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& the Burma MilitaryJunta

Burma’s military regime allowed tens of thousands of its own people to die through incompetence and bureaucratic red-tape placed in the way of international relief efforts for over one million cyclone victims in the country. A week after cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta in south-western Burma, killing close to 100,000 people and uprooting nearly 1.5 million people from their homes, the junta has only approved a trickle of emergency aid. Absent from such assistance are teams specialised in helping to supply drinking water by cleaning and restoring the water sources in the damaged terrain.
‘’The fresh-water ponds and wells would now be contaminated by salinity, debris, dead bodies and dead animals from the cyclone,’’. ‘’These water sources have to be cleaned up completely.’’ Agencies need a temporary license to operate in the South-east Asian country that the notoriously oppressive military leaders have renamed Myanmar. Some agencies and the UN have raised the alarm about the potential disaseter in the death toll to the already high fatalities from the May 3 natural disaster. With the likelihood of 100,000 or more killed in the cyclone, there are all the factors for a public health catastrophe which could multiply that death toll by up to 15 times in the coming period.

Burma's military junta has agreed to allow relief workers of all nationalities to enter the country to help victims of Cyclone Nargis. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says Burmese leader General Than Shwe made the concession during a meeting on Friday, nearly three weeks after the storm hit, killing at least 78,000 people.

Thailand's Prime Minister (PM) Samark Sundaravej extraordinaire shared his unique wisdom March 16th & May 2008 yet again . You might recall that he has offered such opinions as corruption isn't really bad because it doesn't kill anyone, and denied the killing of forty-six protesters thirty years ago during the Thai protests many of whom disappeared. PM Samark expressed admiration of the military junta leaders in Burma & has since patronized the military junta. The military junta (a dictatorship) in Burma violently cracked down on protests led by monks. The junta shot and killed protestors and raided monasteries, dragging monks off to prison. PM Samark said that critics were too hard on the junta leadership. His reasoning was that the generals stated that they meditated prior to making decisions. That was enough to impress the Thai PM. He also commented on the latest issue of the typhoon saying the Military needed no aid and that they had it under control. Such is the wisdom of the Thailand PM that little does he know over 1m people are without homes or proper food.

Myanmar warned over forcing survivors home

Myanmar must stop forcing cyclone survivors to return to their shattered homes where they face more misery or even death, rights groups said, as a US official accused the junta of being "deaf and dumb" to foreign aid pleas.The former Burma's junta started evicting destitute families from government-run cyclone relief centres on Friday, apparently fearing the 'tented villages' might become permanent."It's unconscionable for Burma's generals to force cyclone victims back to their devastated homes," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement."Claiming a return to 'normalcy' is no basis for returning people to greater misery and possible death," he added.Myanmar has said the rescue and relief effort is largely over and it is focused on reconstruction, but the United Nations has said the scale of the devastation means the relief phase after Cyclone Nargis struck on May 2 is likely to last six months.In some of the bluntest comments by Washington on Myanmar's response to the cyclone, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said tens of thousands had died due to the military government's refusal to allow foreign aid.Nearly a week after junta leader Than Shwe promised to allow in "all" legitimate foreign aid workers, 45 remaining U.N. visa requests had been approved on Wednesday, but red tape is still hampering access to the Irrawaddy delta.U.S. and other Western naval ships cruising nearby have also not been allowed to deliver aid directly to the devastated areas.Locals and aid workers said on Friday 39 camps in the immediate vicinity of Kyauktan, 30 km (20 miles) south of Yangon, were being cleared as part of a general eviction plan."We knew we had to go at some point but we had hoped for more support," 21-year-old trishaw driver Kyaw Moe Thu said as he trudged out of the camp with his five brothers and sisters.They had been given 20 bamboo poles and some tarpaulins to help rebuild their lives in the Irrawaddy delta, where 134,000 people were left dead or missing by Cyclone Nargis on May 2.A government official said at one camp where people had been told to clear out at short notice that it was for their own good. "It is better that they move to their homes where they are more stable," the official said. Source Reuters 1st June 2008

SURVIVING ON FISH AND FROGS

U Kyi, who fled with his wife to a camp in Kawhmu, south of Yangon, days after the storm, said he would prefer to go home."Unfortunately, almost the entire village is still marooned and we cannot go back," said the 70-year-old.One senior U.N. official in Yangon said the pace of the closures had caught many agencies by surprise."We knew it was going to happen, but we didn't expect it to happen so fast," said the official, who declined to be named.The United Nations could not confirm rumours that the evictions were occurring in state-run camps across the delta, but U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe told reporters in New York "any forced or coerced movement of people is unacceptable."The evictions come after official media lashed out at offers of foreign aid, criticising donors' demands for access to the delta and saying cyclone victims could "stand by themselves" and did not need "chocolate bars" from foreign countries.A Friday editorial in the New Light of Myanmar said: "Myanmar people can easily get fish for dishes by just fishing in the fields and ditches" and that "large edible frogs are abundant".The media is believed to reflect the thinking of the top generals, who until now have shown signs of grudging acceptance of outside assistance after the cyclone.Official papers on Saturday carried a commentary on a trip by Senior General Than Shwe to the delta area, with photographs of Shwe comforting cyclone victims, including one besides neat looking rows of tents it said were in a relief camp in Pyapon.A positive aspect of the relief effort so far was that there did not appear to have been a major outbreak of diseases such as cholera, said a spokeswoman in Yangon for the charity CARE."We are teaching people how to treat water and make it safe. But they are used to dealing with polluted water and difficult conditions, and they pretty much know what to do already.".

CONTRAST WITH ACEH AND BANGLADESH

In Singapore, the visiting U.S. defence secretary contrasted Myanmar's reluctance to accept aid from the U.S. military with the willingness of Indonesia and Bangladesh to accept help after the 2004 Aceh tsunami and a cyclone in Bangladesh last November."With Burma, the situation has been very different -- at a cost of tens of thousands of lives," Gates told an annual gathering of Asian security and defence officials.Gates said Washington had tried as many as 15 times to get the junta to accept more aid in the current crisis."It has not been us that have been deaf and dumb in response to the pleas of the international community but the government in Myanmar," he said, referring to international pleas to allow in more foreign aid and relief workers. Four weeks after the disaster, the United Nations says fewer than half of the 2.4 million people affected have received help from the government, or international or local aid groups. Source Reuters Sunday, 01 June 2008

'Thousands of deaths on junta's hands'

Tens of thousands of people died because Myanmar's government rejected offers of foreign aid for cyclone victims, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says.

The Pentagon chief accused Myanmar's military rulers of being "deaf and dumb" to international pleas to allow in more foreign aid and relief workers.
Gates contrasted Myanmar's reluctance to accept aid from the US military after Cyclone Nargis struck four weeks ago with the willingness of Indonesia and Bangladesh to accept assistance after natural disasters in recent years.
"We worked with both nations to alleviate suffering, while fastidiously respecting their sovereignty," Gates said, referring to the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and a fierce cyclone which struck Bangladesh last November.
"With Burma, the situation has been very different – at a cost of tens of thousands of lives," Gates told an annual gathering of Asian security and defence officials in Singapore.
"Many other countries besides the United States have also felt hindered in their efforts," he said.
Gates' comments were among the bluntest by any senior US official describing Myanmar's response to the cyclone. The US military has flown cargo planes of aid to the capital city Yangon, but has said it could be much more effective if the ruling junta would let nearby US ships and helicopters deliver supplies directly to affected areas.But the junta has declined the offer, appearing to fear that a large-scale international relief effort would loosen the grip the generals have held since a 1962 coup. The official toll of dead and missing from the cyclone is more than 134,000. An estimated 2.4 million people have been left destitute. At the Shangri-La Dialogue forum in Singpore, Gates took issue with a questioner who criticised Washington's general policy of trying to isolate Myanmar's government.
He said the United States had tried as many as 15 times to get the junta to accept more aid in the current crisis."Many of those in this room have governments who have tried to engage, and do engage, with Myanmar and have had zero influence in getting them to open up and accept international assistance," he said."It has not been us that have been deaf and dumb in response to the pleas of the international community but the government in Myanmar," he said. "We have reached out, they have kept their hands in their pockets." Reuters  Saturday, 31 May 2008

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