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Asian Tribune-AIPMC on European Parliamentary Caucus on Burma
CBC-Atlantic Canadians donate while coping with own floods
USA today- Burma Cyclone:84,500 deaths
ADN Kronos-Burma: Exiled opposition leader calls for meetings with China and India
Reliefweb-Burma drops new operating guidelines
Washington Post-Myanmar' s Monks Regroup After Killer Storm

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AIPMC on European Parliamentary Caucus on Burma
Wed, 2008-06-25 04:29

Kulal Lumpur, 25 June, (Asiantribune. com): The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), in a statement released to the press said that it welcomes the establishment of the European Parliamentary Caucus on Burma (EPCB), launched on 19 June 2008.

The statement added that the formation of the EPCB, consisting of Parliamentarians from eight European Countries, is encouraging and timely at a time when the situation in Myanmar / Burma is dire.

The AIPMC said that it recognizes the important work of many European governments and Parliamentarians over the years to bring about attention and pressure for democratic change in Myanmar.

The formation of the EPCB is a key step forward in pushing for stronger action on Myanmar from European governments, the European Union, the United Nations Security Council and other governmental and national institutions.

The Asean Caucus said that it looks forward to collaborating with the European Caucus, acknowledging that both Caucuses have the opportunity to complement and strengthen each other’s work.

Also AIPMC said in the statement that while AIPMC has made small but significant strides, on matters relating to Myanmar’s democratic and political situation, it believes there can be much more impact on the crisis in Myanmar and positive changes can be achieved through effective cooperation between the two regional Caucuses.

- Asian Tribune -
http://www.asiantri bune.com/ ?q=node/11914

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Donations for Chinese earthquake far surpass Burma assistance
Last Updated: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 | 4:59 PM ET Comments30Recommend20
By Lianne Elliott CBC News

Canadians have flooded the Red Cross with donations for Chinese earthquake relief, giving nearly $15 million more to that disaster relief fund than to survivors of the Burmese cyclone.

The Canadian Red Cross has so far received $17.2 million in donations for its earthquake fund, with $100,000 pouring in on the weekend, in anticipation of the federal government's announcement that it would match donations given to earthquake relief that arrived by Monday.

By comparison, the Red Cross's Burma fund, which fell under the Canadian government's matching program as well, has so far received $2.76 million from Canadians.

Christina Lopes, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Red Cross, said the difference might be explained by Canada's large Chinese population, many living in Vancouver, a city that is itself earthquake-prone.

In addition, the media were quick to relay the tragic stories of the earthquake, which struck the central Sichuan province on May 12, killing nearly 70,000 people and leaving millions homeless,"The pictures from the earthquake were so emotional, they likely provoked an incredible outpouring from people, from Canadians," Lopes said Tuesday.

Fears about relief reaching needy Burmese

In comparison to the Chinese disaster, many foreign journalists were barred from entering Burma after the May 3 cyclone struck, devastating the Irrawaddy Delta and the large city of Rangoon. More than 84,000 people died in the disaster and 54,000 are still missing.

Lopes said Canadian donors may have hesitated to give to Burma because of fears the ruling military junta in the impoverished country wasn't allowing aid across its borders, and wasn't delivering foreign supplies and money to the people who needed it most.

But Lopes noted that the Red Cross, which has a branch in Burma, has been able to reach survivors directly, and has been getting airplanes with humanitarian aid into the country every day.

Lopes also noted that there are far fewer people of Burmese descent living in Canada than of Chinese descent, which might have added to the difference in donation totals.

Atlantic Canadians donate while coping with own floods

www.cbc.ca 06-24-08

Lopes said the Red Cross is grateful for Canadians' generosity. She noted that about $100,000 was given from people in Atlantic Canada, who were coping with their own floods in New Brunswick when the Burmese and Chinese disasters occurred.

"It's really quite extraordinary how much people there gave," she said.

With the money it received, the Canadian Red Cross has, among other things, managed to send 7,250 large tents to China to house families left homeless. The organization has also sent 2,000 shelter kits containing tools, tarps, ropes, shovels and other items to Burma, provided to them by the federally funded Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The Red Cross hopes that Canadians will keep giving to the disaster funds, even though the Canadian government is no longer matching donations. Lopes said there is a great deal of rebuilding work to be done in both countries.

"Now the real work begins, so we hope Canadians will continue to be generous," Lopes said. "There is work to be done for years to come."

$12 million of China donations will be matched

CIDA offered to match all Chinese earthquake donations made by individuals by June 23, the six-week anniversary of the quake. The government promised to match all Burma donations until June 13, the six-week anniversary of that disaster.

Individual donations represented about $12 million of the $17.2 million in donations the Red Cross received for China, and those will all be matched, Lopes said. The rest of $17.2 million came from corporations, the federal government ($1 million) and from provincial governments ($2 million from B.C. and $1 million from Ontario).

About $1.6 million of the Red Cross Burma donations will be matched, Lopes added. The federal government gave about $500,000 to the Red Cross's Burma fund.

World Vision Canada, by contrast, did not see a difference between its Burma and China donations.

By the June 23 matching deadline for China, the charity said it had received $4.4 million from Canadians. By comparison, when the June 13 deadline arrived for Burma, World Vision Canada had received $4.3 million from Canadians.

Médecins Sans Frontières Canada, meanwhile, didn't earmark money for relief efforts in China, although it does have a Burmese fund that received $310,000 from Canadians. Fundraising director Rebecca Davies said there was a spike in general donations to the organization once both the China and Burma disasters hit.

http://www.cbc. ca/canada/ story/2008/ 06/24/china- donations. html

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Burma cyclone: 84,500 deaths
USA Today, 06-24-08

By Khin Maung Win, AFP/Getty Images
 A survivor of Cyclone Nargis is seen in a makeshift shelter in Tontay.

Rangoon, Burma (AP) — Burma said Tuesday that 84,500 people perished in last month's cyclone, up from the last official announcement that 77,700 had died in the devastating storm.

Meanwhile, a representative from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the regional bloc that includes Burma, said a recent assessment tour found the needs of the storm's survivors were being met.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu said in a speech that the official death toll now stood at 84,537 dead, with 53,836 still missing. The update was the first since May 17, when officials said 77,738 had died and 55,917 were missing.

The increased total represents victims of the storm itself rather then any new casualties due to disease or starvation in the cyclone's aftermath, he said, stating that the assessment found no such post-cyclone deaths.

"On the part of the government, there have been less and less requests for emergency assistance coming from communities and local authorities, " he added. "Various reports indicate that the worst of the crisis may have stabilized, although it is by no means over."

FIND MORE STORIES IN: United Nations | Buddhist | Burma | Irrawaddy | Rangoon | Red Crescent Societies | International Federation of Red Cross

The casualty toll accords roughly with an estimate made last month by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3 cut a swath of destruction through the delta and the region around the country's largest city, Rangoon.

A major international effort is underway to aid some 2.4 million people affected by the natural disaster, the worst in Burma's modern history.

This includes a special three-party task force that has completed an assessment of the damage and needs of survivors.

A final report on its findings is due around the third week of July.

The report is widely expected to put an optimistic light on the crisis, while presenting some criticism of the regime for hindering the international aid effort.

Some 350 representatives of the United Nations, the Burma government and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — ASEAN — have been traveling to villages in the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta to accumulate information.

"Access was unlimited and unfettered. The basic needs of the victims are being met for their early recovery," Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN secretary-general and head of the bloc's humanitarian task force in Burma, said at a meeting Tuesday in Rangoon.

Preliminary findings by the so-called Tripartite Core Group indicated that 45% of those affected are receiving food through humanitarian distribution, said people who attended a survey presentation.

The findings also indicated that 42% of all food stocks were destroyed in the 380 affected villages that were surveyed.

The survey's data on shelter, published on a U.N. website, indicated that more than 83% of those people surveyed were now living in their own homes. Many people had taken shelter at Buddhist temples and government- run refugee camps in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone.

More than 90% of those surveyed said they still required assistance to rebuild.

The collected data "will lead to a credible and independent damage assessment report," said a press release from the tripartite group.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.usatoday .com/news/ world/2008- 06-24-Burma- cyclone-deaths_ N.htm

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Burma: Exiled opposition leader calls for meetings with China and India
www.adnkronos. com

Bangkok, 24 June (AKI) - The prime minister of the Burmese opposition's government-in- exile, Sein Win, has asked for a meeting with respresentatives from the governments of India and China.

In an interview with the Thai-based Irrawaddy news website, Win said that he was asking for a meeting with the leaders of the "countries that play an important role for a peaceful solution to the political crisis" in Burma.

Win said that it was support from these two Asian giants was "necessary".

"I want to travel to India and China and talk with their government officials and meet their people and present our views," he said adding that he was undeterred by previous attempts to open discussions with New Delhi and Beijing which has so far not produced any positive results.

He said that the two countries "are very elusive because they are afraid any contact with us could jeopardize their relationship with the (ruling) military junta."

However he added that the desire for stability, prosperity and dialogue could become the basis of talks between these two government and the Burmese government-in- exile.

"Since 1990, I could not go to China and India," said Sein Win, who in an interview last year said he would like to have his government-in- exile located in India, rather than in Washington DC.

Win is a cousin of Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is currently under house arrest. Suu Kyi is the leader of the National League of Democracy.

Win said the recent referendum conducted by the Burmese military junta was "unacceptable" not just in the way in which it was conducted but also in the basis of the referendum.

The referendum was for the people of Burma to vote on whether to adopt a new constitution. The referendum was carried out on 10 May despite the devastation caused in Burma by Cyclone Nargis just days before.

The military-drafted new constitution also bars Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy from taking part in elections in 2010. Suu Kyi led the NLD to a landslide victory in elections in 1990 but the party was never allowed to take office.

http://www.adnkrono s.com/AKI/ English/Politics /?id=1.0. 2281967506

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Burma drops new operating guidelines
Source: The Irrawaddy
Date: 24 Jun 2008
Reliefweb 06-24-08
By WAI MOE

The United Nations agencies and international nongovernmental organizations will return to the old operating guidelines in effect before Burma issued new regulations on June 10, in agreement with the Burmese authorities, a UN agency said on Monday.

According to a report by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Burmese military junta issued new operating guidelines on June 10 for UN agencies and international nongovernmental organizations.

But following a meeting of the Tripartite Core Group (TCG) made up of the Burmese regime, Asean and the UN, it was agreed to revert to the regulations in effect before June 10.

Under the policy currently in place, all visa requests from UN agencies and NGOs will be handled by the TCG and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Requests by UN agencies and NGOs for travel authorization will again be handled by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.

Meanwhile, Burma’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu informed a meeting of government and foreign aid workers that that the official death toll now stood at 84,537 dead, with 53,836 still missing.

As of June 19, more than 230 visas had been granted to UN international staff in response to Cyclone Nargis, and more than 200 operational UN staff had travelled to the affected areas, the report noted.

The report said the Asean roundtable group was scheduled to meet on Tuesday in Rangoon to hear a Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) team report based on data collected in 30 affected townships in the Irrawaddy delta.

More than 1,000 schools are still in need of construction or repair, although 256 primary schools in the Irrawaddy delta and 166 primary schools in Rangoon had been repaired, the UN said in its report.

The report said 310,000 plastic sheets had been distributed to some of the 2.4 million people affected by Nargis.

‘Accounting for distributions continues to be challenging with distributions difficult to track in all areas,’ the report said. ‘Obtaining pipeline data from cluster agencies and keeping it up-to-date remains critical.’

The embargo placed on local procurement of rice has required agencies to obtain rice from outside of the country and is now a priority, the report noted. Frequent population movements make the targeting of food assistance challenging, although 9,197 metric tons of food aid had been distributed to 729,000 beneficiaries.

The international sector had contributed US $30 million, including US $10 million from UNICEF; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, $3 million; and Total Oil, $2 million.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contributed an additional $3 million to the World Food Program.

About 66 percent of the UN’s funding appeal for $201 million had been received as of June 23, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the use of US military aircraft to airlift cyclone relief supplies from Thailand to Burma ended on June 22, after 40 days of operation. A military press release said the estimated cost of the operation and the supplies was more than $13 million.

http://www.reliefwe b.int/rw/ RWB.NSF/db900SID /PANA-7FWHZM? OpenDocument

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Myanmar's Monks Regroup After Killer Storm
Discussion Policy
The Associated Press
Washington Post-Monday, June 23, 2008; 1:30 PM

YANGON, Myanmar -- In helping others, Myanmar's saffron-robed Buddhist monks have helped themselves.

The monks' critical role in providing relief after Cyclone Nargis has galvanized their ranks and strengthened their political voice _ just months after the junta quashed the democracy uprising spearheaded by the monks last fall.

The monks have channeled aid materials into stricken regions and turned monasteries into soup kitchens and refugee camps since the May 2-3 storm.

Their outreach to survivors _ many of whom received little or no government help _ highlighted the monks' power and the possibility they could clash again with Myanmar's ruling forces. Some monks are even building secret stashes of makeshift weapons, clerics say.

While Buddhism orders its clergy to shun violence and politics, monks in Myanmar and elsewhere in Asia have a history of militancy. The monk Saya San became a national hero in the 1930s by leading a revolt against the British colonialists who hanged him after fielding 12,000 troops to suppress his peasant army.

In more recent times, monks were at the forefront of a 1988 uprising against the junta and led mass street demonstrations which the military crushed last fall.

An expert on Myanmar affairs, retired Rutgers University professor Josef Silverstein, said the monks' post-storm mobilization is consistent with beliefs of Buddhist in the country.

"These beliefs didn't disappear because the military hit them over the head last year," he said by telephone. "The monks are angry and they're seeing that no one else is stepping forward" to lead relief efforts _ or political opposition.

A Yangon monk _ one of a dozen interviewed by The Associated Press _ said it was impossible to "close our eyes to a government that cares so little for the people that it allows them to suffer and die." He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the intense government scrutiny of monks and the sensitivity of discussing anti-government action in this tightly controlled nation.

His monastery has collected and distributed truckloads of blankets, tarpaulins and food to storm survivors. And, like hundreds of other monasteries throughout Myanmar's storm-struck southwest, it also became a temporary shelter for those who lost their homes.

Short and wiry with fiery eyes, the monk spoke in hushed but urgent tones as he blamed the ruling generals for failing to adequately warn people of the cyclone, which killed at least 78,000 and left an additional 56,000 missing.

He also blamed government restrictions on foreign aid and humanitarian workers for putting millions of survivors at risk of starvation and disease.

"As monks, it's our responsibility to fight for a change," said the monk, as he fingered a scar that he said came from a melee with authorities during last September's crackdown.

He displayed part of a secret cache, consisting of a half-dozen slingshots, and said he was working with monks in several cities to collect more weapons for storage at other secret locations. Most of them were rudimentary devices patched together from everyday objects such as bamboo rods and bicycle spokes and chains, he said, declining to give numbers and other details for security reasons.

The extent of the weapons gathering could not be independently confirmed.

But other monks interviewed in Yangon and Mandalay said they had heard of colleagues building weapons stashes, though they stressed they were not hoarding weapons themselves.

Monks are also trying to obtain guns to make any clashes "less one-sided," said the Yangon monk.

At least 31 people were killed when troops opened fire on demonstrators in Yangon last year, according to the United Nations.

The "Saffron Revolution," which took its name from the color of the monks' traditional robes and began as a protest against high prices, was the largest show of dissent against the military regime in nearly two decades.

The junta's response was swift and stern. Monks were dragged from their monasteries in overnight raids, beaten, tortured and imprisoned, monks and human rights groups say. An unknown number remain behind bars, while many fled into exile. Those who stayed kept a low profile.

Inside the region hit hardest by Cyclone Nargis, the low-lying Irrawaddy delta, the homeless streamed into monasteries. Often the sole structures to survive the storm's 120 mph winds and towering waves, monasteries quickly became de facto refugee camps and aid distribution centers.

Even as the government clamped down on the flow of foreign assistance, monks worked to ferry vital supplies into the delta.

"Helping the people makes us stronger," said U Sumana, a 30-year-old monk from Mandalay, hundreds of miles north of the affected areas.

In his dormitory, piles of donated clothing and hundreds of bags of rice sit in neat stacks among bed rolls and clotheslines hung with the saffron robes. His monastery has organized two trips to the delta to distribute donations and a third is in the works, he said.

Since the storm, authorities have tried to play down the monks' relief efforts, even ordering newspapers not to publish stories on the clerics' work with storm victims.

The junta has tried to press individuals to give through government channels. But due in part to the respect monks command in Myanmar society, many donors still opt to give through the monasteries.

A wealthy businessman from Yangon who recently donated hundreds of cooking pans and woks to a city monastery called his choice "a simple matter of trust."

"We know the monks don't steal and that everything we give them will get to the people who need it," said the man, who declined to give his name for fear of government reprisals.

U Tiloka, the monastery's abbot, said the government "is scared of the monks" and has tried to hamper their distribution work. Plainclothes policemen have turned up as monks were distributing supplies, and the monastery's power was cut in apparent retribution for their work, he said.

Other monks say authorities have tried to block their access to the delta.

"But the people have too much respect for the monks," said U Sumana of the monastery in Mandalay. "Even if the soldiers have orders to stop us, when they see our robes they wave us through."

International aid agencies, hampered by government rules and red tape, have come to rely on the monks to get aid to those in need.

Christian charity World Vision has set up food and supply distribution points and day care centers at dozens of monasteries in the delta.

"To reach a community, you have to reach its heart and, in Myanmar, the monastery is that heart," said spokesman Chris Webster. "Without the monks, there's no way we would have been able to reach the number of people we've reached."

Though Myanmar's monks often explain their relief work in religious terms, some acknowledge its political undertones.

"Whenever you do things for the people, you are engaging in politics," said U Zaw Ti Ka, an elderly abbot at another monastery in Mandalay. "Here the government is against the people, so if you do something for the people, you are also doing it against the government."

He said he abhors the violence that marred September's protests _ but understands those who want to use force against the government.

"To make a Christian comparison, this is a real David and Goliath situation," said the bespectacled monk. "What we need now are not slingshots. What we need are real guns."

http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2008/ 06/23/AR20080623 00974_3.html

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