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HEADLINES
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AP - Myanmar group denies rumors that fish eating corpses in quake-devastated delta
AP - UN aid helicopters reach isolated survivors 5 weeks after Myanmar cyclone
AP - Myanmar cyclone tourism sector reels after cyclone
AP - Myanmar prime minister says aid provided to cyclone survivors will improve their lives
Reuters - Rights violations serious in Myanmar: U.N. investigator
IRIN - MYANMAR: Food assistance "likely" for up to a year
Bernama - Myanmar: Polio Vaccination For Cyclone-survived Kids
IHT - UN expert concerned about Myanmar comedian's arrest
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Myanmar 'looks like the ancient times: No civilization'
The Nation - Burmese junta detains cyclone-affected "boat people"
The Nation - Asean members have a duty to protect migrants
Mizzima News - Relief materials found in Township PDC watchman's home
Mizzima News - Junta blacks out media

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Myanmar group denies rumors that fish eating corpses in quake-devastated delta
AP - Tuesday, June 10

YANGON, Myanmar - A Myanmar government-affiliat ed group denied rumors that fish from cyclone-ravaged areas were unfit to eat after supposedly feeding on human and animals corpses, local media reported Monday.

Since Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta last month, some people in Yangon _ the country's biggest city _ have been reluctant to eat fish because of rumors they were feeding on the bodies of storm victims.

One rumor circulating was that some fish were found to have human fingers and pieces of jewelry in their stomachs.

"This is not true. We can guarantee that," Toe Nandar Tin, an executive member of the Myanmar Fisheries Federation, told the Myanmar Times newspaper. "(It) is total nonsense. The freshwater fish from delta come from fish farms, not from the rivers."

She said samples of fish were tested to prove they were safe for consumption.

Toe Nandar Tin said the rumors also resulted in the suspension of orders by some foreign buyers, but she did not elaborate. The main buyers of Myanmar's fish include China, Thailand and Singapore.

The Myanmar Fisheries Federation is an organization representing the private sector, but it is affiliated with the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries.

About 55 percent of the fishing sector in the country was destroyed, including 2,000 small boats and 329 offshore fishing vessels, according to the Times, a weekly English-language newspaper affiliated with the government.

Massive waves from the cyclone also devastated 37,000 acres (15,000 hectares) of shrimp farms and about 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares) of fish farms, it said.

The cyclone killed more than 78,000 people and left another 56,000 missing in the impoverished country.

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UN aid helicopters reach isolated survivors 5 weeks after Myanmar cyclone
AP - Tuesday, June 10

YANGON, Myanmar - U.N. helicopters reached some Myanmar storm survivors on Monday with aid for the first time since deadly Cyclone Nargis devastated parts of the country more than a month ago.

Some survivors went weeks without adequate assistance before four helicopters arrived over the weekend and began shuttling emergency supplies such as rice and water purification systems to villages around the hardest-hit towns of Bogale and Labutta, said U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley.

Four relief drops were conducted Monday in seven places in the battered Irrawaddy delta, and six more locations were expected to be reached Tuesday, Risley said. The U.N. had only one helicopter operating in Myanmar that flew a total of six trips last week.

"Today was the first day where you really saw a multiplier effect," Risley said Monday. "These are areas that clearly have not received regular supplies of food or other relief assistance."

The United Nations estimated that 2.4 million people were affected by Cyclone Nargis, which hit the delta on May 2-3. The U.N. warned that more than 1 million of those people still need help, mostly in the hard-to-reach Irrawaddy delta. The cyclone killed more than 78,000 people in the impoverished country.

Helicopters are critical to reaching isolated areas. Supplies have mainly been delivered by boats that took several hours to navigate short distances in the delta's network of waterways.

Four more U.N.-chartered helicopters in nearby Bangkok, Thailand were expected to fly to Myanmar this week.

The relief effort, however, still faces myriad problems, including a severe shortage of housing materials that could leave hundreds of thousands of survivors exposed to heavy rains as the monsoon season begins, aid agencies say.

"There's clearly a need for tarps and other roofing material, for anything that can help them rebuild their houses," Risley said, noting monsoon rains have left many delta villages knee-deep in mud.

U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized Myanmar's military regime for restricting access to the delta, saying the junta has prevented enough food, water and shelter from reaching desperate survivors.

Foreign relief workers still face hindrances in reaching cyclone victims, especially outside of Yangon, aid groups have said.

Myanmar's ruling generals have been criticized abroad for allegedly evicting cyclone survivors from refugee camps, supposedly without adequate provisions to survive elsewhere. The government has been sensitive to such criticism, issuing angry denials in state-run media that describe the accusations as lies meant to undermine the country's stability.

On Monday, all three state-run newspapers carried bold-type slogans that urged the people of Myanmar to rally behind the government's side of the story and not trust what foreign news agencies were reporting.

Anti-government elements are feeding "the foreign news agencies stories about relief and rehabilitation that they have made up and shot on video," all three newspapers reported.

"Storm victims are hereby warned to remain vigilant with nationalistic spirit," the newspapers said.

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Myanmar cyclone tourism sector reels after cyclone
AP - Tuesday, June 10

YANGON, Myanmar - When a taxi carrying two Westerners pulled up last week at the Shwe Sin hotel at the Chaung Tha beach resort in Myanmar's cyclone-stricken Irrawaddy delta region, cheers rang out from local residents and workers.

The two were congratulated for being the first foreigners to set foot in town since Cyclone Nargis slammed ashore last month, wiping entire villages off the map and killing an estimated 78,000 people.

The disaster, and the military government's "stay-away" attitude toward foreign aid workers and reporters, has scared off tourists, adding to the area's woes.

Residents of Chaung Tha, perched on the western side of the delta, more than 60 miles from the eye of the storm, say no one there was killed or injured and that the hotels were undamaged.

But the fishing village-turned- vacation spot is reeling from the economic fallout of the May 2-3 storm.

"Being in this sector now is like being dead," said Ko Tin Oo, assistant manager of the Shwe Sin hotel. "Now, only the pawn shops are doing good business."

Without a single foreign guest for more than a month, the 37-year-old father of one said he had to pawn some of his wife's jewelry to make ends meet.

He blamed Myanmar's military government as much as the cruel vagaries of nature.

Seeking to keep prying foreign eyes away from the disaster's aftermath, Myanmar's embassies have been vetting visa applications with a skeptical eye, making it difficult for would-be tourists to gain entry.

Military checkpoints around the main city, Yangon, have kept unauthorized foreigners from entering the delta since the storm.

"How can foreign people come to Myanmar, even if they're brave enough?" asked Ko Tin Oo.

Statistics on international arrivals for May were not yet available, but Oliver Martin of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, PATA, said a "substantial decrease" was expected.

Maarten Groeneveld of the Bangkok, Thailand, branch of Diethelm Travel Asia agency said new reservations for Myanmar have stopped and many existing bookings were canceled.

Any upswing would depend on "how quickly the current relief effort bears fruit and reinstates some sort of confidence internationally, " Groeneveld said in an e-mail.

Though the military government has strived in recent years to promote the country as a vacation destination, Myanmar's underdeveloped infrastructure and dismal human rights record have made it a hard sell.

Its tourism sector is minuscule compared to that of neighboring countries. In 2007, Myanmar received 248,000 international travelers compared to nearly 14.5 million in Thailand, according to PATA, which represents some 1,000 travel agents, airlines and other enterprises.

Last year was on track to be a record one for Myanmar tourism until a bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners in September scared travelers away.

The crackdown — in which at least 31 people were killed — also revived calls for a boycott of travel to Myanmar.

Supporters of a boycott contend tourist dollars fatten the generals' coffers.

But opponents argue that tourism benefits Myanmar's poor and promotes democratic ideals by exposing citizens of this isolated and tightly controlled country to outside ideas.

"When people hear about Myanmar, it's about political repression and now the cyclone. When you have all this negative press, it doesn't matter how much the government promotes its lovely beaches,"

PATA's Martin said. "You won't see any bounce back in the short or maybe even in the medium term."

Meanwhile, those who depend on tourist dollars are feeling the pinch.

Yangon's budget hotels catering to backpackers are all but empty. With few takers for their T-shirts emblazoned with images of temples or monks, souvenir vendors at the Bogyoke Aung San market nap in the midday heat.

Tour guides at the city's most famous landmark, the golden-domed Shwedagon Pagoda, sit idly, waiting in vain for potential customers.

Since the storm, 33-year-old guide San San has spent his days chewing betel leaf in the temple's parking lot. He said that May, the start of the monsoon season, is generally a slow month but that he usually averages about three clients a day throughout the off season.

"There's been no one for many days," he said. "All I do is sit and wait."

High-end operators were also affected by the storm.

The luxury cruise ship Road to Mandalay, which normally plies the Irrawaddy River, was badly damaged in the storm, said Pippa Isbell, spokeswoman for the its operator, Orient-Express Hotels, Trains and Cruises. Existing reservations for a "few hundred" would-be passengers have been canceled through September.

"Whatever happens with the ship, we're committed to remaining in Myanmar," Pippa said.

But the future is less certain for staff at hotels on Chaung Tha beach, an off-the-beaten- path destination whose foreign visitors are mostly budget travelers.

Because it's inside the restricted Irrawaddy delta, special permission is now required to make the five-hour journey over the narrow, pothole-scarred roads. Sometimes the travel permits issued by the Ministry of Tourism are not special enough for the guards at four military checkpoints along the route from Yangon, and travelers are turned back.

With little prospect of filling his 41 empty seaside bungalows, Shwe Sin hotel's assistant manager Ko Tin Oo appealed to his sole foreign guests, an Australian and a French national, to encourage their friends and family to travel to Myanmar.

"Tell everyone you know that Myanmar people need foreign people," he said as he switched on the evening's entertainment, an amateur video of Cyclone Nargis featuring cyclone-toppled trees, crushed houses and bloated bodies floating in flood waters.

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Myanmar prime minister says aid provided to cyclone survivors will improve their lives
AP - Monday, June 9

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's prime minister said government assistance for survivors of last month's Cyclone Nargis will make their lives better than ever, a state-run newspaper reported Sunday.

The New Light of Myanmar cited Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein saying the government was prepared to help people settle either in their native areas, or in the places where they took refuge in relief camps after the May 2-3 storm.

Myanmar's ruling military junta has been criticized abroad for allegedly evicting cyclone survivors from refugee camps, supposedly without adequate provisions to survive elsewhere. The government has been sensitive to such criticism, describing it as lies meant to undermine the country's stability.

Thein Sein was making an inspection trip to the devastated Irrawaddy delta area Saturday when said the government would provide temporary shelters at first, to be followed by permanent housing, the newspaper reported.

Those returning to the their home areas would be supplied with rations for one week, with the nearest relief camps assigned to providing food in the longer run, he was quoted saying.

The government would also supply power tillers and seed rice for farmers, as well as fishing equipment fishermen, the newspaper reported him saying.

"The government, on its part, will provide assistance for the storm victims for more improvement of their living standards than ever before," Thein Sein said in the report. "Despite the supply of basic needs of the people including transport, untrue news stories regarding the government's measures are being broadcasted by some unscrupulous persons and organizations with negative views."

The U.N. estimated that a total of 2.4 million people were affected by Cyclone Nargis. It warned that more than 1 million of them, mostly in the hard-to-reach Irrawaddy Delta, still need help.

The government insists it acted quickly and efficiently to provide relief. But U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized the regime for restricting foreigners' access to the delta, saying it has prevented enough food, water and shelter from reaching desperate survivors.

On Saturday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned there was an "urgent need" for tarpaulins to provide the estimated 1.5 million homeless survivors with temporary shelter. Otherwise, they warned, the threats of hunger and disease could intensify.

"Exposure to the elements five weeks after a disaster of this magnitude has to be a major concern," said John Sparrow, a Red Cross spokesman. "People are in a weakened condition. They are sick; they are hungry. Without shelter, their whole situation is seriously exacerbated. "

The bodies of tens of thousands of people killed in Myanmar's cyclone will probably never be identified because they were washed far from their homes and have decomposed so badly, an aid agency said Sunday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said burying the estimated 78,000 killed when the storm hit has become a lower priority than trying to assist the survivors.

As a result, bloated bodies are still scattered around the Irrawaddy delta more than five weeks after the storm hit. Some have been dumped in canals and unmarked mass graves or cremated, while others remain untouched.

"Identifying bodies at this stage will be incredibly difficult," said Craig Strathern, a Red Cross spokesman in Myanmar.

"Many now are in advanced stages of decay and the information we have been able to gather is that many of the bodies that were affected by the tidal surges were stripped of clothing and any identifying items," he said. "We have reports that some bodies ended up four miles (seven kilometers) from their place of origin."

Survivors in the delta said they initially attempted to identify bodies but were overwhelmed by the numbers of corpses clogging the rivers and washing up on the beaches.

"Initially, the bodies were identified by relatives and we cremated them after holding religious rites," said Myint Thuang, a survivor from the delta town of Bogalay, referring to Buddhist traditions.

"However, after more bodies washed up on the shore and with no one to identify them, we buried them in mass graves," he said, describing how they sprinkled lime powder on the graves of 10 or more bodies and marked some with a wooden stick.

Strathern said the Red Cross last week began distributing kits _ with body bags and forms to list where a body is buried and any details identifying it _ for volunteers wanting to dispose of the dead.

But he said he doubted there would be any large-scale effort to identify victims, mostly because there was no motivation. Myanmar law allows families to declare missing persons dead after only three weeks, clearing the way for relatives to claim death benefits and land ownership and other inheritance issues.

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Rights violations serious in Myanmar: U.N. investigator
Reuters - Tuesday, June 10

GENEVA (Reuters) - The Myanmar military junta's arrest of a popular comedian campaigning for victims of cyclone Nargis is part of continuing serious human rights violations in the country, a United Nations investigator said on Monday. 

Tomas Ojea Quintana also told a news briefing there were political prisoners in the country, despite the regime's insistence it imprisons law breakers.

"The latest information coming to me in the last few days builds up a picture of a serious situation of violations of human rights in Myanmar," said Ojea Quintana, an Argentine lawyer who has just taken up his U.N. post.

News reports from Yangon said the comedian, known by his stage name of Zarganar, was detained last Wednesday by police who seized his computer and banned film and recordings of the devastation caused by the cyclone.

Ojea Quintana, whose own parents were political prisoners under a military regime in Argentina, said he had asked the Myanmar authorities for clarification and for information on Zarganar's whereabouts, but had received no reply.

As special investigator for Myanmar, he reports to the U.N.'s 47-nation Human Rights Council at which he called last week for release of all political prisoners, starting with Nobel laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar's ambassador in Geneva denied his government arrested people for political reasons. He also rejected another assertion by the investigator that soldiers had shot prisoners on the night of the cyclone on May 2.

Ojea Quintana said on Monday he understood the prisoners, in a jail at Insein in the Irrawady delta where Nargis struck with full force, were trying to flee the partially destroyed facility to save their lives.

In his report, he asked the Myanmar authorities to investigate assertions by a Thailand-based activist group that 36 prisoners had died when police and troops moved in to quell what they said was a riot.

The investigator said he hoped to be able to establish an open dialogue with the government on Myanmar and to be given permission to visit the country to check information coming into his office. But so far no clearance had come from Yangon.

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MYANMAR: Food assistance "likely" for up to a year
09 Jun 2008 10:22:34 GMT

BANGKOK, 9 June 2008 (IRIN) - Survivors in Myanmar's cyclone-devastated Ayeyarwady Delta will likely need food assistance for as long as a year, the UN warns.

Many farmers will not be able to plant rice for this year's crucial monsoon paddy crop, due to the severe damage to their fields and a shortage of farming supplies after the category four storm swept across southern Myanmar on 2 and 3 May, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing and some 2.4 million destitute.

Paul Risley, a spokesman for the World Food Programme (WFP), says Cyclone Nargis, and its accompanying tidal surge, washed away or severely damaged the rice stocks of most of the delta's rural households, leaving many families with little to sustain them in the coming months.

And while Myanmar authorities and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are working to ensure that at least some rice is planted so as not to lose the coming season completely, Risley said most farmers, and their labourers, are probably still at least six months away, if not longer, from replacing their lost food stocks.

"A certain percentage of households and farmers in the delta area will likely require some form of food assistance through their next harvest, which could be up to a year away," Risley told IRIN in Bangkok.

Devastated farmlands

According to the FAO, about 200,000 hectares, or 16 percent, of the delta's total 1.3 million hectares of agricultural land were severely damaged in the cyclone and would "not be available for planting this season".

Some of these fields have suffered severe salinity damage - due to the tidal surge that swept salt water up to 35km inland - and will require environmental remediation. Others remain submerged more than a month after the disaster struck.

Planting for Myanmar's crucial monsoon rice crop is normally under way at this time, and authorities are racing to help farmers whose lands do not require environmental remediation to plant rice in the coming weeks.

"We have to complete the sowing of seedlings by the end of July at the latest," said Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO's deputy regional representative in Bangkok. "Otherwise it will create tremendous damage to the productivity of rice … the income and livelihood of rural farmers, and it will eventually affect the national food security of Myanmar itself."

Yet Konuma said even farmers whose lands were not seriously damaged either by salinity or flooding could battle to plant this season, hampered by lack of inputs.

"There are many obstacles before farmers can actually start the cultivation, " he said. "Many areas are still empty and farmers have not yet come back because of a lack of shelter or lack of food. If they are not assured of sufficient shelter or food, they cannot stay long on the land," he said.

Many farmers still lacked inputs such as seeds, tillers and draught animals, and it was not known how rapidly such materials could be distributed, he added.

All this, said WFP, suggested that many families, in addition to those whose lands were severely damaged, would simply not be able to plant their crops, and landless labourers would need extensive food support.

"Farmers who are able to plant now will not have food until that rice crop grows in six months," said Risley. "Farmers who don't plant at all this year will not have a crop until next year."

Imports likely

Given the likely reduction in the region's rice output, WFP is suggesting it may have to import some food, which could be a sensitive issue with a government that has prided itself on its self-sufficiency and tightly regulates all imports.

"Myanmar has generally been self-sufficient in food grains in recent years, but this cyclone was a devastating hit, especially on rice stocks, which means it will be more and more difficult for WFP to purchase locally," Risley said.

In the coming weeks, WFP, with its partners, will conduct detailed food security assessments. A team will be conducting household level surveys in villages to examine questions of food consumption, availability and prices.

From this and FAO data, the organisation will draw up a plan for medium- and long-term food aid to the region.

"The key issue for WFP will be whether we can continue to procure food locally or whether we will also begin to import rice to meet the needs of the WFP pipeline providing food to cyclone survivors," Risely said.

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Myanmar: Polio Vaccination For Cyclone-survived Kids

YANGON, June 9 (Bernama) -- Myanmar has given polio vaccination to 540 cyclone-survived children under five years of age in relief camps in Laputta, one of the disaster-hard- hit townships in southwestern Ayeyawaddy delta.

Another 720 children ranging from 9 months to 10 years of age were also given measles vaccination, China's XINHUA news agency was quoted as saying on Monday.

A total of 770 storm victims of Kanback native village have also moved back from relief camps, the report added. According to the United Nations Children's Fund, of the 2.4 million people affected by the cyclone storm Nargis, 960,000 or 40 percent were estimated to be children.

Meanwhile, nearly a dozen foreign medics have also been rendering medical aid services in different cyclone-hit regions since mid-May.

Myanmar announced that the first phase of the country's post-disaster restoration work -- rescue and relief, has finished up to a certain extent and it has now entered into a second phase of resettlement and reconstruction.

Under the post-disaster restoration plan, 30 Myanmar private companies have been taking part in the restoration work in cyclone- hit regions with assignments by the government to take the responsibility of undertaking resettlement work in 17 affected townships.

Deadly tropical cyclone Nargis, which occurred over the Bay of Bengal, hit five divisions and states -- Ayeyawaddy, Yangon, Bago, Mon and Kayin on May 2 and 3, of which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon inflicted the heaviest casualties and massive infrastructural damage.

Myanmar estimated the damages and losses caused by the storm at US$10.67 billion with 5.5 million people affected.

The storm has killed 77,738 people and left 55,917 missing and 19,359 injured according to official-released death toll.

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UN expert concerned about Myanmar comedian's arrest
The International Herald Tribune - Published: June 9, 2008
The Associated Press

GENEVA: The United Nations' expert on human rights in Myanmar said Monday he was very worried about the arrest of a well-known comedian who was trying to help survivors of last month's devastating cyclone.

Comedian Maung Thura — whose stage name is Zarganar — was taken from his home in Yangon by police Wednesday night after going to the Irrawaddy delta to donate relief items to survivors, a relative said.

"I'm very concerned because I don't know so far about his whereabouts, " said Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. Human Rights Council's new investigator for Myanmar.

Quintana, from Argentina, said he asked the government for clarification about Zarganar's arrest.

The relative said Friday that the family had heard nothing from Zarganar since the arrest and that the ruling military junta had given no reason for the arrest.

Zarganar was leading a team of around 40 people assisting cyclone victims, said Quintana, adding that other actors, comedians and writers were part of the group.

The U.N. estimates a total of 2.4 million people were made homeless or were otherwise affected when Cyclone Nargis hit May 2-3, and has warned that more than 1 million of those still need help, mostly in the hard-to-reach delta.

The 46-year old comedian and his team had made videos of their relief activities and Zarganar gave interviews critical of the government's relief effort to foreign media, including the British Broadcasting Corp., whose news broadcasts are popular in Myanmar.

In an interview with the Thailand-based magazine Irrawaddy before his arrest, Zarganar said some areas in the delta had not been reached by the government or international aid groups. Zarganar said his group distributed food, blankets, mosquito nets and other aid.

Quintana, who on Friday presented a 16-page report to the U.N. council on the situation of basic rights in Myanmar, said he didn't have information about other members of Zarganar's team being arrested.

But "the detention of Zarganar concerns me a lot," he told reporters.

Zarganar, known for his anti-government jibes, has previously been arrested together with other actors for openly supporting demonstrations against the military junta.

U.N. officials and aid groups have criticized the regime for hindering cyclone relief efforts.

Quintana said if a government is unable to help its people after a disaster, it has to accept outside aid.

"All states have the obligation to guarantee their people all the rights with all the available means," he said. "If the means inside the country are not enough ... there is an obligation to use means from the international community."

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Myanmar 'looks like the ancient times: No civilization'
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Posted on Mon, Jun. 9, 2008
By DAMON C. WILLIAMS
Philadelphia Daily News
williadc@phillynews .com 215-854-5924

MORE THAN FIVE weeks after a catastrophic cyclone hit the southeast Asian country of Myanmar - also known as Burma - the sorrow is heavy among Burmese natives living a world away in Philadelphia.

"Because of the storm, people don't have a house, and it's the raining season," said a distraught Chiu Sin Mae, 49, seated in a booth at the Rangoon Burmese Restaurant, on 9th Street near Arch, in Chinatown.

"The government moved people from the delta, but the military told them they were not welcome in city. But they have nowhere to go back to, because their houses are still under water. Where is home? On the street with an umbrella?

"The government is taking its time, killing its own people. It's a genocide."

Tens of thousands of people may never be identified because their bodies have decomposed so badly and many ended up far from home, the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday.

The task of burying an estimated 78,000 bodies has been overshadowed by efforts to assist Cyclone Nargis' 2.4 million survivors, many of whom are still without adequate food, water and shelter, the Red Cross said. As a result, bloated bodies still litter the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta, while other bodies have been dumped in canals or unmarked mass graves.

In interviews yesterday and last week at the Philadelphia restaurant, several Burmese natives accused Myanmar's ruling junta not only of mishandling the disaster, but also of turning its police force against its own people.

"Malaria, cholera and HIV are breaking out in Burma," said Mya S. Solomon, 27, who migrated to Philadelphia at age 9. "This is a human-rights issue, and all people should just go in and help," bypassing the military to deliver aid directly to the people.

Solomon, who still has family in Myanmar, said a cousin there had told her of widespread looting, and of people who tried to help being imprisoned or killed.

"The soldiers only clean up their neighborhoods and pathways," an angry Solomon said, calling junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe "the next Stalin."

Mae agreed: "Burma looks like the ancient times: no civilization, naked children praying in the street for help."

Mae said she had relayed messages to relatives in Myanmar that TV networks were showing relief efforts under way, then felt brokenhearted when she realized the junta was not letting the aid in. "The country people are praying for help, waiting for help," she said. "I am so upset that the help has left."

According to Mae and Solomon, Shwe is using brutal tactics against his own people. They cited harrowing Internet photos and stories of dead youths lined up on the street or floating in infested waters, and others burned or killed bathing in ocean waters contaminated by a chemical leak.

"Doctors here want to help, applied for a visa and were denied by the government," said Christine Gyaw, 50, a co-owner of the restaurant. "The government will arrest the doctors [that do make it to Myanmar], saying they are smuggling in narcotics."

Gyaw said yesterday that she had received an e-mail from a cousin three days ago informing her that the body of another cousin, Muang Bey, 66, had been "found in a tree."

"He was a Christian pastor, living in the delta base," said Gyaw, who migrated to Philadelphia in 1990. "The whole village is gone."

The restaurant is doing what it can to help. The owners have placed a donation box at the door, and the funds are going to the America Burma Buddhist Association (www.mahasiusa. org). But although most customers are caring and giving, some hesitate to give because they don't know if the junta will intercept the funds, said Solomon.

"Please, we are begging for help," said Mae, on the brink of tears. "[Powerful countries] shouldn't wait for permission. My heart is hurting, and the people are helpless."

With only six United Nations helicopters and seven from the Myanmar government, relief supplies for survivors are mostly being transported along dirt roads and then by boat. International aid agencies say boats able to navigate the delta's canals are scarce and efforts to import vehicles have been hampered by government red tape.

The government has dismissed complaints that survivors are not being reached with aid and ignored reports that they have been forced from camps and dumped near their devastated villages. It said survivors have a choice to remain in the camps or return home with government help.

"It is a storm of rumors designed to deal a devastating blow to our country," according to a commentary Saturday in the Yangon-based newspaper New Light of Myanmar.

"The rumors are invented and circulated by certain Western countries and internal and external ax-handlers, " it said. "In other words, it is just a scheme conspired by a crafty tiger that is desperate to eat the flesh and the fox that is waiting for leftovers."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. *

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Burmese junta detains cyclone-affected "boat people"
The Nation
Published on Jun 9, 2008

The Burmese navy has arrested 65 people, including 15 children and 20 women, who attempted to flee the country's cyclone-hit Bogalay township, a Burma pro-democracy group said on Sunday.

The boat-load of people were arrested on June 2 near Zardatgyi Island west of Kawthaung town by Navy Ship No 517, according to the Network for Democracy and Development (NDD) group, which is based on the Thai-Burma border.

"They left Bogalay by boat on May 24 aiming to take refuge in refugee camps at Thai border," the NDD said in a statement.

The 65 people had reportedly lost their belongings and homes in Cyclone Nargis that hit Burma's central coastal region on May 2-3, leaving at least 133,000 people dead or missing.

One month after the storm, unknown thousands have yet to receive emergency aid, with many of them residing in remote coastal enclaves in the Irrawaddy delta, according to international aid workers.

"This is the first-time we heard that the cyclone victims take risks to leave their villages by boats like those from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the past," said the NDD.

Millions of so-called "boat people" fled Vietnam and Cambodia during after 1979, in the aftermath of a short Chinese invasion of Vietnam to teach Hanoi a lesson for invading Cambodia the same year to topple the pro-Beijing Khmer Rouge regime.

The resulting political turmoil prompted more than a million Sino-Vietnamese to flee southern Vietnam on flimsy boats to Thailand and other non-communist countries in South-east Asia, while a similar land and sea exodus occurred in Cambodia of people seeking to flee Khmer Rouge rule.

Burma, which has been under military dictatorships since 1962, has been the source of constant outflow of political and economic refugees since 1988, when the army cracked down on a pro-democracy movement in a massacre that claimed an estimated 3,000 lives and resulted in the imprisonment of thousands.

More than 1 million Burmese currently work in neighbouring Thailand as illegal or semi-illegal labourers, while hundreds of thousands reside in temporary border camps awaiting resettlement or a return of stability to their country.

Cyclone Nargis may now be prompting another exodus, as thousands go without proper emergency assistance in the Irrawaddy delta, a situation many blame of the government's reluctance to facilitate a full-fledged international emergency assistance program in the storm-battered country.

"More victims will come out until and unless there is immediate and effective rescue and relief program," said the NDD.

There are reports that at least 100 cyclone victims from the delta or Rangoon have travelled to Mae Sot, a Thai border town, to seek assistance, according to the Irrawaddy Magazine, a monthly published outside Myanmar that monitored Myanmar-related issues.

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Asean members have a duty to protect migrants
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published on Jun 9, 2008

Cyclone Nargis has put many homeless and hapless ethnic Burmese, Mon and Karen migrants - desperate to escape the horrendous calamity, hunger, poverty, unhealthy conditions and associated human misery predicaments - in limbo.

Pursuing their pipedreams to seek some semblance of merciful compassion, recognised acceptance of their urgent plight and more humane civil rights treatment wherever/ however - their only seemingly hopeful option seems to be sneaking across tightly patrolled borders into Thailand.

Unfortunately, many uprooted migrant workers from Burma, whose sole goal is to find legal employment and to create better future lives for their loved ones, become exploited victims of unscrupulous human trafficking brokers, corrupt immigration officials, myopic, outdated policies regarding job seekers.

Discriminatory policies deny universal civil rights and social welfare protection even though constitutional laws cover everybody on Thai soil. A well-coordinated proactive plan, under the auspices of Asean, must address this problem now!

Chanchai Prasertson
Bangkok

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Relief materials found in Township PDC watchman's home
Mizzima News - Monday, 09 June 2008 22:55
Nay Thwin

Chiang Mai -- Relief materials meant for cyclone victims were discovered at the Township Peace and Development Council (PDC) office watchman's residence even as the loss of PDC's office fund is being investigated in Khayan Township, Rangoon Division, local residents said.

The fund of Kyat 1,700,000 went missing from the office of Khayan Township PDC and a case was registered at the police station on May 27. The police raided the residence of Ko Aye Hlaing, watchman of the PDC office and found the relief materials donated by the international community for victims of cyclone Nargis, the local residents said.

The relief materials found in his house included trunks, waterproof torch lights, waterproof matchboxes, mosquito nets among other things.

Ko Aye Hlaing is known in the township as a trusted staff of the Township PDC Chairman.

Insiders said that the missing cash is part of the money collected for the Township PDC fund from 49 mobile phone applicants at Kyat 150,000 per head totaling Kyat 7,350,000.

"First Kyat 500,000 was lost, then 1,000,000. But the authorities put the lid on the loss and refrained from filing a complaint at the police station. This time the amount was huge and they could not hush it up. And then the police found skeletons in the township PDC office cupboard," an insider said.

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Junta blacks out media
Mizzima News - Monday, 09 June 2008 22:24
Mungpi

New Delhi – The Burmese military junta on Monday warned cyclone victims to remain vigilant against donors, who it said were seeking personal benefits. The donors were taking the credit for being generous and feeding false stories to foreign news agencies, the regime said.

The junta, in its official mouthpiece, New Light of Myanmar, on Monday said, "Internal and external anti-government elements, self-centered persons and unscrupulous elements are now seeking their self-interests by sending to foreign news agencies stories about relief and rehabilitation work they have made up and shot on video."

"Cyclone victims are hereby warned to remain vigilant with nationalistic spirit against the deceptions of self-centered persons and unscrupulous elements," the paper warned.

The warning comes days after the ruling junta raided the residence of a prominent Burmese comedian and relief worker Thura, also known as Zarganar, and arrested him on Wednesday night.

The police team, which arrested Zarganar, also confiscated two cash account books, about 1000 USD, which he had collected to help cyclone victims, and also several video CDs including those on the plight of Cyclone Nargis victims.

"So far we have not received any news about him. We don't know his whereabouts. They [the police] said it would be just for a day or two but till now he is not back. We are worried about him," a relative of Zarganar told Mizzima on Monday afternoon.

But an unconfirmed report received by Mizzima said the Burmese comedian was sent home later on Monday and was kept under surveillance, a situation of house-arrest.

However, his family members were not immediately available to comment and the information could not be independently verified.

The arrest of the Burmese comedian and critic, who was boldly helping cyclone survivors, is clear evidence of intimidation by the ruling junta to all other private volunteers and donors, a Burmese aid worker, working with an international aid agency said.

Following the arrest of Zarganar, rumours have been spreading in Rangoon, Burma's former capital and commercial hub, that at least 12 people, who made video recordings of the devastation caused by the killer cyclone, have been arrested.

While the information cannot be independently verified, the aid worker said a friend in Laputta, who has made video records of the devastation, was taken in for interrogation after police found the clips during a surprise raid in his house.

"This man had several video clips on the devastation and the suffering of the victims. His house was raided by the police and he was taken away for interrogation, " the aid worker said.

"Though he was not arrested, he was made to sign a pledge not to continue making video records," the aid worker said.

Meanwhile, sources in Rangoon said at least two dealers of satellite television receivers were arrested during the weekend. Several satellite receivers, which they were selling, were seized.

The source, who wished not to be identified said, Chit Win Kyaing from Grand Electronics and another person from Green Leaf were arrested after the police searched their shops.

"They [the police] did not give any reason. They just raided, confiscated the receivers and arrested them," the source said.

An observer in Rangoon said the junta's recent crackdown on dealers in satellite receivers is an attempt to impose a black-out on the media. Burmese people are curiously watching foreign satellite television broadcasts.

An electronic shop owner in Rangoon on Monday told Mizzima that the police on Friday confiscated at least 50 satellite dishes from a shop in Hlatha Township's Anawratha Street.

"The shop keeper was made to sign a pledge not to sell to people with out a license," the shop owner said.

In Burma, owning a satellite dish or receiver requires license from the authorities. With black marketing in vogue, the law was never strictly enforced. However, it gives the authorities the chance to play around with it.

The junta is taking new steps to stop information flow by arresting and intimidating people who are believed to have contacts with the media, the Burmese aid worker said.

Zarganar, a critic of the ruling junta, was giving interviews and providing information to several news agencies before he was detained on Wednesday. His interviews revealed much about the ground situation - the extent of devastation and relief work done.

The junta, in its mouthpiece newspaper, accused those providing information to the foreign media as well as to Burmese media groups in exile as "saboteurs and destructive elements."

Since Cyclone Nargis struck Burma, the junta has prevented both foreign and domestic journalists from visiting the worst affected areas in the Irrawaddy delta. But several of them have managed to sneak in.

The aid worker said, Zarganar's arrest was not only for his interviews with the foreign media "the authorities also suspected him of assisting foreign journalists to go into the restricted Irrawaddy delta."

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