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Military Dictators Against Innocent Civilians
Top Myanmar comedian, social activist detained
Myanmar arrests activist as U.S. aid ships leave
Southeast Asian team finally enters Myanmar cyclone zone
Aid team moves into Myanmar cyclone zone: ASEAN
New challenges for delta aid workers
Storm victims' misery turns to fury

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Military Dictators Against Innocent Civilians
VOA Evening Program: Radio Broadcast in Burmese (25 May 2008)
(English translation)

VOA:  Burma stands out among the very few countries still ruled by dictatorial regimes in the world because of the ruthlessness of its dictatorial military leaders.  One example of the vicious offenses committed by the Burmese regime was exposed only recently by Major Aung Lin Htut, one of the former diplomats in charge of the Burmese Embassy in the United States.

Major Aung Lin Htut was serving in the Burmese Defense Services Intelligence before he was transferred on special duty to the Foreign Affairs Department.  He sought political asylum in the United States in 2005 and had previously avoided speaking to the media. 

But, since Cyclone Nargis, he became very disturbed with the way the Burmese military junta had inconsiderately been treating the people and decided to give this interview.

In his interview, he recounted his personal experience about the order Senior General Than Shwe had given to the Burmese military to massacre 81 innocent people -- 59 villagers and 22 Thai fishery workers -- on Christie Island {geographical location 0937N 9759E} -- a small island in the Burmese territorial waters off Tenasserim Division.

Aung Lin Htut: In May 1998, I was stationed at the naval base on Zadetkyi Island {0958N 9813E} in Kawthaung {0959N 9833E} Township, Tenasserim Division.  Christie Island, our tactical frontline base, was near our maritime boundary with Thailand.  On that island then were also Commander in Chief of Navy Admiral Kyi Min, who, as far as I know, is now the vice chairman of the War Veterans Organization, Major General Myint Swe, who later became the commander in chief of Air Force but has now retired after he was dismissed in connection with the case of U Ne Win's grandsons, and Major General Thura Myint Aung who is now the Adjutant General.

Senior General Than Shwe had designated the three leading officials to represent the Army, Navy, and Air Force in the joint operations to be conducted off Zadetkyi base.  The commander in charge of that naval base then was Naval Captain Maung Maung Thit.

The commander based in Kawthaung was Colonel Zaw Min who is now the Minister for Electric Power No 1 and joint general secretary of the Union Solidarity and Development Association.  He was also the designated Tactical Operations Commander in charge of Christie Island.  The regimental commander under Colonel Zaw Min's charge was Lieutenant Colonel Soe Tint who was the commander of the 262d Infantry Regiment based in Kawthaung.  As far as I know, he is now a director with the Ministry of Industry-1.  Another regimental commander was Lieutenant Colonel Win Swe, who was in charge of either the 403d or the 404th Infantry Regiment based in Bokpyin.

When Tactical Operations units headed by Colonel Zaw Min entered Christie Island to find strategic positions, they found 59 people who were earning their living by chopping and collecting bamboo and wood.  Among these people were a three-year-old girl and a woman who had had recently given birth to a child.  They were ordinary civilians who had been earning a livelihood in the region.  As far as I can remember, they were arrested under Section 144 of the decree that Regional Commander Thiha Thura Sit Maung had issued, which stipulated that no civilians were allowed to be on that island.

What I had believed and thought was that these civilians would be sent to Kawthaung for legal action or charged under the security act and later released.  These people, as far as I can recall, were arrested around April.  But, some time in May, an order was surprisingly received at night.  I learned about it because the then Brigadier General Staff, Major General Myint Swe {another Myint Swe at Army headquarters} , said he wanted to speak to Admiral Kyi Min on the communications set.  When Admiral Kyi Min came back, he summoned everyone, including me, and told us that he had received an order that 59 people being detained must be eliminated.  Major General Myint Swe had given that order.

VOA:  Why do you think that was ordered?

Aung Lin Htut:  It is difficult to say why.  They were unarmed people, including children and women, and it was really very depressing to receive the order to kill them.  It should not have happened at all.  That was my experience.  Admiral Kyi Min gathered everyone around him and I, as a duty officer of the office, was there also.  When Admiral Kyi Min gave us news about the order, the first person to respond was the present Adjutant General, Major General Thura Myint Aung, who said it was an order from the superiors and it must be obeyed.  Major General Myint Swe said he was a religious person, that the matter should be handled delicately, and that he wanted to confirm the order again because the time the order was received was around 1430, a time when General Maung Aye usually got drunk, and that the order might have been given while he was drunk.

After listening to the two, Admiral Kyi Min decided not to pass the order on to Colonel Zaw Min yet and to call the General Staff Brigadier again in the morning.  Around 0900 in the morning, Admiral Kyi Min spoke to Major General Myint Swe and came to us.  He said Major General Myint Swe had told him that the order was not from "Aba Aye" {Father Aye} but from "Aba Gyi" {Great Father}.  Senior General Than Shwe is whom we referred to as "Aba Gyi" in the military.

VOA:  Was that order ever rescinded?

Aung Lin Htut:  No, the order was never rescinded.  The main issue was that the person in charge of the region then was Major General Thura Myint Aung who was the commander of the 33d Light Infantry Division and Colonel Zaw Min was the tactical operations commander under him.  To explain it more clearly, the former had given the order and it was carried out by his subordinates.  I found out that all the civilians were shot on the beach and buried there the same day.  Their remains can still be dug up today.

VOA:  If I heard you correctly, the tactical operations unit under Colonel Zaw Min carried out the order.  Is that true?

Aung Lin Htut: Yes, Colonel Zaw Min and the two regimental commanders. I was given to understand that Colonel Zaw Min gave the order and it was carried out by the regimental commanders.  There were photographs of the incident; of course, they were in the cabinet in my office.  We had the pictures because the commander of No 19 Intelligence Unit, Major Myint Oo, who is now being imprisoned, was there together with Colonel Zaw Min.  The photographs were taken without the latter's knowledge.  When we returned to our headquarters in Rangoon, we showed the pictures to Brigadier General Kyaw Thein and Brigadier General San Pwint, the latter was our G-1 then.  I placed them in my cabinet for safekeeping.  I do not know what has happened to them now.

VOA:  Was there ever any discussion among the military leaders about the incident or were there any comments about what is right and wrong concerning the issue?

Aung Lin Htut:  Ko Than Lwin Tun {name of interviewer}, that is just a trivial matter for them.  You probably heard about a quarterly operation launched around 1997 when an order was officially given to "eliminate all, do not even leave behind 'A Seik Tha'".  The order was carried out by Major General Maung Bo and he is still in service now {commander of Bureau of Special Operations}.  You must know about the number of villagers he had killed as a regional commander.

VOA:  What does "Do no even leave behind 'A Seik Tha'" means?

Aung Lin Htut:  It means to kill everyone, including fetuses in the womb or pregnant women.  We, in the military, refer to fetuses in the womb as "A Seik Tha".  That was an official order and it was a verbal order given to us at a conference on military operations.  Orders like that would not be put down in writing.

VOA:  Which are the regions you are referring to?

Aung Lin Htut:  All of them.  The main targets were the areas we designated as "Brown Areas" which were in Shan State, Mon State, Karen State, and Tenasserim division.  The main reason for the order then was because we were trying to relocate villages and bring them together.  Of course, villagers who had their homes and farms did not want to destroy their property or relocate.  But, they were made to by force.  Many people were killed because they did not want to.  Officers who were in charge of the regions know best what they had done.

VOA:  So, you personally were a witness to the killing of 59 civilians on Christie Island, in the southern part of Burma?

Aung Lin Htut:  It was not just the 59 civilians they killed.  About a day or two after the incident, a Thai fishing boat, officially registered in Arakan State for fishing rights and carrying fish for delivery to {Thai Port} Ranong, sailed close to Christie Island.  It was captured by our naval boat, either No 304 or No 305 and I cannot remember which, but it was I believe commanded by Naval Lieutenant Aung Gyi.  Since the top naval commander then was Admiral Kyi Min, the news of the capture was reported to him.  The admiral, as usual, had to report about the incident to the Army Command and he was given an order to "eliminate" the problem.

After the order was received, the navy took charge of killing all the 22 people on the Thai fishing boat on Christie Island.  They were also buried there.  After that, they made holes in the hull and burned the boat until it sank into the sea.  Even then, it took about seven days for the boat to sink completely.

I was a witness to the two incidents which happened consecutively in which a total of about 81 people were killed.  All of them were unarmed civilians.

VOA:  Was there any problems with neighboring Thailand over the issue?

Aung Lin Htut:  No, because no one knew about it.  There was a standing, official order then to not take anyone alive and to clear that area.  So, all boats were seized whether they were poaching vessels or not, and were destroyed. People on board were killed.  Previously, we tended to seize boats and property only.  But later, around 1996 and 1997, things got worse and boats as well as crews were eliminated.

------------ --------- -----
Remarks in curly parentheses {} are by translator.

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Top Myanmar comedian, social activist detained
AP
Thu Jun 5, 12:41 AM ET

Myanmar's most popular comedian, known for his jibes against the military regime and recently for helping cyclone victims, has been taken from his home by police, family members said Thursday.

Maung Thura — better known by his stage name of Zarganar — was taken into custody Wednesday night by police after they searched his house, the family said. He had just returned from the cyclone-shattered Irrawaddy delta where he had been donating relief items to survivors.

Zarganar, who has been imprisoned several times, is known to suffer from hypertension and other ailments.

In an interview earlier this week, Zarganar said he and more than 400 entertainers in Myanmar had volunteered to aid victims of Cyclone Nargis, making numerous trips to the delta to help some of the more than 2 million victims of the May 2-3 storm.

Zarganar, 46, was last arrested and held for three weeks for providing food and other necessities to Buddhist monks who spearheaded anti-government protests in Yangon last September.

His comedy routines are banned for their jokes about the junta that rules Myanmar, also known as Burma.

"Burmese people love to laugh. But if I can't speak, jokes will still spread. The people will make them up themselves," he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview.

Myanmar's military, which has held power since 1962, could not immediately be reached for comment. The ruling junta brooks no dissent and has frequently arrested artists and entertainers regarded as opposing their regime, even those making seemingly innocuous wisecracks.

Two of the Mustache Brothers, a trio of comedians, were sentenced to five years of hard labor in 1996 after making fun of the country's ruling generals. A campaign by the London-based rights group Amnesty International later helped secure their release.

Zarganar, whose name means "tweezers," is also a successful producer, director, writer and actor. He also works as a dentist to pay bills.

He was first arrested in 1988 for his political activities and again for helping his mother — a member of the opposition National League for Democracy — during her campaign for the May 1990 general elections. The NLD, the party of detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, swept those elections, but the military regime refused to give up power.

In an interview this week with the Thailand-based magazine Irrawaddy, Zarganar said that since May 27 he had been to every township in the delta struck by the cyclone except one.

Some areas, he said, had neither been reached by the government nor international relief agencies. He and his group distributed food, blankets, mosquito nets and other emergency aid.

Zarganar said that his group sometimes had "confrontations with authorities" during the trips.

Earlier, other Myanmar entertainers had complained that authorities want all aid to be distributed through official channels rather than by private individuals and groups.

The U.N. has estimated 2.4 million people are in need of food, shelter or medical care as a result of the storm, which the government said killed 78,000 people and left another 56,000 missing.

Myanmar's regime has been sharply criticized by the international community for its inept handling of the disaster and for barring foreign aid workers from the delta. The ban was later officially lifted but aid agencies still report holdups and foot-dragging by the regime.

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Myanmar arrests activist as U.S. aid ships leave
Reuters
By Aung Hla Tun1 hour, 51 minutes ago

Myanmar has detained a top activist comedian involved in a private aid effort for cyclone victims, a relative said, as U.S. warships sailed away on Thursday after the military junta refused to accept their aid offer.

Zarganar, who was last detained in the crackdown on fuel price protests in September, was taken from his Yangon home by secret police on Wednesday evening, the family member said, on condition of anonymity.

They also seized his computer and several banned films, including the latest Rambo movie, which features the U.S. Vietnam War veteran taking on the former Burma's ruling military on behalf of Christian ethnic Karen rebels.

Police also found a copy of the leaked video of the lavish "champagne and diamonds" wedding in 2006 of army supremo Than Shwe's daughter, which caused outrage among ordinary people in one of Asia's poorest countries.

"They searched his room and took away some CDs, including the latest Rambo film, the wedding ceremony of Senior General Than Shwe's daughter, records on damage by Cyclone Nargis and the hard disc from his computer," the family source said.

Zarganar's current whereabouts are unknown, and he is expected to be questioned for several days, the source added.

His detention is likely to cause concern for the many informal private groups who are quietly collecting aid in the former capital and trucking it to the Irrawaddy delta, where Cyclone Nargis has left 2.4 million people in need of help.

More than a month after the storm, which also left 134,000 people dead or missing, many survivors have not yet been reached and Western nations and foreign aid groups say the relief effort is being hampered by the country's military rulers.

After more than two weeks of waiting for a green light that never came, four U.S. warships laden with supplies and 22 helicopters set sail on Thursday for Thailand from international waters near the delta.

"Should the Burmese rulers have a change of heart and request our full assistance for their suffering people, we are prepared to help," Admiral Timothy Keating, the U.S. military's top regional commander, said.

EVICTIONS

In its first assessment of the junta's response to the disaster, Amnesty International said the government was stepping up its eviction of victims from emergency shelters, but said it was unclear whether this was official policy.

"The government's actions place tens of thousands of already vulnerable survivors at increased risk of death, disease or starvation," the London-based rights group said.

The United Nations and aid organizations already established in Myanmar before the cyclone are able to get relief supplies to the delta, although red tape continues to keep many foreign disaster experts and relief workers in Yangon.

The U.N.'s World Food Program estimates it will need to feed at least 750,000 people in Yangon and the delta for some time to come.

(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Sanjeev Miglani)

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Southeast Asian team finally enters Myanmar cyclone zone
AFP
13 minutes ago

Southeast Asian aid experts flew into Myanmar's devastated Irrawaddy Delta on Thursday for a mission to assess cyclone damage, but US navy ships sailed away -- laden with supplies rejected by the junta.

Nearly five weeks after Cyclone Nargis hit, leaving 133,000 dead or missing, the first members of the joint ASEAN-UN "Emergency Rapid Assessment Team" flew by helicopter into the shattered towns of Labutta and Pyapon.

The 200-strong team of aid experts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the United Nations will later begin moving into remote areas of the delta, where entire villages were washed away in the storm, ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan said in a statement.

Their final findings will not be reported until mid-July, even as the United Nations estimates that one million hungry and homeless survivors have yet to receive any international assistance.

Myanmar's regime sparked international outrage by sealing off the delta for three weeks after the cyclone hit on May 2-3.

Now the military leadership has allowed some foreign aid workers into the region, a maze of swollen rivers and swamps that even in the best of times is inaccessible by road.

Myanmar has agreed in theory for 10 helicopters from the World Food Programme to ferry supplies into the region, but so far only one is actually flying.

The junta has rejected help from US, French and British warships. Four US ships left the area on Thursday, after three weeks of trying to convince the regime to accept their aid.

Lieutenant General John Goodman, commander of Marine forces Pacific, said that even though the USS Essex group was leaving, the United States was still ready to offer Myanmar helicopters and landing craft from the amphibious ships.

Myanmar has accused the United States of offering aid with unspecified "strings attached." The generals -- always suspicious of the outside world -- have long harbored fears of a US invasion.

"Our offer has been without strings, and it has never included bringing US Navy ships into their ports," Goodman said. "Unfortunately those offers of support have yet to be accepted."

Junta leader Than Shwe agreed nearly two weeks ago to allow foreign aid workers into the delta, but international agencies say access remains patchy.

Buddhist monks and volunteers are the most visible leaders of the relief effort, ferrying sacks of rice, clothes and medicine into the delta.

Myanmar's most famous comedian, Zaganar , who has been leading deliveries of aid to survivors of Cyclone Nargis, has been arrested at his Yangon home, a relative said Thursday.

The regime agreed for Southeast Asian nations to coordinate the relief effort, and Surin said that the next two weeks would be "crucial for building international confidence in this joint mission" between ASEAN, the UN and the Myanmar government.

On the ground, hundreds of thousands of desperate survivors have been left to fend for themselves, cobbling together whatever shelter they can find to survive the daily monsoon rains while scavenging for food.

Jon Mitchell, Myanmar director of the charity CARE, said he recently visited the remote delta village of Kan Phar, where 4,000 people once lived. Only 800 remain, he said.

"We asked them what they had been eating before aid arrived. All of their rice stocks had been destroyed. They told us they were either collecting coconuts or eating spoiled rice to survive," Mitchell said.

Private donors from Yangon and other towns have tried to fill the gap by delivering aid themselves, but some say security forces have turned them away.

A top figure in the local aid effort, Myanmar comedian Zaganar, was arrested late Wednesday at his Yangon home, a relative said Thursday.

Zaganar had been briefly detained during anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks last year. Those ended with a junta crackdown which left at least 31 people dead, the United Nations has said.

Myanmar analyst Aung Naing Oo said in Thailand that Zaganar was likely arrested for producing videos showing the true extent of the devastation, with graphic images of dead bodies still lying in fields.

"The situation is pretty grim everywhere," Aung Naing Oo said.

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Aid team moves into Myanmar cyclone zone: ASEAN
AFP
51 minutes ago

A 200-strong team of aid experts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the UN started deploying in Myanmar's cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta on Thursday, ASEAN said.

The Emergency Rapid Assessment Team was "now ready to move into the cyclone stricken remote delta areas" to start a long-awaited examination of the needs of millions of people affected by the May 2-3 storm, ASEAN said in a statement.

"We will begin with two advance teams being ferried by the World Food Programme's helicopter to two main townships of Labutta and Pyapon," ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said.

The team would "cover the entire cyclone-affected areas" and compile a first-hand "progress report" for an ASEAN Roundtable meeting in Yangon on June 24.

That meeting would be followed by a meeting of the ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force a day later as the regional grouping steps up its efforts to coordinate the international aid response in cooperation with the Myanmar junta.

The deployment of the assessment team comes a day after the United States gave up trying to convince the junta to allow aid-laden warships stationed off the devastated southern delta to deliver their vital supplies.

Cyclone Nargis left more than 133,000 people dead or missing when it smashed into the country formally known as Burma, but the secretive military regime has severely limited access for foreign relief workers.

Buddhist monks and volunteers are the most visible leaders of the relief effort, ferrying sacks of rice, clothes and medicine into the delta.

Myanmar's most famous comedian, Zaganar , who has been leading deliveries of aid to survivors of Cyclone Nargis, has been arrested at his Yangon home, a relative said Thursday.

The United Nations estimates that of the 2.4 million survivors in need of food and shelter, 1.1 million have received no foreign aid.

Surin said the assessment team would be made up of representatives from the 10 ASEAN member countries, including Myanmar, and the United Nations. He did not provide a breakdown of those numbers.

It would be backed by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The ASEAN chief said the next two weeks would be "crucial for building international confidence in this joint mission," although it would not provide a full report on its findings until mid-July.

International relief agencies have been desperately appealing to the junta to remove obstacles and allow them to do their job amid fears of many more deaths from disease and hunger in the months ahead.

ASEAN has also come under criticism for its slow response to the storm and its apparent unwillingness to pressure Myanmar's generals over a humanitarian issue in the face of such a catastrophe.

Foreign relief groups have been given limited access in recent days but say it is nowhere near enough. Aid agencies also complain that staff are only being given permission to travel to the hard-to-reach delta for one week at a time.

The UN's World Food Programme has said boats and helicopters are now needed to reach survivors in the remotest regions, but the one WFP helicopter in the country was only given permission to leave Yangon on Monday.

Nine more helicopters are sitting on the tarmac in Thai airports. They are due to fly into Myanmar later this week but it remains unclear if and when they will be allowed into the delta.

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New challenges for delta aid workers
By Samanthi Dissanayake
BBC News / 4 June 2008

Many remote communities can only be accessed by boat

“The village is two-and-a-half hours downriver using a motorboat...Corpses and dead cattle are still there” Burmese donor

Thousands of acres of paddy field were wrecked by the cyclone

“We are going in very small boats down rivers to small communities of just 20 -40 houses” Robert Yellop, Care International

SURVIVORS' AID KITS Aid being delivered to storm survivors in Burma's Irrawaddy Delta includes: Tarpaulin and materials for building shelters Mosquito nets Blankets and towels Water purification tablets and bottled water Kitchen and cooking sets Surgical masks, gloves and first-aid kits

The Burmese junta has finally started to allow foreign aid workers some access to the region which took the brunt of last month's cyclone, in the wake of huge international pressure.

The decision comes much later than many would have wished.
One Burmese volunteer, who had just returned from a remote inlet of the Irrawaddy Delta, told the BBC News website that he found "corpses still hanging" from foliage.

"People are still suffering. Help is still needed," he said.
Most aid agencies had already been operating in the region before the disaster, through long-established local networks.

But it is only now that international staff, with expertise in disaster management crucial for the next phase of operations, have been allowed to deploy there.

And even now, the junta's stance on granting access remains inconsistent.

Paul Risley from the UN's World Food Programme said that foreign staff, who are logistics and communications experts, had only been given one-day permits to visit the region rather than permission to deploy there.

The medical relief charity Merlin is optimistic that it will be able to deploy more international staff, but it acknowledged the process was slow and frustrating.

"It would be good to send people experienced in large-scale emergencies who can lead the way and train the national staff to deal with the situation," a spokesperson said.
Specialist needs

Some aid agencies lost local staff in the cyclone, and the shift in the junta's approach allows organisations to support to their local teams as well as bring critical expertise.

The Red Cross has identified clean water as an immediate concern. It says that hundreds of thousands of people are still without drinking water. The sea surge that accompanied the cyclone contaminated ponds, wells and other water sources.

It is deploying six expatriate Red Cross and Red Crescent water specialists on Wednesday - the first foreign employees of the organisation to get permits to travel beyond Rangoon's city limits since the disaster.

The agency had already trained local engineers to operate purification equipment but now the trainers can join their staff in the south.

Isolated communities

Making contact with the remotest reaches of the delta is a priority. The infrastructure in the south was rudimentary at best before the cyclone, and many roads were simply washed away.

The only way of getting aid to some communities is a precarious journey using a traditional wooden boat with an outside motor.

But making progress through the intricate maze of rivers, tributaries and streams is proving hard. The rivers twist and wind, and people report that a journey of a few miles can take several hours or a whole day.

Merlin flew an experienced emergency maritime co-ordinator, an expert in boats and ships, to Rangoon to co-ordinate the complex task of distributing aid by boats.

Local Burmese donors face similar problems.

"I went to a place where no aid from the government had reached yet," a Burmese donor from Rangoon told the BBC News website.

"The village is two-and-a-half hours downriver using a motorboat from De Da Ye. The situation there is at its worst. Corpses and dead cattle are still there," he said.

Another donor said small boats could only carry small amounts of aid and the waves and currents under the small vessels felt treacherous.

Like other agencies, Care International has been hiring and purchasing boats.

"We are going in very small boats down rivers to small communities of just 20 -40 houses. We have to provide assistance to everyone - not just where the large populations are," said Robert Yellop, head of overseas operations for Care in Australia.

There are a number of these small villages isolated on headlands and outcrops, with survivors waiting by river banks for help.

Community self-help

While the junta and the international aid community have been wrangling for access, many of these isolated communities have had to fend for themselves.

One Burmese private donor described how he discovered distant villages yet to receive help.
"Some villages are still left out with no food at all. They are starting to rebuild their houses themselves as they realised that it is difficult to get aid from the government," he said.

World Vision's team of international relief specialists who travelled to Ngapudaw last Friday on a needs-assessment mission found villages completely flattened but not without determination.

"The tragedy of the impact was etched on their faces but people were already rebuilding with whatever they could find," Steve Goudswaard, World Vision's cyclone response manager, reported.

Along with many other agencies, he has identified the next critical phase of assistance for people in the south - giving people the tools and opportunities to rebuild livelihoods.

Crops and paddy fields were devastated by the cyclone. Many will need assistance in planting seeds before the end of the season in July. This will help ensure food supply for the year to come.

People are focusing on survival but mindful that they once had livelihoods according to Min, a Burmese private donor.

"Some people have to walk 10 miles to reach the road and get food from donors. They told me they lost their jobs after Nargis. Now they have no job and are waiting for aid every day."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7432874.stm

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Storm victims' misery turns to fury
By Matt Prodger
BBC News, Rangoon / 2 June 2008

An estimated 2.5m are in need of help a month after Cyclone Nargis

Monasteries have been handing out food aid to hungry refugees

Unicef claims the junta has been evicting refugees from camps

Most of the refugees are picking up the pieces alone

Towering over the heart of Rangoon is what Rudyard Kipling called Burma's "golden mystery": the Shwedagon Pagoda.

One hundred metres high, covered from top to bottom in shimmering gold leaf and more than 1,000 years old, it is for Burmese Buddhists the country's most sacred site.

I was there posing as a tourist. Foreign reporters are barred from Burma.

In the grounds of the temple I was approached by a young man. He wanted foreigners to know what was happening, he said.

He came from a village in the Irrawaddy Delta region devastated by the cyclone, a village which is now only water.
"In my village about 1,000 people are dead now," he said.

The village had seen no aid organisations and received no help, he said.

And for that he blames the government.

"After the cyclone we never saw the UN or other organisations," he said. "They want to help but the government has closed my place to visits. They know about the cyclone so why don't they come to help?"

Defiance

With more than 130,000 people dead or missing, and 2.5m in need of food, shelter and medicine, Burma's generals have been lambasted from without and within the country.

They are used to thumbing their noses at foreigners, but they may not have expected the fury of their own people - people like Zargana, a famous comedian here who has spent time in prison for criticising the generals.

Like many other Burmese he has travelled to the stricken areas himself, in defiance of the authorities, to donate food and water.
 
"The victims are very angry with the military junta," he said, but added that they were not the only people frustrated by the lack of aid.

"The second group is the donors... They want to donate directly to the victims but the military junta and some police are stopping them from donating directly."

"Thirdly there's the government officers," he added.

"They are human beings. Some of their relatives disappeared in the delta region but they couldn't go there, so they feel anger towards the military junta."

More unrest?

One reason Burma's government was slow to react is that it was too busy pushing ahead with a referendum to consolidate 45 years of military rule.

Five years ago the generals silenced the one person who had done the most to undermine them: pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

It is not difficult to find the home of Burma's most famous person. I stood across the road from it.

Entry to the street outside was blocked by five armed guards.

She has been under house arrest here since 2003 and the generals have just added another six months to her detention.

Last week a group of protesters tried to march to her house, and for their troubles most were arrested.

In September Buddhist monks led the largest protests in Burma since 3,000 people were killed when they took to the streets in 1988.

So could there be more unrest?

Hunger for revenge

Zargana thinks people are too scared to march, but he says there is a visceral anger in the aftermath of the cyclone that may yet erupt into violence.

"People don't want to come out onto the streets. But the people are very angry and they want to take some kind of revenge," he said.

"This is very horrible. I don't want to take revenge. But our people now want to kill."

This sentiment was echoed by the man who approached me at the temple.

"A lot of people are angry at the government," he said. "Near my village people are fighting the military for food, water and medicine.

"They are hungry, they are thirsty. They have the food, the water, so why don't they give it quickly to the people?"

This weekend the United Nations children's fund, Unicef, reported that government soldiers had begun forcing people from places of refuge in the cities back to where their homes once stood.

Aid agencies have recruited as many Burmese as they can to get to the areas that foreigners cannot reach.

But most of the victims of Cyclone Nargis are picking up the pieces of their shattered lives alone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7430867.stm

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