2008-06-16 Burma News Summary
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BKK Post-Drug threats from Burma
VOA-U.N. On Burma Human Rights
Guardian Unlimited-Burma cyclone: UN tackles dengue threat
BBC-Too little too late for Burma
Yahoo-Burma arrests 245 drug traffickers
World News Australia-Another aid worker arrested in Burma
Asian Tribune-Burma heading toward a new civil strife due to fall in rice production
Scoop-Burma Urgently Needs One Million Gallons Of Fuel
SBS-Landslides hit Burma's Valley of Rubies
Irrawaddy-Burmese Generals Deserve to be Flogged: US Congressman
Irrawaddy-Rumors of New Catastrophe Sweep Rangoon
Irrawaddy-Food Theft by Homeless Children Increases
Uuiasiaonline- Junta throws more hurdles into the mix
Reporters Without borders-Call for release of magazine chief editor and blogger held for distributing aid to cyclone victims
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Drug threats from Burma
Bangkok Post- 06-17-08
If the government ever gets around to claiming the achievements of its first few months in office, one hopes that the war on drugs is part of the announcement. Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej kicked off a new phase in this so-called war last March 6. It may be the quietest 100-day campaign in the country's history. In fact, though, use of illicit and dangerous drugs has risen since the government took office in February.
More dangerously, however, there have been changes at the top of the Burmese drug cartels. New and aggressive gang leaders have made it clear that they see Thailand, and particularly Thai young people, as targets of sales pitches for both narcotics and huge new stockpiles of methamphetamines, or ya ba.
Whether by plan or good fortune, the new battle against drugs has come at the right time. There is good reason to note just how quietly it has proceeded. The shamefully violent war on drugs by the former Thaksin Shinawatra government in 2003 was little more than a police slaughter of hundreds of petty drug dealers and innocent bystanders. Most, perhaps all of the major drug peddlers, were able to lay low and await the inevitable end of the crackdown.
The current campaign must be lawful, but it must also be more efficient. Getting small-time dealers off village and city streets is fine, but any effective attack on drug-dealers must take aim at the major suppliers.
Unfortunately, there is little doubt who sits at the very top of the drug supply chains. The odious leaders of the United Wa State Army have returned to their dirty business. The death last August of long-time Wa leader, Pao Yu-Hua, cleared the path for other methamphetamine merchants within the UWSA.
The UWSA warlords, Pao Yu-Hsiang and Wei Hsueh-kang, charged by a New York State court with operating a heroin production network and trafficking outlets in the Golden Triangle, are suspected to be in charge of drug peddling for this enterprise. They have, however, defiantly increased their stockpiles of illicit drugs. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said that the Wa increased opium cultivation by 20% in Burma last year. In one of their rare public discussions of intelligence information, Thai anti-narcotics officials said the Wa had stockpiled millions of the addictive methamphetamine pills along the Thai border. The drug peddlers foresaw higher holiday sales.
The Burmese regime, as always, remains unpredictable at best. It has staged drug crackdowns, but never has taken action against major peddlers in their midst. Thailand and the US, among others, have indicted Mr Bigs such as Pao and Wei, but the Rangoon authorities protect them _ so long as they remain in Burma.
But the good news is they are unprotected outside the reach of the military junta. Ho Chun T'ing, a Wa mafia chief near the top of the UWSA narco-trafficking empire, was arrested by Hong Kong authorities last year. He still is in jail in the Chinese special region. His detention presents an excellent chance for Thai anti-narcotics officers to obtain a treasure trove of information on the inner workings of the drug cartels on our western border.
The goals of the war on drugs are simple enough: Clear the drug peddlers from school yards and community streets, and take away the freedom and profits of organisers. A long conversation with the only high-ranking Wa drug gang member in custody is a good opportunity to advance. Then the government could start presenting news of its achievements in this important area.
http://www.bangkokp ost.com/News/ 17Jun2008_ news21.php
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U.N. On Burma Human Rights
VOA-12 June 2008
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The United Nations has released a sobering report on the continuing human rights abuses in Burma.
The U.S. shares the report's conclusion that the referendum on the Burmese military junta's draft constitution was not credible. The referendum was conducted in an environment of fear and intimidation. The regime criminalized criticism of the referendum process and otherwise severely restricted freedom of speech, assembly, and association. These restrictions prevented the Burmese public from freely debating the draft constitution in order to make an informed decision.
The U.N. report noted that there are at least one-thousand nine-hundred political prisoners in Burma. The most well known of these is Nobel laureate and National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. According to the U.N., most of Burma's political prisoners are held under appalling conditions. A case in point is Paw U Tun, a member of the 88 Generation pro-democracy students group. He has reportedly suffered from a severe eye infection while in detention. He requested medical assistance but was allegedly refused immediate care by authorities.
Finally, there are still over one-million Burmese who have not received disaster assistance because the government has obstructed international efforts to reach them. The United States remains committed to helping victims of this humanitarian disaster and calls on the Burmese junta to uphold its pledge to allow international humanitarian workers and supplies access to cyclone-affected areas.
Amnesty International reports that thousands of Burmese people have been forced from official shelters and given approximately six-thousand- six-hundred kyat [Burmese currency] and two small portions of rice to return to their ruined villages. Forcibly relocating storm victims in Burma without access to adequate relief aid, said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, will put them at even greater risk.
The Burmese government needs to act immediately to allow international aid workers access to all of the cyclone victims. The U.S. continues to urge Burma's military junta to release all political prisoners and begin talks with democratic and ethnic minority leaders on a transition to democracy.
http://www.voanews. com/uspolicy/ 2008-06-16- voa1.cfm
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Burma cyclone: UN tackles dengue threat
Ian MacKinnon, south-east Asia correspondent
guardian.co. uk,
Monday June 16 2008
A family in the Irrawaddy delta, where aid workers are concerned about mosquitos carrying dengue fever that breed in pools of standing water. Photograph: AP
The UN is to launch a massive programme to combat dengue fever in Burma amid fears that victims of the deadly cyclone could be more vulnerable to the disease.
Hundreds of volunteers will fan out across high-risk areas of the main city, Rangoon, and the Irrawaddy delta from tomorrow to tackle the mosquitoes that carry the disease, which is known as "break-bone fever" because of the joint pain it causes.
The target of the dengue taskforce will be the mosquito larvae that breed in pools of standing water during the monsoon, which started just as Cyclone Nargis struck more than six weeks ago.
The UN estimates 134,000 people were killed by the fierce winds and accompanying storm surge from the Bay of Bengal that washed over low-lying areas of the delta, which is home to up to 2.4 million.
After a faltering international response to the tragedy, during which the country's military regime barred most disaster management experts, aid agencies say they have now reached 1.3 million victims.
The Burmese authorities continue to show their suspicion, arresting their own citizens who tried to deliver aid. At the weekend, Zaw Thet Htway, a prominent government critic, was seized as he distributed relief to survivors.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN children's agency are taking the lead in tackling the threat of dengue, which is endemic in Burma even in a normal year.
Leonard Ortega, the WHO's dengue expert in Burma, said the number of cases discovered this year roughly mirrored that of other years, with 781 recorded in Rangoon and 481 in the delta.
But now is the danger period. After the cyclone and the onset of the monsoon, it takes a number of weeks for the mosquitoes to start breeding in the pools.
"It is a major concern not just because this is dengue season, but because of the displacement of the population, the destruction of houses and because people are more exposed to mosquitoes," said Ortega said. "We fear that there will be more cases this year."
Tonnes of pesticide are to be added to water containers where mosquitoes are likely to breed as part of the aid operation, which will begin in Rangoon before spreading out across the delta over the next ten days.
Up to 1,700 volunteers from the Burma Red Cross and other organisations will visit the delta, laying the pesticide and advising people to dispose of old tyres, cans and bottles where water can gather.
The WHO has provided 200 "fogging" machines that spread pesticide in places where dengue cases have been reported. The fumes can kill adult mosquitoes, but not the larvae.
This article was first published on guardian.co. uk on Monday June 16 2008. It was last updated at 16:15 on June 16 2008.
http://www.guardian .co.uk/world/ 2008/jun/ 16/cyclonenargis .burma
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Too little too late for Burma
By Jane Elliott
Health reporter, BBC News 06-16-08
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Too little is being done to help the people of Burma and their health is suffering, an aid expert has warned.
Kaz de Jong, head of mental health services for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), said that five weeks after the cyclone there are still remote villages in the Irrawaddy Delta that have received no help.
Other areas, he says, have received just a small amount of aid.
A veteran dealing with natural disasters, Dr de Jong has coordinated services for the Pakistan earthquake and the Asian tsunami, but he says this is the worst response he has ever seen.
More help needed
"I hardly saw any care-giving personnel, which is a big contrast to all other natural disasters, and I have been at most of them within the last 15 years.
"We have been in the area since day two and, despite the fact that we have done large scale distribution, there are still substantial medical needs.
"This needs to be addressed quickly."
Dr de Jong said he was shocked to find that some villages were still cut off.
"These people had been without food and medical care for a month.
"Unfortunately this is not the exception, and that is very worrying."
Focused on survival
He added that the numbers needing help far exceeded MSF's capacity.
"There is a big gap - there are other organisations giving, but it is not enough. It is just not enough.
"The people are extremely resilient and extremely cunning in surviving, but it is extremely difficult."
He said the normal coping mechanisms of the community would be to rally round and support each other, but that in many areas the cyclone had destroyed this caring and supportive network, making people more vulnerable.
"The communities are trying to care for each other, but their hands are full.
"How can you care for someone who has lost eight family members, when you have lost five."
Dr de Jong spent two weeks in Burma, also known as Myanmar, and he said the inhabitants were showing signs of mental trauma.
He said if more help were available now, some long term mental health problems could be avoided.
"People are severely affected by what has happened to them, especially in those areas where whole families have been washed away.
"They have watched their whole households be destroyed.
"They question whether they should continue, what is the meaning of life.
"They are not suicidal, but there are moments in life when you question the meaning of it and this is certainly one of those moments," he said.
"One woman came up, her family had been completely wiped out, she was the only survivor.
"She said 'I love you for your food distribution, but you know I don't feel like eating'.
"You can put food in front of people, but they need the motivation to eat it.
Mental stress
Dr de Jong said his teams were seeing signs of mental stress.
"Nearly everybody is plagued by sleeping problems. Their sleep is being disturbed by nightmares, they are also waking up early and not being able to sleep because they are very worried about everything. It is affecting children and adults.
"And if the wind starts blowing they get a sort of feeling they are back in the cyclone.
"Many people have complained about not having any energy," he said.
Dr de Jong said his clinic were also seeing general health problems such high as blood pressure and unspecified aches and pains.
"About 40% of the complaints are difficult to diagnose in the sense that they are unclear - they are not all stress related, but one of the signs of people being under stress is that they have all sorts of unclear physical complaints.
"This all points to people finding life very difficult and being very vulnerable.
"It is this vulnerability that worries us, because the fact that people are vulnerable and also suffering from the signs of stress may affect their functioning and at this stage they need to be fully functional to protect their survival and reconstruct their lives."
He said with help most would recover, but some would need more intensive interventions.
"The majority will recover by themselves after a very tough period. Some need a helping hand in the form of physical and/or mental support.
"But after some months there are a small minority who find it difficult to reconstruct their lives and put energy into their future - they need counselling, psychiatric support and some even medication.
Dr de Jong his teams are already building an infrastructure.
"We are not just assessing needs and walking off. We are in the process of training community health workers, and counsellors - people who are locally recruited.
"They are our eyes and ears.
"We also get them to draw attention to people who need help.
"We stay as long as we are needed. What we saw in Pakistan and after the tsunami was that after one year the situation stabilised and the role of MSF as medical emergency organisation became less relevant."
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/health/ 7450259.stm
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Burma arrests 245 drug traffickers
Yahoo news-Monday June 16, 05:37 PM
Authorities in Burma arrested 245 drug traffickers in May, state media said, as the world's second-largest opium producer sought to show it was cracking down on narcotics.
Military, police and customs officers also seized 76.78kg of opium, 1.19kg of heroin, 3.43kg of marijuana, 93,867 stimulant tablets and other narcotics, a state-run newspaper said.
"Action was taken against 245 persons - 201 men and 44 women in 158 cases," the New Light of Myanmar reported ahead of the United Nations anti-drugs and trafficking day on June 26.
Burma is the second largest opium-producing nation after Afghanistan.
The military government has promised that Burma will be opium free by 2014, and regularly burns drug hauls to convince the world it is tackling rampant drug production.
But after years of sharp decline, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported last year that opium production in 2006 jumped by 46 per cent, blaming high-level collusion, corruption, and porous borders.
The United States, a vocal critic of the junta, has also said several hundred million amphetamine tablets are produced in Burma every year and shipped by gangs to neighbouring China and Thailand.
Even China, one of Burma's few allies, has publicly pressured the regime to crack down on narco-trafficking.
http://nz.news. yahoo.com/ 080616/9/ 655c.html
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Another aid worker arrested in Burma
World News Australia-Monday, 16 June, 2008
Landslides caused by heavy rains have pounded Burma's famed "Valley of Rubies" - the source of some of the world's most prized precious stones, state media says.
The landslides struck just six weeks after deadly Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma's Irrawaddy Delta and the main city of Rangoon, leaving more than 133,000 dead and 2.4 million in need of humanitarian aid.
The latest natural disaster hit far from the cyclone zone, near the northern town of Mogok, 675km north of Rangoon.
The landslides caused some injuries and property damage, but the government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar newspaper gave no details.
"Yeni creek of Mogok overflowed and that caused landslide. There were injured and damages on account of the landslide," the newspaper said.
Authorities in the central city of Mandalay told AFP they had not received any details on the landslides, citing the difficulties of communication in the remote region.
The paper said torrential rains had soaked Mogok town overnight and on Friday morning.
For the past 700 years, Mogok's "Valley of Rubies" has been mined for "pigeon blood" rubies - considered the finest in the world - sapphires and other rare gems.
A top-notch ruby can cost more per-carat than a diamond, and Burma's ruling junta is increasingly exploiting the gems as a key source of income, auctioning them off several times a year.
Despite Western sanctions on Burma over the regime's failure to introduce democratic reforms, the auctions attract buyers from China, Thailand and other Asian nations, who reportedly spend upwards of $US100 million ($A106.9 million) at each sale.
Source: AAP
http://news. sbs.com.au/ worldnewsaustral ia/landslides_ hit_burmas_ valley_of_ rubies_549248
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Burmese Generals Deserve to be Flogged: US Congressman
By LALIT K JHA / WASHINGTON
Irrawaddy-Monday, June 16, 2008
It is the Burmese generals, who have indulged in gross violations of human rights against its own citizens and prevented the establishment of democracy in the country, that need to be flogged and not Aung San Suu Kyi, an influential US Congressman has said.
A Burmese woman holds a candle next to a picture of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a rally to celebrate her 63rd birthday in Bucheon, west of Seoul, South Korea. (Photo: AP)
"It is the SPDC generals, brutal dictators with their crimes against humanity and campaigns of ethnic cleansing, who deserve to be stripped of power and placed under arrest for many years to come," Congressman Joe Pitts said on June 12.
Pitts, a Republican, who represents Pennsylvania' s Lancaster Chester and Berks counties, made the speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, after Burmese state-run media said Aung San Suu Kyi deserved to be beaten like an errant child for threatening national security.
"Madam Speaker, I rise today over the comments made by the brutal generals, military dictators in Burma, saying that Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and rightful leader elected by the people, deserves to be flogged. Come again?" Pitts said.
Pitts said these are the generals who stonewalled for weeks and refused to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to get to the people after Cyclone Nargis.
These are the generals who order their military to attack ethnic groups throughout the country and in 1988 issued a blood assimilation order to their troops to marry or rape the ethnic women in order to "purify" the ethnics’ blood lines, he said.
Pitts alleged the generals forcibly conscript children to serve as soldiers in their army and plant land mines around the villages they attack so that returning villagers get maimed or killed.
The authoritarian rulers pillage or plunder the resources of Burma so they can have huge weddings with millions of dollars of jewels around the necks of their daughters, Pitts said.
Meanwhile on June 12, the US Senate approved renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003.
"Last month, the whole world got a close look at the SPDC's contempt for human life when a devastating cyclone hit Burma," said Senator Mitch McConnell from Kentucky.
"No one can say with certainty what the full toll of death and destruction is from the storm, but we do know the junta greatly compounded matters through inaction and its utter disregard for the Burmese people," McConnell said before the Senate decided to renew the sanctions.
This bill is the same legislation the Senate has passed in prior years. If enacted, it would extend import sanctions for another year unless the regime takes a number of tangible steps toward democracy and reconciliation.
He said the SPDC severely restricted the entry of relief workers into Burma. Four US navy ships carrying much-needed supplies for Burmese people were turned away time and again by the regime, he alleged.
McConnell said: "Estimates put as many as 135,000 people dead or missing after the cyclone hit on May 3, and many of those deaths must lie at the feet of the SPDC for its outrageous acts of criminal neglect."
The bill, however, would not hinder or block US efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Burma in the wake of the cyclone. This bill imposes sanctions on trade, not humanitarian aid, McConnell said.
"America is a friend to the people of Burma. That is why we stand against Burma's tyrannical ruling regime," he said. Besides McConnell, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, were its co-sponsors.
http://www.irrawadd y.org/highlight. php?art_id= 12763
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Rumors of New Catastrophe Sweep Rangoon
By MIN LWIN
Irrawaddy-Monday, June 16, 2008
Now all hope of humanitarian intervention in Burma’s cyclone-devastated regions has vanished, rumors of another imminent natural catastrophe are sweeping Rangoon.
In the weeks following the cyclone, as US, British and French ships loaded with aid stood ready in international waters off Burma, many were certain that the three Western powers would decide to launch unilateral relief operations. Rumors spread widely that help was on its way.
Small statues of Buddha donated by pilgrims are lined up on a table at Rangoon's landmark Shwedagon Pagoda. The current rumor in the city said that another catastrophe would strike and floodwater would reach Shwedagon Pagoda. (Photo: AP)
Those rumors came to nothing. Now, others have replaced them. The most fanciful relates that three senior monks, Myaungmya Sayadaw, Bassein Sayadaw and Hlaing Tharyar Sayadaw, dreamt that another catastrophe, either another big storm or an earthquake, would strike the country, and that floodwater would reach Rangoon’s revered Shwedagon Pagoda.
A nurse at Rangoon Western Hospital said: “Everyone is talking with fear about another big storm.”
One resident said the rumor was causing a lot of uncertainty in Rangoon, where memories of last month’s cyclone were still vivid.
Shortly after the cyclone hit on May 2, the regime’s mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar, accused unnamed Western countries of being responsible for the rumors then circulating within Burma.
Dr Than Tun, the late influential historian and outspoken critic of the military junta, once wrote that Burmese oral history related that Sri Ksetra, an early Burmese capital, fell when rumors caused mass panic and hysteria.
The current rumors have also been fuelled by official forecasts of squalls in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal, with rain and winds reaching 50 miles (80 kilometers) an hour along the Mon and Tenasserim coasts.
http://www.irrawadd y.org/highlight. php?art_id= 12777
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Food Theft by Homeless Children Increases
By VIOLET CHO
Irrawaddy-Monday, June 16, 2008
Increasing numbers of Burmese children, some as young as 10 years old, are stealing food to offset starvation, say Rangoon residents.
Rangoon residents say the theft of food and other goods has increased in the former capital and elsewhere in cyclone-damaged areas.
Children are seen in a village that was hit by Cyclone Nargis in the town of Dedaye in the Irrawaddy delta. An estimated 1 million of the survivors are children, according to UNICEF. (Photo: AFP)
Food products at one large department store in downtown Rangoon are being stolen by children in broad daylight, said the store’s owner who said he chased after one 13-year-old boy, but was then touched by the boy’s plight.
“I ended up providing food for him when he told me that he was from a village in Hlaing Tharyar Township,” he said. “The boy came to find a job in the city for his family, and he stole food from the shop because he was hungry.”
He said more children are begging for handouts around the city while others sneak inside people’s homes to steal anything they can sell.
Meanwhile UNICEF and other aid groups working in Burma say there is cause to worry about the fate of children in the cyclone-affected area.
“We have deep concern over the future of children who have lost their parents and family members,” said a Burmese staffer with UNICEF.
A recent decision by the Burmese junta that ordered storm refugees to return to the location of their homes, many totally destroyed, was a decision that threatens the physical and mental health of many children, aid workers said. Children who have lost their parents and relatives are especially vulnerable and need extra care at this time in their lives.
Children who have no adults to care for them usually end up following people who they have met during the relief operations, they say.
According to Rangoon residents, many children from the cyclone-affected area end up working at teashops and restaurants where they receive food and very small salaries.
“I felt bad when I saw people take parentless children to work,” said a Rangoon woman, who said she saw two boys from the Irrawaddy delta as young as eight years old working in a teashop.
One 9-year-old boy who lost his parents and was begging near Rangoon’s main train station, told The Irrawaddy, “I can’t go back to my village anymore. There are no people who will give me food, and I do not know where my parents and brothers and sisters are.”
The boy said he befriended a 14-year-old boy who had also lost his parents during the storm.
“I decided to come to Rangoon after I realized that I lost my family,” the 14-year-old boy said. “I didn’t know what I should do or where to go. I came here with another friend who also lost his family.”
The older boy said, “I felt pity on him [the 9-year-old boy] when I saw him crying near the train station. I asked him to come with me. I promised myself that I would try to help him, but I can only give him one meal a day, so he has to beg for more food if he is hungry.”
The UN children’s fund has established more than 30 children support centers and about 60 dormitories for orphans, according to a UNICEF statement.
However, the number is not sufficient to meet the needs of homeless children who need assistance and shelter.
The Burmese government’s effort to care for homeless children has been haphazard and disorganized, say observers. The government is still rejecting offers to provide humanitarian assistance from many international aid groups.
“I can not imagine the future of these homeless children,” said the editor of a Rangoon journal.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis affected about 2.4 million people. An estimated 1 million of those are children, according to UNICEF.
Irrawaddy correspondents Kyi Wai and Aung Thet Wine contributed to this story.
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article1. php?art_id= 12778
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Junta throws more hurdles into the mix
By Khin Ohmar
Guest Contributor
Published: June 17, 2008 Upiasia online-
Bangkok, Thailand — Six weeks after Cyclone Nargis struck the coast of Burma, the international community is still wrangling with the Burmese military regime to negotiate a substantial relief effort in the region. Despite vociferous political and legal debate, there has been no intervention and many are still without international aid.
The private donations from the people of Burma have dried to a pitiful trickle thanks to government restrictions and their own poverty, and the State Peace and Development Council has imposed new regulations that will only serve to impede the humanitarian efforts.
An influential think tank, the Economist Intelligence Unit, has stated in its June 2008 report that there is no prospect of any outside intervention in Burma, despite the junta’s appalling handling of the crisis. Noting the debate surrounding the application of “responsibility to protect,” the report concludes there is a general consensus that an intervention might be counterproductive.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright commented that the willingness of states to intervene has been seriously damaged by “the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq,” and notes that the understanding of state sovereignty as inviolable is gaining popularity.
As the junta loudly claimed that the United States could not be trusted, the United States publicly unloaded its ships full of aid in Thailand. U.S. First Lady Laura Bush urged the regime to grant full access to the international community last Thursday, while the New Light of Myanmar announced that 900 foreign aid workers have been allowed into the country.
The government’s Union Solidarity and Development Association has finally been mobilized to be seen to assist with the relief and reconstruction effort, as official relief camps are closed and foreign doctors sent home. Amidst this jostling, the United Nations has announced that it has received only 44 percent (US$88.5 million) of the US$201.6 million that it requires to keep the relief effort going.
The Burmese authorities have made some ostensible attempts to curb cyclone-related corruption. Two local officials in Labutta have been charged with allegedly stealing aid materials donated to cyclone victims. On the other hand, the regime has itself been forcibly collecting paddy seeds and cattle from farmers to send to the delta in time for the imminent planting season.
In Kachin State, funds have been coerced from jade miners. Rumors abound that the authorities are embezzling such funds collected in the name of cyclone victims.
Cyclone Nargis poses very serious threats to the economic security of Burma. The scarcity of rice and oil has led to sharp increases in prices. Farmers in the stricken delta remain very uncertain about their future as they wait anxiously to find out if the regime will deliver the promised seeds and equipment.
The U.N. Economic and Social Council for Asia and the Pacific has announced that Burma urgently needs 1million gallons of diesel fuel in order to operate the machinery required to get all planting done in time to avert a food crisis. A junta minister, conversely, claims that rice production in the delta cannot be hampered by the cyclone’s damage.
Another immediate effect results from the lack of an effective cleanup operation: people in Mon State are avoiding eating fish in the belief that they have been eating the corpses of those killed by the cyclone. The price of fish has plummeted, while the costs of chicken and pork have soared. The villagers in Mon State have also been left with the responsibility of burying the bodies that wash up on their coast. The police, meanwhile, are reported to be taking any valuables from the bodies still floating at sea.
Residents of Bogalay in the Irrawaddy delta have reported the arrival of the first international aid in helicopters bearing U.N. and World Food Program logos. More than a month after the cyclone, one could expect these to be a common sight. There are now 10 U.N. helicopters deployed in Burma.
Desperation and anger at the regime’s obstruction of aid led 200 cyclone survivors from the East Dagon region of Rangoon to gather outside Red Cross offices on June 10. Compelled to take action out of sheer frustration at barely surviving on the aid provided by private donors, the victims were asking to receive international aid directly. Military intelligence agents and members of the USDA dispersed the crowd. Two volunteers in the relief effort, Kyaw Kyaw Than and Eaint Khaing Oo, a reporter for Ecovision, were arrested for supporting the cyclone victims’ calls.
Human Rights Watch has stated that it continues to receive reports of official interference in the delivery of aid. Such reports include those of international aid agencies being turned away at police checkpoints despite possessing authorization documents – documents that were then revoked without explanation. The Burmese authorities are clearly unwilling to trust any foreign presence and have assigned intelligence officers to accompany a joint mission of the Tripartite Core Group consisting of representatives from the military regime, ASEAN and the United Nations.
The junta has laid out guidelines for relief workers that are widely expected to hinder their efforts. Summoned to the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development, relief workers are to provide detailed plans of their movements and precise aid distributions. Plans must be approved by the SPDC and local authorities as well as by ASEAN and the United Nations. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has expressed concern that this bureaucracy will have an adverse effect on the delivery of aid. Human Rights Watch has similarly warned that the relief operation will be hampered yet further.
In contrast to the Chinese government’s willingness to grant the media increased freedom in the aftermath of Sichuan’s devastating earthquake, the regime has done everything in its power to strangle news coming out of the delta. Cameras, both video and still, as well as satellite dishes that can receive foreign news channels, have been confiscated in an attempt to shroud the situation in the region in darkness.
The authorities’ apparent reconstruction effort continues with the planned construction of a “storm-resistant model village” in Rangoon. International expertise will apply principles already utilised in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh to build a 40-house village including storm shelters, a water-distribution system and cyclone-resistant apartments. It is expected to be completed within two years.
As the international community struggles to get sufficient aid past the SPDC’s hurdles, the junta is closing its official relief camps and sending foreign doctors home. Currently, Medecins San Frontieres is able to report that though diseases are common in the cyclone-hit areas, there are “no outbreaks.” The United Nations has warned that 35,000 pregnant cyclone victims are in desperate need of suitable care.
(Khin Ohmar is coordinator of the Asia Pacific Peoples' Partnership on Burma, based in Thailand. She can be contacted at appartnership@ gmail.com. Her blog may be found at http://apppb. blogspot. com.)
http://upiasiaonlin e.com/Politics/ 2008/06/17/ junta_throws_ more_hurdles_ into_the_ mix/8539/
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Call for release of magazine chief editor and blogger held for distributing aid to cyclone victims
Reporters Without Border-Burma 16 June 2008
Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association condemn the arrest of Love Journal chief editor Zaw Thet Htwe on 13 June for assisting in the distribution of food and clothes in areas hit by Cyclone Nargis. While editor of the sports magazine First Eleven Journal in 2003, he was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death, and then pardoned by the supreme court.
“Zaw Thet Htwe is a respected journalist who was moved by the woes of his compatriots after the cyclone,” the two organisations said. “Banned by the military government’s censorship from writing openly about the tragedy in his magazine, he decided to act. We urge UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon to intercede with the Burmese authorities so that civilians distributing aid should no longer be treated as criminals, and so that the Burmese and international media should be allowed to operate freely in the cyclone-hit areas.”
At least eight journalists and one blogger are currently in prison in Burma.
Zaw Thet Htwe was arrested by members of the military police while with his seriously-ill mother in the central city of Minbu on 13 June. The police searched his home in Rangoon yesterday. His wife, fellow journalist Ma Khine Cho, told Democratic Voice of Burma, an exile radio station, that the police confiscated his mobile, phone, computer and various documents.
Like the comedian and blogger known as Zarganar, Zaw Thet Htwe had been helping to channel relief to the victims of the Cyclone Nargis. Zarganar was arrested on 4 June after talking to the foreign news media about the slowness of the relief efforts being organised by the military government.
A Rangoon-based journalist reported that the authorities have stepped up control of cameras in the delta region. Equipment has been seized from the home of private individuals for fear that it could be used to film or photograph victims.
A military court sentenced Zaw Thet Htwe and eight other people for “high treason” on 28 November 2003. The real reason for Zaw Thet Htwe’s arrest was the success of his football magazine and its independent line. The supreme court commuted his sentence to three years in prison on 12 May 2004 and he was finally released from Insein prison in January 2005.
Blogger Nay Phone Latt has meanwhile been transferred from cell No. 7 to cell No. 3 in Insein prison’s Building 1. During a recent interrogation session, the police threatened to bring other charges against him, in addition to the charge of possessing banned DVDs.
http://www.rsf. org/article. php3?id_article= 27508
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Inflation is the most regressive form of taxation and it hits the poor most. In Asia, roughly about a billion people are vulnerable to the food and fuel price increases.”
—Rajat M Nag, managing director general of Asian Development Bank
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