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HEADLINES
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AP - Foreign aid agencies concerned over new Myanmar guidelines complicating their work
AP - Myanmar state media says detention of democracy leader Suu Kyi for sixth year 'legal'
AP - Myanmar says no tax deductions being made from foreign donations for cyclone victims
AFP - Myanmar on defensive over cyclone aid effort
AFP - US backs UN rights expert's report on Myanmar
AFP - Official Says 16 Burma Cyclone Survivors Detained Outside UN Office
AFP - Aid agencies facing shortages in Myanmar cyclone effort
Reuters - Cyclone-hit Myanmar rejects rice shortage fears
Bernama - Pregnant Women facing difficulties in Myanmar
St. Louis Post-Dispatch - International experts begin survey of needs in Myanmar
Mizzima News - Many child survivors traumatised
Irrawaddy - Thousands of Bodies Still Litter Irrawaddy Delta
Irrawaddy - WFP Forbidden to Buy Rice from Local Dealers
The Nation - Burma junta claims visas granted to 911 disaster relief workers
The Nation - Responsibility to protect: Burma's golden alternative
DVB News - Local troops evict cyclone victims in Bogalay

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Foreign aid agencies concerned over new Myanmar guidelines complicating their work
AP - Thursday, June 12

YANGON, Myanmar - International aid agencies expressed concern Wednesday over new and complicated guidelines established by Myanmar's government for carrying out assistance programs to victims of last month's cyclone.

The guidelines, distributed Tuesday by the government at a meeting with U.N. agencies and private humanitarian organization, would require a large amount of paperwork and repeated contacts with national and local government agencies.

The new guidelines require most activities by the foreign agencies to be cleared with not only the relevant government ministry and local authorities concerned, but also with the so-called Tripartite Core Group, comprising representatives of the government, U.N. agencies and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nation, ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member.

ASEAN helped establish the core group last month as a way of expediting assistance, though it has no independent authority.

Foreign aid organizations have faced a series of hurdles in trying to provide help for victims of the May 2-3 storm, starting with the government's reluctance to grant anything but a handful of visas to foreign helpers.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month traveled to Myanmar to meet with the chief of the ruling junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, who agreed to allow aid workers into the affected area "regardless of nationality, " according to Ban. The general also agreed to allow the U.N. to bring in 10 helicopters to fly supplies to the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta.

Although the helicopters have been allowed in _ with some delay _ aid agencies say the government has continued dragging its feet over visa applications and allowing foreigners access to the most devastated areas.

The government's briefing paper setting out the guidelines complained that there had been a lack of coordination in aid efforts.

"Where there is no orderly and systematic distribution, it would thus lead towards duplication and uncoordinated activities should not take place in aid and assistance rendered to cyclone victims," it said.

Responding to the meeting announcing the guidelines, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the humanitarian community was expressing concerns that "additional steps for seeking approval may unnecessarily delay the relief response."

"The meeting was assured by the concerned ministries that this would not be the case and that delays would definitely not be a consequence of the approval process outlined," the IFRC said a report issued Wednesday.

The U.N. estimates that Cyclone Nargis affected 2.4 million people and that more than 1 million of them, mostly in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta, still need help. The cyclone killed at least 78,000 people, according to the government.

Although the government says the relief operations have now reached the post-emergency, recovery phase, aid agencies are concerned that many people still are lacking necessities.

"What we're concerned about is premature returns to areas where the services are not yet in a position to be used, to try and make sure we can reach people the best we can no matter where they are," said Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at a press conference in Bangkok, Thailand.

France Hurtubise of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said providing shelter remains a priority. According to the organization, only 107,000 of some 341,000 households had received shelter kits, which are supposed to include two tarpaulins each.

Aid agencies project that tarpaulin supplies will fall short of demand in the coming weeks, in part because of the competing need for such supplies for victims of China's May 12 earthquake.

On Tuesday, a major operation was launched to assess the needs of storm survivors in a sign the junta is finally cooperating in international aid efforts five weeks after the cyclone buffeted the country.

Some 250 experts from the U.N., the government and Southeast Asian nations _ under the leadership of the Tripartite Core Group _ headed into the Irrawaddy delta Tuesday by truck, boat and helicopter for a village-by-village survey, the United Nations said.

Over 10 days, they will determine how much food, clean water and temporary shelter the 2.4 million survivors require, along with the cost of rebuilding houses and schools and reviving the agriculture- based economy.

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Myanmar state media says detention of democracy leader Suu Kyi for sixth year 'legal'
AP - Thursday, June 12

YANGON, Myanmar - A state-controlled newspaper said Wednesday that Myanmar's military rulers were breaking no laws by holding pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for a sixth straight year.

The junta's recent decision to extend Suu Kyi's detention by one year sparked international outrage, with the Nobel Peace laureate's party and foreign defense lawyers arguing the junta could legally only hold her for five years.

But a commentary in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said detentions are permissible for as long as six years under a 1975 "Law Safeguarding the State from Dangers of Subversive Elements."

Yearly extensions must be approved by the Council of Ministers and then by the Central Body, which includes the home, defense and foreign affairs ministers, the newspaper said.

The military regime extended Suu Kyi's house arrest May 27, despite international pressure to set her free. She has been detained for more than 12 of the last 18 years at her home in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party denounced the extension as illegal and urged the regime to open a public hearing on the case.

Party spokesman Nyan Win said he usually doesn't comment on articles published in state-run newspapers, which constantly attack the country's pro-democracy movement without allowing a response.

But he said the article's explanation of how it was not illegal to hold Suu Kyi for another year "is legally wrong. The law says that detention period should be a total of five years."

Nyan Win declined to elaborate because the party will submit an appeal and fight the case in court if allowed to.

An American lawyer hired by Suu Kyi's family to push for her release also condemned her continued detention as illegal.

"The Burmese junta's extension of Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest in clear violation of its own law comes as no surprise," Jared Genser, the lawyer, said at the time. "Adherence to the rule of law is not their forte, and the junta remains deeply concerned about her appeal to the Burmese people."

How the opposing sides interpreted the same 1975 law differently could not be immediately explained.

The junta also came under fire from the international community for initially refusing to allow urgently needed foreign aid workers to enter areas of Myanmar to assist in relief and recovery in areas devastated by Cyclone Nargis.

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Myanmar says no tax deductions being made from foreign donations for cyclone victims
AP - Thursday, June 12

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's ruling military junta denied reports Wednesday that it was deducting 10 percent from foreign donations to cyclone victims, saying all incoming funds were spent on relief efforts.

The state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper said foreign radio broadcasts had wrongly accused the government of deducting the tax from donations deposited in the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank.

The state bank, which usually deducts 10 percent from all foreign currency deposits, has opened special accounts to accept U.S. dollars, euros and Singapore dollars from which all donations would be fully channeled to cyclone survivors, the newspaper said.

Organizations and individuals who have misused relief funds sent from abroad will be punished, it said.

The United Nations estimates that Cyclone Nargis affected 2.4 million people and that more than 1 million of them, mostly in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta, still need help. The cyclone killed more than 78,000 people, according to the government.

In separate reports, state media said there have been no outbreaks of contagious diseases in storm-hit areas and that 911 staffers from international aid organizations and neighboring countries were issued visas to enter the country between May 5 and June 5.

The junta has been criticized for dragging its feet on issuing visas and, until recently, not allowing foreign aid workers into the Irrawaddy delta, where most victims are.

Briefing foreign aid agencies in Yangon on Tuesday, the government stressed that all aid deliveries had to be coordinated with Myanmar authorities at both the central and local levels.

On Tuesday, a major operation was launched to assess the needs of storm survivors in a sign the junta is finally cooperating in international aid efforts five weeks after the cyclone buffeted the country.

Some 250 experts from the U.N., the government and Southeast Asian nations headed into the Irrawaddy delta Tuesday by truck, boat and helicopter for a village-by-village survey, the United Nations said.

Over the next 10 days, they will determine how much food, clean water and temporary shelter the 2.4 million survivors require, along with the cost of rebuilding houses and schools and reviving the agriculture- based economy.

"It has taken quite a long time, but this shows the government is on board by its commitment to facilitate the relief operation and the scaling up that people are asking for," said Amanda Pitt, a U.N. spokeswoman in Bangkok, Thailand.

However, Tuesday's positive development contrasted with reports that 18 cyclone victims _ women and children _ on their way to the United Nations office to plead for help were arrested in the commercial capital, Yangon.

Authorities detained the 18 as they walked to the U.N. offices in Yangon to complain about not receiving any government assistance, according to a government official who refused to be identified for fear of retaliation.

The group, from Dagon township on the outskirts of Yangon, was bundled into a waiting police car and remains in detention, witnesses said.

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Myanmar on defensive over cyclone aid effort
AFP - Thursday, June 12

YANGON (AFP) - - Myanmar insisted Wednesday that visas were being granted to aid workers and no food shortages were imminent in an apparent bid to deflect criticism that it has not done enough after Cyclone Nargis.

In the crucial weeks after the storm hit in early May, the reclusive military regime stalled on issuing visas to foreign aid workers, provoking the ire of the United Nations, western governments and aid agencies.

After a personal visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the junta slowly started to open up access to the country, especially the badly-hit Irrawaddy Delta region, where more than two million storm survivors were in need of aid.

The official New Light of Myanmar said Wednesday that 911 foreigners had been granted visas since the cyclone -- 458 UN staff and foreign aid workers, 357 Southeast Asian nationals and 96 participants in a May 25 donor conference.

"The government has granted visas to members of aid groups to render humanitarian assistance, to enable international experts to assess damages, to carry out relief work and to provide medical care to storm victims," it said.

Of those granted permission to enter military-run Myanmar, 569 remained in the country, the government mouthpiece said.

The United Nations has said its staff are getting visas with greater ease but cautioned in a report this week that independent aid groups were still having trouble, with some visas pending for three weeks.

Aid workers have also complained that visas are only being issued for short visits to the country, while getting permission to travel to the delta remains difficult.

"Clearly international staff do require much more sustained access to the delta areas, particularly for key skilled technical staff so they can really establish more systematic operations," said Amanda Pitt, spokeswoman from the UN's emergency relief arm.

Pitt also warned that aid agencies were facing shortages of emergency food and shelter for cyclone victims, with the UN appeal only 40 percent funded and China's May 12 earthquake sapping shelter supplies.

"They (aid agencies) need half a million tarpaulins, and food funding is needed to sustain the pipeline of assistance," Pitt told reporters in Bangkok.

Cyclone Nargis destroyed food stocks and swathes of rice paddies, which have yet to be replanted due to the difficult living conditions for the delta's farmers.

Planting was meant to start in early June, but some farmers could not work as they lacked clothes to wear, while animal carcasses still littered the salt-logged fields, AFP reporters in the ravaged region witnessed.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that food security could be compromised unless the rice planting season urgently begins.

But a Myanmar government minister denied in state media Wednesday that food shortages would be a problem.

"Some organisations were spreading groundless information such as there was or would be shortage of rice in Myanmar," national planning and economic development minister Soe Tha said in the New Light of Myanmar.

"The rice output in the storm-affected areas in Ayeyawaddy (Irrawaddy) and Yangon divisions made up only 2.3 percent of the nation's total rice output. The uncultivable acreage is barely one percent of that of the whole nation."

These figures contradict the official view of the FAO, which released a statement last month saying the five states hit by the cyclone produce 65 percent of the country's rice.

It estimated that 16 percent of the 1.3 million hectares (3.2 million acres) of agricultural land in the delta has been seriously damaged.

More than 133,000 people were left dead or missing when the cyclone pounded into Myanmar nearly six weeks ago.

The UN estimates that 2.4 million people need emergency aid, but that about one million have not yet received any foreign assistance.

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US backs UN rights expert's report on Myanmar
AFP - Thursday, June 12

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States gave its backing Tuesday to a UN expert's report raising concerns about Myanmar's recent referendum and called on the military rulers to release all political prisoners. 

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also called on the country's military rulers to uphold their pledge to give international aid access to victims of last month's Cyclone Nargis, which left 133,000 dead or missing.

"The US shares the conclusions of the UN human rights monitor in his sobering report that the referendum on the regime's draft constitution was far from credible," McCormack said in a statement.

Washington also agrees that the continuing detention of political prisoners, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, and the condition under which they are held is "appalling," he said.

"The United States continues to urge the Burmese regime to release all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and to begin a genuine dialogue with democratic and ethnic minority leaders on a transition to democracy," he said.

McCormack added that Washington shares the conclusions that Myanmar "must respect the human rights principles of non-discrimination and accountability in the international effort to assist the victims of Cyclone Nargis."

The US government remains committed to helping cyclone victims and calls on Myanmar's regime "to uphold its pledge to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to allow international humanitarian workers and supplies unhindered access to cyclone-affected areas," he said.

"We are concerned that forced relocation of storm victims, absent adequate access to assistance, will put them at even greater risk."

In a report last week, the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, raised "significant concerns" over the referendum held in the wake of the devastating cyclone, and called for a public report on the event.

Myanmar's military rulers had claimed that despite the cyclone devastation, 98 percent of voters turned out and more than 92 percent endorsed their charter.

They also claimed that the constitution would clear the way for democratic elections in two years, but critics believe it would only enshrine military rule.

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Official Says 16 Burma Cyclone Survivors Detained Outside UN Office
AFP - Wednesday, June 11

YANGON(AFP) - Sixteen people, apparently survivors of Myanmar's [Burma] deadly Cyclone Nargis, were detained Tuesday outside a United Nations office in Yangon, a government official said.

The Myanmar official, who did not want to be named since he was not authorised to speak to the media, said the group had gathered at the headquarters of the United Nations Development Programme.

"They were asking for help from the UNDP office and identified themselves as storm victims," the official said.

He said there were no protests or a clash between the group and the authorities. He did not say why the 16 people were detained.

Cyclone Nargis left at least 133,000 people dead or missing after it tore through the country in early May. The UN estimates that about 2.4 million people were left in need of food, shelter and medicine.

In the weeks after the disaster, the ruling junta blocked the flow of foreign relief supplies down to the worst-hit areas, provoking anger from survivors who said they were struggling to survive.

The regime relented after a personal visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and aid is slowly making it to the hungry and homeless.

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Aid agencies facing shortages in Myanmar cyclone effort
AFP - Wednesday, June 11

BANGKOK (AFP) - Aid agencies are facing shortages of food and shelter for victims of the deadly cyclone which ravaged Myanmar last month, relief workers and United Nations officials said Wednesday.

Only 40 percent of the UN's emergency appeal for Myanmar has so far been satisfied, they said, adding that supplies had been sapped as a result of the May 12 earthquake in southwest China.

"Agencies are expressing concerns regarding shortages of food, shelter," Amanda Pitt from the UN's relief coordination body told reporters in Bangkok.

"They need half a million tarpaulins, and food funding is needed to sustain the pipeline of assistance."

She said food was the poorest funded area of assistance, while the earthquake in China had disrupted supplies of shelter including tents and tarpaulins.

France Hurtubise, spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said that only 22 percent of the 2.4 million affected people had received tarpaulins from foreign agencies.

"The China earthquake affected the number of tarpaulins available because there was a high demand there," she said.

The IFRC said it had managed to reach 107,000 households so far, but hoped to eventually distribute tarpaulins to 340,000 households.

Hurtubise added that the true picture of the numbers in need of shelter could not be evaluated as Myanmar's authorities had not told them how many people they had helped themselves.

"It has been a challenge to obtain information in the last couple of weeks," she said.

Cyclone Nargis left more than 133,000 people dead or missing, while the UN estimates that about one million of the survivors have still not received any foreign assistance.

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Cyclone-hit Myanmar rejects rice shortage fears
Reuters - Thursday, June 12

YANGON - Cyclone-hit Myanmar has enough rice to feed its people, the ruling junta said on Wednesday, accusing foreign aid agencies of presenting a false picture of the devastation in the Irrawaddy delta rice bowl.

In remarks reported by official media, National Planning Minister Soe Tha rejected warnings that the former Burma's food security could be "jeopardised" if delta farmers cannot plant a new rice crop by the end of July.

"Some organisations were spreading groundless information such as there is or will be a shortage of rice in Myanmar," Soe Tha was quoted as saying at a meeting with international relief agencies on Tuesday.

"We have enough rice and we can distribute sufficiently, " he said, although the newspaper reports did not give a detailed picture of the country's rice supplies.

The May 2 cyclone flooded paddy fields with seawater, damaged irrigation systems and destroyed supplies of rice seed in five disaster zones that produce 65 percent of Myanmar's rice crop.

Of the 1.3 million ha of paddy in the cyclone-hit areas, 60 percent was affected by the storm, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation said last week.

About 200,000 ha were too damaged for planting.

Nearly six weeks since the storm left 134,000 dead or missing and another 2.4 million people destitute, some paddy land has been drained of seawater.

However, farmers still faced many hurdles to planting the monsoon crop, including a lack of shelter, rice seed, fertiliser and ploughing animals, most of which were killed.

"If this is not done in a timely manner, poor farmers, who have already lost their assets, will suffer from hunger and poverty for a long time, while national food security will be seriously jeopardised, " the FAO said.

Myanmar was the world's largest rice exporter when it won independence from Britain in 1948, but lost that title to neighbouring Thailand after four decades of military rule and disastrous economic policies.

With little money to buy other food, people in Myanmar consume an average 44 lbs of rice per month, compared to 35 lbs in Vietnam and 15 lbs in Asia as a whole, the FAO said.

The U.N. World Food Programme, which was feeding 2 million people in Myanmar before the cyclone, has sought to buy food locally to feed a minimum of 750,000 people in the delta.

"We may have to continue assistance in the delta for six months or until the next harvest," WFP spokesman Paul Risley told Reuters.

"We will continue to purchase food locally but we will likely have to seek imports and food stocks, especially rice to replace rice that was lost in the delta," he said.

The WFP recently signed a local contract for 10,000 tonnes of rice, corn, beans, lentils and other pulses -- roughly six weeks of food assistance.

It also received 400 tonnes of rice from a French naval ship that was not allowed to deliver aid directly to Myanmar.

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Pregnant Women facing difficulties in Myanmar
By D. Arul Rajoo
Bernama - Thursday, June 12

BANGKOK, June 11 (Bernama) -- Five weeks after the deadly Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, over one milion victims have yet to receive any international relief assistance, with 22 percent of shelter delivered and thousands of pregnant women without safe and clean delivery options.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) spokesman, William A. Ryan said of the 2.4 million people affected by the cyclone in South of Yangon and Irrawaddy Delta, there were hundreds of women giving birth daily, as well as those who needed need pre-natal care.

"Even before the cyclone, the situation was dangerous for pregnant women. Now, with health centres and hospitals destroyed, many pregnant women have no place to go...some need counselling as they lost their husbands or children," he told a press conference held by the United Nations to give an update on the situation.

Ryan said UNFPA continued to send provisions to Myanmar to enable health providers to ensure that pregnant women could deliver safely, adding that two batches of shipment for about 450,000 people were delivered while the third for another 500,000 people, was expected to arrive this week.

These shipments range from rubber gloves for mid-wives to hospital equipment, as well as supplies for preventing HIV infection and unwanted pregnancies, and responding to sexual violence.

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International experts begin survey of needs in Myanmar
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
06/11/2008

YANGON, Myanmar — Hundreds of experts began assessing the needs of Myanmar's cyclone victims Tuesday as the country's military junta finally gave them access five weeks after the disaster.

But that improved access was undermined by reports the isolationist government had arrested 18 survivors who were on their way to the United Nations office in the commercial capital of Yangon to plead for help.

Some 250 experts from the U.N., the Myanmar government and Southeast Asian nations headed into the Irrawaddy Delta on trucks, boat and helicopters for a village-by-village survey, the United Nations said.

Over 10 days, they will determine how much food, clean water and temporary shelter the 2.4 million survivors need along with the cost of rebuilding houses and schools and reviving the farm-based economy.
"It has taken quite a long time, but this shows the government is on board by its commitment to facilitate the relief operation and the scaling up that people are asking for," said Amanda Pitt, a U.N. spokeswoman in Bangkok, Thailand.

Cyclone Nargis killed more than 78,000 people in the impoverished country.

The ruling junta has been sharply criticized by foreign governments and aid agencies for its ineptness in handling the disaster.

Authorities detained 18 women and children Tuesday as they walked to U.N. offices to complain about not receiving any government assistance, according to a government official who refused to be identified for fear of retaliation by the leadership.

The country's top leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, promised U.N. Secretary Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month that he would improve access, but until now only a trickle of foreign aid workers and relief supplies had reached survivors.

The assessment began a day after U.N. helicopters loaded with relief supplies started reaching areas of the delta that were cut off from regular aid since Cyclone Nargis struck.

Four of the five aircraft that arrived over the weekend got to work shuttling emergency supplies like rice and water purification systems to villages around the hardest-hit towns of Bogale and Labutta, said Paul Risley, a U.N. World Food Program spokesman.

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Many child survivors traumatised
Mizzima News - Wednesday, 11 June 2008 19:49
Zarni

Chiang Mai – Many children who survived the killer Cyclone Nargis are traumatised having witnessed their near and dear ones dying, an international aid agency working with children said.

Children are the most vulnerable group among the survivors of the cyclone and most of them are struggling to overcome the trauma that deeply affects them, James East, World Vision's Regional Communication Director in Bangkok said.

"Many children are suffering from trauma," East told Mizzima on Wednesday.

East said more than 10 aid agencies and International NGOs including the World Vision, the UN Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and Save the Children has formed a task force to assist children.

"We have some places in cyclone hit regions where the children can play games. These are 'Child-friendly Spaces', to serve as a safe and protective environment for the displaced children," East said.

East said while there could be no estimate of the number children affected by the cyclone so far, at least 2,000 children whose parents are missing have been identified in Rangoon division, and 32 children have been registered as those of missing parents in Bogale town in the Irrawaddy delta.

Though the Irrawaddy delta was hardest hit by the cyclone, the UNICEF said it is yet to confirm on the number of unaccompanied children or whose parents are missing.

Alexander Krueger, UNICEF child protection officer of the East Asia and Pacific regional office in Bangkok said a task force has been established to help the children trace their family.

"Until the process of tracing them is complete, it would be hard to say how many orphans there are," Krueger said.

But he said so far there are a few hundred children that are separated from their parents and less than 100 of them are unaccompanied.

Burmese aid workers and volunteers, who have been helping cyclone survivors, said children and kids are seen begging on the streets.

However, several children were also seen sitting idly with a 'blank-look' on their faces, a sign of being traumatized, a Burmese aid worker, working with an international aid agency said.

"Some of the kids do not know where their parents are, and are looking for them. But some said they saw their parents drowning," the aid worker, who had been helping cyclone survivors in the Irrawaddy delta told Mizzima last week.

East said for temporary relief, the task force has established several 'Child-friendly- Spaces' -- camps where children could learn, play and be fed, while their parents are busy struggling to overcome their miseries.

"We have about 44 'Child Friendly Spaces' in the Irrawaddy and Rangoon division," where kids can go and play and try to forget about the past, East said.

In May, head of Burma's ruling junta Senior General Than Shwe, during an inspection trip to the Cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy delta, instructed local authorities to build orphanages for children, who lost their parents in the Cyclone, in Pyapon and Laputta townships of the Irrawaddy delta.

But Aid agencies said putting children into orphanages is not the best solution as children find friendlier environment to live in among their relatives or even with foster parents, who are willing to adopt them.

Krueger of the UNICEF said the Burmese government had talked about "building orphanages for child survivors and some unaccompanied children have been placed in institutions already."

Krueger, however, said the plan may be acceptable for children only if it is for a temporary situation and asserted that the UNICEF sees institutionalizatio n of children as the very last resort when efforts to trace the family or to find relatives or people known to the child fails.

"UNICEF has been advocating with the Government of Myanmar [Burma] to promote family-based care solutions," Krueger added.

Burmese people have large and extended families and in the long run helping children connect with their extended family would be the best way to help children who have lost their parents, East said.

Save the Children, a group that has been helping cyclone survivors immediately after it the cyclone struck on May 2 and 3, however, said children are safest in schools as it allows them to mix with their friends and helps in forgetting their past.

"Education is vital, and it becomes even more important in the aftermath of an emergency when families are trying to regain some sense of normal life for their children," Andrew Kirkwood, Save the Children's Country Director, said in a statement.

"Schools are a safe place for children, allowing them to be with other children, to play and to begin dealing with the trauma they have experienced," Kirkwood said.

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Thousands of Bodies Still Litter Irrawaddy Delta
The Irrawaddy - Monday, June 9, 2008
By MOE AUNG TIN / THE IRRAWADDY DELTA

More than a month after Cyclone Nargis, thousands of dead bodies still lie in the sodden rice paddies, fields and waterways of Burma’s Irrawaddy delta. Farmers reluctant to take on the grisly task of removing decaying corpses from their land are paying volunteers 1,000 kyat (US 80 cents) for each body they dispose of.

No official organization has taken on the responsibility of collecting the dead, identifying them and giving them a proper funeral, residents complain.

“It is very sad for the families of the dead,” said a Bogalay resident, who reported seeing hundreds of bodies on the banks of the Bogalay River.

“Priority should be given to helping survivors,” he said. “But we should also consider the dignity of those who lost their lives in the disaster. I feel they’ve been neglected.”

Comparisons are being made with the practice adopted after the 2004 tsunami, when every attempt, including DNA testing, was used to identify the dead,

“In the case of Cyclone Nargis, if the bodies can’t be indentified by DNA testing, at least they should be collected and buried,” a Rangoon resident said.

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

The International Committee of the Red Cross has expressed concern about the numbers of bodies it says still litter the Irrawaddy delta. Some have been dumped in canals and unmarked mass graves or cremated, while others remain untouched, according to a report by The Associated Press on Sunday.

Although the military regime ordered three days of national mourning for the cyclone victims from May 20-22, Burma’s spiritual leaders complain that no state-sponsored religious ceremony has yet been held.

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WFP Forbidden to Buy Rice from Local Dealers
The Irrawaddy - Wednesday, June 11, 2008
By VIOLET CHO

An official from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has confirmed that the Burmese government has told the food relief agency that it will no longer be permitted to buy rice from local dealers to feed survivors of Cyclone Nargis.

“This is an issue that has come up, so we are preparing to import rice,” said WFP spokesman Paul Risley. He added, however, that the agency would “need to receive notification and approval from the government” before it could begin to import rice.

According to Risley, the WFP’s operations in Burma currently have only enough rice left to last another six weeks. The UN recently said that cyclone survivors in the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta could need food assistance for as long as a year.

Due to severe damage to rice fields and lack of farming supplies, many farmers will not be able to plant rice in time for this year’s monsoon season.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, 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.”

As UN aid agencies express concern over possible food shortages in the coming year, the Burmese military government continues to deny that the country is facing a serious problem.

On Wednesday, Soe Tha, the minister for national planning and economic development, described rumors that the country’s rice supplies were inadequate as “groundless.”

“Some organizations were spreading groundless information such as there was or would be a shortage of rice in Myanmar [Burma],” he was quoted in the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper as saying.

“The rice output in the storm-affected areas in Ayeyawady [Irrawaddy] and Yangon [Rangoon] Divisions made up only 2.3 percent of the nation’s total rice output. The uncultivable acreage is barely 1 percent of that of the whole nation,” he added.

Despite such reassurances, however, the regime has cancelled planned exports this year of up to 600,000 metric tons of rice to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The WFP has provided more than 11,000 metric tons of rice to storm-affected communities and all of this rice was bought from local rice dealers.

Business sources in Rangoon suggested that the government’s decision to ban the WFP from purchasing rice from local dealers was unjustified.

“The government has a huge reserve of rice as they cancelled rice exports to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. If the government allowed it, it could be sold,” said a Rangoon businessman.

Cyclone Nargis hit Burma in early May, killing up to 134,000 people and leaving 2.4 million destitute.

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Burma junta claims visas granted to 911 disaster relief workers
The Nation
Published on Jun 11, 2008

Rangoon - Burma's state-run media disclosed Wednesday that the government has issued visas to a total of 911 foreign disaster relief workers since Cyclone Nargis hit the country on May 2-3, in apparent effort to counter criticisms of hindering the aid effort.

"Altogether 911 persons have been permitted to enter the country from 5 May to 5 June," said The New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece.

According to the newspaper, visas have been granted to 458 people working for the United Nations and non-governmental organisations, 357 to relief workers from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) and 96 foreigners attending a UN-Asean donors meeting held last month.

Burma's ruling junta drew international criticism for failing to waive visas requirements for international aid workers in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, that left at least 133,000 people dead or missing and 2.4 million in desperate need of emergency assistance.

A breakthrough of sorts was achieved by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on May 25 when he met with Burma junta chief Senior General Than Shwe and won a promise from the autocrat that he would allow "all" foreign experts to enter the country to assist the aid effort.

Later, the junta clarified that aid workers would be welcome providing they represented registered agencies that offered aid with "no strings attached."    

While there has been a marked improvement in access since Than Shwe's commitment, international aid agencies still complain that the process of being given travel permits to the Irrawaddy delta, the region hardest-hit by the cyclone, is time-consuming and unsystematic.

There are also complaints about the short duration of many visas and travel permits. Dpa

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Responsibility to protect: Burma's golden alternative
The Nation
Published on Jun 12, 2008

Burma gained the spotlight in world news in September 2007 when the Saffron Revolution erupted. Surprisingly, we heard arguments against democratisation from politicians, statesmen, scholars, so-called Burma experts and even some Burmese in exile who have never set foot on their native soil or who have been out of touch with reality for decades.

They claimed that a substitute for the military junta would be, of all things, the devil's alternative.

Now, after Cyclone Nargis, people around the world are denouncing the regime and equating its stubborn refusal to allow free access of international relief assistance to the urgently needed victims - not in thousands but in millions - as a criminal act. Many say that it is time for humanitarian intervention by the United Nations under the "Responsibility to Protect" principle.

As the Burmese people suffer, the debate over this principle continues. Those who oppose the principle said Burma will become lawless and chaotic - a Balkanisation of a sort.

But no matter how one looks, lawlessness is not an exaggeration when making reference to Burma. The killing of the highest spiritual leaders of society must be considered the most brutal form of lawlessness. Refusal of international life-saving assistance to millions of cyclone victims is a crime against humanity, the worst offence in the civilised world.

In Burma, there is no rule of law. What comes out of the mouths of selfish, greedy, deceitful generals becomes law and is acted upon by spineless cohorts. This is the best culture for crime and chaos to
flourish. Drug cartels and crime syndicates prosper most under egomaniac despots. The self-seeking military junta is the sole cause of chaos and civil war in Burma. The junta's militarisation of the country has brought poverty, unprecedented chaos, and mismanagement and social conflict matched only by a few failed states on earth.

Unlike Yugoslavia or some African countries, Burma's more than 2000-year history shows no precedence for Balkanisation. Bloody religious or racial conflicts common to Yugoslavia or African countries were unheard of. Past wars were caused mainly by feudal monarchs annexing adjacent territories just like feudal rulers of any country in ancient times. Pre-independence and post-independence communal riots were hangovers of colonial divide and rule policies.

The junta's disinformation on the meaning of federalism has failed among the people who now realise the futility of denying other ethnic peoples their rights in accordance with universal norms. Only one obstacle remains for the formation of a genuine and peaceful Union of Burma - that is the military junta.

Balkanisation is not the only option in the world.

Czechoslovakia experienced a peaceful "velvet separation". Balkanisation and anarchy in Burma can come about by the fall of the junta which could disintegrate into multiple rival fiefdoms controlled separately by junta generals and regional commanders turning into war-lords as in post-Siad Barre Somalia, post-Najibullah Afghanistan or post-Mobutu Congo. Unlike them, Burma fortunately has a legitimate and popular democratic leadership well-prepared and highly competent to take over.

Burma's opposition leaders, both democratic and ethnic, are undoubtedly more competent, qualified and broad-minded than the junta leaders. Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, all the atrocities and terror in Burma has been committed by the State Police and Development Council (SPDC). There are no extremists or terrorists among the opposition. Hence merely checking and removing the SPDC will prevent further bloodshed.

The Junta's senseless, paranoid economic policies are making everyone poor except the generals. Even Singapore's senior statesman Lee Kuan-yew has dubbed them "dumb" with regard to economics. No globalisation beneficial to the country's people, local businessmen or foreign investors could take hold in Burma. In contrast, the democratic and ethnic groups have been upgrading its leaders and rank-and-file with world level capacity in all issues, anticipating to ride the globalisation tide like China and Vietnam. Exiled democratic and ethnic forces are also versed in international efficiencies of a peaceful nature after years of training and study abroad.

The important thing is that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) are not calling for abrupt regime change but rather a negotiated settlement taking into account the Burmese military's role, and finally replacing it in the not too distant future.

In February 2006, the NLD offered a transition plan which would recognise the military junta as a de jure government for a transitional period that would be legitimised by the parliament elected in 1990. Also in August, 2007, ninety-two elected members of parliament proposed an alternative road map offering the SPDC a significant role in the constitution- drafting and transition processes along with elected NLD and ethnic members of parliament.

"Everything is negotiable," Aung San Suu Kyi has said. The army is to be retained but the military dictatorship must go, this is the opposition's consensus view. The arrogant generals with diplomatic protection of China simply turned down all the proposals.

Engagement with the junta has also been called or initiated by many countries including Asean, China and Japan. There have been the Wilton Park seminars in the UK favouring engagement as well. The military responded by snubbing the Asean chairman when he visited Burma in 2006; by killing a Japanese reporter during the Saffron Revolution; and by ignoring Japan's demand to have a proper investigation. It is clear that all this has resulted in more clampdowns with more refugees and more migrants to neighbouring countries and of course the spread of diseases, forced labour and rapes in the country.

So what can you expect from shoring up a junta that is prepared to kill the most revered section of the nation and also prepared to allow millions of its own people, the cyclone victims, to suffer or die helplessly devoid of much needed life-saving relief assistance? Will it be moral or feasible to maintain the status quo or engage with the junta to prevent an imaginary and improbable Balkanisation and chaos? 

To prevent such a scenario there is no alternative for the international community, especially Asean members, but to lead and initiate a stronger and more concerted international effort for democratic transition in Burma and by taking the lead in stronger critical engagement, not the kind of unconditional engagement with the military regime which has proved to be an utter failure.

Teddy Buri, MP-elect, chairman, Members of Parliament Union-Burma (MPU)
Manko Ban, MP-elect, chairman of the United Nationalities League for Democracy (UNLD-LA)
Sann Aung, MP-elect, member, National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB)

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Local troops evict cyclone victims in Bogalay

Jun 11, 2008 (DVB)–Cyclone victims currently sheltering in temporary camps in Bogalay township were forced out of their camps by local troops, refugees told a DVB reporter who recently visited the area.

One cyclone victim said the refugees were given a few supplies and ordered to leave the camps.

“We were given one plastic sheet for each family, five packs of noodle for each person, some beans and a small bottle of cooking oil,” he said.

“Then the commander said, ‘We have given you your travel needs, so get out and go home!’ We all had to pack our stuff and run away.”

DVB’s reporter also found out that while in the camps refugees had to provide unpaid labour to carry relief supplies that were intended for them but which they never received.

The cyclone victims said that local authorities had confiscated all the valuable and tasty food supplies such as biscuits and tanned fish.

“We had to carry iron boxes but I don’t know what was inside. We also had to carry condensed milk, raw milk, tanned meat, snacks and so on that I had never seen or tasted in all my 47 years, but we never received them,” said the victim.

“Out of the international aid we were given, the local army unit took all the tents and food supplies.”

Reporting by Moe Aye

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