By Mungpi
New Delhi (Mizzima)- Nearly three months after the killer Cyclone Nargis played havoc in Burma's southwestern coastal region, hundreds of thousands are still not getting enough food, the United Nations World Food Programme said on Friday .
"The situation remains dire in Myanmar [Burma] ," said Chris Kaye, WFP's Country Director for Burma on Friday. "The vast majority of families simply don't have enough to eat."
Kaye said hunger is a huge threat and that comes in the way of victims concentrating in other fields of reconstruction and rebuilding their lives.
"Hunger remains a very real threat, and if people are hungry, they can't focus on restructuring their livelihood," Kaye said.
In response to the crisis, Kaye said, WFP is scaling up its emergency feeding programmes for 924,000 beneficiaries, which will last till next April.
Kaye, however, said WFP is facing a 52 percent shortfall of its US$ 112 million operation despite the recent contributions made by the United Kingdom and Australia.
A local volunteer in Rangoon, back from a visit to rural villages in Bogale township of Irrawaddy delta, told Mizzima that she had witnessed several villages that are without any assistance.
"There are several villages in Bogale Township alone that have no assistance so far," said the volunteer, adding that the aid is "simply not enough" to reach all the survivors in the Irrawaddy delta.
"Villagers of Aye Chan Thar told me that the only assistance they had received was seeds from the government and unfortunately these seeds do not sprout," she added.
According to the volunteer, though several humanitarian groups including several UN agencies have been deployed in Burma's Irrawaddy and Rangoon division to help cyclone survivors, much more is needed to reach all the affected people.
"People are still struggling for basic food," she added.
The volunteer, who also extended her visit to Kyauk Than Township in Rangoon division said, though farmers in many places are seen working in their fields, many of them said their expectations were poor.
"They told me the yield this year would not be sustainable even for them because they do not have enough seeds to sow," the volunteer said.
Cyclone Nargis that swept Burma on May 2-3, not only left 138,000 dead and missing, but also destroyed most of the seeds needed for this year's plantation.
While the government and a few other aid groups provided seeds to farmers, several farmers said many of the seeds received as assistance failed to sprout, making it unfit for plantation.
Farmers in Kyauk Than are apprehensive of lack of food in the near future as they cannot plant rice as much as they used to, due to unavailability of seeds, the volunteer said.
"They cannot afford to buy the seeds from the market, so all they can do is plant only as much as is available," she added.
Showing posts with label WFP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WFP. Show all posts
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Friday, 25 July 2008
Fifth of Burmese aid cash lost to exchange rate trick
(Times Online) - International aid agencies helping the victims of the devastating cyclone in Burma are losing as much as a fifth of the money that they bring into the country because of arbitrary foreign exchange rules imposed by the military dictatorship.
Foreign non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies, such as the UN Development Programme and the World Food Programme, are compelled to exchange US dollars for convertible vouchers known to expatriates as “Monopoly money” before they are changed into local currency for as much as 20 per cent below the market rate. The money lost in these transactions could otherwise have been spent on the millions of people who lost homes and livelihoods in Cyclone Nargis, which killed about 138,000 when it struck the Irrawaddy Delta on May 2.
The UN humanitarian chief, Sir John Holmes, raised the matter with the ruling generals yesterday but reached no agreement. “We need a solution and we need a solution quickly,” he said in the main Burmese city, Rangoon. “They did not say exactly how but they said they would try to find ways by which we could get round the problem.”
This week a joint report by the Burmese Government, the UN and South-East Asian governments said that $1 billion (£500million) one billion US dollars would be needed over the next three years to recover from the cyclone.
In the early weeks the generals were reluctant to allow foreigners to enter the disaster zone. The situation has eased, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by the UN agencies, including $54 million (£27 million) from the British Government. Most of that does not need to be converted into Burmese kyats because it is spent outside the country on imported food, medical supplies and blankets. However, as the aid operation progresses from emergency relief to recovery, agencies will increasingly have to source their supplies locally.
The official exchange rate is six kyats to a dollar but this is a fiction used only in government accounting. The black market rate varies around 1,200 kyat to a dollar, and although this is the rate used in day-to-day transactions, Burmese are not allowed to hold dollars and changing them on the black market is illegal. Aid organisations are compelled to purchase foreign exchange certificates, the so-called “Monopoly money”, printed by the Burmese Government and exchanged at a rate of one dollar for one FEC. When these are changed into kyat at the government-controlled Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, they are bought at an exchange rate significantly below the market rate for the dollars that were used to purchase them.
On July 9, according to information supplied by foreign diplomats, the dollar-to-kyat rate was 1,185 but the FEC-to-kyat rate was 980, a gap of 17.3 per cent. At other times the fluctuation in the FEC price has widened the gap even further. “It's a major problem and a huge concern for all of us, affecting all of the donor community,” the head of the World Food Programme in Burma, Chris Kaye, told The Times. “But the solution is not going to be easy, because the FECs are an important part of the way the government structures its economy.”
Foreign non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies, such as the UN Development Programme and the World Food Programme, are compelled to exchange US dollars for convertible vouchers known to expatriates as “Monopoly money” before they are changed into local currency for as much as 20 per cent below the market rate. The money lost in these transactions could otherwise have been spent on the millions of people who lost homes and livelihoods in Cyclone Nargis, which killed about 138,000 when it struck the Irrawaddy Delta on May 2.
The UN humanitarian chief, Sir John Holmes, raised the matter with the ruling generals yesterday but reached no agreement. “We need a solution and we need a solution quickly,” he said in the main Burmese city, Rangoon. “They did not say exactly how but they said they would try to find ways by which we could get round the problem.”
This week a joint report by the Burmese Government, the UN and South-East Asian governments said that $1 billion (£500million) one billion US dollars would be needed over the next three years to recover from the cyclone.
In the early weeks the generals were reluctant to allow foreigners to enter the disaster zone. The situation has eased, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by the UN agencies, including $54 million (£27 million) from the British Government. Most of that does not need to be converted into Burmese kyats because it is spent outside the country on imported food, medical supplies and blankets. However, as the aid operation progresses from emergency relief to recovery, agencies will increasingly have to source their supplies locally.
The official exchange rate is six kyats to a dollar but this is a fiction used only in government accounting. The black market rate varies around 1,200 kyat to a dollar, and although this is the rate used in day-to-day transactions, Burmese are not allowed to hold dollars and changing them on the black market is illegal. Aid organisations are compelled to purchase foreign exchange certificates, the so-called “Monopoly money”, printed by the Burmese Government and exchanged at a rate of one dollar for one FEC. When these are changed into kyat at the government-controlled Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, they are bought at an exchange rate significantly below the market rate for the dollars that were used to purchase them.
On July 9, according to information supplied by foreign diplomats, the dollar-to-kyat rate was 1,185 but the FEC-to-kyat rate was 980, a gap of 17.3 per cent. At other times the fluctuation in the FEC price has widened the gap even further. “It's a major problem and a huge concern for all of us, affecting all of the donor community,” the head of the World Food Programme in Burma, Chris Kaye, told The Times. “But the solution is not going to be easy, because the FECs are an important part of the way the government structures its economy.”
Friday, 18 July 2008
Myanmar: Burmese junta profiting from aid funds?
New Delhi (Relief Web)- Even as cyclone victims reel under the devastating impact of Nargis, the military rulers are lining their pockets from the aid funds donated by the international community including the UN. The money is being made by way of a twisted currency exchange mechanism – dollar to local Burmese kyat, a source in the Burmese military establishment said.
Following the killer Cyclone Nargis lashing Burma on May 2 and 3, several international non-governmental organizations as well as UN aid agencies rushed in to help cyclone victims.
The source, who declined to be named for fear of reprisal, said the ruling junta is making a huge killing from these donations by keeping a margin in the conversion rates – from foreign currency to Burmese Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC).
According to the source, the government-owned Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank is the principle bank that is used by aid agencies for transferring funds. And when aid agencies withdraw their money from the MFTB, it is given in the form of Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC), which is treated as equivalent to the US dollar.
While the information cannot be independently verified, the source said the difference in exchange rates between the dollar and FEC is the margin that the government makes.
A businessman in Rangoon, who is into exchanging foreign currency in the black market said, currently a US $ is worth 1,175 Kyat while the FEC is valued at 850 Kyat. While the rates continue to fluctuate depending on the market, the US Dollar and FEC have never been treated equally in the market.
"The rate between the FEC and Dollar is only equal in the government exchange rates but here in Burma things are done only in the black market," the businessman told Mizzima.
The source, who is also close to the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, said, while the bank retains the in coming foreign exchange, it also profits from the marginal difference in the conversion.
The UN World Food Programme, one of the largest UN agencies currently involved in helping cyclone victims in Burma, however, declined to comment on it.
But Paul Risley, the WFP spokesperson in Bangkok admitted that it uses the MFBT to transfer funds to Burma.
UN Humanitarian Chief, John Holmes, who is scheduled to visit Burma next week, on Wednesday, told reporters at a news conference in New York that he would look into the issue of aid money going into the coffers of the ruling junta through a twisted currency exchange mechanism.
But reports quoted him as saying, "My impression from what I heard is that there is not a significant problem. There may be moments when the difference between the dollar and FEC is significant, but by and large it is not."
The source, however, said the Burmese military generals have made millions of Kyat from the exchange margin.
"For every dollar, if the junta is profiting about two to three hundred Kyats, you can imagine how much they will have pocketed since aid agencies made their way into Burma," the source said.
Burma's military junta has asked for US $ 11 billion in aid for emergency relief as well as for reconstruction work to be done in cyclone hit areas of Irrawaddy and Rangoon division.
The regime, in an article carried in its mouthpiece newspaper early this month, even challenged the international community particularly the US, UK, French, and Japan for failing to come up with more donations to help cyclone victims in Burma while spending huge amounts of money on wars.
The UN, last week, launched a fresh appeal urging governments to donate US$ 300 million more to keep humanitarian efforts in Burma going.
Following the killer Cyclone Nargis lashing Burma on May 2 and 3, several international non-governmental organizations as well as UN aid agencies rushed in to help cyclone victims.
The source, who declined to be named for fear of reprisal, said the ruling junta is making a huge killing from these donations by keeping a margin in the conversion rates – from foreign currency to Burmese Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC).
According to the source, the government-owned Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank is the principle bank that is used by aid agencies for transferring funds. And when aid agencies withdraw their money from the MFTB, it is given in the form of Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC), which is treated as equivalent to the US dollar.
While the information cannot be independently verified, the source said the difference in exchange rates between the dollar and FEC is the margin that the government makes.
A businessman in Rangoon, who is into exchanging foreign currency in the black market said, currently a US $ is worth 1,175 Kyat while the FEC is valued at 850 Kyat. While the rates continue to fluctuate depending on the market, the US Dollar and FEC have never been treated equally in the market.
"The rate between the FEC and Dollar is only equal in the government exchange rates but here in Burma things are done only in the black market," the businessman told Mizzima.
The source, who is also close to the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, said, while the bank retains the in coming foreign exchange, it also profits from the marginal difference in the conversion.
The UN World Food Programme, one of the largest UN agencies currently involved in helping cyclone victims in Burma, however, declined to comment on it.
But Paul Risley, the WFP spokesperson in Bangkok admitted that it uses the MFBT to transfer funds to Burma.
UN Humanitarian Chief, John Holmes, who is scheduled to visit Burma next week, on Wednesday, told reporters at a news conference in New York that he would look into the issue of aid money going into the coffers of the ruling junta through a twisted currency exchange mechanism.
But reports quoted him as saying, "My impression from what I heard is that there is not a significant problem. There may be moments when the difference between the dollar and FEC is significant, but by and large it is not."
The source, however, said the Burmese military generals have made millions of Kyat from the exchange margin.
"For every dollar, if the junta is profiting about two to three hundred Kyats, you can imagine how much they will have pocketed since aid agencies made their way into Burma," the source said.
Burma's military junta has asked for US $ 11 billion in aid for emergency relief as well as for reconstruction work to be done in cyclone hit areas of Irrawaddy and Rangoon division.
The regime, in an article carried in its mouthpiece newspaper early this month, even challenged the international community particularly the US, UK, French, and Japan for failing to come up with more donations to help cyclone victims in Burma while spending huge amounts of money on wars.
The UN, last week, launched a fresh appeal urging governments to donate US$ 300 million more to keep humanitarian efforts in Burma going.
Thursday, 17 July 2008
Famine-like situation in Maungdaw
Kaladan Press
Maungdaw, Arakan State: Villagers in Maungdaw Township, Arakan State are starving in a famine like situation over the last three weeks because of incessant heavy rain and a consequent rise in prices of essential commodities, said a schoolteacher on condition of anonymity.
Northern Arakan, especially Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships, have been witnessing heavy rain. Poor people are not getting jobs and are unable to support their families resulting in some facing acute food shortage.
Besides, the prices of essential commodities have risen because of the incessant heavy rain. Now a kilogram of rice sells at Kyat 550 against Kyat 500 two weeks ago. The price of chili has soared from Kyat 1,500 to Kyat 2,000 a Viss (one Viss = 1.63 kg). A viss of onion is being sold at Kyat 800 while it was kyat 600 two weeks ago, and a Viss of garlic is being sold at Kyat 1,400. It was Kyat 1,250 before.
Forida Begum (30), from Aley Than Kyaw village tract in Maungdaw Township said, "We have five members in our family. My husband is unable to go out for work due to heavy rain, so we have no money and no rice to feed our family. We have been starving for three days."
Another villager Ali Hussain (60), from the same village said, "I think, in every village in Maungdaw Township, some of the families are starving. I know that at least five to eight families have been staring starvation in the face in other villages surrounding our village Aley Than Kyaw."
Moreover, due to heavy rain, most of the shrimp and prawn projects have been destroyed in Aley Than Kyaw village tracts. Seedlings of paddy were also damaged due to the rain and farmers will be unable to grow paddy in time. So farmers are apprehensive of low harvest next year, said a local farmer.
A village elder from the village also said, "We want support for poor villagers who are starving, from the government, NGOs like World Food Program (WFP) and from other NGOs. Their lives need to be saved. WFP, earlier, supported the poor villagers who had been facing food shortage for the last two years.
Maungdaw, Arakan State: Villagers in Maungdaw Township, Arakan State are starving in a famine like situation over the last three weeks because of incessant heavy rain and a consequent rise in prices of essential commodities, said a schoolteacher on condition of anonymity.
Northern Arakan, especially Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships, have been witnessing heavy rain. Poor people are not getting jobs and are unable to support their families resulting in some facing acute food shortage.
Besides, the prices of essential commodities have risen because of the incessant heavy rain. Now a kilogram of rice sells at Kyat 550 against Kyat 500 two weeks ago. The price of chili has soared from Kyat 1,500 to Kyat 2,000 a Viss (one Viss = 1.63 kg). A viss of onion is being sold at Kyat 800 while it was kyat 600 two weeks ago, and a Viss of garlic is being sold at Kyat 1,400. It was Kyat 1,250 before.
Forida Begum (30), from Aley Than Kyaw village tract in Maungdaw Township said, "We have five members in our family. My husband is unable to go out for work due to heavy rain, so we have no money and no rice to feed our family. We have been starving for three days."
Another villager Ali Hussain (60), from the same village said, "I think, in every village in Maungdaw Township, some of the families are starving. I know that at least five to eight families have been staring starvation in the face in other villages surrounding our village Aley Than Kyaw."
Moreover, due to heavy rain, most of the shrimp and prawn projects have been destroyed in Aley Than Kyaw village tracts. Seedlings of paddy were also damaged due to the rain and farmers will be unable to grow paddy in time. So farmers are apprehensive of low harvest next year, said a local farmer.
A village elder from the village also said, "We want support for poor villagers who are starving, from the government, NGOs like World Food Program (WFP) and from other NGOs. Their lives need to be saved. WFP, earlier, supported the poor villagers who had been facing food shortage for the last two years.
Monday, 14 July 2008
First the storm, then the plague
Relief Web
The flies are unbearable.’ When asked how things are in the Cylone-affected Irrawaddy delta of Myanmar, the first thing that they describe is the flies. Thick clouds of biting flies fill the air around the villages, having bred in the bloated carcasses of the buffalo killed by the storm. ‘There are so many, that some of the remaining buffaloes have even been killed from the bites.’
For foreign aid workers access to the delta remains challenging, but two of DCA's partner staffs who had just returned from the storm-ravaged communities told that it’s crucial that the farmers in the affected villages plant their rice now if they’re to get any harvest, and for many that means cleaning and preparing paddies filled with fallen trees and debris from the storm, often without the help of buffaloes. There is at most only a week left in the planting season, and time is running out.
‘Only about 50 percent of the people have been able to plant so far,’ they said. ‘Luckily, the monsoon rains have cleared out the salt water that inundated the paddies after the Cyclone. But the buffaloes that remain are either younger ones from the North of the country, or animals weakened from the storm, and they are difficult to plow with.’
‘The flies are coming from the bodies of all of the buffaloes killed by the storm. But the farmers have no choice; they are soaking their faces and arms in diesel fuel to keep the flies away.’
The relief workers had just returned from Laputa township where they were able to distribute 300 fifty-kilogram bags of rice for about 700 people, and plan another distribution in about one and a half months. Whilst some villages have received food from the UN World Food Program through DCA’s local partner, those served by DCA’s smaller partners live on the banks of small streams or far from the river banks, and many have not received any assistance at all since the Cyclone hit and they lost everything.
Incomprehensible Suffering
The story of the death and destruction in these villages is overwhelming; some villages lost up to half their populations in a single night. And the individual stories of loss echo in my mind in the days that follow. The man I spoke with saw 100 bodies buried earlier that morning.
‘Some people have lost 8 family members from a single family. But even then, they try to rebuild.
Some of the children have lost both parents and have no one else to take care of them in their villages. Nargis orphans fill the institutions in the town centers. DCA’s partner staffs help to run one orphanage with 46 children, and another with 153.
The manager of the orphanage says the kids don’t want to go to school, and while they try to impose some routine, they don’t push the children too much.
‘There are some who say that they want to commit suicide, because they have lost their families,’ they tell me. ‘There is one girl twelve year old girl who runs off very often. When I ask her why, she says that she is afraid, that she is seeing dead bodies all the time.’
‘Another girl in the 3rd grade keeps screaming that she misses her mom, crying out loud.’
The pastor of one village lost his wife and 4 of his five children, including the son who was going to take over the parish as well as a twenty month old daughter. ‘He says he has completely lost his faith, that he just doesn’t feel it any more. He continues working for the village, but not for God. He says he just can’t believe anything after what has happened to him. He will stay in the village, but only until the harvest.’
The cyclone struck in the evening time. Now when the evening sky darkens with monsoon clouds people huddle together in the church, or what remains of it, just to keep each other company. In the last village they visited yesterday, the church had been utterly destroyed by the wind and water – only the pulpit and the bell tower remained, as if a broom had swept the rest clean. For the parishioners, the memory is still fresh, and the scar is deep. One of the most frequent requests is to rebuild the church.
Life goes on
But the relief officers also talk about how inspiring it is to see the villages coming together, how surprised they are by people’s ability to move on.
‘After the Cyclone many people are sharing resources, right down to spoons and pots. Many of them normally don’t have land plots to work on, work as daily wage laborers. They work others, try to catch a few fish, and eke out a living.
‘These people are used to doing everything for themselves.’ They are a proud people who are not used to accepting charity. I told them that DCA is not there to give handouts, but to help the Burmese people help themselves. Building local capacity is a core objective of DCA’s response.
As a whole, the relief officers see no signs of famine, but there are pockets of hunger. While there is no acute malnutrition, the kids are looking thin. ‘They don’t have as much to worry about any more. In the beginning, they had no contact with the other people. They felt helpless. But now they are regaining their confidence and their community fabric. People have been able to use their small building materials to rebuild their houses.’
Like many Danes, most Burmese people do not express their sorrow openly. ‘It’s strange to see that people feel pain, but they don’t bury their thoughts in sorrow,’ they told me. ‘They try hard to forget, to go back into their communities and want to focus on rebuilding, on starting a new life.’
The months ahead
The next rice harvest will come in November, when the World Food Program is planning to half the numbers of people receiving food distribution. Even those not receiving WFP food will be affected by this move and the overall effect on local food availability. DCA’s staff and partners are concerned that the most marginalized – those living in remote villages, daily laborers and the landless – will see their nutritional status worsen in these months, and will therefore keep a close watch on the harvest, and advocate with WFP if necessary.
Water will be another big problem for the villagers in the next six months. They need to clean the ponds 1 or 2 more times, as they are still dirty. This will be an increasing problem in the dry season (March April), when they will be without drinking water.
For the survivors, the road to recovery is long.
By Erik Johnson, Burma
The flies are unbearable.’ When asked how things are in the Cylone-affected Irrawaddy delta of Myanmar, the first thing that they describe is the flies. Thick clouds of biting flies fill the air around the villages, having bred in the bloated carcasses of the buffalo killed by the storm. ‘There are so many, that some of the remaining buffaloes have even been killed from the bites.’
For foreign aid workers access to the delta remains challenging, but two of DCA's partner staffs who had just returned from the storm-ravaged communities told that it’s crucial that the farmers in the affected villages plant their rice now if they’re to get any harvest, and for many that means cleaning and preparing paddies filled with fallen trees and debris from the storm, often without the help of buffaloes. There is at most only a week left in the planting season, and time is running out.
‘Only about 50 percent of the people have been able to plant so far,’ they said. ‘Luckily, the monsoon rains have cleared out the salt water that inundated the paddies after the Cyclone. But the buffaloes that remain are either younger ones from the North of the country, or animals weakened from the storm, and they are difficult to plow with.’
‘The flies are coming from the bodies of all of the buffaloes killed by the storm. But the farmers have no choice; they are soaking their faces and arms in diesel fuel to keep the flies away.’
The relief workers had just returned from Laputa township where they were able to distribute 300 fifty-kilogram bags of rice for about 700 people, and plan another distribution in about one and a half months. Whilst some villages have received food from the UN World Food Program through DCA’s local partner, those served by DCA’s smaller partners live on the banks of small streams or far from the river banks, and many have not received any assistance at all since the Cyclone hit and they lost everything.
Incomprehensible Suffering
The story of the death and destruction in these villages is overwhelming; some villages lost up to half their populations in a single night. And the individual stories of loss echo in my mind in the days that follow. The man I spoke with saw 100 bodies buried earlier that morning.
‘Some people have lost 8 family members from a single family. But even then, they try to rebuild.
Some of the children have lost both parents and have no one else to take care of them in their villages. Nargis orphans fill the institutions in the town centers. DCA’s partner staffs help to run one orphanage with 46 children, and another with 153.
The manager of the orphanage says the kids don’t want to go to school, and while they try to impose some routine, they don’t push the children too much.
‘There are some who say that they want to commit suicide, because they have lost their families,’ they tell me. ‘There is one girl twelve year old girl who runs off very often. When I ask her why, she says that she is afraid, that she is seeing dead bodies all the time.’
‘Another girl in the 3rd grade keeps screaming that she misses her mom, crying out loud.’
The pastor of one village lost his wife and 4 of his five children, including the son who was going to take over the parish as well as a twenty month old daughter. ‘He says he has completely lost his faith, that he just doesn’t feel it any more. He continues working for the village, but not for God. He says he just can’t believe anything after what has happened to him. He will stay in the village, but only until the harvest.’
The cyclone struck in the evening time. Now when the evening sky darkens with monsoon clouds people huddle together in the church, or what remains of it, just to keep each other company. In the last village they visited yesterday, the church had been utterly destroyed by the wind and water – only the pulpit and the bell tower remained, as if a broom had swept the rest clean. For the parishioners, the memory is still fresh, and the scar is deep. One of the most frequent requests is to rebuild the church.
Life goes on
But the relief officers also talk about how inspiring it is to see the villages coming together, how surprised they are by people’s ability to move on.
‘After the Cyclone many people are sharing resources, right down to spoons and pots. Many of them normally don’t have land plots to work on, work as daily wage laborers. They work others, try to catch a few fish, and eke out a living.
‘These people are used to doing everything for themselves.’ They are a proud people who are not used to accepting charity. I told them that DCA is not there to give handouts, but to help the Burmese people help themselves. Building local capacity is a core objective of DCA’s response.
As a whole, the relief officers see no signs of famine, but there are pockets of hunger. While there is no acute malnutrition, the kids are looking thin. ‘They don’t have as much to worry about any more. In the beginning, they had no contact with the other people. They felt helpless. But now they are regaining their confidence and their community fabric. People have been able to use their small building materials to rebuild their houses.’
Like many Danes, most Burmese people do not express their sorrow openly. ‘It’s strange to see that people feel pain, but they don’t bury their thoughts in sorrow,’ they told me. ‘They try hard to forget, to go back into their communities and want to focus on rebuilding, on starting a new life.’
The months ahead
The next rice harvest will come in November, when the World Food Program is planning to half the numbers of people receiving food distribution. Even those not receiving WFP food will be affected by this move and the overall effect on local food availability. DCA’s staff and partners are concerned that the most marginalized – those living in remote villages, daily laborers and the landless – will see their nutritional status worsen in these months, and will therefore keep a close watch on the harvest, and advocate with WFP if necessary.
Water will be another big problem for the villagers in the next six months. They need to clean the ponds 1 or 2 more times, as they are still dirty. This will be an increasing problem in the dry season (March April), when they will be without drinking water.
For the survivors, the road to recovery is long.
By Erik Johnson, Burma
Friday, 11 July 2008
Additional £17.5 million by DFID to help Burmese cyclone survivors
Solomon
Mizzima News - 10 July 2008
New Delhi - United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) on Wednesday announced that it will provide an additional £17.5 million to help cyclone victims, adding to a total of £ 45 million in aid since Cyclone Nargis lashed Burma two months ago.
David Leslie, spokesman of DFID said the donation will be handed over on Thursday during a United Nations' flash appeal in New York to aid groups working in Burma's Irrawaddy and Rangoon division.
United Nations aid agencies as well as several other international humanitarian groups have said emergency relief works and reconstruction programmes could come to halt unless more funds are provided.
The United Nations World Food Programme has said it requires US$ 28 million more to keep its six-month programme running.
The International Federation of Red Cross on Wednesday said it needed US$ 72.5 million to fund its three-year relief plans which will include emergency relief as well as long term reconstruction programmes.
Alistair Henley, head of the IFRC's Asia Pacific Zone said hundreds of thousands of Burmese people in the Irrawaddy and Rangoon division have been living precarious lives long before the cyclone hit them.
"Nargis has left them weaker and more vulnerable than ever. We must ensure not only that they regain what they lost but have improved and safer lives in the future," Henley said.
Leslie said, the DFID has decided to provide additional funds as a response to the flash appeal by the UN and international humanitarian groups.
Douglas Alexander, Secretary of DFID, in a statement on Wednesday said, "While access has improved and the rate of delivery of relief goods continues to increase, we believe that around 300,000 people are at quite serious risk if they do not get more help soon."
Leslie said, "We will wait and see what the flash appeal contains today, and then we will make an assessment where the money will go."
"We have assessment teams in Burma, they are looking at where the fund is needed for each organization," he added.
On May 2 and 3, Cyclone Nargis hit Burma's coastal divisions of Irrawaddy and Rangoon, leaving more than 138,000 dead and missing and devastated over 2.4 million people's lives.
Following the natural disaster in Burma, DFID immediately announced £5 million in aid and an additional £12 million on May 15. The DFID announced a further £10.5 million donation following the ASEAN/UN pledging conference in Rangoon on May 25, which Douglas Alexander attended.
Burma's military government, however, has appealed for US$ 11 billion in aid to fund emergency relief works and reconstruction in the cyclone affected region.
Mizzima News - 10 July 2008
New Delhi - United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) on Wednesday announced that it will provide an additional £17.5 million to help cyclone victims, adding to a total of £ 45 million in aid since Cyclone Nargis lashed Burma two months ago.
David Leslie, spokesman of DFID said the donation will be handed over on Thursday during a United Nations' flash appeal in New York to aid groups working in Burma's Irrawaddy and Rangoon division.
United Nations aid agencies as well as several other international humanitarian groups have said emergency relief works and reconstruction programmes could come to halt unless more funds are provided.
The United Nations World Food Programme has said it requires US$ 28 million more to keep its six-month programme running.
The International Federation of Red Cross on Wednesday said it needed US$ 72.5 million to fund its three-year relief plans which will include emergency relief as well as long term reconstruction programmes.
Alistair Henley, head of the IFRC's Asia Pacific Zone said hundreds of thousands of Burmese people in the Irrawaddy and Rangoon division have been living precarious lives long before the cyclone hit them.
"Nargis has left them weaker and more vulnerable than ever. We must ensure not only that they regain what they lost but have improved and safer lives in the future," Henley said.
Leslie said, the DFID has decided to provide additional funds as a response to the flash appeal by the UN and international humanitarian groups.
Douglas Alexander, Secretary of DFID, in a statement on Wednesday said, "While access has improved and the rate of delivery of relief goods continues to increase, we believe that around 300,000 people are at quite serious risk if they do not get more help soon."
Leslie said, "We will wait and see what the flash appeal contains today, and then we will make an assessment where the money will go."
"We have assessment teams in Burma, they are looking at where the fund is needed for each organization," he added.
On May 2 and 3, Cyclone Nargis hit Burma's coastal divisions of Irrawaddy and Rangoon, leaving more than 138,000 dead and missing and devastated over 2.4 million people's lives.
Following the natural disaster in Burma, DFID immediately announced £5 million in aid and an additional £12 million on May 15. The DFID announced a further £10.5 million donation following the ASEAN/UN pledging conference in Rangoon on May 25, which Douglas Alexander attended.
Burma's military government, however, has appealed for US$ 11 billion in aid to fund emergency relief works and reconstruction in the cyclone affected region.
Haven or Hell
A man squats to smoke an opium pipe in Maw Hai village while children look on. (Photo: Tor Norling)By TOR NORLING
The Irrawaddy News
PANGHSANG, Burma — “I had two choices. The first was to escape to Thailand, the other was to hide out here,” said 20-year-old Sandimar, one of two young Buddhist monks standing outside a temple in Panghsang, the unofficial capital of Wa State, an unmarked, lush, mountainous region shown on maps as eastern Shan State.
Backed up against China’s Yunnan State and within a day or two’s mule ride to the Golden Triangle, the undeveloped Wa State was once the world’s largest producer of opium and, by implication, the greatest source of heroin.
However, nowadays the region is undergoing a series of transformations that is causing friction between leaders of the Wa armed forces and the brutal clique that rules from Burma’s capital, Naypyidaw.
Sandimar and Sai Sai fled from Rangoon after last September’s monk-led demonstrations were violently suppressed by the military authorities. Sandimar says he was among the crowd of monks that took to the streets to ignite the uprising.
On the night of September 28 he faced the consequences for his bravery—his temple was surrounded and attacked by hundreds of heavily armed soldiers. “The soldiers came at 4 am. They pointed their guns at us and told us not to move,” he says. “Those who didn’t follow the instructions were beaten. More than 100 monks were arrested at my temple.”
Dressed in their saffron robes, the monks were marched at gunpoint onto a bus and, in the darkness, driven to a school in the suburbs of Insein, in the northwest of Rangoon.
‘When we got there it looked like they had arrested every monk in Rangoon—there were thousands of us,” Sai Sai says.
He and Sandimar were locked in a classroom along with about 800 other monks. “We received food once a day, but we were never allowed to leave the room, even to use the toilet. The smell in the room became unbearable,” he said.
According to Sandimar, many of the soldiers were obviously uncomfortable with their orders as they had been brought up to look up to the Buddhist sangha (monkhood) with great reverence. Beating and abusing monks was a great sacrilege.
“However, other soldiers were extremely brutal,” Sandimar said. “They didn't care if we were monks or not. The guards made the monks disrobe and dress in civilian clothes. They told us this made it easier for them to harass us,” he said.
“All we could do was pray,” said Sai Sai. “But if the guards heard our voices they threatened to kill us.”
Sai Sai witnessed more than 100 monks taken aside by the guards and beaten up. ‘‘It was strange—they only hit them on the heads and told them the treatment was a ‘special present,’” he said.
Their nightmare lasted a week. Then Sai Sai, Sandimar and about 70 other monks were released and told to leave the city. The journey to the Wa mountains took Sandimar and Sai Sai four days.
“We are safe in Wa State, the regime has no influence here,” said Sandimar.
That the rugged Wa hills would be a sanctuary for monks and activists was by no means guaranteed, however, because the Wa region is unpredictable—it is currently an area in flux.
Wa State is controlled by the 20,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), once dubbed the most heavily armed narcotics traffickers in the world by the US State Department. Although Naypyidaw’s generals have little influence in the region, a long-held ceasefire, and the fact the UWSA and the Burmese military occasionally join forces to do battle with the insurgent Shan State Army has led to the perception that the UWSA has become a firm ally of the Burmese regime.
Jiao Wei, a 46-year-old colonel responsible for the organization’s publicity and head of the Wa television station, is quick to dispel that notion.
“We have not criticized the regime publicly, but in our hearts everybody here is angry about what has happened. We don't support what the Burmese government has done, but we are independent of them, so we have no influence. However, we hope they can do a better job for their population,” he says.
The Wa area has never been fully tamed. British colonizers failed to conquer the almost impenetrable mountains and Burma’s rulers were also similarly thwarted. Shortly after Burma won independence, a tribal leader was asked by prime minister U Nu whether the Wa wanted education, good food, clothes, good housing and hospitals. “We are very simple people.
We don't appreciate these things. We just live by ourselves,” was the response.
Mostly animists, living in isolation and numbering only half a million people (an estimated 400,000 more live in Yunnan on the Chinese side), the Wa remain one of Burma’s most mysterious and least-documented ethnic groups.
During the first British expeditions to the area in the late 1800s, the Wa were labelled simply as naked, dirty, dark-skinned, poor and barbaric. Their tradition of hunting for human heads—used as totems in the villages to secure good harvests and to protect against disease—persisted until the 1970s, added to their ferocious reputation. It was no small wonder that this ethnic group became widely known as the ”Wild Wa.”
In the 1970s and 80s, with backing from China, the Communist Party of Burma (CPB)—which was established in 1939 to spearhead the struggle against British colonialism—constituted the largest military threat to the regime in Rangoon.
The Wa provided the bulk of the CPB’s ground forces. Thousands were killed in spectacular attacks in which waves of CPB soldiers threw themselves against Burmese positions. According to some observers, more than 25 percent of Wa soldiers died in the fighting and the prospect of losing more made several Wa leaders rebel.
At the same time, Beijing’s support began to wane. A 1989 split in the CPB led to the creation of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the armed wing of the United Wa State Party.
The UWSA then signed a ceasefire with the Burmese authorities, who, weakened by the 1988 democracy uprisings, readily accepted the UWSA’s terms. In addition to self-rule, the UWSA was allowed to keep its weapons and trade in whatever it wanted.
The only foreigners allowed to enter the region are a small group of aid workers and only Chinese are allowed to pass through the official border crossing with China. Even representatives of the Burmese regime need permission from the Wa authorities before they can visit what is known in Naypyidaw as “Special Region 2.” An illegal border crossing, about 400 metres upstream from the official point of entry and manned by remarkably casual soldiers, is the only option for foreign journalists or observers who wish to enter the area.
It did not take the UWSA long to remember that the most lucrative business in the Wa hills was the production and sale of illegal drugs, a trade that had long vexed the CPB.
“The Wa hills are a strange place. Opium grows very well, but rice doesn't grow at all,” says Jiao Wei.
In 2001, Burma was the world’s largest producer of opium. The UWSA dominated the industry and also produced large quantities of methamphetamine—known in the West as “speed” or “crystal meth”—a highly addictive drug that has spread like an epidemic in Thailand where it is called “ya ba,” meaning “crazy medicine.”
Under pressure from China, the United States and the United Nations, the UWSA’s supreme commander, Bao Youxiang, promised that the Wa State would be free of opium by 2005. And, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, that's what happened.
“The US always says we are terrorists. That's a mistake,” argues Jiao Wei. “We stopped producing and selling drugs in 2005. We hope the world can agree that the Wa hills have become a good place and that the situation is not like it was before.”
Jiao Wei is particularly infuriated by the indictment of eight UWSA leaders by a US federal court in 2005. In addition it is believed that more than 20 people with connections to the UWSA are sought by the US on drug charges. For the capture of the UWSA’s top leaders the bounty is said to be several million dollars.
Wei says he is disappointed the drug ban has not had more support from the international community. “We have asked our farmers to grow rice, tea and rubber, but it doesn’t offer enough revenue. They don’t have enough food and need help,” he says.
“Most farmers are against the ban. The poverty creates tensions. We feel a growing pressure from our people.”
Poverty in Wa villages is at a level that is difficult to compare to the relative comfort in nearby Yunnan or Thailand. One hour’s drive west of Panghsang is Maw Hai, a muddy hamlet of about 50 shacks made from corrugated metal, bamboo and wood, with cattle and pigs roaming freely. Malnourished children sit in the dirt.
“There used to be opium everywhere,” said village leader Ai Nap, pointing to the fields surrounding the village. He said that the village was always poor, but now the situation is worse.
“Before the ban we did at least have some income to buy food and medicines. Today, we don’t have enough to eat. The rice only lasts for five or six months of the year,” he says.
Of the 146 people living in the village, most are children. ‘‘Last year many children died, but this year has been a bit better,” says Ai Nap.
This is about as good as it gets in a Wa village. The farther they are from the road and Panghsang, the worse the conditions are. At least Maw Hai has electricity and the World Food Programme has established a water supply and sends in a few sacks of rice. Ai Nap confirmed that they are close enough to Panghsang to send the children to hospital when they get sick. ‘‘But often when they return from the hospital they die,” he says.
It is easy to criticize the Wa leadership, who live a life of luxury in Panghsang while their people starve and suffer, but the UWSA did warn the international community in good time that alternative sources of farming and income would be necessary if the ban were to be sustained. For the most part, this humanitarian disaster-in-the-making is devoid of international aid workers. The few in evidence are reluctant to speak to journalists, fearing critical reports could upset the Naypyidaw regime, which, in turn, could hinder their operations.
Burmese aid workers are more helpful. However, an employee of one of the UN’s two offices in Panghsang says aid workers are not always welcome in the villages. ‘‘There have been some incidents and misunderstandings. Many believe we are coming to monitor whether we are growing opium, so it’s difficult to be accepted,” he says.
The suspicion that several people in or connected to the UWSA are still active in the drug industry is also a deterrent to outside help. Despite Jiao Wei's assurances, there is little doubt that large quantities of opium and methamphetamine continue to be channelled through the Wa hills.
Although trading in illegal drugs is still possible, a source connected to the drugs industry said that the ban has made it harder. Increased controls in China have also constricted supply. The source said he remembers the days when truckloads of opium left Panghsang for Yunnan. A few days later the trucks returned with hard currency. “To make a deal today you need both power and money. Money alone makes you vulnerable, as you have no power to protect you. Power is not enough as you don't have money to be in the market,” he said.
When a deal does go down, it is usually big and the risks are high.
A 20-year-old woman who runs a hotel in the border town of Mong La says her mother was jailed after Chinese police searched her family’s property in Yunnan two years ago. The quantities of heroin discovered were so large that no attempts to bribe the police succeeded. She was executed. The young woman’s husband escaped the death penalty but is serving life in prison. She said that although she is still wealthy, she is alone looking after her two-year-old daughter.
“Most people I know come from families like that,” said the source. ‘‘Even if you are rich you will have lost a lot. Many here are extremely wealthy but because of their fear of getting killed or arrested, they never leave the Wa hills. Instead they bring here what they need from the outside world.”
Most of the food in Panghsang is imported from China. The cars, for the most part Land Rovers and Japanese pick-ups, have been smuggled in from Thailand. Sometimes the place of origin of goods is confusing. Pepsi is imported from China, while Coca-Cola comes from Thailand. The Wa apparently think Coca Cola produced in Thailand tastes better than its Chinese counterpart.
There is a throbbing nightlife centered around the town’s rundown casino. The women offering their services in a number of brothels in the surrounding streets are mainly Chinese. The nightclub “Babe” could be in New York or London. An advanced laser system illuminates the dance floor. Two DJs brought in from China are playing hip-hop.
Cheryl, 20, says the youth of Panghsang are looking to the United States when it comes to music and culture. ‘‘I love black hip-hop and the NBL [National Basketball League] is my life. I don't know why. Maybe we look to black American culture because we are so much darker than the Chinese,” she says.
Cheryl has a university degree from Kunming, Yunnan’s capital, and runs a fashion store in Panghsang. As the daughter of a high-ranking officer she has little to fear economically, but she grew up in poverty. She remembers her childhood in Ying Pan, a village three hours’ drive from Panghsang, when the mountains where covered with opium poppies. She used to go to the fields with her aunt during the harvest season to gather opium, which she sold at the local market for pocket money. In the mid-1990s her father suddenly became rich and today she lives in a huge wooden mansion in the centre of Panghsang.
“I have been very lucky and I do my best to help the people in my home village. When I go home to my village I always take clothes and presents for the children. They always come to visit because our house is the only one in the village that has a TV,” she says.
Cheryl claims the local authorities are doing a good job in helping the population but admits there is a huge gap in wealth. ‘‘In the Wa State, a few are extremely rich, everybody else is extremely poor.”
In Maw Hai, the noticeable difference is not so much rich and poor, but young and old—there appears to be no teenagers. The mystery is solved in Panghsang. At the entrance to the military academy a group of soldiers stand around. Many of them are girls and many are very young. Nika, 18, said he was forced to join the army.
“Every family with more than one child must give a child to the army—that’s the law here,” he says. A boy in a uniform that is far too big for him says he is 12. Another soldier explains that you can be recruited from the age of 10. The soldiers earn between 30 and 40 yuan ($4.40 to $5.85) a month.
The fear of an attack from Naypyidaw is, according to observers, the reason why the Wa leadership maintains its army. Even though the ceasefire has held for almost 20 years, the relationship between Burma’s generals and the UWSA is not without complications. ‘‘Nobody here trusts the Burmese,” says Jiao Wei.
A recent attempt by the regime to move Wa settlements away from the Thai-Burmese border has inflamed tensions, for instance, and there are worries about Chinese influence.
“The Burmese authorities don’t want more Chinese in Wa State; but most of the economy comes from China, so we welcome them,” says Jiao Wei. He says Naypyidaw has no business in telling them what to do. “If they attack, we will retaliate. But we will not fire the first bullet,” he says.
With that he declares the interview over and cracks open a bottle of whisky containing pulverized tiger bone. ‘‘This will keep you healthy,” he toasts.
Sandimar, meanwhile, hopes the Wa State will continue to offer him a safe haven. He says about 300 monks, most of whom are originally from the Wa hills, have come from Rangoon recently, along with a group of student activists, among them 23-year-old Aung. A long scar on his forehead bears witness to the treatment he received in prison.
“I had never seen this kind of brutality,” he said, and explains that he was arrested when soldiers attacked a demonstration he was taking part in. He tried to escape but was surrounded. Forced to lie on the ground, he was repeatedly beaten with sticks and rifle butts. “They hit me in the back and the head several times. Then they asked me to stand up, only to strike me down again. I was bleeding all over the place. Then they put the barrel of a gun in my mouth. I was sure they would kill me.”
Aung was released after a week and, like Sandimar and Sai Sai, traveled directly to Wa State. He is aware that he has swapped one military regime for another; the UWSA is by no means a democratic institution. “At least the Wa leaders care somewhat about their people. They don’t conspire to kill you,” he says.
“If you really want to confront the Wa leadership, you may get into trouble, but you can discuss and talk about whatever you like. They appreciate a well-informed critique,” he added.
Whether the Wa leaders remain so open-minded if the public pressure from the opium ban continues to grow or if Naypyidaw acts on its irritation about China’s involvement in the region remains to be seen.
For now the Wa have gone beyond their Conradian image as headhunters to become the unlikely protectors of Burma’s saffron revolutionaries and a key player in the global crackdown on drugs.
Tor Norling is a freelance journalist from Norway who covers South and Southeast Asian affairs.
Additional £17.5 million by DFID to help Burmese cyclone survivors
Solomon
Mizzima News
New Delhi - United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) on Wednesday announced that it will provide an additional £17.5 million to help cyclone victims, adding to a total of £ 45 million in aid since Cyclone Nargis lashed Burma two months ago.
David Leslie, spokesman of DFID said the donation will be handed over on Thursday during a United Nations' flash appeal in New York to aid groups working in Burma's Irrawaddy and Rangoon division.
United Nations aid agencies as well as several other international humanitarian groups have said emergency relief works and reconstruction programmes could come to halt unless more funds are provided.
The United Nations World Food Programme has said it requires US$ 28 million more to keep its six-month programme running.
The International Federation of Red Cross on Wednesday said it needed US$ 72.5 million to fund its three-year relief plans which will include emergency relief as well as long term reconstruction programmes.
Alistair Henley, head of the IFRC's Asia Pacific Zone said hundreds of thousands of Burmese people in the Irrawaddy and Rangoon division have been living precarious lives long before the cyclone hit them.
"Nargis has left them weaker and more vulnerable than ever. We must ensure not only that they regain what they lost but have improved and safer lives in the future," Henley said.
Leslie said, the DFID has decided to provide additional funds as a response to the flash appeal by the UN and international humanitarian groups.
Douglas Alexander, Secretary of DFID, in a statement on Wednesday said, "While access has improved and the rate of delivery of relief goods continues to increase, we believe that around 300,000 people are at quite serious risk if they do not get more help soon."
Leslie said, "We will wait and see what the flash appeal contains today, and then we will make an assessment where the money will go."
"We have assessment teams in Burma, they are looking at where the fund is needed for each organization," he added.
On May 2 and 3, Cyclone Nargis hit Burma's coastal divisions of Irrawaddy and Rangoon, leaving more than 138,000 dead and missing and devastated over 2.4 million people's lives.
Following the natural disaster in Burma, DFID immediately announced £5 million in aid and an additional £12 million on May 15. The DFID announced a further £10.5 million donation following the ASEAN/UN pledging conference in Rangoon on May 25, which Douglas Alexander attended.
Burma's military government, however, has appealed for US$ 11 billion in aid to fund emergency relief works and reconstruction in the cyclone affected region.
Mizzima News
New Delhi - United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) on Wednesday announced that it will provide an additional £17.5 million to help cyclone victims, adding to a total of £ 45 million in aid since Cyclone Nargis lashed Burma two months ago.
David Leslie, spokesman of DFID said the donation will be handed over on Thursday during a United Nations' flash appeal in New York to aid groups working in Burma's Irrawaddy and Rangoon division.
United Nations aid agencies as well as several other international humanitarian groups have said emergency relief works and reconstruction programmes could come to halt unless more funds are provided.
The United Nations World Food Programme has said it requires US$ 28 million more to keep its six-month programme running.
The International Federation of Red Cross on Wednesday said it needed US$ 72.5 million to fund its three-year relief plans which will include emergency relief as well as long term reconstruction programmes.
Alistair Henley, head of the IFRC's Asia Pacific Zone said hundreds of thousands of Burmese people in the Irrawaddy and Rangoon division have been living precarious lives long before the cyclone hit them.
"Nargis has left them weaker and more vulnerable than ever. We must ensure not only that they regain what they lost but have improved and safer lives in the future," Henley said.
Leslie said, the DFID has decided to provide additional funds as a response to the flash appeal by the UN and international humanitarian groups.
Douglas Alexander, Secretary of DFID, in a statement on Wednesday said, "While access has improved and the rate of delivery of relief goods continues to increase, we believe that around 300,000 people are at quite serious risk if they do not get more help soon."
Leslie said, "We will wait and see what the flash appeal contains today, and then we will make an assessment where the money will go."
"We have assessment teams in Burma, they are looking at where the fund is needed for each organization," he added.
On May 2 and 3, Cyclone Nargis hit Burma's coastal divisions of Irrawaddy and Rangoon, leaving more than 138,000 dead and missing and devastated over 2.4 million people's lives.
Following the natural disaster in Burma, DFID immediately announced £5 million in aid and an additional £12 million on May 15. The DFID announced a further £10.5 million donation following the ASEAN/UN pledging conference in Rangoon on May 25, which Douglas Alexander attended.
Burma's military government, however, has appealed for US$ 11 billion in aid to fund emergency relief works and reconstruction in the cyclone affected region.
Thursday, 26 June 2008
USAID assistance helped WFP helicopters to carry on relief operation
Mizzima News
25 June 2008
New Delhi — The UN World Food Programme has said airlifting aid supplies to Burma's cyclone victims continues with an aid of USD 3 million given by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
WFP spokesperson in Bangkok, Paul Risley, however, said airlifting aid supplies could stop by end of June unless more assistance was provided for its logistical needs.
"We have enough funds to operate helicopters until end of June," said Risley, adding that it was possible through emergency help by USAID.
Risley last week told Mizzima that WFP faced a serious fund shortage needed to deploy ten more choppers that were used for airlifting aid supplies for over 50 international aid agencies.
He said the use of helicopters was critical as aid supplies could only reach several villages in the remote areas by airlifting.
Last week, USAID, which had earlier given USD 4 million for WFP's logistical support, said it would give an additional 3 million USD.
"We have all the ten helicopters airlifting aid supplies till today," Risley said.
Meanwhile, the US said it has ended airlifting of aid supplies from Thailand to Burma, the announcement indicating that the United States was stopping aid supply to cyclone victims.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the US embassy in Thailand said, "The U.S. military airlifting of cyclone relief from Thailand to Burma ended on June 22."
The announcement, which does not provide any reasons, said the US Joint Task Force Caring Response since May 12, began flying 185 C- 130 aircraft from Thailand, carrying aid supplies including tarpaulins, mosquito netting, food, zodiac boats, water treatment equipment, and other relief supplies, including donations from Thailand.
The US has till date spent more than USD 13 million for the supplies and relief operation.
"The excellent cooperation we received from the Thai side made this relief effort possible. Coordination and cooperation with other donors, including WFP, was also outstanding," the statement said.
25 June 2008
New Delhi — The UN World Food Programme has said airlifting aid supplies to Burma's cyclone victims continues with an aid of USD 3 million given by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
WFP spokesperson in Bangkok, Paul Risley, however, said airlifting aid supplies could stop by end of June unless more assistance was provided for its logistical needs.
"We have enough funds to operate helicopters until end of June," said Risley, adding that it was possible through emergency help by USAID.
Risley last week told Mizzima that WFP faced a serious fund shortage needed to deploy ten more choppers that were used for airlifting aid supplies for over 50 international aid agencies.
He said the use of helicopters was critical as aid supplies could only reach several villages in the remote areas by airlifting.
Last week, USAID, which had earlier given USD 4 million for WFP's logistical support, said it would give an additional 3 million USD.
"We have all the ten helicopters airlifting aid supplies till today," Risley said.
Meanwhile, the US said it has ended airlifting of aid supplies from Thailand to Burma, the announcement indicating that the United States was stopping aid supply to cyclone victims.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the US embassy in Thailand said, "The U.S. military airlifting of cyclone relief from Thailand to Burma ended on June 22."
The announcement, which does not provide any reasons, said the US Joint Task Force Caring Response since May 12, began flying 185 C- 130 aircraft from Thailand, carrying aid supplies including tarpaulins, mosquito netting, food, zodiac boats, water treatment equipment, and other relief supplies, including donations from Thailand.
The US has till date spent more than USD 13 million for the supplies and relief operation.
"The excellent cooperation we received from the Thai side made this relief effort possible. Coordination and cooperation with other donors, including WFP, was also outstanding," the statement said.
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Nargis volunteer narrates tales of continued crisis
By Lawi Weng
Kaowao News
24 June 2008, Every day the coverage of Burma's Cyclone Nargis diminishes around the world. "After just one month news of Cyclone Nargis dropped on news programmer's priority lists," a foreign volunteer, Tom, said. He has arrived on the border after working for one month in Rangoon.
Although the global media coverage is fading, the crisis that followed the devastating events of May 2 and May 3 continues, as each day the Burmese cyclone survivors face food shortages. According to Tom, many cyclone survivors have been stealing food from each other in the Phyapon Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp.
The junta recently told Thai healthcare teams that the post-Nargis situation was under control and that the people of Burma no longer needed any aid. Having just returned from Burma, Tom stated that resettlement programs planned to run for two years would clearly need to be extended by at least another three. He went on to say, "The country is still in bad shape, with corpses still floating in the water and many survivors in desperate need of aid."
In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, the world tried to offer aid to Burma, but the junta largely refused any outside help. In recent weeks the UN urged world leaders to provide more aid to Burma. The World Food Program (WFP) only received USD 35 million from post-Nargis donations. If further aid does not arrive soon the Burmese arm of the WFP would be defunct, leaving many cyclone survivors facing starvation.
The WFP has said survivors need more aid and they need water buffalos to resume growing rice in their fields. Many water buffalos were killed in the cyclone. Although the junta built schools and houses for the victims in Phyapon, Tom told our correspondent, "The people can't eat houses. They need food. These houses only benefit the Junta and their building contracting cronies."
Tom said a team appointed by the Junta visited Phyapon and distributed rice and mangoes to the IDPs. There were five hundred families in Phyapon, and the team offered ten bags of rice and a handful of mangoes. The victims only accepted one small basket of rice and one mango, while the team took photos. The Junta did not visit them again.
This photo opportunity was not the only way the Junta exploited the cyclone survivors, as donated goods were readily available at roadside stalls. Tom said, "I saw clothes donated at the temple and the next morning I found the same clothes in the public market. The military officers were behind it, and they do not try to hide their corruption."
This type of report only serves to solidify fears held by the international community, who voiced concerns about their aid reaching the people who needed it most, and not just the Junta. After the refusal of foreign aid, many American reports stated their concerns that aid would not reach cyclone survivors but would be grabbed by the oppressive Junta.
Unfortunately aid restrictions have also been placed on local donors, even individuals, who attempted to share food with their less fortunate neighbours. People in Burma are growing increasingly concerned that cyclone survivors may not survive much longer. The concern is greatest for young children who have lost their parents to Cyclone Nargis.
Kaowao News
24 June 2008, Every day the coverage of Burma's Cyclone Nargis diminishes around the world. "After just one month news of Cyclone Nargis dropped on news programmer's priority lists," a foreign volunteer, Tom, said. He has arrived on the border after working for one month in Rangoon.
Although the global media coverage is fading, the crisis that followed the devastating events of May 2 and May 3 continues, as each day the Burmese cyclone survivors face food shortages. According to Tom, many cyclone survivors have been stealing food from each other in the Phyapon Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp.
The junta recently told Thai healthcare teams that the post-Nargis situation was under control and that the people of Burma no longer needed any aid. Having just returned from Burma, Tom stated that resettlement programs planned to run for two years would clearly need to be extended by at least another three. He went on to say, "The country is still in bad shape, with corpses still floating in the water and many survivors in desperate need of aid."
In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, the world tried to offer aid to Burma, but the junta largely refused any outside help. In recent weeks the UN urged world leaders to provide more aid to Burma. The World Food Program (WFP) only received USD 35 million from post-Nargis donations. If further aid does not arrive soon the Burmese arm of the WFP would be defunct, leaving many cyclone survivors facing starvation.
The WFP has said survivors need more aid and they need water buffalos to resume growing rice in their fields. Many water buffalos were killed in the cyclone. Although the junta built schools and houses for the victims in Phyapon, Tom told our correspondent, "The people can't eat houses. They need food. These houses only benefit the Junta and their building contracting cronies."
Tom said a team appointed by the Junta visited Phyapon and distributed rice and mangoes to the IDPs. There were five hundred families in Phyapon, and the team offered ten bags of rice and a handful of mangoes. The victims only accepted one small basket of rice and one mango, while the team took photos. The Junta did not visit them again.
This photo opportunity was not the only way the Junta exploited the cyclone survivors, as donated goods were readily available at roadside stalls. Tom said, "I saw clothes donated at the temple and the next morning I found the same clothes in the public market. The military officers were behind it, and they do not try to hide their corruption."
This type of report only serves to solidify fears held by the international community, who voiced concerns about their aid reaching the people who needed it most, and not just the Junta. After the refusal of foreign aid, many American reports stated their concerns that aid would not reach cyclone survivors but would be grabbed by the oppressive Junta.
Unfortunately aid restrictions have also been placed on local donors, even individuals, who attempted to share food with their less fortunate neighbours. People in Burma are growing increasingly concerned that cyclone survivors may not survive much longer. The concern is greatest for young children who have lost their parents to Cyclone Nargis.
Myanmar: 1st press release of Tripartite Core Group
Relief Web
1 The Tripartite Core Group (TCG) was formed after the 19 May 2008 Special Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministerial Meeting in Singapore, and the 25 May 2008 ASEAN-United Nations International Pledging Conference in Yangon, Union of Myanmar. The aim of the TCG is to act as an ASEAN-led mechanism to facilitate trust, confidence and cooperation between Myanmar and the international community in the urgent humanitarian relief and recovery work after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar (2 to 3 May 2008).
2 The TCG comprises 3 members from the Myanmar Government: (Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Thu who is the Chairman, Acting Director-General, Ministry of Social Welfare and Resettlement U Aung Tun Khaing, and Deputy Director-General, Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation U Than Aye), 3 members from ASEAN (Singapore’s Ambassador to Myanmar Mr Robert H K Chua, Dr Puji Pujiono, a senior UNDP officer seconded to the ASEAN Secretariat, and Ms Adelina Kamal, Assistant Director of the ASEAN Secretariat) and 3 from the UN (UN Humanitarian Coordinator Mr Daniel Baker, UN Resident Coordinator Mr Bishow Parajuli and a rotating UN agency Representative). The TCG started its work on 31 May 2008 and has been meeting at least once a week and sometimes more often, in a spirit of mutual understanding, trust and cooperation. It has been working closely with the National Disaster Preparedness Central Committee chaired by His Excellency Prime Minister General Thein Sein, Union of Myanmar. The TCG has successfully completed the following operational tasks:
(i) Fulfilling the commitment of His Excellency Senior General Than Shwe, Chairman of State Peace and Development Council to His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, that visas for UN and foreign aid workers would be given and their access to cyclone-affected areas would be allowed. Requests for visas, visa extensions and permits to travel are now channeled through the TCG for rapid facilitation.
(ii) Since 2 June 2008, the entry and deployment in Yangon and Ayeyarwady Divisions of the 10 commercial helicopters contracted by the World Food Programme. These helicopters played a key role in the deployment of the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment Teams in the Ayeyawardy Division (Delta) from 11 to 20 June 2008. They are now flying daily flights to provide humanitarian relief supplies in the cyclone-affected areas.
(iii) The successful completion of the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) Teams in Ayeyarwady Division (Delta) and Yangon Division from 11 June to 20 June 2008. 350 officials and volunteers from the Myanmar Government, ASEAN and UN supported by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and both local and international NGOs were trained from 2 to 3 June 2008 in the established data gathering templates of the Village Tract Assessment (VTA) used by the UN, and the Damage and Loss Assessment (DaLA) used by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. 85 DaLA members, and 245 VTA members, supported by 20 members in the coordinating office in Yangon were subsequently deployed. Advance teams were sent to Labutta and Pyapon, two severely affected townships in the Ayeyawardy Division (Delta) to test the assessment questionnaires from 4 June to 7 June 2008. The data collected by the PONJA teams from 380 villages will lead to a credible and independent damage assessment report, as mandated by the 25 May 2008 ASEAN-United Nations International Pledging Conference in Yangon. This will allow donors to fulfill their pledge commitments to the cyclone victims and help in the recovery and reconstruction. The PONJA report will be published in Yangon and submitted to the ASEAN Foreign Ministerial Meeting (20-21 July 2008) in Singapore. It will also provide inputs to the UN’s revised Humanitarian Flash Appeal in July 2008 in New York for post-Nargis emergency and early recovery efforts.
3 The TCG, representing the Myanmar Government, ASEAN and the UN, continues to work in a spirit of mutual understanding, trust and cooperation to address pressing issues such as the implementation of the new Guiding Principles on the work of the UN and INGOs, and the continuing work of post-Nargis relief, recovery and reconstruction.
Issued in Yangon, Myanmar
1 The Tripartite Core Group (TCG) was formed after the 19 May 2008 Special Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministerial Meeting in Singapore, and the 25 May 2008 ASEAN-United Nations International Pledging Conference in Yangon, Union of Myanmar. The aim of the TCG is to act as an ASEAN-led mechanism to facilitate trust, confidence and cooperation between Myanmar and the international community in the urgent humanitarian relief and recovery work after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar (2 to 3 May 2008).
2 The TCG comprises 3 members from the Myanmar Government: (Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Thu who is the Chairman, Acting Director-General, Ministry of Social Welfare and Resettlement U Aung Tun Khaing, and Deputy Director-General, Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation U Than Aye), 3 members from ASEAN (Singapore’s Ambassador to Myanmar Mr Robert H K Chua, Dr Puji Pujiono, a senior UNDP officer seconded to the ASEAN Secretariat, and Ms Adelina Kamal, Assistant Director of the ASEAN Secretariat) and 3 from the UN (UN Humanitarian Coordinator Mr Daniel Baker, UN Resident Coordinator Mr Bishow Parajuli and a rotating UN agency Representative). The TCG started its work on 31 May 2008 and has been meeting at least once a week and sometimes more often, in a spirit of mutual understanding, trust and cooperation. It has been working closely with the National Disaster Preparedness Central Committee chaired by His Excellency Prime Minister General Thein Sein, Union of Myanmar. The TCG has successfully completed the following operational tasks:
(i) Fulfilling the commitment of His Excellency Senior General Than Shwe, Chairman of State Peace and Development Council to His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, that visas for UN and foreign aid workers would be given and their access to cyclone-affected areas would be allowed. Requests for visas, visa extensions and permits to travel are now channeled through the TCG for rapid facilitation.
(ii) Since 2 June 2008, the entry and deployment in Yangon and Ayeyarwady Divisions of the 10 commercial helicopters contracted by the World Food Programme. These helicopters played a key role in the deployment of the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment Teams in the Ayeyawardy Division (Delta) from 11 to 20 June 2008. They are now flying daily flights to provide humanitarian relief supplies in the cyclone-affected areas.
(iii) The successful completion of the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) Teams in Ayeyarwady Division (Delta) and Yangon Division from 11 June to 20 June 2008. 350 officials and volunteers from the Myanmar Government, ASEAN and UN supported by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and both local and international NGOs were trained from 2 to 3 June 2008 in the established data gathering templates of the Village Tract Assessment (VTA) used by the UN, and the Damage and Loss Assessment (DaLA) used by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. 85 DaLA members, and 245 VTA members, supported by 20 members in the coordinating office in Yangon were subsequently deployed. Advance teams were sent to Labutta and Pyapon, two severely affected townships in the Ayeyawardy Division (Delta) to test the assessment questionnaires from 4 June to 7 June 2008. The data collected by the PONJA teams from 380 villages will lead to a credible and independent damage assessment report, as mandated by the 25 May 2008 ASEAN-United Nations International Pledging Conference in Yangon. This will allow donors to fulfill their pledge commitments to the cyclone victims and help in the recovery and reconstruction. The PONJA report will be published in Yangon and submitted to the ASEAN Foreign Ministerial Meeting (20-21 July 2008) in Singapore. It will also provide inputs to the UN’s revised Humanitarian Flash Appeal in July 2008 in New York for post-Nargis emergency and early recovery efforts.
3 The TCG, representing the Myanmar Government, ASEAN and the UN, continues to work in a spirit of mutual understanding, trust and cooperation to address pressing issues such as the implementation of the new Guiding Principles on the work of the UN and INGOs, and the continuing work of post-Nargis relief, recovery and reconstruction.
Issued in Yangon, Myanmar
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Junta Steps Up Crackdown on Private Relief Efforts
Burma Partnership
appartnership@gmail.com partnership@loxinfo.com
http://apppb.blogspot.com
appartnership@gmail.com partnership@loxinfo.com
http://apppb.blogspot.com
Briefer 16th – 22nd June
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
The patience of the international community appears to be wearing thin as the delivery of aid continues to face undue obstacles, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi celebrates another birthday under illegitimate detention and the usual human rights abuses carry on unchecked in Burma. As the humanitarian effort struggles on in the face of a potentially terminating funding crisis, the focus of the international community seems to have shifted to the wider political and human rights crises in Burma. The National League for Democracy has once again urged the military regime to convene parliament in order to solve the political and humanitarian crises the country is facing (http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4-inside-burma/686-nld-calls-for-parliament-to-be-convened).
Cyclone Nargis:
Senator John Kerry has formally urged US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to investigate whether the junta’s restriction of foreign aid may constitute a crime against humanity under international law. He has requested a legal opinion from the State Department
(http://kerry.senate.gov/cfm/record.cfm?id=299259, and
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12840).
The World Bank has donated US$850,000 to ASEAN for disaster assessment and recovery activities in the wake of the cyclone. The grant is further intended to support ASEAN’s leadership role in the humanitarian efforts and to strengthen its capacity in the coordination of international response and senior-level dialogue on recovery planning (http://www.aseansec.org/21645.htm). Burmese groups in exile have issued a statement expressing concern that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) may view the current humanitarian crisis as an opportunity to increase engagement with the SPDC. The Ethnic Community Development Forum and other groups have urged the World Bank and ADB to focus only on facilitating relief efforts and to include community-based organisations advocating real political reform in any decision-making process regarding their activities in Burma (http://appartnership.googlepages.com/ECDF-June17-08.doc).
The World Food Program has made a plea for additional funding for the humanitarian aid effort being carried out in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. Chris Kaye, WFP country director in Burma, warned that the distribution of supplies to distressed communities by boat, truck and air ‘will all grind to a halt by the end of this month unless we get additional funding now’ (http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/213818,lack-of-funding-threatens-myanmar-helicopter-relief-operation.html). The executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Noeleen Hayzer, called on the international community o donate 1 million gallons of diesel fuel that the regime says is needed to operate the mechanical tillers donated by other countries (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1434).
Farmers in Labutta township, Irawaddy division, went to collect hand tractors donated as part of the cyclone relief effort but found that local authorities were demanding payment (of between 1.09 and 2.2 million kyat). Even the down payment far exceeded the means of most farmers. Reports suggest that so far none of the farmers in the delta region has been provided with any financial or material assistance to enable them to get back to work (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1432). An absurdist bureaucracy charging farmers from the cyclone-stricken regions administration fees for defunct contracts has further hindered the distribution of machines in this critical planting season (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1445).
Private donors continue to face harassment and obstruction despite the junta’s promises (http://www.kachinnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=247:junta-continues-to-restrict-aid-workers-from-helping-cyclone-victims&catid=38:environment&Itemid=61). Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners states that ten donors have been arrested since the beginning of June (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article1.php?art_id=12822). The Burmese authorities detained three senior members of the pro-democracy group 88 Generation Students on 12th June. The group has formed a team called Myitta Paung Ku to distribute aid to cyclone survivors. Myet Thu, Yin Yin Wyne and Tin Tin Cho were waiting to discuss further aid distribution with monks when they were taken away. Their whereabouts are unknown (http://www.mizzima.com/nargis-impact/18-nargis-impact/675-student-activists-helping-nargis-victims-arrested,
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article2.php?art_id=12776, http://www.mizzima.com/nargis-impact/18-nargis-impact/679-volunteers-for-cyclone-relief-work-arrested-yet-again). Sports writer and former editor of weekly journal First Eleven Zaw Thet Htway was arrested on 13th June (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1431).
One of the many civil groups to have formed since the strike of Cyclone Nargis has undertaken the grim task of disposing of the many corpses still lying in the rivers and fields of the Irrawaddy delta. They have given bodies a simple cremation and burial rites. Seven members of the group were arrested on June 14th (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article2.php?art_id=12846).
Donated food stored in a monastery in Phyar Pon was left to rot instead of being given to desperate cyclone victims because soldiers didn’t receive orders to distribute it (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1433). Meanwhile, increasing numbers of children in Rangoon and other cyclone-afflicted areas have been reduced to stealing food in order to stave off starvation (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article1.php?art_id=12778).
The junta has warned against the exploitation of children orphaned by the cyclone. Anyone found guilty of trafficking children will be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison. The authorities have also announced that they will take sole responsibility for the care of orphans, banning all individuals and organisations from doing so (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/16/content_8381219.htm). This move threatens the plans of the Free Funeral Service Society to build an orphanage.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) decided at its International Labour Conference on 13th June that it would take an active role in the post-cyclone reconstruction efforts. The ILO’s current priority will be to prevent the use of forced labour in the reconstruction effort, but it will continue to investigate complaints in other contexts, noting that the forced labour situation in Burma is a cause for ‘profound concern’ (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1428).
The UN launched a massive anti-dengue operation in the cyclone-hit areas of Burma this week (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12767). The climate and lack of shelter in the Irrawaddy delta has left cyclone survivors at greater risk of succumbing to this disease. Other diseases are on the rise in Labutta, although not at the rate expected (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article3.php?art_id=12775).
The 250 member Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) team returned to Rangoon on 20th June after completing its data collection in 30 affected townships across the cyclone-afflicted region. Preliminary findings and a progress report will be presented at the ASEAN meeting on 24th June (http://yangon.unic.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=244&Itemid=73).
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi:
Influential US Congressman Joe Pitts, speaking to the House of Representatives, issued a powerful rejoinder to the junta: “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?” (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12763).
US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has accused the regime of ‘backtracking’ on even its most modest pledges to engage in dialogue with Burma’s elected leader. Rice criticised the Burmese authorities for holding a ‘rigged referendum… on a sham constitution’ and for the continued denial of the liberty and fundamental political and civil rights of political prisoners (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=12841).
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicholas Sarkozy have released an open letter to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on the event of her birthday praising her courage and dedication to the people of Burma (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page15807.asp, http://www.irrawaddy.org/article4.php?art_id=12843).
Celebrations for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday took place all across the globe this week. In Washington, an event was held at the Capitol Building, home of the US Congress. Politicians from the US government and the Burmese government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, along with activists and journalists from the exiled-Burmese and international media attended. U Tin Maung Thaw, board member of US Campaign for Burma, cited the occasion as an opportunity to persuade the US government to take the regime to the International Court of Justice (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1429, http://www.irrawaddy.org/article2.php?art_id=12886).
Celebrations held in Burma were marred by beatings and arrests. An event held at the National League for Democracy headquarters was disrupted by members of the USDA and Swan Arr Shin. Members of the crowd were beaten and five activists were arrested (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1451, http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1449).
Other News:
The UN Human Rights Council has called on the military authorities to cease politically motivated arrests and condemned what it termed ‘the ongoing systematic violations of human rights’. The resolution, introduced by the European Union, calls for the immediate cessation of the recruitment of child soldiers by both the regime and by non-state armed groups and the release of all political prisoners. The resolution condemns the recent referendum as held in ‘complete disregard’ of freedom of expression and assembly and urges the authorities to ensure that any returns of cyclone refugees are ‘voluntary, safe and carried out with dignity’ (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27076&Cr=myanmar&Cr1=).
The All Burma Monks’ Alliance called for the UN Security Council to safeguard the people of Burma. Citing the raping of ethnic women with impunity, the detention of political prisoners and the handling of Cyclone Nargis, the statement argues that ‘long-standing tolerance by the international community of human rights violations in Burma made the Burmese military junta believe that they have a license to kill and they have nothing to fear’ (http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/11856).
On 19th June, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the immediate release of political prisoners in Burma, and denounced the ‘prospect of flogging Aung San Suu Kyi as a crime against humanity’ (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2008-0312+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN). In addition, MPs from eight European countries have come together to form a new Parliamentary caucus on Burma. The caucus aims to raise awareness of the situation in Burma in Europe and pressure European governments to do more to bring about democratic transition in Burma (http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/pm/weblog.php?id=P371).
The Free Burma Rangers have published reports documenting the ongoing attacks on the Karen people. The reports detail the destruction of villages, the laying of land mines and the displacement of the Karen (http://www.freeburmarangers.org/Reports/2008/20080620.html).
The regime has announced a reshuffle of two cabinet positions and the appointment of the navy’s commander in chief to a ministerial post. The move comes in the wake of Cyclone Nargis and will allow the minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement to concentrate on this role by relinquishing his post as the minister for immigration and population. Rangoon-based military sources claim that the move is unusual and could signal further changes (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article1.php?art_id=12870, http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4-inside-burma/696-change-of-guard-in-burmese-junta).
The junta has questioned village heads told to monitor polling stations in remote areas of Chin State, where the majority of voters rejected the constitution (http://www.khonumthung.com/kng-news/2008-news-archive/june-2008/more-village-heads-questioned-after-referendum/).
A major from the Burma Army and a lawyer were arrested after raping two teenage Chin girls. One of the girls was hospitalised as a result of the injuries she incurred (http://www.khonumthung.com/kng-news/2008-news-archive/june-2008/two-chin-teenaged-girls-raped-in-burma-rapists-arrested/). According to the junta’s law, only the military court can investigate and punish members of the armed forces (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1439). Three army officers who raped four ethnic Kachin schoolgirls in February 2007 have yet to be punished (http://www.kachinnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250:junta-yet-to-punish-army-officers-for-raping-kachin-schoolgirls&catid=37:human-rights&Itemid=60).
Well-known actor Kyaw Thu, leader of the Free Funeral Service charity group, has been taken ill while distributing aid in the Irrawaddy delta. His wife has attributed his illness to stress, compounded by smoking and an unhealthy diet (http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4-inside-burma/674-actor-kyaw-thu-hospitalised-).
The Burma Army has issued a ban on villagers working outside their villages. The ostensible reason for this move is cited as being to prevent armed Mon groups form contacting the villagers (http://www.monnews-imna.com/newsupdate.php?ID=1042).
Blogger Nay Phone Latt is being reinvestigated by the regime. He has been held and interrogated at Insein prison for the past five months for publishing his blog (http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4-inside-burma/673-blogger-nay-phone-latt-being-reinvestigated).
Eleven people were killed in a landslide in Moegok township, Mandalay division, on 11th June (http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1430).
Thailand hosts an estimated 2 million migrant workers, most of whom are believed to be Burmese. Thai and Burmese rights groups are urging the Thai government to repeal a controversial law rewarding informers and imposing harsh penalties on migrants that was passed in March (http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=12798).
Salween Watch, the Chiang Mai-based coalition of environmental organisations and NGOs, has published a report describing the current and projected impacts of the Upper Paunglaung Dam on the Kayan people. The dam is being built to supply energy for Nay Pyi Daw, but the Kayan are already suffering displacement, increased abuses by the Burma Army and the loss of their livelihoods (http://www.salweenwatch.org/index.html).
Reports suggest that rumours of a national uprising on 8th August are flying in Burma. Flyers being distributed in the country appeal to the dispossessed and poorly paid soldiers of the Burma Army to turn on their overseers on the twentieth anniversary of the massacre of students across Burma and on the day that the Olympics open in Beijing (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23895645-401,00.html). The idea of military coups has lost popularity in today’s global-political climate, but it may be the only form of justice the leaders of the Burmese military regime can understand (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061901429.html).
In Solidarity,
Burma Partnership Secretariat
Saturday, 21 June 2008
Doubting donors withhold Burma aid
Brian McCartan
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
June 20, 2008
Reverting to their tried and tested diplomatic strategy of making concessions and then not following through on those commitments, Burma's ruling junta appears to be weathering yet another storm of international criticism over its controversial handling of the Cyclone Nargis disaster.
The military regime's recent agreements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations (UN) to allow international relief workers and aid into the country to help handle the humanitarian crisis was greeted with guarded optimism by the international community. Foreign donors have since taken a wait-and-see posture to the junta's request for US$11.7 billion in reconstruction and rehabilitation and recent developments should give them pause.
Cyclone Nargis, which made landfall on May 2, killed an estimated 135,000 people, although the junta only officially claims 78,000, a figure it has not updated since mid-May. The UN estimates that 2.4 million people were affected by the killer storm and 1 million are still in need of help. Senior US government officials have characterized the junta's callous response to the disaster as "criminally negligent".
Now the UN and ASEAN are at risk of abetting what many view as the junta's crimes against humanity through its initial lack of response and subsequent obstruction of aid deliveries associated with the natural disaster. One month into the internationalized relief effort, there are growing signs that the junta has reneged on its promises to better address the humanitarian crisis, raising difficult questions about whether the international community should or should not pledge billions of dollars to Burma's government to rebuild and rehabilitate disaster-hit areas.
The junta's concession to allow increased access for aid workers and relief shipments came at the end of a three-day mission to Burma by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to cyclone-affected areas and his meeting on May 23 with Burma's reclusive leader, Senior General Than Shwe, who before the high-profile visit had refused to accept Ban's phone calls about the cyclone disaster. ASEAN has since established a coordinating body of nine members to manage the international relief effort, with three representatives each from the Myanmar government, UN and ASEAN.
ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan referred to the arrangement as an "international social contract" upon unveiling the plan to foreign journalists in Bangkok in late May. At that same time, the United States, United Kingdom and France all had warships laden with aid situated off Burma's coast. Earlier, France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had suggested that the UN and Western countries unilaterally force aid on Myanmar if the generals refused to receive foreign assistance.
Editorials in several leading international papers and this publication raised the prospect of a US-led, UN-endorsed exercising of the global body's "right to protect" mandate, where the US military could have delivered aid to the estimated two million people worst affected in remote Irrawaddy Delta region.
During a May 25 donor conference held in Rangoon and attended by representatives from 44 countries, ministers from the 10 ASEAN nations, and several UN agencies, Thein Sein made it clear that all aid work and assistance was welcome as long as it came with "no strings attached". He told the conference, "We will warmly welcome any assistance and aid which are provided with genuine good will from any country or organization providing that there are no strings attached, nor politicization involved."
Following the conference, Ban deemed the mission a success saying, "Senior General Than Shwe agreed to allow all international aid workers to operate freely and without hindrance. The Myanmar government appears to be moving toward the right direction to implement these accords." Ban later added: "I think the Myanmar government is moving fast in the right direction." ASEAN's top representative Surin told a Bangkok press conference: "We are prying the country open step-by-step ... There is a reciprocal sense of urgency."
Show us the money
Representatives at the donor conference, however, were less convinced, judging by the meager $50 million to $100 million they initially pledged. That lackluster response was due to several governments' concerns that Burma would not honor its commitments and was rushing to reconstruct disaster areas before the relief and rescue missions had been satisfactorily completed. Nearly one month later, Ban's optimism has arguably not been borne out in practice.
Nor have donor commitments been forthcoming. As of June 13, the UN had received only $88.5 million of its $201 million target for relief-oriented aid. Some countries have delayed their pledged disbursements due to their concerns about government restrictions on how aid has been distributed and reports that displaced villagers have been forced back by government authorities to their home areas without proper food, water or shelter.
Realizing that a US military-led, UN-endorsed humanitarian intervention was off the table, Burma's generals have since hardened their stance and imposed new bureaucratic hurdles against international humanitarian assistance and domestic donor groups which have inhibited the efficient and equitable distribution of aid.
New government guidelines were issued on June 9 stipulating that UN agencies and all international and domestic relief groups must seek permission for travel and aid distribution from several different authorities, including government ministries. So-called township coordination committees must also be kept informed of aid workers' movements and activities, according to the new guidelines.
In addition, several sources indicated that permission has to be obtained from local military, Light Infantry Division 66 and the Southwest Command responsible for the Irrawaddy Delta region. Relief workers in the Delta say that they must tell the exact name of the village they are going to and what supplies they are bringing and be accompanied by a government official at all times.
Prior to this announcement, foreigners working with relief agencies who wanted access to the worst-hit Delta areas had to obtain official permission from the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare. By June 10, 195 foreign workers had been issued visas by the junta and the UN's World Food Program was operating 10 helicopters.
On June 11, the World Food Program confirmed that it had been told by the government that they would no longer be able to buy relief rice domestically and would have to receive government permission to import rice. A more worrying sign of the regime's hardening line on relief aid have been the recent arrests and increased restrictions on domestic donors, who to date have played a key role in the amount of relief which has been distributed.
Local donors had earlier identified the payment of bribes, fees to use roads and bridges, and even confiscation of aid by the authorities as major hindrances to their efforts. Now they also risk harassment and even imprisonment. Twenty-five cyclone survivors from Dagon township, including women and children, were arrested by authorities on June 10 on their way to the United Nations Development Program offices in Rangoon to plead for more assistance.
Their arrests were followed by the recent detention of three local aid workers in Rangoon and prominent activist and journalist Zaw Thet Htway, who had helped organize volunteer cyclone relief. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners based in Mae Sot, Thailand, claims that 10 domestic donors have been arrested since the beginning of the month.
Instead, the government is angling to monopolize the distribution of local aid. An announcement in the state-mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar newspaper on June 16 said that local donations could now be made through the government-run Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Sub-committee of the National Disaster Preparedness Central Committee and through district and township offices. This was viewed by many local donors as an order rather than a request. Previous announcements that aid donations could be "more effectively" distributed if given to government organizations had been largely ignored.
Many fear the government's attempts to limit how money and donations are distributed will discourage many from continuing to donate. Local donors note that, since the WFP is providing only rice, villagers have relied on them to provide other staples such as salt, vegetables, meat and oil. If local donors are forced to channel their assistance through government organizations, it is widely feared that much of the food aid would be in the direct control of the junta, which has already caused international aid shipments to disappear into government warehouses from where their contents have reappeared in local markets at inflated prices.
Indeed, where the junta sees the potential for making money, it has adopted a more conciliatory approach. In a move hailed by the concerned agencies and organizations as a sign of increased cooperation, 250 experts from the UN, Burmese government and ASEAN last week began a village-by-village survey to determine how much food, water and shelter was still needed.
The projected cost of reconstructing houses and schools and rehabilitating the agricultural sector is also being evaluated by the joint assessment team. That broad assessment will be completed on June 24 and released to the public the following week. It will also be used by the junta as a quasi-independent figure to present to the international donors who rejected their initial $11.7 billion appeal.
Well-worn tactics
Big donors like the US, Australia and European countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, which had previously said their donations were contingent on greater access, have yet to indicate to what extent they are satisfied or otherwise by the junta's recent actions. The US Senate on June 12 renewed its import restrictions on goods produced in Burma, after previously committing $35 million in relief and the use of US military aircraft for aid delivery to Yangon airport.
The New Light of Myanmar carried a scathing editorial on June 13 that many observers believe targeted the US, claiming, "The goodwill of a big Western nation that wants to help Myanmar with its warships was not genuine." Myanmar's state media had voiced fears in the past that the US could use humanitarian assistance as a pretense to invade the country George W Bush administration officials have frequently referred to as an "outpost of tyranny" due to the junta's abysmal rights record.
In perhaps the clearest display that the generals have no intention of changing their repressive ways was the regime's decision, two days after the international donor conference, to extend the house arrest of Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for a sixth consecutive year. The continued detention of the democratic opposition leader was apparently not open to discussion during Ban's meetings with top Myanmar officials. Ban said that while he regretted the junta's decision, he had been in Burma on "purely humanitarian grounds".
Critics suggest that the regime is employing the same tactics it has used in the past to deflect intense international criticism. They contend the generals used a similar routine after their crackdown last year on Buddhist monk-led protests garnered worldwide media attention. After the junta agreed to meet with UN special envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari, the generals showed signs of conciliation but continued to round up and detain protest leaders once international attention focused elsewhere.
Many Burma watchers and exiled opposition groups say that the UN has fallen into the same trap through its diplomatic overtures in the wake of the cyclone. As global media interest in the cyclone's aftermath wanes, the junta is fast returning to its oppressive ways and continues to treat the disaster more as a national security threat than a humanitarian mission.
The same critics say that ASEAN is also allowing itself to be used by the junta for its own cynical political purposes. Rather than leveraging its influence on Burma to respond more humanely to the crisis, the regional grouping has functioned more as a pressure valve for the junta to escape international condemnation.
The ASEAN secretary general was upbeat after the donor conference telling journalists, "We have been able to establish a space, a humanitarian space, however small to engage with the Myanmar authorities," Surin said. "That humanitarian space needs to be sustained through political decisions, through political flexibility."
During a more recent one-day ASEAN Leadership Forum, Surin told the attendees that a "new ASEAN" has emerged from its response to the disaster in Burma. He stated his belief that ASEAN has shown the world that the grouping was up to the responsibility placed on it, saying, "It just so happened that we are being baptized by the Cyclone Nargis. That is the test of our new ASEAN."
Burma was allowed to join ASEAN in 1997, amid strong international protests, after providing assurances that it would take steps to move towards more openness and democracy. Despite this and repeated criticisms of ASEAN for not pressuring Burma more, the grouping has stood by its member nation in the interest of regional solidarity and its long-held policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of members.
Countries in the region, some say, would also stand to profit from reconstruction and rehabilitation contracts, assuming the international community is willing to foot the bill. Despite the fact a million Burmese citizens are still in desperate need of aid and assistance, two Thai medical teams that had been working under an ASEAN banner in the Irrawaddy Delta area recently returned to Thailand after Burmese officials told them that their assistance was no longer required and that local doctors had the situation under control.
The removal of the Thai medical teams stands in stark contradiction to the assessment of most foreign aid workers, who now say the bolstered relief and assistance program will have to be sustained at the very least until the end of the year, while local groups and residents say the international effort will take much longer to achieve stability. Whether the military regime's patience with a foreign presence will last that long, particularly if the billions of dollars in reconstruction aid it has requested are not forthcoming, remains a crucial humanitarian question.
Rebound88
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
June 20, 2008
Reverting to their tried and tested diplomatic strategy of making concessions and then not following through on those commitments, Burma's ruling junta appears to be weathering yet another storm of international criticism over its controversial handling of the Cyclone Nargis disaster.
The military regime's recent agreements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations (UN) to allow international relief workers and aid into the country to help handle the humanitarian crisis was greeted with guarded optimism by the international community. Foreign donors have since taken a wait-and-see posture to the junta's request for US$11.7 billion in reconstruction and rehabilitation and recent developments should give them pause.
Cyclone Nargis, which made landfall on May 2, killed an estimated 135,000 people, although the junta only officially claims 78,000, a figure it has not updated since mid-May. The UN estimates that 2.4 million people were affected by the killer storm and 1 million are still in need of help. Senior US government officials have characterized the junta's callous response to the disaster as "criminally negligent".
Now the UN and ASEAN are at risk of abetting what many view as the junta's crimes against humanity through its initial lack of response and subsequent obstruction of aid deliveries associated with the natural disaster. One month into the internationalized relief effort, there are growing signs that the junta has reneged on its promises to better address the humanitarian crisis, raising difficult questions about whether the international community should or should not pledge billions of dollars to Burma's government to rebuild and rehabilitate disaster-hit areas.
The junta's concession to allow increased access for aid workers and relief shipments came at the end of a three-day mission to Burma by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to cyclone-affected areas and his meeting on May 23 with Burma's reclusive leader, Senior General Than Shwe, who before the high-profile visit had refused to accept Ban's phone calls about the cyclone disaster. ASEAN has since established a coordinating body of nine members to manage the international relief effort, with three representatives each from the Myanmar government, UN and ASEAN.
ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan referred to the arrangement as an "international social contract" upon unveiling the plan to foreign journalists in Bangkok in late May. At that same time, the United States, United Kingdom and France all had warships laden with aid situated off Burma's coast. Earlier, France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had suggested that the UN and Western countries unilaterally force aid on Myanmar if the generals refused to receive foreign assistance.
Editorials in several leading international papers and this publication raised the prospect of a US-led, UN-endorsed exercising of the global body's "right to protect" mandate, where the US military could have delivered aid to the estimated two million people worst affected in remote Irrawaddy Delta region.
During a May 25 donor conference held in Rangoon and attended by representatives from 44 countries, ministers from the 10 ASEAN nations, and several UN agencies, Thein Sein made it clear that all aid work and assistance was welcome as long as it came with "no strings attached". He told the conference, "We will warmly welcome any assistance and aid which are provided with genuine good will from any country or organization providing that there are no strings attached, nor politicization involved."
Following the conference, Ban deemed the mission a success saying, "Senior General Than Shwe agreed to allow all international aid workers to operate freely and without hindrance. The Myanmar government appears to be moving toward the right direction to implement these accords." Ban later added: "I think the Myanmar government is moving fast in the right direction." ASEAN's top representative Surin told a Bangkok press conference: "We are prying the country open step-by-step ... There is a reciprocal sense of urgency."
Show us the money
Representatives at the donor conference, however, were less convinced, judging by the meager $50 million to $100 million they initially pledged. That lackluster response was due to several governments' concerns that Burma would not honor its commitments and was rushing to reconstruct disaster areas before the relief and rescue missions had been satisfactorily completed. Nearly one month later, Ban's optimism has arguably not been borne out in practice.
Nor have donor commitments been forthcoming. As of June 13, the UN had received only $88.5 million of its $201 million target for relief-oriented aid. Some countries have delayed their pledged disbursements due to their concerns about government restrictions on how aid has been distributed and reports that displaced villagers have been forced back by government authorities to their home areas without proper food, water or shelter.
Realizing that a US military-led, UN-endorsed humanitarian intervention was off the table, Burma's generals have since hardened their stance and imposed new bureaucratic hurdles against international humanitarian assistance and domestic donor groups which have inhibited the efficient and equitable distribution of aid.
New government guidelines were issued on June 9 stipulating that UN agencies and all international and domestic relief groups must seek permission for travel and aid distribution from several different authorities, including government ministries. So-called township coordination committees must also be kept informed of aid workers' movements and activities, according to the new guidelines.
In addition, several sources indicated that permission has to be obtained from local military, Light Infantry Division 66 and the Southwest Command responsible for the Irrawaddy Delta region. Relief workers in the Delta say that they must tell the exact name of the village they are going to and what supplies they are bringing and be accompanied by a government official at all times.
Prior to this announcement, foreigners working with relief agencies who wanted access to the worst-hit Delta areas had to obtain official permission from the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Welfare. By June 10, 195 foreign workers had been issued visas by the junta and the UN's World Food Program was operating 10 helicopters.
On June 11, the World Food Program confirmed that it had been told by the government that they would no longer be able to buy relief rice domestically and would have to receive government permission to import rice. A more worrying sign of the regime's hardening line on relief aid have been the recent arrests and increased restrictions on domestic donors, who to date have played a key role in the amount of relief which has been distributed.
Local donors had earlier identified the payment of bribes, fees to use roads and bridges, and even confiscation of aid by the authorities as major hindrances to their efforts. Now they also risk harassment and even imprisonment. Twenty-five cyclone survivors from Dagon township, including women and children, were arrested by authorities on June 10 on their way to the United Nations Development Program offices in Rangoon to plead for more assistance.
Their arrests were followed by the recent detention of three local aid workers in Rangoon and prominent activist and journalist Zaw Thet Htway, who had helped organize volunteer cyclone relief. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners based in Mae Sot, Thailand, claims that 10 domestic donors have been arrested since the beginning of the month.
Instead, the government is angling to monopolize the distribution of local aid. An announcement in the state-mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar newspaper on June 16 said that local donations could now be made through the government-run Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Sub-committee of the National Disaster Preparedness Central Committee and through district and township offices. This was viewed by many local donors as an order rather than a request. Previous announcements that aid donations could be "more effectively" distributed if given to government organizations had been largely ignored.
Many fear the government's attempts to limit how money and donations are distributed will discourage many from continuing to donate. Local donors note that, since the WFP is providing only rice, villagers have relied on them to provide other staples such as salt, vegetables, meat and oil. If local donors are forced to channel their assistance through government organizations, it is widely feared that much of the food aid would be in the direct control of the junta, which has already caused international aid shipments to disappear into government warehouses from where their contents have reappeared in local markets at inflated prices.
Indeed, where the junta sees the potential for making money, it has adopted a more conciliatory approach. In a move hailed by the concerned agencies and organizations as a sign of increased cooperation, 250 experts from the UN, Burmese government and ASEAN last week began a village-by-village survey to determine how much food, water and shelter was still needed.
The projected cost of reconstructing houses and schools and rehabilitating the agricultural sector is also being evaluated by the joint assessment team. That broad assessment will be completed on June 24 and released to the public the following week. It will also be used by the junta as a quasi-independent figure to present to the international donors who rejected their initial $11.7 billion appeal.
Well-worn tactics
Big donors like the US, Australia and European countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, which had previously said their donations were contingent on greater access, have yet to indicate to what extent they are satisfied or otherwise by the junta's recent actions. The US Senate on June 12 renewed its import restrictions on goods produced in Burma, after previously committing $35 million in relief and the use of US military aircraft for aid delivery to Yangon airport.
The New Light of Myanmar carried a scathing editorial on June 13 that many observers believe targeted the US, claiming, "The goodwill of a big Western nation that wants to help Myanmar with its warships was not genuine." Myanmar's state media had voiced fears in the past that the US could use humanitarian assistance as a pretense to invade the country George W Bush administration officials have frequently referred to as an "outpost of tyranny" due to the junta's abysmal rights record.
In perhaps the clearest display that the generals have no intention of changing their repressive ways was the regime's decision, two days after the international donor conference, to extend the house arrest of Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for a sixth consecutive year. The continued detention of the democratic opposition leader was apparently not open to discussion during Ban's meetings with top Myanmar officials. Ban said that while he regretted the junta's decision, he had been in Burma on "purely humanitarian grounds".
Critics suggest that the regime is employing the same tactics it has used in the past to deflect intense international criticism. They contend the generals used a similar routine after their crackdown last year on Buddhist monk-led protests garnered worldwide media attention. After the junta agreed to meet with UN special envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari, the generals showed signs of conciliation but continued to round up and detain protest leaders once international attention focused elsewhere.
Many Burma watchers and exiled opposition groups say that the UN has fallen into the same trap through its diplomatic overtures in the wake of the cyclone. As global media interest in the cyclone's aftermath wanes, the junta is fast returning to its oppressive ways and continues to treat the disaster more as a national security threat than a humanitarian mission.
The same critics say that ASEAN is also allowing itself to be used by the junta for its own cynical political purposes. Rather than leveraging its influence on Burma to respond more humanely to the crisis, the regional grouping has functioned more as a pressure valve for the junta to escape international condemnation.
The ASEAN secretary general was upbeat after the donor conference telling journalists, "We have been able to establish a space, a humanitarian space, however small to engage with the Myanmar authorities," Surin said. "That humanitarian space needs to be sustained through political decisions, through political flexibility."
During a more recent one-day ASEAN Leadership Forum, Surin told the attendees that a "new ASEAN" has emerged from its response to the disaster in Burma. He stated his belief that ASEAN has shown the world that the grouping was up to the responsibility placed on it, saying, "It just so happened that we are being baptized by the Cyclone Nargis. That is the test of our new ASEAN."
Burma was allowed to join ASEAN in 1997, amid strong international protests, after providing assurances that it would take steps to move towards more openness and democracy. Despite this and repeated criticisms of ASEAN for not pressuring Burma more, the grouping has stood by its member nation in the interest of regional solidarity and its long-held policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of members.
Countries in the region, some say, would also stand to profit from reconstruction and rehabilitation contracts, assuming the international community is willing to foot the bill. Despite the fact a million Burmese citizens are still in desperate need of aid and assistance, two Thai medical teams that had been working under an ASEAN banner in the Irrawaddy Delta area recently returned to Thailand after Burmese officials told them that their assistance was no longer required and that local doctors had the situation under control.
The removal of the Thai medical teams stands in stark contradiction to the assessment of most foreign aid workers, who now say the bolstered relief and assistance program will have to be sustained at the very least until the end of the year, while local groups and residents say the international effort will take much longer to achieve stability. Whether the military regime's patience with a foreign presence will last that long, particularly if the billions of dollars in reconstruction aid it has requested are not forthcoming, remains a crucial humanitarian question.
Rebound88
Will corruption hurt relief effort?
Aaron Goodman
AlertNet
June 20, 2008
The international community has poured $85 million dollars into Myanmar, but rights groups claim the junta is already misusing and manipulating aid, preventing it from reaching cyclone survivors who need it most urgently.
"The misuse of aid remains a concern," Amnesty International's Southeast Asia researcher, Benjamin Zawacki told me. "Indeed, the problem with much aid distribution to date is not so much that it has fallen into the 'wrong hands', but that it has not reached the right ones. There are still people who have not received aid, and much of it remains simply unaccounted for."
Amnesty has reported several cases where aid delivered by the junta was conditioned on cyclone victims' willingness to work, or to vote in the May constitutional referendum, or join the military. It has confirmed over 40 reports of soldiers or local government officials confiscating, diverting, or misusing aid intended for cyclone survivors.
The group has reported that the military junta is forcibly displacing survivors from official and non-official settlements, leaving them with no alternative shelter.
Zawacki stressed that Amnesty is concerned about further manipulation of aid as the rehabilitation, reconstruction, and resettlement phases of the operation get underway. "The reconstruction of rural infrastructure projects is a particular worry," he said. "Work-for-food schemes are acceptable and even advantageous, but they must be designed and administered on a fair and voluntary basis."
Debbie Stothard from the advocacy group Alternative Asean Network on Burma said there wasn't any doubt Burma's government had already misused aid.
MISUSING AID
"They have been warehousing the aid and refusing offers of helicopters and other transportation of equipment from ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and other countries that could be used to deliver aid quickly and efficiently," Stothard said. "Generals have been photographed handing out boxes plastered with their names, aid that was clearly donated by neighbouring countries and international agencies."
Rights watchdogs, U.N. agencies, and NGOs have unanimously expressed concern about the potential misuse or corruption of aid since Burma announced the rescue phase of the cyclone response had ended, and that $11 billion was needed for reconstruction.
Stothard's organisation said there were reports that the junta has discriminated against minority Karen in their aid delivery, after displacing 76,000 Karen civilians in a military offensive in the east of the country that is still ongoing.
The Karen make up half the population in the delta, and have been fighting the Burmese regime for decades for their own homeland.
"We have been demanding for access by independent assessment teams to all affected areas so that ethnic Karen complaints of discrimination by the junta can be properly investigated," she said.
Stothard said Karen affected by the cyclone were already making their way to the Thai-Burmese border. "They are desperate for help... Help that had been denied them in the delta area for over a month since Cyclone Nargis."
The Irrawaddy, a magazine run by exiled journalists from Burma in Chiang Mai, Thailand, reported that aid workers in Laputta township told them the Ayear Shwe Wah company was pressuring cyclone survivors to work on reconstruction projects for $0.70 a day.
CORRUPTION INDEX
The magazine said that Burma's generals had allegedly given lucrative reconstruction contracts to companies run by their cronies, many with spotty track records of corruption and illegal activity.
According to the Irrawaddy, one of the companies is Asia World, the country's biggest construction firm. It's run by Tun Myint Naing, also known as Steven Law, a Burmese businessman on a U.N. sanctions list because of his suspected links with drug trafficking.
International NGO Transparency International ranked Burma as the most corrupt among 179 countries surveyed in its 2007 Corruption Perception Index. Burma was matched only by Somalia, and followed closely by Iraq. Many aid groups insist their long histories in the country give them leverage to get around corruption entirely. Before the cyclone, some 50 aid organisations were working in Burma.
Sarah Saxton, press officer for Britain's Department for International Development (DfID), said: "Our aid is going only to the U.N., Red Cross and NGOs, not directly to the government." She told me: "We are funding these organisations, as they have a good track record of delivery in Myanmar."
Yet given the nature of Burma's regime and the country's political situation, DfID and others are taking extra steps to ensure aid isn't misused or corrupted "The system will bring together local and expatriate staff of DfID's partner organisations, and involve coordination meetings with DfID in country," Saxton said.
But without full access to affected areas, especially the delta, the risks of aid going array dramatically rise. BYPASSING PROBLEMS
The charge d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Rangoon, Shari Villarosa, told me: "For that reason, donors from around the world have repeatedly emphasised the need for unhindered international access into the cyclone-affected areas." She said: "In that way, we will be able to closely monitor the distribution of relief supplies to ensure that they get to those most in need."
Yet even if full access is granted, aid groups may not be able to entirely prevent the misuse or corruption of funds.
Marie-Luise Ahlendorf, programme coordinator of the Humanitarian Assistance Project at Transparency International, said: "Their relatively small presence prior to the cyclone in Myanmar puts them at a disadvantage in understanding the social context and local power structures, and thus preventing corrupt abuse of international aid."
A report by the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) on the lessons aid agencies should learn from Cyclone Nargis said the unique challenges in Burma - restricted access in particular - made it necessary for relief organisations to be flexible. "It is important for donors to accept the dynamic and highly unpredictable context, and create forms of accountability which are tailored to the specific situations, enabling agents to operate in an adaptive fashion to changing circumstances," the report says.
It all brings to mind the problems for aid agencies in North Korea, which the regime reluctantly opened to international aid groups in the mid-1990s after a series of natural disasters created food shortages that threatened millions of lives.
But most international aid groups - with the exception of the World Food Programme and a few others - have pulled out of North Korea because the government prevented them from accessing affected people.
When it comes to Burma, international agency CARE insists its 14-year track record allows it to keep a close watch on where supplies wind up.
"Our operations are carried out by long-time CARE staff and local partners, and we are able to track our supplies and equipment from the point of purchase or delivery through to the distribution to the survivors themselves," CARE media officer Melanie Brooks told me.
Action Against Hunger also says it hasn't allowed country's political situation to stop it from launching relief programmes in Burma.
"If you follow the agreement that you have with the authorities, you find a way to do the job," Jean-Michel Grand, director of Action Against Hunger UK, told Reuters after the cyclone.
"As long as we're working on humanitarian activities, we find a modus operandi with the authorities and that's been for the last 15 years," he said.
Rebound88
AlertNet
June 20, 2008
The international community has poured $85 million dollars into Myanmar, but rights groups claim the junta is already misusing and manipulating aid, preventing it from reaching cyclone survivors who need it most urgently.
"The misuse of aid remains a concern," Amnesty International's Southeast Asia researcher, Benjamin Zawacki told me. "Indeed, the problem with much aid distribution to date is not so much that it has fallen into the 'wrong hands', but that it has not reached the right ones. There are still people who have not received aid, and much of it remains simply unaccounted for."
Amnesty has reported several cases where aid delivered by the junta was conditioned on cyclone victims' willingness to work, or to vote in the May constitutional referendum, or join the military. It has confirmed over 40 reports of soldiers or local government officials confiscating, diverting, or misusing aid intended for cyclone survivors.
The group has reported that the military junta is forcibly displacing survivors from official and non-official settlements, leaving them with no alternative shelter.
Zawacki stressed that Amnesty is concerned about further manipulation of aid as the rehabilitation, reconstruction, and resettlement phases of the operation get underway. "The reconstruction of rural infrastructure projects is a particular worry," he said. "Work-for-food schemes are acceptable and even advantageous, but they must be designed and administered on a fair and voluntary basis."
Debbie Stothard from the advocacy group Alternative Asean Network on Burma said there wasn't any doubt Burma's government had already misused aid.
MISUSING AID
"They have been warehousing the aid and refusing offers of helicopters and other transportation of equipment from ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and other countries that could be used to deliver aid quickly and efficiently," Stothard said. "Generals have been photographed handing out boxes plastered with their names, aid that was clearly donated by neighbouring countries and international agencies."
Rights watchdogs, U.N. agencies, and NGOs have unanimously expressed concern about the potential misuse or corruption of aid since Burma announced the rescue phase of the cyclone response had ended, and that $11 billion was needed for reconstruction.
Stothard's organisation said there were reports that the junta has discriminated against minority Karen in their aid delivery, after displacing 76,000 Karen civilians in a military offensive in the east of the country that is still ongoing.
The Karen make up half the population in the delta, and have been fighting the Burmese regime for decades for their own homeland.
"We have been demanding for access by independent assessment teams to all affected areas so that ethnic Karen complaints of discrimination by the junta can be properly investigated," she said.
Stothard said Karen affected by the cyclone were already making their way to the Thai-Burmese border. "They are desperate for help... Help that had been denied them in the delta area for over a month since Cyclone Nargis."
The Irrawaddy, a magazine run by exiled journalists from Burma in Chiang Mai, Thailand, reported that aid workers in Laputta township told them the Ayear Shwe Wah company was pressuring cyclone survivors to work on reconstruction projects for $0.70 a day.
CORRUPTION INDEX
The magazine said that Burma's generals had allegedly given lucrative reconstruction contracts to companies run by their cronies, many with spotty track records of corruption and illegal activity.
According to the Irrawaddy, one of the companies is Asia World, the country's biggest construction firm. It's run by Tun Myint Naing, also known as Steven Law, a Burmese businessman on a U.N. sanctions list because of his suspected links with drug trafficking.
International NGO Transparency International ranked Burma as the most corrupt among 179 countries surveyed in its 2007 Corruption Perception Index. Burma was matched only by Somalia, and followed closely by Iraq. Many aid groups insist their long histories in the country give them leverage to get around corruption entirely. Before the cyclone, some 50 aid organisations were working in Burma.
Sarah Saxton, press officer for Britain's Department for International Development (DfID), said: "Our aid is going only to the U.N., Red Cross and NGOs, not directly to the government." She told me: "We are funding these organisations, as they have a good track record of delivery in Myanmar."
Yet given the nature of Burma's regime and the country's political situation, DfID and others are taking extra steps to ensure aid isn't misused or corrupted "The system will bring together local and expatriate staff of DfID's partner organisations, and involve coordination meetings with DfID in country," Saxton said.
But without full access to affected areas, especially the delta, the risks of aid going array dramatically rise. BYPASSING PROBLEMS
The charge d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Rangoon, Shari Villarosa, told me: "For that reason, donors from around the world have repeatedly emphasised the need for unhindered international access into the cyclone-affected areas." She said: "In that way, we will be able to closely monitor the distribution of relief supplies to ensure that they get to those most in need."
Yet even if full access is granted, aid groups may not be able to entirely prevent the misuse or corruption of funds.
Marie-Luise Ahlendorf, programme coordinator of the Humanitarian Assistance Project at Transparency International, said: "Their relatively small presence prior to the cyclone in Myanmar puts them at a disadvantage in understanding the social context and local power structures, and thus preventing corrupt abuse of international aid."
A report by the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) on the lessons aid agencies should learn from Cyclone Nargis said the unique challenges in Burma - restricted access in particular - made it necessary for relief organisations to be flexible. "It is important for donors to accept the dynamic and highly unpredictable context, and create forms of accountability which are tailored to the specific situations, enabling agents to operate in an adaptive fashion to changing circumstances," the report says.
It all brings to mind the problems for aid agencies in North Korea, which the regime reluctantly opened to international aid groups in the mid-1990s after a series of natural disasters created food shortages that threatened millions of lives.
But most international aid groups - with the exception of the World Food Programme and a few others - have pulled out of North Korea because the government prevented them from accessing affected people.
When it comes to Burma, international agency CARE insists its 14-year track record allows it to keep a close watch on where supplies wind up.
"Our operations are carried out by long-time CARE staff and local partners, and we are able to track our supplies and equipment from the point of purchase or delivery through to the distribution to the survivors themselves," CARE media officer Melanie Brooks told me.
Action Against Hunger also says it hasn't allowed country's political situation to stop it from launching relief programmes in Burma.
"If you follow the agreement that you have with the authorities, you find a way to do the job," Jean-Michel Grand, director of Action Against Hunger UK, told Reuters after the cyclone.
"As long as we're working on humanitarian activities, we find a modus operandi with the authorities and that's been for the last 15 years," he said.
Rebound88
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