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Obstacles Force Donors to Abandon the Delta
UN says Myanmar farmers need fuel for planting
Foreign doctors leave cyclone-hit Myanmar
In Myanmar, an LA Times reporter worked in secret to cover the story

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Obstacles Force Donors to Abandon the Delta
By MIN KHET MAUNG / BOGALAY
Friday, June 13, 2008

Soldiers and police stop vehicles at Panhlaing Bridge, which private donors must cross to bring aid from Rangoon to the Irrawaddy delta. (Photo: Min Khet Maung / The Irrawaddy)

Sayadaw Kawvida, the abbot of Sankyaung Monastery in Bogalay, sighs and shakes his head as he ponders the uncertainties that lie ahead for the more than 100 refugees who have been staying at his monastery since Cyclone Nargis struck on May 2-3. 

“I’m afraid their main source of food has almost disappeared,” he says sadly. “There are fewer and fewer private donors coming these days.”

A convoy of trucks carrying aid to the Irrawaddy delta (Photo: Min Khet Maung / The Irrawaddy)

The abbot is not alone in his concern about the declining number of private donors. Other shelters for displaced storm victims are also facing an increasingly precarious situation, now that the flow of food and other necessities that has sustained them for the past month has slowed to a trickle. 
The vast majority of refugees interviewed said that they hoped to continue receiving aid from private donors, as they felt they had been completely neglected by the country’s ruling military regime.

There are already several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the area, but refugees say they fear that the junta’s inflexibility will force them to leave, too.

For many cyclone survivors, the private donors who came to help them deal with the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis did more than just provide food and clothing.

By coming and sharing what they had, they were more like caring relatives than aid workers. By speaking with the cyclone victims and listening to their stories, they also provided much-needed counseling to help them deal with the shock of their loss.

“It’s not only food that they need,” said one monk who has cared for thousands of refugees at Kyaikhamwan Pagoda in Pyapon. “They also need smiling faces that can heal their pain to some extent.”

Khin San Myint, a Pyapon resident who lost her five-year-old son and all of her property in the cyclone, said she would have gone mad if not for the words of consolation she received from donors.

“When they asked me, ‘How are you, Ama [madam]?’ I felt some relief from the pain of my loss,” the forty-two year old woman said.

But now the storm victims are seeing fewer private donors, and they are not sure if local NGOs will be able to do much to help them.

Observers say that many private donors have been discouraged from continuing with their relief efforts by obstacles created by local authorities.

Donors say that they have to pay unfair fees to use roads and bridges to transport goods to the delta. They also complain of being subjected to interrogation at checkpoints along the way.

In some cases, donors’ vehicles have been turned back or seized by local authorities, while other donors have been forced to exchange their goods for products of inferior quality.

A volunteer for the local NGO Myanmar Egress reported that last week, en route to Laputta, the group was stopped at a checkpoint and forced to hand over sacks of high-quality rice in exchange for low-quality rice.

“They [local authorities] told us that if we did not obey their order, we would have to go back right away,” the volunteer said. “We had no alternative.”

Some private donors have also complained that their goods were confiscated after they tried to bypass the checkpoints.

Even some popular monks, including Sitagu Sayadaw U Nyanissara, have had to deal with harassment by local authorities.

In the third week of May, two trucks loaded with sacks of rice donated to the revered monk for distribution to cyclone victims were stopped for inspection at the checkpoint near Panhlaing Bridge, which links Rangoon to the delta. Police said that only one truck would be permitted to pass, and the other would have to be impounded.

While many observers attribute the sudden decline in the number of private donors in the delta to official obstruction, others note that there are also economic reasons for the change.

One economic analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that middle-class donors have probably done as much as they can afford to do.

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UN says Myanmar farmers need fuel for planting
AP
1 hour, 46 minutes ago

Myanmar urgently needs diesel fuel to run the rice-tilling machines that are replacing water buffalo killed by Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawaddy delta, a senior U.N. official said Friday.

The call by U.N. Undersecretary-General Noeleen Heyzer, head of the world body's headquarters for Asia, came as Myanmar's state-controlled press said that aid from the United States could not be trusted.

Tens of millions of dollars have been donated to help Myanmar's cyclone victims, but the ruling military junta has been reluctant to accept foreign relief experts in large numbers and restricted their access to the hard-hit delta.

The U.N. estimates more than 1 million survivors, mostly in the delta, still need help more than five weeks after the cyclone struck. The government's official death toll is above 78,000 and an additional 56,000 people are missing.

Heyzer called for Myanmar's Southeast Asian neighbors, foreign aid donors and traditional oil suppliers to assist the country by supplying it with 1 million gallons of diesel fuel.

Myanmar's agriculture minister, Maj. Gen. Htay Oo, told Heyzer earlier this week that the fuel is needed to operate some 5,000 mechanical tillers donated by Thailand, China and other countries. Rice fields are planted in June and July.

"The window of opportunity is very short, and the need is of the utmost urgency," Heyzer was quoted saying. "The planting season in the delta is June to July, after which it will be too late, with disastrous consequences for food security in Myanmar and the region."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in an assessment this week that the area affected by the cyclone "normally accounts for roughly 60 percent of (Myanmar's) rice production."

"The outlook for the 2008/09 rice crop is very uncertain, as the planting window will close in late July. Little to no actual progress has been made to restore or rehabilitate damaged lands and infrastructure, while farmers are yet to be supplied with sufficient food, viable seed, tools, livestock or replacement mechanical tillers and fuel," it said.

Myanmar's ruling generals have rejected most offers of help from the United States, particularly the use of Navy helicopters and landing craft to ferry relief supplies to isolated villages in the Irrawaddy delta.

In a clear reference to the U.S. on Thursday, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a mouthpiece for the junta, said that "the goodwill of a big Western nation that wants to help Myanmar with its warships was not genuine."

Myanmar turned down humanitarian aid from U.S., British and French warships, which sailed to the waters off the Southeast Asian nation after the cyclone hit May 2-3.

The newspaper said aid from nations that impose economic sanctions on Myanmar and push the U.N. Security Council to take actions against it "comes with strings attached."

The United States is one of several Western nations that impose economic and political sanctions on the junta because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.

New Light of Myanmar has implied in the past that Washington is in league with Myanmar's pro-democracy movement to undermine the military government.

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Foreign doctors leave cyclone-hit Myanmar
Reuters
Fri Jun 13, 7:44 AM ET

Foreign doctors have started leaving cyclone-hit Myanmar as the junta has closed down many relief camps in the affected areas, a senior Thai health ministry official said on Friday.

The military government had told Thailand not to send a third batch of medics, meant to leave for Yangon on Monday, as most of the camps in the Irrawaddy delta town of Myaungmya had been closed, Surachet Satitniramai, a coordinator for the Thai team, said.

"Doctors from India, Japan and the Philippines have already left Myanmar as many camps have been closed down," he told Reuters, adding that the only doctors left at the few camps remaining in the area were all Myanmar locals.

"They said they had enough doctors to deal with the situation now and will call out for help if they need more," he said.

Cyclone Nargis hit the densely populated delta last month, killing up to 134,000 people and leaving 2.4 million destitute. Despite the magnitude of the disaster, the junta has been reluctant to admit outside aid operations.

The United Nations called Myanmar's neighbors in Southeast Asia and other donors to give more than one million gallons of emergency diesel supplies to help farmers in the devastated delta replant rice crops before the end of July.

"The window of opportunity is very short, and the need is of the utmost urgency," U.N. official Noeleen Heyzer said.

"The planting season in the Delta is June to July, after which it will be too late -- with disastrous consequences for food security in Myanmar and the region."

(Reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Ed Cropley)

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In Myanmar, a Times reporter worked in secret to cover the story
Los Angeles Times
From a Times Staff Writer
June 13, 2008

One of the boats used by a Los Angeles Times staff writer for an undercover look at conditions in the Irrawaddy River delta is docked at the storm-ravaged village of Pa Dewe Gaw, Myanmar. There, survivors lived in small, leaky shacks pieced together from salvaged pieces of their ruined homes. Aided by boatmen who risked arrest, the journalist saw what the government didn't want seen in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.

KONG TAN PAAK, MYANMAR -- From the far side of a murky brown river, the only moving thing visible on the ravaged landscape was a tattered maroon cloth, fluttering listlessly atop a tree stripped of its branches.

Two Buddhist monks had torn it from the only material they had, one of their own coarse robes. Its message was just as plain: "Alive! Please help."

Photos: Journey to the heart of tragedy

Video: Situation desperate in Myanmar
Myanmar cyclone and its aftermath

Tropical Cyclone Nargis killed 300 people in this village, wiping away almost every trace of the people, their homes and a monastery. Surviving monks went to a relief camp, but after nearly three weeks, they figured that what they had fled couldn't be much worse.

So they took some of the meager rice rations they received from the military, came back and made themselves a tent by stretching tarps over a frame of fallen trees.

In the two days they had been living in it, our riverboat was the first to stop. My interpreter went ashore first.

When he confirmed that no soldiers or government officials were there, I crawled out of my hiding place.

Over the last 16 years, I have reported on famine, massive earthquakes and a tsunami. Cyclone Nargis is the first natural disaster that required working undercover to write about the hungry, sick and homeless.

Myanmar's military regime is suspicious of outsiders, fearing they are spies or that their presence could expose the fallacy of the government's claim to be an all-powerful provider of development and stability.

The May 2-3 storm killed at least 78,000 people. And 56,000 are missing.

More than a month after the cyclone, the government continues to deny unhindered access to the disaster zone for foreign experts, such as medical and water-purification teams, threatening thousands of lives, especially those of children, pregnant women and the elderly, the United Nations and other agencies say.

In the cyclone's aftermath, the regime was so determined to keep prying eyes from a landscape littered with corpses and people begging for help that it set up checkpoints on the main roads into the Irrawaddy River delta, which took the brunt of the storm.

The names and passport details of those caught were recorded before the vehicles were turned back. Local people accompanying them were interrogated.

But it's much harder to police the boats that ply the delta's labyrinth of rivers and canals.

The younger of the two monks, U Nya Tui Ka, 53, approached our boat, one of four I hired to take me to the delta during a month of visits, and was shocked to see a foreigner poking his head from the hold.

He assumed that help had arrived. His despair gave way to a broad smile, and then to disappointment as the interpreter explained that I was a reporter.

There was an unsettling silence. Not a birdsong, a dog's bark or a crying child could be heard -- only the wind and a few buzzing flies.

Standing in the blazing sun, chewing on a mouthful of betel, the senior monk, U Pyinar Wata, patiently answered our questions. The monks could make do with the little food they had, he said. After all, Buddha had taught that without craving, there is no suffering.

But the monks were worried about a few homeless children in their care. Together, the monks and boys were the only people on their side of the river for miles. Without fresh water, the monks feared, the boys might not last long.

What they all needed most, said Pyinar Wata, 60, was a pump and some diesel fuel to run it, so they could empty a 150-square-foot reservoir of seawater and corpses and let it fill with clean rainwater.

He might as well have been asking for a rocket to Mars.

We had traveled with some boxes of antibiotics, bottled water, packages of cookies and instant noodles to hand out. But those had run out early on the trip. All I had left was a camera, a tape recorder -- and sympathy.

We were eager to leave to stay out of the military's sight. But the monks wanted us to take pictures of the reservoir, see where they slept and cooked on a mud floor.

Most cyclone survivors were the same. They talked for as long as we would stay, pouring out their souls along with the tea, coconut juice or water they offered from their meager reserves.

When it was time to move on, the kindest of them said we had lifted a great weight just by caring enough to stop and listen.

The 30-foot boats I hired normally haul sugar cane, bananas or rice. No crew was willing to chance two trips, so after each four-night journey, we returned to Yangon, also known as Rangoon, switched boats and set out again.

The boats are not built for comfort.

The holds are open to leave room for cargo, which meant my only hiding place was the cramped space beneath the top deck.

About 15 feet across and 8 feet deep, with a wooden ceiling and peeling turquoise paint, it was a dark, sweltering cell barely big enough to sit upright in.

The pilots sat on the roof above me. One, to keep his hands free for frequent bottles of cheap cane liquor, pinched a steel pipe between his toes, deftly working the Chinese-made 18-horsepower diesel engine that spun a long-tail propeller sluggishly churning the water.

The machine pounded like a jackhammer. And since the four-man crew felt safer staying away from land, it thumped day and night, stopping only when we slipped into storm-ravaged villages.

Their courage braced by the cane liquor, the crewmen felt their way through the night. They poked at shallow channels with a bamboo sounding pole, comparing what they could see of the ruined landscape with foggy memories of trees that once pointed the way.

Sunset was also the signal for the boats' full-time occupants to come crawling out of the cracks. Cockroaches the size of mice and spiders with legs as long as crabs' feasted on the crumbs of our food. At times, so many bugs skittered around that it sounded like a gentle rain.

A green vine snake dropped in one night from an overhanging branch. The long, thin snakes are agile and only mildly venomous. A bite would be very painful but not fatal. Just the same, it would have blown my cover pretty quickly.

A crew member who usually worked the hand pump to clear the constant flow of bilge water beat the serpent to death. Carefully keeping it at arm's length, he tossed it overboard with a stick.

The bigger danger was that we'd be found out, which the crew feared would mean jail time. It almost happened twice.

While we were docked at the delta town of Mawlamyine Gyun, two policemen on foot patrol questioned the crew. The pilot said he was a rice trader, which apparently made sense to the officers even though the hold was empty and the cyclone had wiped out the rice crop.

They didn't bother to look into my hiding place, where I was cringing under a rough blanket.

Another day, we nearly pulled into a destroyed village to ask directions as two army officers were ordering people around.

Just yards from shore, the pilot throttled up and made a sudden U-turn as I ducked back into my cell. No one followed.

Otherwise, authorities were usually nowhere to be seen in the remote villages where the suffering was most severe.
Largely left to fend for themselves through weeks of living with decomposing bodies, scant aid and evictions from relief camps, many of the survivors began to lose something: their fear of speaking out.

Most are no longer afraid to openly criticize the military, to express anger that they once hid beneath a veneer of loyalty and obedience learned during 46 years of military rule.

Volunteers asserted new authority. An American aid worker, also working under cover, told of a local volunteer deliberately stepping on a military officer's toes to deliver rice directly to villagers instead of following orders and taking it to the township council.

Tens of thousands of volunteers collected donations in the cities, loaded supplies into vehicles and boats and headed for destroyed villages. They came back with photos and stories of what they'd seen, short-circuiting the junta's propaganda machine.

The regime's English- language newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar, praised the country's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, for staying away from damaged areas for two weeks after the storm hit. It said his "farsightedness and genuine goodwill" let relief efforts proceed faster without him.

When he did go, his "warm words of encouragement . . . made downhearted victims happy," according to the report. "While watching the news and scenes of the Senior General cordially greeting the victims on TV, we, all the people, were pleased with the efforts of the government."

But in the cities, millions have heard from foreign radio broadcasts and Internet news sites that weren't yet blocked by the regime that the generals had refused to allow tons of aid on U.S., French and British warships to be brought ashore.

And they know that soldiers have forced people into trucks and dumped them back in ruined villages, and that despite promises to ease restrictions on entry to the country, their rulers are delaying the arrival of foreign experts and life-saving equipment.

Villagers are listening too.

One night, when several suggested we would be safer tying up to a tree in their creek than risking the busier river route, a man heard the crackling Voice of America and British Broadcasting Corp. on the interpreter's shortwave radio. He joined him on the roof of my hiding place and listened for several hours.

At dawn, when the pilot was cranking up the engine to a sputtering start, the man returned to ask a favor.

He didn't want food, medicine or water. He needed the radio so the whole village could hear.

So we donated it.

The writer, who recently completed an assignment in Myanmar, is unidentified to protect those who worked with him.

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