when they will be allowed to fly to the worst-hit areas.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) received permission about two weeks ago to take ten helicopters into the country, where more than one million people who lived through Cyclone Nargis remain without foreign relief supplies.

One chopper entered the country on May 22, but was only able to leave Yangon on Monday to make its way down to the Irrawaddy Delta region, which bore the brunt of the storm, said WFP's Asia spokesman Paul Risley.

'It has been ready for use for the past eight days with pilots, with ground crew, at Yangon airport,' Mr Risley told a reporter.

'Yesterday, we were able to receive permission and the helicopter flew from Yangon to Labutta (in the delta) and returned.'

Five helicopters are now ready to go at Bangkok's Don Mueang Airport, with four more set to fly up from a southern Thai Navy base on Wednesday.

Although two of the Puma helicopters were ready to fly into Myanmar last Friday, Mr Risley said they will not travel into the country until the end of this week. The cause for this delay was unclear.

Asked whether the nine helicopters had permission to fly supplies to the delta region, Mr Risley replied: 'That's the next step.'

'Every step of the relief assistance process requires approval, permission and authority granted by the government,' he said.

'But clearly there is still very much a need for the use of these helicopters in delivering the last leg of this food assistance.'

Myanmar's ruling military junta outraged the world by blocking foreign relief supplies after Cyclone Nargis hit one month ago, leaving 133,000 people dead or missing and 2.4 million people in need of food, shelter and medicine.

After a UN-led diplomatic effort, the junta agreed on May 23 to allow foreign aid workers access to the delta, but progress has been slow. – AFP

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MYANMAR: Concerns over premature returns
03 Jun 2008 12:08:55 GMT

BANGKOK, 3 June 2008 (IRIN) - Aid workers have expressed concerns over reports of cyclone survivors prematurely returning to their places of origin in Myanmar's devastated Ayeyarwady Delta.

In the town of Myaungmya, which was moderately affected by the cyclone but had become a magnet for survivors from deeper in the delta, there are now just eight temporary settlements, down from 30 a week ago, one aid worker said.

Frank Smithuis, country director of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), told IRIN that authorities in Labutta were closing all temporary settlements in the crowded town centre and offering residents a choice of returning to their communities or relocating to new settlements several kilometres outside town.

Another international aid worker, who visited Labutta early last week, said survivors heading back to their villages had been given supplies, including blankets, cooking utensils and 10 days' worth of food, and had been promised more.

He was told that 10,000 cyclone survivors had already left the town.

Their comments follow unconfirmed reports that people were returning to villages lacking adequate shelter, food, water, health and sanitation services.

The UN estimates that until recently about 260,000 people had been staying in temporary settlements in 14 different townships.

The reported settlement closures come as Myanmar authorities hope to ensure that the rice-planting season, which begins now and lasts for the next few weeks, is not lost.

But according to the UN, such premature returns should be avoided.

"We do not endorse premature returns to areas where there are no services," Terje Skavdal, head of the regional office for Asia and the Pacific of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on 30 May in Bangkok. "People need to be assisted in the settlements, and satisfactory conditions need to be created before they can return to their places of origin. This point has been made very clearly to the authorities. "

At least 134,000 people were left dead or missing and up to 2.4 million others destitute after Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmar on 2 and 3 May.

Some survivors moved into monasteries and school buildings, while others were given shelter in government-establis hed tent camps.

Speaking at a press conference over the weekend, Major-General Aye Myint, Myanmar's deputy defence minister, said: "The resettlement and rehabilitation process will be speedy."
Questions of access

However, UN agencies have expressed concern over their ability to ensure a steady food supply and other services to those who go back to their remote scattered villages, especially given the devastated area's complicated geography.

"The real risk is that if people go back, and there is no access to them for the delivery of essential lifesaving services in their places of origin, they would pretty much become invisible and inaccessible to humanitarian workers," Anupama Rao Singh, regional director for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), told journalists on 30 May.

"Therefore, all of us would be faced with a risk of a second wave of disease and disaster," she warned.

To mitigate that risk, the World Food Programme (WFP) has been scaling up its food delivery pipeline and now has the capacity to ensure deliveries in some remote areas.

Paul Risley, a WFP spokesman, said the agency, with its partner organisations, could distribute an estimated 400 metric tonnes (MT) of food a day, in part with a fleet of more than 30 boats able to travel through the delta's narrow waterways to reach otherwise inaccessible villages.

However, that logistics pipeline still needed to be expanded, he said.

While WFP initially estimated it would need to distribute about 380MT of food a day to about 750,000 people, it now estimates that 1.5 million people require food assistance.

"People can't go back unless they are assured of regular food deliveries to their villages," Risley said. "Food is getting into these places in the delta, but keeping that level of food sustained over the next several weeks will continue to be a challenge.

"If we start delivering food on a regular basis for all survivors, the village chief will put out the word, and people will come back to their areas," he said.

The WFP, the International Federation of the Red Cross, MSF and other agencies say one problem in scaling up the aid effort in remote locations is obtaining permission for their international technical experts to work in the disaster zone, despite Myanmar's promise to allow all "genuine humanitarian workers" access to the delta.

Workers have to apply for travel permits, outlining their itinerary and proposed activities, but approval had been slow. Numerous foreign specialists remain stranded in Yangon, the former Burmese capital, awaiting clearance to travel.

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Elmer Smith: Myanmar, Darfur: Are we getting used to it?
Philadelphia Daily News - Posted on Tue, Jun. 3, 2008
By Elmer Smith, Daily News Opinion Columnist

BY NOW, I should be used to it.

Daily dispatches from Myanmar and Darfur detail the plight of tens of thousands who die as the world wrings its hands in anguished impotence.

In Darfur, 200,000 Sudanese citizens have died since the Janjaweed, a Sudanese government-backed militia, began its systematic genocide of indigenous, non-Muslim populations. Those who weren't killed outright by the Janjaweed militia have succumbed to the disease and famine that followed.

In Myanmar, the government estimates that 78,000 are dead and 56,000 are missing in the aftermath of a cyclone on May 3 that left a million people homeless and the country's subsistence economy in shambles. With the rising specter of malaria and other diseases resulting from the contamination of decomposing bodies, the death toll is certain to rise.

Meanwhile, tons of food and medical aid, and hundreds of trained aid workers, are separated from the survivors who need them by a government that seems more concerned about keeping the world out of its business than it is in saving the lives of its people.

The Myanmar government did allow a U.S. airlift of 14 tons of supplies three weeks ago. But aid workers there report that little of it is getting to the interior because the roads remain impassable. Three U.S. Navy amphibious ships carrying 22 heavy-lift helicopters that could get the aid to the interior are floating helplessly offshore because the government of Myanmar won't allow them in.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on Saturday that Myanmar has rejected 15 U.S. overtures. Gates, who calls it "criminal neglect," says we would help but cannot force aid on the government. I should be used to it by now.

We watched the daily dispatches from Mogadishu in 1992 when 1,000 Somalis a day were dying of famine, drought and disease as roving bands of teenagers, armed with rusty rifles, thwarted an international relief effort. I thought, if I could just show the American people the cost of our inaction, they might force a change in U.S. policy.

I spent my first four days in East Africa flying between Nairobi and Mogadishu, hoping to catch a ride on a relief flight to the interior.

After four fruitless days, I went to Mombasa, Kenya, and hopped a ride to Belet Huen, Somalia, on a U.S. relief flight with 23 other reporters.

The local warlords would not allow the U.S. troops to the interior until they painted the U.S. insignia off the side of the C130. The local warlord's militia unloaded the plane, forbidding U.S. soldiers from following the trucks to the interior.

The death toll was still startling. But the heroic efforts of volunteers from international relief agencies was starting to save as many lives as the drought and famine and clan war were killing. We thought our stories were stoking the relief effort.

It all turned around a few months later when a U.S. Marine was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by fighters from one of the warring factions. The mood in the U.S. and around the world quickly shifted and the Somalis were left to their own devices.

There have been periods of calm since then. The drought and famine and even the war have subsided. The death toll has dropped in Somalia.

But Mogadishu is more of a ghost town today than it was even then. The support system that could abate the next famine or drought has collapsed, and the international community has wiped its hands.

"Compassion fatigue" was the term of art back then. The international community was tired of watching people die as its aid efforts were wasted or stolen by whatever thugs were in power at the time.

The people of Myanmar and Darfur are suffering from that compassion fatigue today. It's not that we don't care about their plight.

But, by now, we've gotten used to it.

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Aid 'lottery' for Myanmar survivors
Al Jazeera - TUESDAY, JUNE 03, 2008

More than a million survivors of the deadly cyclone in Myanmar have yet to receive any aid a month on, with reports from refugees fleeing the disaster zone speaking of military-run lotteries to determine who receives food and who will go hungry.

Aid groups say more than half of the 2.4 million survivors needing help have yet to be reached.

One man told Al Jazeera of how soldiers distributing the little relief reaching his village ran a lottery to determine who would receive aid.

"A member from each family was given a number and the soldiers held a lottery," said the man sheltering in Mae Sot, a Thai town bordering Myanmar where hundreds of survivors are holed up after crossing over in search of help.

"One hundred families got one egg, six cans of condensed milk and one potato. Those who drew a blank ticket had to walk away," he said.

A former soldier from Myanmar said despite the destruction by Cyclone Nargis, government troops were still demanding money from survivors to pass through checkpoints to get to Thailand.

Aid agencies complain that many obstacles remain in reaching survivors.

The UN children's organisation, Unicef, says that the amount of aid reaching survivors differs according to locality.

"From our teams on the ground what we are finding is that some degree of assistance has got across but it's nowhere sufficient to meet all of the needs," Anupama Rao Singh, Unicef's regional director, told Al Jazeera's Selina Downes.

"And certainly the degree of access and the degree to which relief supplies have actually reached those in need varies from township to township."

'Shocking' pace

Aid groups worry that with insufficient food and clean water, devastated areas of the country face a second wave of deaths from malnutrition and disease.

The United Nations said in its latest report that "there remains a serious lack of sufficient and sustained humanitarian assistance for the affected populations" .

The world body said it lacked "a clear understanding of the support being provided by the government of Myanmar to its people".

Tidal surges on May 2-3 reached some 25km inland, laying waste to entire villages and leaving 78,000 people dead and another 56,000 missing, according to the government's count.

"People need basic relief, which is shocking after four weeks," said Sarah Ireland, the regional director of Oxfam, a UK-based humanitarian agency that is still trying to gain permission to work in Myanmar.

"If we were in a normal response by week four, those affected should be
working toward recovery," she told The Associated Press.

"They would be in a position perhaps to think about what they need to restart their lives. But we know people on the ground don't have food to eat."

The shipment of aid for the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta has been particularly difficult.

With only seven government helicopters flying to the area, relief supplies are mostly being transported along dirt roads and then by boat.

Boats able to navigate the debris-filled canals are also scarce and efforts to import trucks and other vehicles have been hampered by government red tape.

Meanwhile, aid workers who have visited affected regions have reported that scores of displaced people have been expelled from temporary shelters in schools, monasteries and public buildings.

The expulsions appear part of the military government's attempt to show that people are capable of rebuilding their lives without foreign help.

Myanmar faces second wave of deaths - June 3 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-GUDL2KXo4

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Burma: survivors scavenging for food
Independent online (SA)
June 03 2008 at 10:15AM

Yangon - Myanmar insisted on Tuesday that cyclone aid was being delivered "without delay," even though the United Nations says more than one million people have yet to receive any help, one month after the storm.

The government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar painted a rosy picture of the effort to aid 2,4 million people badly in need of food, shelter and medicine.

The United Nations says 60 percent of them have not received any aid.

"Relief supplies from abroad to be donated to the storm victims are flowing continuously to the country by planes," the paper said.

"The relief supplies team accepted the items at the airport and transported them to the storm-hit regions without delay."

"Myanmar was able to successfully carry out the relief and rehabilitation operation in a short time although it was hit hard by the severe storm," it added.

On the ground, the United Nations says more than one million people are still waiting for aid after the May 2-3 storm that left 133 000 dead or missing.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met personally with junta leader Than Shwe on May 23, and said he had convinced the senior general to allow foreign aid workers full access to the most devastated regions of the Irrawaddy Delta.

Eleven days later, however, aid agencies say that access remains patchy and security forces have maintained roadblocks throughout the cyclone zone, allowing in only a handful of foreign aid workers.

AFP reporters who have slipped past the security checks say that many villages are still devastated, with people scavenging for food and struggling to stay dry under makeshift shelters in the monsoon rains.

Many of the villagers are farmers whose fields have been flooded with sea water. The animals they used for ploughing have drowned and their stocks of seeds and fertiliser destroyed.

But the New Light insisted on Tuesday that farmers had already begun starting to plant the new rice crop, which must get into the ground before the end of June.

"Farmers of storm-hit regions are able to resume their agricultural work," the paper said, claiming that sea water had already been washed from the fields.

Experts warn that Myanmar faces food shortages or even famine if the new crop is not planted on time. - Sapa-AFP

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UK still worried over distribution of aid in burma
The Nation
Published on Jun 4, 2008

The United Kingdom is continuing to express its concerns over the distribution of aid to the devastated areas of Burma.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband yesterday urged his Thai counterpart Noppadon Pattama, who is visiting London on a European tour, to use whatever pressure he can to get the assistance to the hundreds of thousands of affected people.

The UK contributed ฃ25 million (Bt1.6 billion) to Burma after Cyclone Nargis hit the country early last month and left more than 134,000 people dead and missing.

After long delays, international humanitarian aid has begun to flow into the junta-ruled country but the United Nations said only 60 per cent of 2.4 million affected people have received assistance.

Noppadon said yesterday he told Miliband the Asean-led coordinating mechanism and the tri-partite core group jointly set up by the UN, Asean and the junta would be able to get things done.

Burmese authorities said yesterday assistance from abroad could reach devastated areas without delay.

"Myanmar [Burma] was able to successfully carry out the relief and rehabilitation operation in a short time although it was hit hard by the severe storm," said the junta's mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar.

Noppadon urged the UK to continue humanitarian assistance to Burma beyond the emergency relief, in terms of education and human development.

Despite being a bilateral visit, the Burma issue dominated discussions between Noppadon and Miliband on the natural disaster and political development in the military-ruled country.

"I beg the UK for understanding that Thailand cannot take a tough position on democracy in Burma but needs to engage Burma since we are immediate neighbours who share more than 2,000 kilometres of border," he said via telephone conference from London yesterday.

The political situation in Burma has been in deadlock since the junta refused to allow the opposition to participate in politics. The authorities have just extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi despite proceeding with the so-called "seven-step" roadmap toward national reconciliation and democracy.

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Burmese Volunteers Struggle to Bring Aid to Cyclone Survivors
The Irrawaddy - Tuesday, June 3, 2008
By VIOLET CHO

Burmese medical relief workers in the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy delta region report that restrictions applied by local government authorities and soaring prices for supplies are preventing them from helping all those who urgently need aid.

“The medicines we brought along with us were not enough for the people who needed treatment,” said one volunteer doctor.

A nurse who has just returned from a remote area of Bogalay Township said stomach problems were a common complaint among survivors forced to exist on a diet of coconut shoots.

“People suffer from diarrhea and stomach pain after eating coconut shoots, but they have no other food,” she said.

The nurse bought medical supplies with money donated by her family and friends, but soaring prices prevented her from helping all those who needed treatment.

One Rangoon news journal reported that Burmese volunteers were taking medical aid by boat deep into the delta, to such hard-hit places as Laputta, Pyapon and Bogalay.

Foreign aid workers in the delta include medical personnel from India, Laos, Bangladesh, Singapore, the Philippines, France, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand.

The Chinese medics have treated 4,000 people in Dedaye, in the Irrawaddy delta, and Kungyangon and Kawmu in Rangoon Division. Thai medics have treated nearly 4,000 people in Myaungmya and Laputta in the delta region.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has, meanwhile, established a task force, led by Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, to coordinate and channel international aid to Burma. Asean is planning to send hundreds of additional relief personnel to cyclone-ravaged areas.

Relief networks have also been set up by several Burmese organizations in exile, including the National Health and Education Committee, the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, the Burma Medical Association and Dr Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao Clinic.

Mahn Mahn, a leading member of the Burma Medical Association, said that three days after the cyclone struck the region his organization had established 34 networks to provide food, drinking water, clothes, shelters, medicines and building materials.

But Mahn Mahn said that because the networks had been set up by Burmese in exile he was concerned about the security of volunteers working within Burma to distribute the aid.

Despite the difficulties, Mahn Mahn said, the networks had been able to help more than 40,000 survivors who had received no assistance from the state.

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Junta Ignores Complaints of Corruption
The Irrawaddy - Tuesday, June 3, 2008
By MIN KHET MAUNG / RANGOON AND THE IRRAWADDY DELTA

Victims of Cyclone Nargis are growing impatient not only with the slow pace of aid into the devastated Irrawaddy delta, but also with the authorities’ failure to curb corruption in the handling of relief supplies.  

“I wonder why the Prime Minister is so reluctant to respond to my letter,” said a woman in her fifties, sitting in her home—a flimsy bamboo construction that has not had a proper roof since the cyclone.

The woman, who identified herself as Daw Khin, was referring to a letter she and three other women had sent to Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein three weeks ago, describing how the chief of their village in Hlaing Tharyar Township, on the outskirts of Rangoon, had misappropriated aid intended for needy storm victims.

After weeks of waiting for the authorities to take some action, she and her neighbors said that the village headman was still selling sacks of rice to local traders instead of distributing it to cyclone victims, and still keeping plastic sheeting for himself.

The letter is just one of dozens that have been submitted to government officials by residents of cyclone-affected areas in Rangoon and Irrawaddy Divisions. Most contain complaints of local officials pilfering scant relief resources, and none have received any response or resulted in any action by the government.

In Pyapon, one of the worst-hit areas, trishaw drivers submitted a letter to township authorities in the second week of May, describing how the chairmen of township quarters were selling sacks of rice to local traders.

“We saw them selling the rice with our own eyes. They usually sell the goods at night,” said the trishaw driver who wrote the letter and urged others to sign it.

Despite the boldness of their action, the trishaw drivers remained wary of discussing it openly. As they spoke about their letter, they looked around to make sure there were no members of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association within earshot.

A group of people in Kungyangone, about 50 km from Rangoon, also said they have seen no actions taken against local administrators since they sent a letter to the prime minister accusing quarter authorities of selling packages of food and other supplies from Thailand.

In a remote village in Bogalay Township, an elderly man who wrote a letter of complaint said that the village chairman had taken relief supplies for himself and replaced them with lower quality products.

“The chairman and his relatives are eating noodles from Thailand, but we’re getting Burmese-made noodles,” said the man, whose letter was signed by others in his village.

Last month, the military government announced that it would welcome any letter of complaint and take prompt action against corrupt officials. However, so far, no charges have been laid against any official.

“The junta seems unwilling to handle this problem now. If they do, it would mean acknowledging that there is widespread corruption,” said one observer. “It would make them lose credibility with the international community.”

When asked what they expected to achieve with the letters, most said they were not sure yet how the authorities would respond. But they said they knew they would be in trouble if local authorities found out about the charges they’ve made against them.

“But at least we can show that we are brave enough to reveal what’s really happening down here to the prime minister,” said Daw Khin.

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Ethnic organisations appeal for border aid

Jun 3, 2008 (DVB)–Shan, Karen and Karenni groups have appealed to the international community to urgently grant much-needed funding for food provision to over 140,000 refugees living along the Burma-Thailand border.

The organisations said that the refugees, who have been living on the border for up to 20 years, would face difficulties due to cuts in assistance from the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, due to take effect in August.

The annual budget for food provision in camps along the border has been cut to US$ 6.8 million because of the decrease in the value of the US dollar, and the hike in world food prices will exacerbate the shortfall.

The groups said the TBBC funding crisis has sparked new fears and uncertainty among the refugees.

“Refugees are not allowed to go in and out of the camps freely to work outside so they are reliant on food assistance to survive, such as the rice, cooking oil, salt and chili given by TBBC,” said Aung Nge, a spokesperson from a Karenni refugee camp.

“It will be very concerning for our refugees if the existing donors stop or reduce their funding to TBBC.”

The TBBC has previously received financial assistance from the Netherlands, Ireland, Poland, the USA, the UK, Canada and Spain.

According to the consortium, so far this year it has received funding from the Netherlands, Ireland and Poland.

Aung Nge told DVB that refugees would continue to need outside support as it is impossible for them to return home while the civil war continues and the military regime remains in power.

“It would be best if we could go back to our homes and carry on with our lives as we are not officially recognised as refugees by the Thai government – we are only considered to be temporarily displaced persons,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we can’t go home because our lives are not secure under military rule.”

Reporting by Nan Kham Kaew

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Meikhtila NLD denounces referendum result

Jun 3, 2008 (DVB)–The National League for Democracy in Meikhtila township strongly denounced the results of the government’s constitutional referendum in their monthly meeting yesterday, according to the Meikhtila party chairman.

The Burmese military regime claimed the constitution was approved by 92 percent of voters in a national referendum held on 10 and 24 May, but the vote was marred by reports of intimidation and vote-rigging.

Meikhtila NLD chairman Myint Myint Aye said the party had been disappointed with the way the referendum was conducted.

"We mistakenly believed in the secret voting system announced by the government and we never thought it would turn so ugly – we even urged people to put their fears aside and vote 'No' at the ballot station," he said.

"But when the referendum was over, we found out about the unfair and illegal actions taken to rig the vote,” he said.

“But the government accepted the results and announced they had won 92.48 percent of the vote. We strongly denounce this."

This month’s Meikhtila NLD meeting was attended by local NLD members from Thar Si and Wun Twin townships as well as 1990 elected people's parliament representative Dr Hla Aung.

Reporting by Nan Kham Kaew

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