<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Burma crisis wake-up call for the UN
Myanmar: Food assistance "likely" for up to a year
BURMA:  ASEAN Steps in Where Others May Not Tread
UN helicopters deliver aid to Burma delta
Communicating in a crisis
West overlooks abuses against women
In Burma (Myanmar), how many cyclone orphans?
Business as Usual in Burma
Hospital by the river
Myanmar PM says govt aid will make cyclone survivors lives better
MTR to ship ready-to-eat food for cyclone-hit infants in Myanmar

------------ ---------
Burma crisis wake-up call for the UN
Jun 09, 2008 04:30 AM
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger

The world was in disbelief when the Burmese government closed its borders following a disastrous cyclone that ravaged the country. French and U.S. warships full of supplies sat idle in the Bay of Bengal, waiting for authorization to anchor. Meanwhile, 2.5 million people struggled to stay alive.

It took three weeks before United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was able to convince the top military officials of Burma, also called Myanmar, to allow humanitarian workers and supplies into the country. Now, more than a month after Cyclone Nargis hit, people are starting to get help.

It looks like diplomacy won out just in time; there haven't been reports of civil unrest or outbreaks of infectious disease, and military action was avoided. But the lingering question is this: How long would we have waited?

A peaceful resolution should always be the goal. Diplomatic channels must be exhausted and every type of political pressure must be exerted before military force is used. But in the event of a natural disaster, thousands upon thousands of lives depend on the quick and efficient distribution of aid.

But how do you get humanitarian aid into a country refusing help?

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner proposed a solution days after the cyclone hit. Kouchner suggested the UN invoke the Canadian-developed "Responsibility to Protect," or R2P, a concept that says the international community has a responsibility to help protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, whenever their own government is unable, or unwilling, to do so.

The international community was reluctant to apply R2P to Burma, however. Certainly a case could be made that by withholding aid to its citizens the Burmese government was guilty of a crime against humanity. But R2P wasn't meant to deal with natural disasters, and there was fear that by making its scope too broad, R2P would be rendered useless.

"It's fragile," says William Pace, executive director of the Institute for Global Policy and a member of the Steering Committee for R2P. "There are many powerful governments, especially authoritarian governments, that would love to ruin R2P, and if you make it mean everything, then it means nothing."

Pace did concede that the principles of R2P could be applied to natural disasters in the future, but he would like to see it applied to situations it was originally intended for first, to strengthen its credibility.

But the next natural disaster won't necessarily wait for R2P to gain strength and evolve. The situation in Burma must serve as a wake-up call to the UN to create a new policy or to make an explicit change to R2P to include natural disasters.

The extent of the damage wrought by Cyclone Nargis is still unclear. There are fears of long-term food shortages as saltwater has flooded many rice farms. And we'll never know how many of the estimated 100,000 deaths could have been prevented if not for delays in getting aid into the country.

But if a government took arms against its people, killing tens of thousands inside of a month, you would hope for swift action from the international community. But in the wake of a natural disaster, isn't government inaction just as inhumane?

Craig and Marc Kielburger are children's rights activists and co-founded Free The Children, which is active in the developing world. Online: Craig and Marc Kielburger discuss global issues every Monday in the World & Comment section. Take part in the discussion online at thestar.com/ globalvoices.

------------ --------- --------- --
Myanmar: Food assistance "likely" for up to a year
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
Date: 09 Jun 2008

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.

ak/ds/mw - [END]

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------
BURMA:  ASEAN Steps in Where Others May Not Tread
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 31 (IPS) - Four weeks after Cyclone Nargis swept through the populous Irrawaddy Delta in Burma, a regional effort to help the victims is slowly grinding into shape.

On Friday, Burma’s military regime announced that Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu would be its main representative in a tripartite core group, based in the former capital Rangoon, to coordinate the international aid effort. It marked another shift by the notoriously secretive junta, which had placed hurdles in the way of any outside intervention during the first three weeks after the cyclone struck in the early hours of May 3.

The humanitarian task force is being led by the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-member regional bloc, of which Burma (or Myanmar) is a member. The United Nations will be the third party in this tripartite initiative, which was agreed upon during an international conference to raise funds for the cyclone victims held in Rangoon on May 25.

“A Herculean task has been thrust upon us, the U.N. and ASEAN, to bring humanitarian assistance for the cyclone victims,” Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of ASEAN, told journalists this week. “ASEAN and the U.N. and our co-partners will not fail the victims of cyclone Nargis.”

“We have been able to establish a space, a humanitarian space, however small to engage with the Myanmar authorities,” he added. “That humanitarian space needs to be sustained through political decisions, through political flexibility.”

These are brave words, indeed, for Surin, a former Thai foreign minister, given the way ASEAN has had to endure the troubles brought on it since Burma joined the bloc over a decade ago. ASEAN had stood by its troublesome member in the interest of regional solidarity, throwing a cloak to shield it from international condemnation and sanctions stemming from the junta’s growing list of human rights violations.

Yet at times, even ASEAN’s protective policy, driven by the principles of “non-interference” in the domestic affairs of a member-nation, appeared to have its limits. There have been calls in recent years by some of ASEAN’s outspoken leaders to throw Burma out of the group when the abuse of the local population by the junta went too far.

ASEAN’s members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, in addition to Burma. It was formed in 1967, during the height of the Cold War, to stop the spread of communism in the region and to advance a free-market economic agenda. But its relevance on the international stage has waned after the end of the Cold War and the financial crisis that swept through the region in the 1990s.

No wonder some critics of the junta in the region worry that the military regime will try to abuse the goodwill ASEAN has extended to Burma in the same way that it has done before. “The Burmese regime is well aware that ASEAN’s leaders will be soft on them than other governments in the international community. The junta has hoodwinked ASEAN before and it could happen again,” says Roshan Jason, spokesman for the ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, a group of South-east Asian parliamentarians championing political reform in Burma.

“ASEAN’s credibility is now on the line by stepping into this role,” he added during a telephone interview from Kuala Lumpur. “The regional leaders have to show political will and to act tough with the Burmese regime to achieve results. They cannot let the junta manipulate the situation by taking cover behind the policy of non-interference.”

For now, Surin wants to give the Burmese regime, led by the reclusive strongman, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the benefit of the doubt. It is necessary to help build confidence and trust for the ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force to make headway. “We have detected a difference, we have detected a positive difference, and we hope this can be sustained,” he said.

A significant achievement in this regard is ASEAN convincing the regime that the relief phase since the cyclone is far from over. It put an end to the junta’s claims by the third week since Nargis that relief efforts for the cyclone-victims had ended and what was needed was financial assistance for the recovery and rehabilitation phase. The junta stated that Burma needed 10.7 billion US dollars for the rehabilitation phase.

According to ASEAN’s plans, a rapid assessment team will survey the terrain in South-western Burma that was devastated by the country’s worst natural disaster to spell out the shape of relief efforts to aid the victims. That report is due in mid-June.

Yet even such an effort is revealing of the neglect the cyclone’s victims have had to endure when set against the normal response to natural disasters in other parts of the world. “By now there should have been distribution hubs up and running for relief goods,” John Sparrow, spokesman for the Asia-Pacific division of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told IPS. “Clean water should have been distributed. But there still is a huge shortage of clean water.”

But for that, proper assessments of the disaster areas have to be done soon after the disaster. That was the case when the IFRC responds to post-disaster situations, such as the December 2004 tsunami. “Proper assessments have not been done to help figure out the needs, unlike the tsunami,” Sparrow added. “There are still areas where we have no access.”

The human toll from the Cyclone Nargis ranges from 130,000 deaths to as high as 300,000 deaths. The people affected and in need of relief in the Irrawaddy Delta range from 2.5 million to four million.

Such high numbers stem from the force of the storm, whipping up wind speeds of 190 km per hour and a wall of sea water that rose 3.5 km high. It affected an 82,000 square km area that has the highest population density in the country.

(END/2008)

------------ --------- --------- --------- -----
UN helicopters deliver aid to Burma delta
Updated Mon. Jun. 9 2008 6:34 AM ET
The Associated Press

RANGOON, Burma -- United Nations helicopters fanned out across Burma's Irrawaddy delta Monday, a UN official said, ferrying critical supplies to villages struggling to survive since a devastating cyclone struck more than five weeks ago.

Four helicopters arrived over the weekend and started shuttling food and other emergency supplies on Monday to villages around the hardest-hit towns of Bogale and Labutta, said UN World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley. He said the helicopters reached four remote villages Monday morning.

"These are areas that clearly have not received regular supplies of food or other relief assistance,' ' he said.

Helicopters are critical to reaching isolated areas and enabling aid workers to directly deliver heavy equipment like water purification systems that can supply clean water to villages cut off from basic necessities since the May 2 storm, he said.

Until now, the UN had only one helicopter operating in Burma that flew a total of six trips last week, Risley said. Supplies were mainly being delivered by boats that took several hours to navigate short distances in the delta's network of waterways.

Four more helicopters chartered by the UN food program, are expected to fly to Burma from neighbouring Thailand this week.

The relief effort 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, the WFP and other 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. He said monsoon rains have left many delta villages knee-deep in mud.

The UN estimates a total of 2.4 million people were affected by Cyclone Nargis, and warns that more than one million of those still need help, mostly in the hard-to-reach Irrawaddy delta. The cyclone killed more than 78,000 people in the impoverished country.

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

Foreign relief workers still face hindrances in reaching cyclone victims, especially outside of Rangoon, aid groups say.

Burma'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, 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-faced slogans that urged the people of Burma to rally behind the government's side of the story and not trust what foreign news agencies are 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.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- -------
Communicating in a crisis
June 9, 2008 at 6:40 AM EDT
DANIEL F. MUZYKA
From Monday's Globe and Mail

Last month, I was in China shortly after that country's devastating earthquake, and witnessed the aftermath of this tragedy. The actions and communications of the Chinese government stood in stark contrast to the reaction of Myanmar's government after the recent cyclone, or the difficult situation following hurricane Katrina. It all led me to consider the question: What makes for effective communications in a crisis situation?

The first thing to ensure is that primary communications in a crisis are undertaken by people on or near the ground in question: call it locality.

We all know the difficulties inherent in relaying the truth through a room half a world away. Hurricane Katrina was a classic demonstration of this point.

It's also important to note how effective crisis communication relates to immediacy and energy. Crises and their evolution commonly "get away" from those who are not ready to deal with them - no matter what reluctance the legal department may have to get involved.

You cannot wish a crisis away. Henry Kissinger once observed, wryly: "There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."

Alas, there is no such luxury.

If you are part of the crisis, you are involved and need to dedicate immediate and adequate effort to understanding and communicating the issues.

And this has to be done with transparency. Even if it hurts, you must be open, telling what you know, what you don't know and what you would like to know.

You must be willing to answer all questions openly and permit others access so that they may share their observations. Help the media to ensure accurate reporting, through and including accurate, up-to-date background information and graphics.

A crisis is not the place to try to "frame the message"; it is not the time for the marketing department to reinforce the brand pyramid. Rather, it is a time for the organization to live the values behind the organization and brand through its actions. Yes, you can influence what people see, but mostly by being open.

American Airlines recently faced this issue when many planes were pulled out of service for safety checks as a result of an FAA ruling. American's management realized the key issue wasn't about them or the perception of their safety, but the travel disruption it caused.

Honesty is the best - and only - policy. When people are trying to deal with the immediate impact of an unfolding negative event, being disingenuous or incomplete in order to guard future legal options only sows the seeds of something that may blow up in the short term but will backfire in the long run. Present the correct facts and corrected "facts."

Along with the truth, clarity is key. Those who have faced a crisis situation will recognize that Oscar Wilde's statement, that "Truth is rarely pure and never simple," is certainly operative. The reality is that the most successful communicators are those who can simplify and clarify.

Another element of successful communications is constancy. Communicating in a crisis is not about a single transaction or statement. Similarly, it is a mistake to say "we are busy now because we are dealing first with the victims." There are always additional interested stakeholders, such as family members, friends, and others.

You need to keep reinforcing what you know and keep feeding information out. In the wake of last month's earthquake, the Chinese government has performed superbly in this dimension.

A critical element of effective crisis communication is empathy. There are usually many victims, real and felt, in a crisis. Your ability as an organization to relate to the human tragedy in a crisis is important. Your spokespeople and those involved in dealing with the crisis should understand this. Empathy is best communicated through continuing respect and human caring for all affected.

Combined with the need to realize that people have physical and emotional needs in a crisis is the need for all of our organizations to realize that these special situations may require quick, appropriate action: Actions speak louder than words. Even if something doesn't fit with corporate procedure, but it is the right thing to do, you should do it quickly.

Beyond all of this are a few more important elements. A key to successful crisis communication is the choice of a spokesperson. Obviously, given the requirements noted above, communications style, combined with the need for emotional connection, is important. We have all been reading the burgeoning literature on messages conveyed through physical expression, language and voice.

Another suggestion made by some experts is to ensure that a trusted, but arm's-length, adviser is brought into the communications process. This individual can maintain objectivity and watch the formation of "group think."

And be mindful of the entire picture. Many organizations fail in their communications by not managing the endgame. When the immediate crisis is dealt with, they celebrate and walk off the field, not noticing that the clock is still running. Stakeholders want to know the follow-up, especially since new information is continually revealed.

Finally, remember that with every crisis and the communications surrounding it, there is opportunity.

It's often noted that the Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word crisis. One stands for danger; the other represents opportunity.

We may recognize the danger but fail to capture the opportunity - to strengthen or improve our organizations, or to avoid a future, larger crisis - by not taking the time to learn.

As the old adage goes, "A person has no more character than they can command in a time of crisis."

Daniel F. Muzyka is dean and RBC Financial Group professor of entrepreneurship at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -------
West overlooks abuses against women
Human rights sidelined by war on terror
Katie Falkenberg
Monday, June 9, 2008

The plight of tens of thousands of abused Pakistani women doesn't garner the headlines of Darfur's genocide in Sudan, the sympathy afforded Burma's forgotten victims or the outrage unleashed in New Orleans after Katrina. These battered women also don't attract the outpouring of financial support that so many other recent global tragedies have drawn.

The reason is rooted deep in the war on terror, which has made the United States and other Western allies reticent to forcefully address issues of human rights in an unstable country strategically essential to the pursuit of al Qaeda, the Taliban and other Islamist extremists, according to U.S. experts.

"We have looked at Pakistan as a strategic ally. So many of the other issues have been pushed aside," said Lawrence J. Korb, a former Reagan administration defense official who now works as a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. "We aren't focused on the other areas because we don't want to antagonize the Pakistani government.

"We feel as though we can't be too forceful, but we can, and the problem is, we aren't," Mr. Korb said.

The Washington Times reported Sunday on the burgeoning humanitarian crisis of women being burned with acid, beaten or put to death by husbands or relatives who claim they've shamed their families. The Times accessed many abuse victims inside the shelters where they sought safety, hidden from their own families and most of the world, too.

Pakistani government officials passed a law in 2006 to try to afford women more protections against abuse. But they acknowledge they don't have the funds to provide the legal and humanitarian assistance to the vast majority of victims, leaving that job instead to a handful of charities who have been unable to draw enough attention or money to the cause.

The battered women at the shelter rely on each other for companionship, having been rejected by their families. A common punishment in Pakistan, should they return home, is being burned with acid. An official at Human Rights Watch stressed that more burn units are critical.

U.S. government money to Pakistan has shifted from predominantly humanitarian aid before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to military and counterterrorism funding since, further complicating the efforts to aid and educate women. The majority of the $11 billion in post-September 11 U.S. aid to Pakistan has gone to the country's military, leaving less than 10 percent of the funding for humanitarian needs, such as shelters, education and burn centers for those woman frequently scalded by acid as a punishment.

"One thing is clear, and that is that the U.S. is most concerned with national security issues, and they are willing to pour tremendous amounts of money into programs that are linked to national security," said Nisha Varia, senior researcher in the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, who specializes in Asia.

She said just a fraction of resources for other issues go to programs that protect the rights of women, promote good health care, consider the issue of poverty and broach other issues that pertain to women's status. "Usually, these initiatives, while they receive some money, it is nothing compared to the amount going into military funds."

Andrea G. Bottner, director of the U.S. State Department's Office of International Women's Issues, said the United States and Pakistan have worked together successfully on efforts to empower Pakistani women. She cites, for example, U.S. funding to combat gender-based violence through the Mukhtar Mai Women's Welfare Organization - a nonprofit organization that works for the rights of marginalized rural women in the southern Punjab region of Pakistan.

This organization works with the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit international relief and humanitarian aid organization that is based in the United States.

"This particular program supports capacity-building efforts that link the expertise of the International Rescue Committee together with the experience on the ground of the Mukhtar Mai Women's Welfare Organization to fight gender-based violence."

Currently, there is a women's resource center being established at the Mukhtar Mai Organization that will provide female victims of abuse or violence with support, assistance, shelter and counseling.

"The administration remains committed to promoting women's empowerment in Pakistan and across the globe," said Ms. Bottner.

Hollywood and the wealthy philanthropists who typically help fund humanitarian- relief efforts have not been substantially attracted to the plight of Pakistan's abused women. This, in turn, has overwhelmed the handful of charities providing help.

"If you look at Pakistan in particular, the number of women who have been burned - this aid requires really specialized medical care, and, for decades, women rights activists have been calling for more burn units and better care," Human Rights Watch's Ms. Varia said.

"Currently, burn units are far too few to meet the needs for women who experience this horrific form of violence. There are not enough services, so you find that people working on this issue are overwhelmed and have their hands full trying to supply services."

This, she said, leaves little time for advocacy work to bring this violence to the world's attention.

The solutions to Pakistan's problem, experts say, can be found in the many other battles fought throughout history around the globe to procure equal rights for women.

"The experience in the women's rights movement to effectively stop gender-based violence is that you need all the components: you need education, and knowing that females have access to job opportunities and increased status in their family and in their society," Ms. Varia said.

It also is important that "both boys and girls learn peaceful methods to resolve conflict so they are not resorting to violence. And you need enforcement of the law, punishment of perpetrators and good services for the victims," she said.

KATIE FALKENBERG/THE WASHINGTON TIMES QUIET TRAGEDY: At a Pakistani shelter for female victims of domestic violence, living spaces are cramped for the significant numbers of women seeking to hide from husbands or relatives who claim they've shamed their families and aim to harm them.

She said a strong message from the government, by passing laws that emphasize that violence is unacceptable and will be punished, is a key step in overcoming crimes against women.
"The experience in the women's rights movement to effectively stop gender-based violence is that you need all the components: you need education, and knowing that females have access to job opportunities and increased status in their family and in their society," Ms. Varia said.

It also is important that "both boys and girls learn peaceful methods to resolve conflict so they are not resorting to violence. And you need enforcement of the law, punishment of perpetrators and good services for the victims," she said.

KATIE FALKENBERG/THE WASHINGTON TIMES QUIET TRAGEDY: At a Pakistani shelter for female victims of domestic violence, living spaces are cramped for the significant numbers of women seeking to hide from husbands or relatives who claim they've shamed their families and aim to harm them.

She said a strong message from the government, by passing laws that emphasize that violence is unacceptable and will be punished, is a key step in overcoming crimes against women.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------
In Burma (Myanmar), how many cyclone orphans?
Aid groups are trying to curb child labor and reconnect families – without the help of surnames.
Source: Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Date: 09 Jun 2008

Rangoon, Burma - Like thousands of orphans, Jo Jo was fit enough to survive last month's cyclone Nargis.

Sheltered now by church members in Rangoon, the main city in Burma (Myanmar), he faces more challenges: finding his parents even though, like most Burmese, he has no surname; and surviving in a society where children are widely considered a source of cheap labor.

'The price of everything these days is rising, except one thing – the price of life,' says a Burmese celebrity who has been quietly bringing aid to villages in the delta. 'Cheapest of all is the cost of children.'

In a working-class area of central Rangoon, children pump gas, fix generators, sell fruit, serve tea, cook food, clean monasteries.

Across the country, kids steer coconut boats loaded with contraband or fight in ethnic wars in the jungle. Most have at most four years of schooling. Almost every mom-and-pop business employs children for less than a dollar a day.

While some seem happy to be working with parents or relatives, many have been bought and sold.

'Trafficking has always been big in this region. That needs to be addressed very quickly,' says Marvin Parvez, a development activist who has been working with several aid agencies in Burma. 'Delta children were the poorest of the poor to begin with. They had food shortages in the delta area before the cyclone. The cyclone put them back at least one century.'

'Families are desperate now, so sometimes they sacrifice their daughters or sons. Children are very vulnerable at this time,' he continues.

Many hurdles in reuniting families

Many agree that after most disasters, the best way to protect children is to reconnect them with their families or villages. But finding out who children belong to is difficult in a society that doesn't use surnames.

Instead of passing ancestral lineage down through family names, Burmese parents typically give their children a combination of names, such as Aung, Win, and Tin, which give no indication of who is their father or mother. Many Burmese also go by nicknames.

'We are taking down names of parents and children. But without surnames, it's going to be difficult,' says Steve Goudswaard, the first foreign relief expert from World Vision allowed into southern Burma's Irrawaddy Delta, where the cyclone hit hardest.

Many children, especially younger ones who lost everything, including identity cards, may be unable to recall the name of their village or find it on a map. The cyclone, which left 134,000 dead or missing and another 2.4 million affected, also erased many villages completely, obliterating schools and homes, and even shifting earth or scrubbing away topographical landmarks such as trees or patterns of farmland.

Unable to retrace their steps home, many survivors have drifted between makeshift camps and temples. Many children sit with vacant expressions, in shock and grief.

The number of displaced children is hard to estimate. Forty percent of people in the delta before the cyclone were under 18, according to Save the Children. UNICEF says 1.1 million children were attending 4,000 schools that were damaged or destroyed.

UNICEF says that at least 2,000 are orphans or are missing parents, but many Burmese say the number is much higher, because delta families were known for having many children. Some say there are 5,000 orphans in the delta town of Labutta alone.

Returning kids to school, and routine

Aid agencies say Burma's military government has been closing refugee camps in towns and sending survivors back to their villages – a move the junta denies.

Officials say they are working on a voluntary resettlement program that will allow parents to find their children, rebuild their homes, and get children into classes as soon as possible, to keep up with students nationwide who began the school year on June 2.

Andrew Kirkwood, country director for Save the Children, says he supports the government's push to get kids in school: 'If kids get into school, it creates a routine. It's easier to identify which kids are traumatized or malnourished. '

To fill the gap before schools are ready, UNICEF has opened 80 'child-friendly spaces' in the delta, where kids in groups of 50 to 350 can sing, play, read, and enjoy one another's company. It has also provided learning packages, textbooks, kits for affected schools, and roofing sheets and construction kits to repair them.

With thousands of people cast adrift, Burmese relief volunteers say they hope their government, as well as the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations, will at least protect orphans from child traffickers and even citizens hoping to adopt them.

'Many people come and ask to adopt these children, but we don't allow them to,' says a Burmese woman, who works in child-protection programs for the UN and other groups. 'The [children] need to remain with their families.'

Some people 'say they want to adopt children to take care of them, but they have other reasons,' she continues. 'It's very important to protect these children.'

© Copyright, Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ----
Business as Usual in Burma
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA
June 9, 2008

The U.S. Navy gave up trying to help cyclone-raged Burma Thursday, and sailed away. Also last week, the military junta detained the country's most popular comedian, who was organizing grassroots relief efforts. It's back to business as usual in Burma.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Burma's generals have experienced little tangible rebuke for letting their citizens starve and die in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. The United Nations sent Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, but still welcomes Burma as a member – even naming the country to prominent positions in the General Assembly. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations also welcomes the generals into its ranks.

Meanwhile, soldiers have been employed to "encourage" destitute refugees to return to their villages to plant rice – even though most of those villages were razed to the ground. Journalists covering the crisis were branded "despicable" and "absolutely obnoxious" in state media on Friday. The Irrawaddy magazine reported Wednesday that police in Rangoon are beating up children who try to beg for food.

The generals are also reneging on their pledge to allow foreign aid workers access the hardest-hit areas of the delta. On Wednesday, permission to travel to the delta was denied outright to an Indonesian water specialist working for the International Federation of the Red Cross. Other aid workers report three-day delays or more to get approval to leave Rangoon.

All of which should teach the U.N and Asean that its softly-softly approach to Burma is working for the junta, not the Burmese people.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --
Hospital by the river
The Star Online: Monday June 9, 2008
By LOH FOON FONG

Mercy Malaysia extends a helping hand to Myanmar.

THE effects of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar are far more devastating than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and a lot of work needs to be done to rebuild the badly hit areas.

That was the assessment Mercy Malaysia made in Yangon.

Mercy president Datuk Dr Jemilah Mahmood said that the number of deaths in Myanmar alone was close to the total number of deaths in several countries hit by the tsunami.

“The cyclone wave surge was 4m high, similar to that of the tsunami’s, however, the intrusion was 35km inland compared with 5km by the tsunami,” she added.

What made the situation worse was that the affected area was the country’s rice bowl.

Cruise ship turned mobile hospital – a collaborative effort of Mercy Malaysia and Save the Children UK. The ship travels from village to village for Myanmar doctors to treat Cyclone Nargis victims on the southwestern part of the Irrawaddy Delta.
 
“It’s post harvest season now or what the locals call the ‘hungry’ season. It’s important that the people are nursed back to good health so that they can return to their villages to do replanting later,” said Dr Jemilah.

Around 2.4mil Myanmarese were affected by the cyclone that hit the country on May 2. The official number of dead and/or missing persons issued by the Myanmar government is 138,000 while the international community estimated the figure to be closer to 216,000.

Dr Jemilah said her five-person team managed to provide relief work at the Irrawaddy Delta (southwest of Yangon) although they weren’t allowed to move out of Yangon.

“We found partners to work with,” she said in an interview when she returned to Kuala Lumpur two weeks ago. Myanmar is slowly opening up especially to organisations that have long established themselves in the country such as Save the Children UK (SC UK), Medicins Sans Frontieres, Worldvision Care and Merlin.

Mercy distributed hygiene kits, water purification tablets, towels, toothbrushes, sanitary pads and other basic needs. At the Delta, the team joined forces with the Myanmar Medical Association and SC UK.

”The latter’s alliance has a track record of almost 14 years in Myanmar and is recognised by the government for their work in the west coast,” she added.

While the SC UK provided food and protection to the children, Mercy offered healthcare needs and trained 180 Myanmar doctors who could go deeper into the Delta.

Mercy relief officers Dr Heng Aik Cheng and Hew Cheong Yew led the training on disaster medicine as well as humanitarian work, including accountability.

Sixteen of the doctors have already gone to the Delta to treat patients while carrying out surveys, while the Malaysian team monitored from Yangon.

Nine were based at the five joint Mercy and SC UK treatment camps in Myaungmya, Nadupdaw and Pyinkhayang. The other seven were on a floating hospital that was a converted luxury cruise ship loaned to SC UK for three months during the off-season period by a tour operator in Myanmar.

The ship had travelled for seven days all the way from Mandalay to the Delta together with its crew before picking up the doctors. The mobile health service is currently moving southwards between Ngapudaw and Myaungmya.

“Since the ship can’t travel on shallow waters, there are eight safety boats to take the doctors to the small delta islands to examine patients. They can also hire sampans from the locals to ferry injured patients from the villages,” Dr Jemilah said, adding that the boat berths in one area up to three days before moving on.

Access to the many small islands was difficult and sometimes the waters are rough. The ship was also used as a training centre for doctors, in-patient care, surgeries and medication storage.

In the ship, buffet tables were turned into operating tables and cabin beds became makeshift patient beds with plastic coverings.

Soon, Mercy will be working with a famous monk, Thidagu Sayadaw, who is president of the International Buddhist Association that owns free hospitals in the country.

“In Myanmar, one has to work smart. You need to be innovative and find partners who have access to the area. It doesn’t mean that if we can’t have access to the Delta, we can’t help,” Dr Jemilah said.

“Myanmar has been closed to the world but we have made much progress.”

Mercy signed MoUs with the medical association and is working closely with the Health Ministry for a permit to set up an office in the long run.

“We want to support whatever initiatives there are and build some capacity to ensure that we have a sustainable programme. Our aim is to teach them how to be resilient and self-reliant,” she said, adding that Mercy was interested in sharing strategies for risk reductions.

Dr Jemilah, who was also in the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination team in Myanmar, said she sees the Asean task force on human rights as a positive move forward.

“There is less suspicion against Asean countries and we need to take this opportunity to build trust.”

When she was assisting the UN in coordinating international assistance for Myanmar, Dr Jemilah’s stand on providing pure humanitarian aid without interfering in Myanmar political affairs surprised some reporters in Bangkok.

“For three weeks, the media continuously attacked them – did they open up? No, they tightened the noose on everyone. The government ultimately is liable and responsible for the people and we need to respect that and we need to encourage them to share more with us and take more from the international community,” she said.

“I met the Prime Minister, and the Social Welfare, Foreign and Health Ministers, and assured them of our commitment on a purely humanitarian agenda – which needs to be independent, impartial and accountable.”

Dr Jemilah is determined not to be distracted. Since the rainy season will last until August, the main concern on her mind now is how to get zinc sheets, tarpaulins and wood for the victims to build cyclone resistant shelters.

“There is also likely to be a rise in malaria, diarrhoea and other problems during the rainy season, and the cyclone effect is making the victims even more vulnerable.

“If we don’t get to them now and give them proper food, shelter and water, they will be at more risk,” she said.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------
Myanmar PM says govt aid will make cyclone survivors lives better
Straits Times: June 9, 2008

YANGON - 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 on 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 criticised 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.

Mr Thein Sein was making an inspection trip to the devastated Irrawaddy delta area on 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,' Mr 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 organisations with negative views.'

The UN 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 UN officials and aid groups have criticised 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.

'Weakened condition'
'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 on 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 Mr 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 seven kilometres 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 Mr 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.

Mr 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. -- AP

Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. Privacy Statement & Condition of Access  
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
MTR to ship ready-to-eat food for cyclone-hit infants in Myanmar
The Hindu : Monday, Jun 09, 2008
Deepa Kurup

BANGALORE: The United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) is shipping a planeload of high-energy, micronutrient- rich, ready-to-eat food packets made by MTR Foods for infants affected by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar.

The aircraft will take off from the Devanahalli airport to Yangon Monday.

This is a first for the local food giant. MTR Foods will be the first indigenous company to manufacture and ship the special food for the suffering Myanmarese in conjunction with the UNWFP.

The first cargo will comprise 35 tonnes while an additional 10 tonnes will be flown on Thursday to Yangon for despatch to the delta region. This will meet the requirements of 50,000 children, aged six months to two years, for about a month. The food packets have been specially designed to cater to nutritional needs of this age group.

Food packets shipped during emergency situations are usually commissioned from developed countries. Shyam Dubey, Head, Procurements and Logistics of the UNWFP, told The Hindu new inroads are being made with this project.

“We are showing that even a developing country such as India can rise to the occasion and manufacture and provide food that is both safe and hygienic.”

MTR Foods was chosen because of its efficient and hygienic manufacturing unit and certification of processed agriculture products and food items as required under the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) approach to food control and hygiene, he said.

While MTR’s commercially branded food was sent immediately after the cyclone, flagging the partnership, this product has been tailor-made to suit requirements set by UNWFP. “The product is semi-solid and can be eaten directly. In such situations (after the cyclone), it is difficult to get clean drinking water. This was prescribed by nutritionists to avoid all those difficulties and provide critical nutrients in terms of all essential minerals and vitamins,” H.D. Hebbar, Senior Manager, Quality Assurance and R&D, MTR Foods, said.

====== ======