BurmaNet News, May 11-12, 2008

[Editor]

May 11-12, 2008 Issue # 3464



INSIDE BURMA
Xinhua: Myanmar cyclone death toll rise to 31,938
DVB: NLD accuses junta of manipulating vote
DVB: Junta continues dirty tricks as Burma votes
AFP: US flight arrives, but UN says Myanmar too slow
Reuters: Boat sinks with first Red Cross aid for Myanmar
Mizzima News: More aid reaches Rangoon, but still needs to reach delta
NYT: When Burmese offer a hand, rulers slap it

BUSINESS / TRADE
DVB: Aid for cyclone victims sold in Rangoon

HEALTH/AIDS
Mizzima News: Cholera and asthma cases increasing among Cyclone victims

ASEAN
The Nation (Thailand): Redemption time for Asean and Burma

REGIONAL
Reuters: Anger mounts in Bangkok at Myanmar aid visa delays
Bangkok Post: UN says 102,000 dead in Burma, Thailand offers to be a base
for relief supplies

INTERNATIONAL
Reuters: EU sets urgent meeting on Myanmar for Tuesday

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Time to save Burma
The Australian: It's time for an aid intervention

INTERVIEW
DVB: Cyclone victim says aid given only to junta supporters



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 12, Xinhua
Myanmar cyclone death toll rise to 31,938

The death toll of Myanmar's cyclone disaster kept rising with  3,480 more
people killed, bringing the total to 31,938, according to a news report of
the state radio Monday evening.

Altogether 29,770 people remained missing, down from 33,416, the report
said adding that the number of injured went to 1,403.  A deadly tropical
cyclone Nargis, which occurred over the Bay of Bengal, hit five divisions
and states --  Yangon, Bago, Ayeyawaddy, Kayin and Mon on May 2 and 3, of
which Ayeyawaddy and Yangon sustained the heaviest casualties and
infrastructural damage.

Affected coastal towns in the southwestern Ayeyawaddy division include
Haing Gyi Island, Pathein, Myaungmya, Laputta, Mawlamyinegyun, Kyaiklat,
Phyarpon and Bogalay.

International humanitarian aid has been pouring in Myanmar since last week
with aircrafts carrying various relief materials from different countries
and organizations landing at the airport one after another for Myanmar's
homeless cyclone survivors.

These international aid goods, along with those donated by different walks
of life domestically, have been or are being successively transported by
the Myanmar side to the disaster-hit Ayeyawaddy delta and Yangon regions
as officially reported.

____________________________________

May 12, Democratic Voice of Burma
NLD accuses junta of manipulating vote

The National League for Democracy has condemned the Burmese military
regime for "manipulating" the constitutional referendum, fraudulently
securing "Yes" votes and barring independent observers.

NLD spokesperson U Nyan Win said voters had been forced into voting in
favour of the constitution and said NLD members had been prevented from
observing the referendum.

Rangoon division NLD organising committee chairperson U Soe Myint and
joint secretary Dr Myo Aung were stopped by police on their way to Hmawbi,
Taikkyi and Tantabin in Rangoon division to observe the referendum, Nyan
Win said.

A sub-inspector of the police security unit stopped their car at a
tollgate near Hmabwi and refused to let them proceed, forcing Soe Myint to
come back.

In Thararwaddy, the polling station was only opened for a short time in
the morning and then closed, and voters were told to go to local
government offices to vote.

"Local authorities had collected national registration cards from the
voters in the town and bank loan booklets from the rural villagers," Nyan
Win said.

"These cards and booklets were only returned to people after they came and
voted "Yes" in the referendum."

Nyan Win said there had been reports from all over the country that
polling stations were manned and guarded by members of the
government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Associations and other
people who had nothing to do with the referendum.

"People who went to the polling stations were asked to vote "Yes", and
most of the time voters were personally guided by the people waiting there
to tick their ballots," he said.

"The voters themselves were not allowed to do anything because the helpers
voted "Yes" for them. That has been happening all over the country."

Nyan Win said the party had heard specific reports of these practices from
Namti in Shan State, Yamethin in Mandalay division, Yenanchaung and Salin
in Magwe Division, Irrawaddy division's Bassein and Kyonpyaw, and Bago,
Nattalin, and Zigon in Bago division.

"It is happening everywhere. [The authorities] are totally disregarding
the law and openly and forcefully securing votes in their favour," Nyan
Win said.

The party spokesperson said only the government´s supporters were able to
observe the vote counts.

U Ko Ko Gyi, a Mandalay NLD member who voted in the referendum and asked
to observe the vote count, was told by a polling station officer he would
be able to do so and would be telephoned when the process began.

But by the time Ko Ko Gyi arrived, the votes had already been counted and
he was told he wold be informed of the results in the future.

"According to law, all polling stations were supposed to close at 4pm but
they stopped the referendum in Tharawaddy at around 10am. No local or
international observers was allowed to monitor it," Nyan Win said.

"What I want to say is that this referendum is being manipulated according
to their liking."

____________________________________

May 12, Democratic Voice of Burma
Junta continues dirty tricks as Burma votes – Aye Nai

Voters in Burma’s national referendum on 10 May have reported widespread
vote-rigging and manipulation as authorities used underhand tactis to
secure approval for the military regime´s draft constitution.

In Bago division, Thararwaddy township’s National League for Democracy
chairman U Aung Myint said farmers from villages in the region had been
denied their right to vote in the referendum by Village Peace and
Development Council and Unions Solidarity and Development Association
officials.

“Residents of villages far from the town such as Nga Phyu Lay, Magyi Kwin,
Taung Whay Shae, Koemeenin, Yaydwingone and Kywechaninn did not even have
to go to the ballot stations as their village authorities and USDA
officials had already cast ‘Yes’ votes on their behalf,” Aung Myint said.

A member of the Tharawaddy NLD organising committee said around 700
employees of the Tharawaddy dish factory had to cast 'Yes' votes in
advance of the referendum as directed by government authorities.

He also said 'Yes' votes from about 150 members of the township police
force and their family members were collected since before the referendum.

In Nyaunglaybin township, also in Bago division, voters said officials had
already ticked the ‘Yes’ boxes on their ballot papers when they turned up
to vote.

“We were disappointed to find out that the ballot station officials had
already ticked ‘Yes’ on our ballot slips and we demanded an explanation
from them,” one Nyaunglaybin resident said.

“They said it was only an error.”

A resident of Myinchan township, Mandalay division, said authorities had
announced over loudspeakers ahead of the referendum that those who voted
'No' would be sent to Naypyidaw and imprisoned.

In Kyone Pyaw township in Irrawaddy division, residents were handed ballot
papers already marked ‘Yes’ by polling station officials and told to put
them in any of the three ballot boxes.

The referendum is due to be held on 24 May in the remaining townships in
Rangoon and Irrawaddy divisions that were worst hit by the recent cyclone.

____________________________________

May 12, Agence France Presse
US flight arrives, but UN says Myanmar too slow

The United States sent its first aid flight to Myanmar on Monday but
experts warned the relief effort was floundering and 1.5 million cyclone
survivors were at grave risk from hunder and disease.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon slammed the "unacceptably slow" response of the junta
to the disaster and urged the generals to accelerate aid distribution.

The US military transport plane laden with emergency supplies was
permitted to land by the ruling junta, which has been condemned for
stalling the disaster response, and two more US flights are due to arrive
on Tuesday.

"We know that it is a small salve for a much larger wound. More has to get
into Burma. More has to reach the areas that have been hardest hit," said
US ambassador to Thailand Eric John, using the country's former name.

"It is absolutely critical that disaster response specialists be allowed
into Burma. It is important that we and the international community be
allowed to help the victims of this unimaginable horror."

The flow of international aid into the disaster zone of Myanmar, which
says 62,000 people are dead or missing, has increased in the past two
days, but relief agencies say much more is needed to avert a humanitarian
catastrophe.

"Today is the 11th day since typhoon Nargis hit Myanmar," Ban told a press
conference. "I want to register my deep concern and immense frustration on
the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis."

State television raised the death toll by some 3,480 to 31,938 with
another 29,770 still missing. The United Nations says more than 100,000
are likely to have been killed.

The UN also said the relief operation was only at 10 percent of the level
needed to bring water, food and supplies to desperate survivors, and that
just 20 percent of the food required was making its way in.

In Yangon, the country's main city, the UN food agency's rice warehouse
was empty.

"I would urge that we don't judge the success of this operation by flights
arriving alone," Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the UN's humanitarian
arm, said in Bangkok.

"This is a huge disaster," Horsey told AFP TV in an interview. "It would
overwhelm the capacity of any country."

Deeply suspicious of any outside influences that may undermine their total
control, the generals reiterated that foreign experts -- who have the
know-how to oversee the relief effort -- would not be put in charge.

"If we do not act now, and we do not act fast, more lives will be lost,"
said Catherine Bragg, the UN's deputy emergency relief coordinator.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the curbs as "completely
unacceptable", and urged the regime to allow aid agencies "unfettered"
access, while Ban called on Myanmar to expedite visas for relief
personnel.

A US delegation led by Admiral Timothy Keating, chief of the US Pacific
Command, held talks with senior junta leaders when they touched down on
the C-130 military transporter in Yangon.

They said they held a "cordial meeting" but failed to win permission for a
far broader US relief effort in Myanmar, including navy ships and
helicopters that could deploy in the Irrawaddy Delta hardest-hit by the
May 3 storm.

"I hope we could lay the groundwork for a broad US united effort. I
believe our discussions were a good first step," said Henrietta Fore, an
administrator with the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Ten days after the tragedy struck, bloated corpses are still floating in
the water, disease is breaking out among survivors with little food or
shelter, and many say the government has given them nothing.

"We have not got any aid from anyone," said Man Mu, a mother of five in
one of the thousands of tiny delta villages that were pulverised by the
storm. One of her children was swept away in the disaster.

"We only have the clothes we are wearing. We have lost everything."

A Western diplomat in Yangon said there were reports of extensive
dysentery outbreaks, and that cholera, typhoid and malaria could follow
quickly.

"There's no evidence of a major spread yet but some villages and
communities have been quarantined, no one is going in or out, to try to
prevent the spread of disease," he told AFP.

____________________________________

May 12, Reuters
Boat sinks with first Red Cross aid for Myanmar

A cargo boat carrying the first Red Cross aid to survivors of Cyclone
Nargis sank on Sunday, the International Federation of the Red Cross
(IFRC) said, dealing a blow to an already stumbling relief effort.

The boat carrying relief supplies for more than 1,000 people was believed
to have hit a submerged tree trunk in the Irrawaddy Delta and started
taking on water, an IFRC official in Bangkok, Andy McElroy said.

The accident highlighted the enormous logistical difficulties of
delivering aid to the estimated 1.5 million cyclone survivors in need of
food, shelter and medicine, with roads washed away and much of the delta
turned to swampland.

The reclusive military government has thrown up other obstacles on top of
that, saying it will accept foreign aid but not the foreign logistics
teams needed to transport the aid into the inundated delta.

The crew steered the stricken Red Cross boat to an island but it sank
rapidly, McElroy said. All crew members and the four Myanmar Red Cross
personnel on board, two men and two women, scrambled to safety.

"This is a great loss for the Myanmar Red Cross and for the people who
need aid so urgently", Aung Kyaw Htut, the Myanmar Red Cross aid
distribution team leader, said in a statement. "This would have been our
very first river shipment and it will delay aid for a further day."

The double-decker river boat was travelling from Yangon to Bogalay, some
12 hours sailing time, when it sank near Myinka Gone village. It was
carrying rice, drinking water, water purification tablets, jerry cans,
stretchers, clothes, family utensil kits, soap, rubber gloves and surgical
masks.

The boat sank early in the morning near Bogalay, a town extensively
damaged by the cyclone and where 260,000 people out of a total population
of 350,000 are thought to have been affected. Almost 10,000 are reported
dead or missing in Bogalay.

The government's official death toll stands at 23,350 dead and 37,019
missing from the May 2 cyclone, though disaster experts put the toll at
100,000 or more.

____________________________________

May 12, Mizzima News
More aid reaches Rangoon, but still needs to reach delta – Solomon

Though more aid, including an aircraft from the United States, made its
way into Burma on Monday, UN agencies and NGOs doubted whether it will
reach needy survivors in time.

At least 10 flights of the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC)
landed in Burma's former capital Rangoon today, carrying relief material.
The first of such aircraft was from the United State's Army, which flew
into Burma from Thailand.

The World Food Program said they have sent three flights with relief
materials on Saturday.

Matt Cochrane, media spokesman for IFRC said, "We had 10 flights of aid
arriving in Rangoon today, and have further flights planned this week, of
which at least nine aircrafts will land on Friday."

"We have been able to send aid but the challenge is whether the relief
material reaches the worst affected areas," Matt Cochrane said.

Some of the relief supplies airlifted include tarpaulin, jerry cans to
carry water, mosquito nets, emergency shelter kits and hygiene kits
Cochrane. He added that they have been able to send in at least nine
expert aid workers to Burma.

"We got some experts who have gone into Burma. Their role is to try to
make sure that needs can be accessed and identified and reach the right
aid to the right people," he added.

Despite being affiliated to the Myanmar Red Cross Society and having been
able to send in a few experts, the IFRC said reaching people in the heart
of the Irrawaddy delta is still a problem.

Cochrane said one of the main reasons was because nearly all
infrastructures have been destroyed. Roads have been damaged and bridges
knocked down so communication is extremely difficult.

"So we are carrying relief material by boats," Cochrane said.

An IFRC boat carrying relief supplies on Sunday sank on the Irrawaddy
River near Bogale town when it hit a submerged tree root.

"Yesterday [one of] our boats sank in the Irrawaddy area, [but] luckily no
one was hurt," Cochrane said.

A US embassy spokesperson in Bangkok said while the Burmese government
allowed a C–130 military plane today with relief supplies, their aid
workers and experts have not yet been granted Visas.

"They have not got visas yet," said the US embassy spokesperson, who
declined to be named, adding that barring experts going into the cyclone
affected areas slowed down the process of reaching the most needy victims.

____________________________________

May 12, New York Times
When Burmese offer a hand, rulers slap it

When one of Myanmar’s best-known movie stars, Kyaw Dhyu, traveled through
the Irrawaddy Delta in recent days to deliver aid to the victims of the
May 3 cyclone, a military patrol stopped him as he was handing out bags of
rice.

 “The officer told him, ‘You cannot give directly to the people,” said Tin
Win, the village headman of the stricken city of Dedaye, who had been
counting on the rice to feed 260 refugees who sleep in a large Buddhist
prayer hall.

The politics of food aid — deciding who gets to deliver assistance to
those homeless and hungry after the cyclone — is not just confined to the
dispute between Myanmar’s military junta and Western governments and
outside relief agencies.

Even Myanmar citizens who want to donate rice or other items have in
several cases been told that all assistance must be channeled through the
military. That restriction has angered local government officials like Tin
Win who are trying to help rebuild the lives of villagers. He twitched
with rage as he described the rice the military gave him.

“They gave us four bags,” he said. “The rice is rotten — even the pigs and
dogs wouldn’t eat it.”

He said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had delivered
good rice to the local military leaders last week but they kept it for
themselves and distributed the waterlogged, musty rice. “I’m very angry,”
he said, adding an expletive to describe the military.

At least 1.5 million people were severely affected by the hurricane, and
outside relief agencies fear the officially reported deaths, which rose on
Sunday to more than 28,000, could escalate if the military did not allow
foreign aid to flow in. But more than a week after the hurricane hit, the
junta was still permitting only a few planeloads of supplies to land and
was refusing to grant visas to most foreign aid workers.

For the generals, who have held power for more than four decades in
Myanmar, the restrictions on aid and how it is distributed are part of
their overriding priority of showing who is in control and of cultivating
the image that they alone are the nation’s benevolent providers.

While the generals have permitted some token relief efforts by wealthy
citizens, who could be seen Sunday handing out sweets and instant noodles
from their cars to destitute families lining the roads near Yangon, the
largest city, and elsewhere, the junta is clearly not allowing some
prominent domestic donors to help for political reasons.

Kyaw Dhyu, for example, is perceived as unfriendly to the military because
he assisted monks who protested against the government during the
demonstrations last year — and was jailed for a month.

The military also appears to be trying to minimize any foreign presence or
role in the relief effort. The United Nations World Food Program said
Sunday that only one visa had been approved of 16 requested. The aid group
World Vision said it had requested 20 visas but received 2. Doctors
Without Borders, the French medical aid group, said it was still awaiting
approval of dozens of visa applications for technical support staff aid
coordinators.

Paul Risley, a spokesman for the World Food Program, said the volume of
aid allowed by the Myanmar junta into the country amounted to one-tenth of
what was needed.

The authorities here have agreed to permit a United States Air Force C-130
transport full of relief supplies to come on Monday. The plane was
scheduled to leave Utapao airport in Thailand at midday, said a spokesman
for the United States Pacific Command, Cmdr. Jeffrey A. Breslau. An
American official in Yangoon confirmed that the plane as enroute and due
to arrive Monday afternoon.

In Yangon, where 70 percent of the trees were uprooted by the storm,
residents were struggling to return to some semblance of normality but
most remained without power. In the street markets and stores, the prices
of rice and candles have doubled and the cost of gasoline has tripled. The
price of corrugated tin, used for roofing, has also doubled.

Privately, some residents showed flashes of resentment toward the military
for monopolizing the distribution of basic necessities. “These military
men are notorious,” said a college student in Yangon whose family had to
buy seven panels of corrugated tin to repair their roof. “They get these
supplies free. They are donated by other countries, then the military
receives them and sells them to the people.”

Here in Ma Ngay Gyi, in the farthest southern reaches of the delta, a
reporter was detained for an hour and a half on Sunday by soldiers who
said they had orders to report foreigners in the area.

In what was emblematic of the wider tensions over the issue of aid
distribution, an argument broke out in the village between the soldiers,
who said any foreigner was suspect, and the village headman, Myint Oo, who
solicited aid from the visitor for the rebuilding of a school flattened by
the cyclone.

“The government told us that school must reopen June 1, if you have a
schoolhouse or not,” Myint Oo told his visitor. “‘Teach under a tree if
you have to,’ they said.”

When he began describing the devastation to the school and village, a
portly man in a white T-shirt who also seemed to hold a position of power
interrupted.

“Don’t tell these foreigners anything,” the man said.

Myint Oo replied that he wanted to talk to the visitors in the hope that
they could help rebuild the village.

“They will send the facts to the world and show the weakness of the
Myanmar government,” said the man in the white shirt.

He looked directly at Myint Oo and said in a loud voice, “Come outside!”

More than 250 people were killed by the cyclone in the village, which is
reachable only by boat, and the stench of death lingers in the surrounding
canals. Men in the village rushed to the reporter’s arriving boat and made
the universal gesture of food, putting pinched fingers up to their lips.

As the visitors departed, a village woman asked a soldier holding an AK-47
assault rifle why they had detained the foreigners.

“These are orders,” the soldier replied. “Be quiet.”

A New York Times correspondent reported from Yangon, Myanmar. Seth Mydans
contributed reporting from Bangkok, Eric Schmitt from Washington and
Denise Grady from New York.


____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

May 12, Democratic Voice of Burma
Aid for cyclone victims sold in Rangoon

A Rangoon resident told DVB that noodle packets, condensed milk cans and
mosquito nets intended for Cyclone Nargis victims were sold openly in the
streets and markets.

“I saw dry (instant) noodle packets, condensed milk tins and mosquito nets
for rescue efforts in downtown areas. They are selling noodle packets at
Nyaungpinlay Market for 600 (Kyat) a packet. Condensed milk too. The
brands are not the same as the previous ones. They are of the same brands
mentioned in the (government) media
 They are selling them on Barr Street.
They are selling condensed milk and noodle packets in Nyaungpinlay Market.
We are surprised how these materials designated for flood victims ended up
in the shops.”

Another resident said that recent heavy rains are also causing problems as
debris caused by the cyclone has blocked the drainage canals.

“People are living in fear because of the weather forecasts that predict
storm and heavy rains. It is not that gusty, but it has been raining
heavily for three consecutive nights
They haven’t collected rubbish left
behind by the storm and the gutters and roads are blocked and water rises
up very quickly
Local people have to come and clear them and the water is
gone again now. We are doing things on our own initiative. No one is
coming to help us.”


____________________________________
HEALTH/AIDS

May 12, Mizzima News
Cholera and asthma cases increasing among Cyclone victims – Mungpi

Cases of cholera and asthma are increasing among victims and survivors of
Cyclone Nargis, said an aid worker in Rangoon who visited the Irrawaddy
Delta.

The aid worker, who request anonymity, said several cyclone victims,
mostly children, are beginning to suffer from cholera after drinking
contaminated water.

"Since aid is not reaching as it should be, villagers are forced to use
the water which is contaminated by dead bodies," the aid worker said.

The aid worker said the refugees are also beginning to suffer from asthma.

"Though people know that the water is contaminated, they have no choice
but to use it, and they start having diseases," said the aid worker, who
had just returned from Laputta town, one of the hardest-hit by the
cyclone.

He said that while a few people have been grouped in refugee camps, many
people still not yet made it to refugee camps.

A Rangoon based weekly editor who visited Kunchankone and Kawhmu townships
in Rangoon division told Mizzima that he had seen several people infected
by Cholera.

"I saw 11 people who said they are now suffering from Cholera. There could
be more," said the editor. Seven were children.

Aid agency Oxfam on Sunday warned that as many as 1.5 million cyclone
victims are at great risk of disease and death if aid supplies do not
reach them soon.

A Mizzima correspondent in Rangoon, who visited Kunchankone and
Kywunchaung in Rangoon division and parts of Irrawaddy division such as
Deadeye town, said the potential outbreak of diseases could be avoided if
aid and relief workers arrive in time.

"These potential problems [diseases] can still be avoided," said the
correspondent.

However, he said aid is not arriving quickly enough. He said villagers are
rushing along the road to get the few items of aid brought by government
officials.


____________________________________
ASEAN

May 12, The Nation (Thailand)
Redemption time for Asean and Burma – Kavi Chongkittavorn

History will pass judgement on all Asean leaders and peoples over the
tragedy unfolding in Burma in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, and it will
be very unkind.

No Asean leader wants to be grouped in the company of Burma's thugs, and
now more than ever they have to take a stand. Will they support the junta
as it perpetrates one of the most serious collective crimes against
humanity and stymies the efforts to save the helpless victims, whose only
crime has been to tolerate these heartless generals for so long?

Both Asean and Burma can simultaneously redeem themselves for whatever
misjudgements and policy errors they have committed collectively and
individually since the country was admitted to the grouping in 1997.
Nargis and its disastrous aftermath could have a healing effect if both
parties choose to do the right thing quickly and launch a sustained effort
to provide humanitarian aid to the victims. Long-term rehabilitation and
reconstruction of the 24 million-plus Burmese people affected must be the
top priority.

Asean is working with various international agencies, including the World
Bank and UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, on
long-term rehabilitation programmes. Within the grouping, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are prepared to plunge into whatever
rescue effort might be needed. However, support from newer members such as
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia has been conspicuous by its absence, even
though they are the junta's biggest backers in normal times. These
countries are strong advocates of the non-interference principle. As for
the Philippines, it is not in a position to help as it has to concentrate
on its domestic food crisis.

Asean secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan is doing what he can to coordinate
the grouping's relief efforts. Quite frequently, he has to improvise his
initiatives and muster support from whatever sources are available,
including the private sector. The Nippon Foundation was the first to
respond by providing US$100,000 (Bt3.2 million) to the newly set up Asean
Cooperation Fund for Disaster Assistance.

In a telephone interview over the weekend, Surin expressed the hope that
the junta would respond positively to his letter, sent to the Minister for
Foreign Affairs Nyan Win and Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and
Resettlement Maj-General Maung Maung Swe, appealing for quick admission of
Asean relief and rescue teams. He also hopes that Burma will allow Asean
to lead the rehabilitation effort.

In early January 2005, two weeks after the tsunami, Asean leaders held an
emergency meeting in Jakarta to assess the situation and show solidarity
with Indonesia and Thailand. In July 2005 Asean signed the Agreement on
Disaster Management and Emergency Response to highlight the importance of
regional cooperation in coping with natural disasters. But this important
document has not been put into effect till now.

In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, large-scale, uninterrupted
international and Asean-led assistance helped to alleviate the hardships
of the victims and speed up the recovery.

Now, 10 days after the deadly cyclone struck, the Burmese people are still
desperately awaiting supplies of fresh water, food, medicine and temporary
shelter. While Western countries have put aside their political
differences with the junta and focused on providing emergency relief, it
has been the regime that has again placed politics ahead of the needs of
the people. Tonnes of undelivered supplies are awaiting permission to be
flown into the country from various airports in the region. Hundreds of
international relief workers have been denied entry visas.

In 1999, it was at Indonesia's invitation that Singapore, Malaysia, the
Philippines and Thailand sent peacekeeping forces to East Timor. Although
Indonesia wanted to have a collective Asean peacekeeping force, the
grouping lacked consensus. The same spirit also prevailed in 2005 during
the peace process in Aceh, when EU officials joined Asean peace monitors.

But due to their continuous intransigence, the Burmese junta's generals
did not have the courage to call on their Asean colleagues for a
consultation on how best to help the victims and reconstruction efforts.
It would be tantamount to an admission of their failure to provide
sufficient early warning and adequate emergency assistance. Burma's
membership of Asean has been troublesome. Rangoon skipped its turn as the
Asean chair in 2006, citing domestic problems. The violent crackdown on
protests by monks last September further worsened ties with Asean and drew
the grouping's strongest condemnation yet. Two ministerial meetings to be
held in Burma in coming months have been relocated.

It would be wise for the junta to respond positively to Surin's appeal for
no-nonsense admission of Asean relief teams. Asean could also lead the
rehabilitation effort as it did in Cambodia, by coordinating and forging
alliances with key international organisations.

Otherwise, the members of UN Security Council, especially the

United States, the United Kingdom and France, could initiate some form of
UN-sanctioned resolution to force Burma to open up to foreign assistance.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Koucher's invocation of the concept of
responsibility to protect could be used for further action.

Never before have the fates of Asean and Burma been so intertwined. They
will either swim or sink together.


____________________________________
REGIONAL

May 12, Reuters
Anger mounts in Bangkok at Myanmar aid visa delays – Ed Cropley

A furious rescue worker accused Myanmar's military junta on Monday of
crimes against humanity for refusing to give visas to aid officials
desperate to enter the country to help the 1.5 million survivors of
Cyclone Nargis.

"They say they will call, but it's always wait, wait, wait," Pierre
Fouillant of the Comite de Secours Internationaux, a French disaster
rescue agency, told Reuters after being turned away from the former
Burma's embassy in the Thai capital.

"I've never seen delays like this, never," said Fouillant, a veteran of 10
humanitarian disasters. "It's a crime against humanity. It should be
against the law. It's like they are taking a gun and shooting their own
people."

Like dozens of others, Fouillant applied on Thursday for a business visa,
his only option since the military-ruled and isolated southeast Asian
nation has no such thing as an "emergency aid worker" visa.

The embassy was closed on Friday for a Thai holiday, and on Saturday and
Sunday. It opened as normal on Monday morning.

At least 100,000 people are thought to have died in the May 2 cyclone and
storm surge in the Irrawaddy delta, a death toll that could rise
dramatically if survivors do not get access to food, clean water and
medicine in the next few days, experts say.

Reuters witnesses on the edges of the disaster zone say towns and villages
are being swamped by huge numbers of cyclone refugees and cannot cope.

There is virtually no government assistance and food is running out. Some
residents say they are afraid the desperate evacuees will be forced to
turn to looting.

FRUSTRATION

Against this backdrop, small groups of rescue workers are having to wait
outside the iron-spiked, grey walls of the embassy compound in Bangkok
while their leaders and local visa agents try to see if their applications
have got anywhere.

"It is very frustrating," said Australian firefighter Craig Allan, who
dropped everything at home to get to Bangkok and apply for a visa on
Thursday.

His agency, part of Baptist World Aid, is called "Rescue 24" as it is
meant to be able to put a team on the ground within 24 hours of any
disaster anywhere in the world. In this case, it might be 24 days, he
joked bleakly.

The U.N. said its top representative in Myanmar had flown to Naypyidaw,
the generals' new capital, on Monday to hand over in person a list of 60
"critical" U.N. and relief agency staff.

Despite this, U.N. officials said none of its staff in Bangkok had
received any visas on Monday. They also said foreign staff inside the
country were prevented from leaving Yangon.

"There are limits, if not bans, on staff going to the delta," Terje
Skavdal of the U.N.'s humanitarian arm told reporters.

Patrick Michaudel, a French employee of medical services firm SOS
International, with clinics in Yangon, was almost in tears as he left the
embassy after a fruitless week-long visa wait.

When he got to the front of the queue, Michaudel was elated to see his
passport open on the desk with a visa inside.

He could only watch in horror as a female official then carefully peeled
the visa sticker out of his passport and crudely covered up the partial
stamp on the passport page with liquid paper.

"No reason, no reason. She just peeled it out," he said, with a shrug of
the shoulders. "I've had enough of this. I'm going home."

____________________________________

May 12, Bangkok Post
UN says 102,000 dead in Burma, Thailand offers to be a base for relief
supplies

Thailand will act as a mediator to help with the movement of international
relief supplies to Burma, which are being held up by the military junta
and are stuck in Thailand, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said
yesterday.

The move comes as the UN says up to 102,000 people could have been killed
by Cyclone Nargis and about 220,000 are reported missing.

Mr Noppadon said he planned to leave for Burma tomorrow to push for
additional assistance and ask the Burmese generals to provide wider access
and to allow foreign assistance for the cyclone victims.

He said he will also ask that foreign experts be allowed to enter Burma to
give humanitarian aid to the victims.

He said the foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (Asean) will meet in Singapore on May 19 to discuss ways to
help the victims.

Former foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan is the Asean secretary-general.

The number of people reported missing after the cyclone hit has risen to
about 220,000, the United Nations said, and it warned of environmental
damage, violence and mass migration.

It said assessments of 55 townships in the Irrawaddy delta and other
disaster-hit areas found up to 102,000 people could have been killed in
the cyclone, which struck flimsy dwellings with fierce winds and huge
waves on May 2.

''Based on these assessments, the UN estimates that 1,215,885 to 1,919,485
people have been affected by the cyclone, the number of deaths could range
from 63,290 to 101,682, and 220,000 people are reported to be missing,''
said the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

State-run television in Burma reported last night that the death toll had
risen to more than 28,458 and 33,416 people were missing.

Meanwhile, a cargo boat carrying the first Red Cross aid to survivors sank
yesterday. The boat carrying relief supplies for more than 1,000 people
was believed to have hit a submerged tree in the Irrawaddy delta and
started taking on water, International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC)
official in Bangkok Andy McElroy said.

The accident highlighted the enormous logistical difficulties of
delivering aid to the survivors, who are in need of food, shelter and
medicine, with roads washed away and much of the delta turned into
swampland.

The crew steered the stricken Red Cross boat to an island but it sank
rapidly, Mr McElroy said. All crew members and the four Burma Red Cross
personnel on board, two men and two women, scrambled to safety.

''This is a great loss for the Burma Red Cross and for the people who need
aid so urgently,'' Aung Kyaw Htut, the Burma Red Cross aid distribution
team leader, said. ''This would have been our very first river shipment
and it will delay aid for a further day.''

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said yesterday he called off his plan to
visit Burma to push for British and American rescuers to be allowed in.

But he said he fully supported Burma as Thailand was a neighbour and he
would not mind if his stance causes the West to isolate Thailand.

Mr Samak also said he admired Supreme Commander Boonsang Niampradit for
arranging for swift assistance to Burma. Thailand was the first nation to
send help.

Gen Boonsang said Nipat Thonglek, the director-general of the Border
Affairs Department, left for Rangoon as a special representative of Mr
Samak yesterday. Lt-Gen Nipat would meet Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein
to coordinate assistance.

The visit followed a US statement that agencies were ready to help through
the World Food Programme.

The US is sending its aid to Bangkok and is committed to supplying food to
600,000 Burmese for six months, but supplies cannot reach Burma because of
visa restrictions imposed by the junta.

Air Force commander ACM Chalit Phukphasuk also flew to Burma yesterday. He
was delivering necessities worth 1.08 million baht His Majesty the King
donated to cyclone victims.

Mae Sot district in Tak province is now the only land route for
necessities to be transported into Burma.

According to local charity activist Panithi Tangphati, Win Myint, chief of
the Myawaddy Border Trade Office, said donations can be delivered through
government officials and at the Tamaya monastery. However, donors must pay
a transport fee of 40,000 baht per truck.


____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 12, Reuters
EU sets urgent meeting on Myanmar for Tuesday

The European Commission has called for an urgent meeting of European Union
ministers in charge of humanitarian aid on Tuesday to beef up the EU
response to the Myanmar emergency, the Commission said in a statement.

Louis Michel, commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, intends
to travel to the cyclone-hit Asian country immediately after the meeting.

"There, he will meet with the Burmese authorities to discuss the best way
forward to bringing international assistance to the affected population,"
the Commission said on Monday.

Myanmar's reclusive military government is accepting aid from the outside
world, including the United Nations, but will not let in foreign logistics
teams, who were queuing up in Bangkok hoping to get visas from the Myanmar
embassy.

A first U.S. military aid flight left Thailand for Myanmar on Monday
carrying water, mosquito nets and blankets.

Cyclone Nargis has claimed up to 100,000 lives and 220,000 people are
missing, according to the U.N. humanitarian agency, which believes that
between 1.2 million and 1.9 million people were struggling to survive in
the storm's aftermath.

The Commission said it and the EU ministers would try to identify and
coordinate the best means of mobilising and delivering humanitarian
assistance.

"It is our sincere wish to work in close co-operation with the Burmese
authorities to urgently alleviate the sufferings of the Burmese people
affected by the cyclone", Commissioner Michel said in the statement.

The Commission could not yet say when on Tuesday the meeting would take
place. (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Jon Boyle)


____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 12, Irrawaddy
Time to save Burma – Yeni

Burma is in the middle of a catastrophe—the lives of more than a million
people are at great risk and about 100,000 people have been killed. The
damage to the country's infrastructure and agriculture caused by Cyclone
Nargis will be felt for years.

The landscape of Burma's Irrawaddy delta is devastated. The bloated
corpses of men, women and children lay strewn around the rice paddies.
Animal carcasses float down rivers and wash up on riverbanks. Those lucky
enough to survive now desperately seek shelter, water, food and medical
care anywhere they can. Buddhist temples and schools have been turned into
makeshift refugee centers and clinics.

To Burma's military rulers, however, the goal is still to maintain
absolute control over everything—from barring almost all foreign aid
workers with expertise in massive aid distribution to intense
micromanagement of the distribution of aid. Observers suggest the regime
wants all aid to pass through the hands of the military government
leaders, because of their well-known penchant for theft, corruption and
propaganda.

Sources in the southern Irrawaddy delta told The Irrawaddy the army has
barred survivors from entering shelters in certain towns, such as Bogalay
and is forcing them back to their shattered villages.

On Friday, the UN’s weather agency, the World Meteorological Organization,
reported that occasional tropical showers are expected through next
Wednesday, May 14. It also forecasts “a period of heavy rainfall settling
in around Thursday or Friday next week.”

As an old Burmese proverb says: “The rain always pours wherever the
desperate people go.”

However, the country's secretive military leaders are too busy with the
referendum vote to notice. They say the country is not ready to accept
foreign aid workers, indicating on Friday that it wants foreign relief but
not foreign workers.

In addition, members of regime-backed groups such as the Union Solidarity
and Development Association have attempted to hijack relief supplies,
according to local charity groups and nongovernment organizations in the
former Burmese capital, Rangoon.

Now humanitarian workers fear that the “unimaginable tragedy” is closing
in. Survivors still lack water, food and sanitation. The predicted rains
this week will undoubtedly affect and expose to the elements those
survivors who are struggling to cope in makeshift shelters.

There are also the increased threats of dengue fever and malaria, diseases
that manifest from mosquitoes breeding around stagnant water. With so many
corpses and animal cadavers infecting water supplies and rivers, the risk
of bacterial infection is extremely high—cholera, typhoid, diarrhea and
dysentery are all epidemics waiting to happen. Even those who mange to get
to refugee shelters are susceptible to increased risks—the collection of
so many children in enclosed spaces causes measles and other air-borne
diseases will spread quickly.

Oxfam's regional chief Sarah Ireland warned on Sunday that it “could all
combine to endanger the lives of up to 1.5 million people.”

Unfortunately, the rest of the world can do very little except sit back
and watch in horror.

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, has called upon the UN to use
its newly approved "responsibility to protect civilians" policy to enter
Burma and deliver aid over the objections of the generals. But eight
members of the UN Security Council—both permanent and non-permanent—even
opposed the French move to have a discussion on the humanitarian crisis
and the progress of relief operations in Burma. In the meantime, the
French have sent a ship containing 1,500 tons of aid anyway, hoping that
the Burmese junta will do an about-turn in the coming days.

One would think that the UN would have enough leverage with the Burmese
authorities to at least pressure them to lift the complicated visa
requirements that are preventing more than 1,000 aid workers from entering
the country. But no.

Beijing has stated that foreign governments should not politicize the
issue. Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: "We should take full
consideration of Myanmar's [Burma’s] willingness and sovereignty."

Sadly, survivors from Burma's devastated Irrawaddy delta are facing
homelessness, starvation and disease—each factor compounded by a heartless
regime. The world must now decide whether national sovereignty trumps the
moral responsibility of alleviating human suffering.

Sovereignty should not mean that governments are free to do what they want
within their own borders if it causes the deaths of tens of thousands of
its citizens.

____________________________________

May 12, The Australian
It's time for an aid intervention

WHAT are we waiting for? Where now is liberal interventionism?

More than 100,000 people are dead after a cyclone in the Irrawaddy Delta
and the UN has declared that up to 2 million people, deprived of aid for a
week, are at risk of death.

Barely 10 per cent are reported to have received any help. The world
stands ready to save them. The warehouses of Asia are crammed with
supplies. Ships and planes are on station. Nothing happens.

Anyone who has visited this exquisite part of the world will know how
avoidable is further catastrophe to the delta people.

They are resourceful, peaceable and hugely resilient.

Like those of low-lying Bangladesh next door, they are used to extreme
weather. Their agriculture is fertile and they are self-sufficient in most
things. But no one can survive instant starvation and disease.

They need not wait. There are three giant C-130s loaded and ready in
Thailand. There are US and French ships in the area, fortuitously on a
disaster relief exercise, with shelters, clothing, latrines, medicines and
water decontamination equipment.

Above all, there are helicopters, vital in an area where roads are made
impassable by flooding and fallen trees.

Aid agency World Vision has 600 staff in Burma and tonnes of supplies
waiting in Dubai.

The world cannot prevent natural calamities, but since the tsunami of 2004
it has learnt how to cope with their aftermath.

Nothing can be done because the Burmese military regime refuses to permit
it. Instead, it is wasting time holding a nationwide referendum, devoid of
open debate, to legitimise its hold on power and exclude the opposition,
led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

The regime last week impounded the only two UN relief planes that managed
to land in Rangoon, forcing the UN to suspend further flights. The
regime's leader, hiding in his jungle "capital", refused even to take a
call from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Visas are denied to doctors
and logistical experts.

What has been allowed in from China, Thailand and Indonesia is a trickle
and must be distributed by the Burmese army, which cannot cope. Where 40
relief planes a day should be landing at Rangoon, there is barely one.

Hundreds of thousands of people are thus condemned to death by the
viciousness of a dictatorship more concerned with its pride and xenophobia
than with the wellbeing of its citizens.

Like Soviet regimes of old, the Burmese Government would rather pretend
that disasters have not occurred than admit it cannot handle them. When
the cyclone tore off the roof of Rangoon's Insein jail and part of it
caught fire, the guards opened fire and killed 36. An aid worker told the
BBC: "They are murdering their own people."

I have opposed many of the macho military interventions conducted by the
West over the past decade. Their justifications have been obscure, their
motives mixed and their morality situational, especially those aimed at
"regime change". Those in Afghanistan and Iraq had the additional defect
of built-in failure.

On the other hand, the West did intervene to try to stop humanitarian
catastrophes in Bosnia from 1992, Somalia in 1993, Kosovo in 1998 and
Sierra Leone in 2000. The failure to intervene in Rwanda in 1994 and more
recently in Sudan's Darfur province was attributed not to timidity but to
the logistical difficulty of deploying power in the African interior.

These interventions were not ideological, whether "liberal" or "neocon".
They were to save lives from being lost by the thousand. They were covered
by international law (possibly not Kosovo) because the UN charter's
respect for territorial integrity also stipulates it "shall not prejudice
the application of enforcement measures" to avert a humanitarian crisis.

This was reinforced when the security council in 2005 and 2006 imposed a
responsibility on the international community to protect people whose
governments failed to do so. It castigated in particular the "intentional
denial of humanitarian assistance".

Such an extension of the concept of military intervention was advocated by
former British prime minister Tony Blair in his Chicago speech of 1999,
when it was dismissed by the Americans (pre-9/11) as irresponsible.

Today it is widely regarded as legitimate, even by those opposed to the
belligerent militancy that ensued under Blair and US President George W.
Bush.

It is hard to think of a more glaring application of the humanitarian
principle than today's Burma. In none of the above interventions was
anything like the same number of lives at risk as the 2million now
threatened in the Irrawaddy Delta.

This is eight times the 230,000 reckoned to have died in the 2004 tsunami.

In Burma, the airlifting of supplies from offshore vessels to stricken
areas would indeed be an offence against the sovereignty of Burma. But the
intervention would not constitute an attack on a government or occupy its
territory. Indeed, it would be occasioned strictly because of the lack of
government in a particular territory. It would be to save the lives of
people abandoned to their deaths by their rulers.

Yet where today are the brave rattlers of sabres against the Iraqis, the
Afghans and the Iranians? The US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad,
says he is "outraged by the slowness of the response" of the Burmese
authorities. His outrage will bring scant comfort to those dying in the
delta.

On Friday, the British and French foreign ministers, David Miliband and
Bernard Kouchner, announced that "we look to the regime" to lift
restrictions on aid distribution.

Nobody "looked to" Slobodan Milosevic to stop slaughtering Kosovans or the
rebels to stop the killing in Sierra Leone.

We intervened.

The British Foreign Office remarked last week that there was "no excuse"
for delay and then thought of one. The British chairman of the UN security
council, John Sawers, claimed that the 2006 resolution referred only to
"acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity ... rather than
government responses to natural disasters".

In 2001 there was no evidence that the Taliban were committing such acts,
yet Britain intervened. And what is happening in Burma if not an
"intentional denial of humanitarian assistance"?

The option of sending in relief supplies by air may well face logistical
objections. Ships and heavy-lift equipment must be in position, with air
cover to ensure the safety of the operation. There must be some sense of
order on the ground to ensure that drops are other than random, although
at some point a starving and dying population would welcome any help
rather than none.

It may be the case that diplomatic pressure on the regime might soon force
it to reverse its negligence - although at present this is unlikely.

Indeed, the West's policy of merely hurling abuse at it looks
counterproductive. A regime that turns away the Red Cross or refuses to
even listen to a friendly superpower, China, seems immune to pressure.

There is no justification under the UN charter for intervening to topple
the Burmese military regime. That task would rightly be opposed by other
powers in the region and must one day be performed by the Burmese
themselves. But aid drops over the Irrawaddy Delta are nothing to do with
that case.

The outside world has waited a week, and protested to no effect.

Either way, some enforced intervention must surely be planned. British Aid
Minister Douglas Alexander said last week it would be "incendiary".

He did not explain why a "dump-and-run" of emergency supplies in the delta
would be incendiary - compared, for instance, with his antics in
Afghanistan.

He cannot hold to the thesis that Burma is not ripe for "liberal
intervention" because the loss of life is the result of a natural disaster
rather than political or military oppression. What is this fine
distinction between a massacre and what the military is now inflicting on
the Burmese people? A corpse is a corpse.

This catastrophe is not past but continuing. A Western world adept at
intervening elsewhere on a humanitarian pretext is suddenly inert.

Why? I suspect the reason is that it has too much intervention on its
plate already.

The Burmese must die because we are too busy pretending to save Afghans
and Iraqis.

To such cynicism has liberal intervention sunk.


____________________________________
INTERVIEW

May 11, Democratic Voice of Burma
Cyclone victim says aid given only to junta supporters – Maung Too

A cyclone victim in Hlaing Tharyar, Rangoon, has said people in the
township are not receiving any assistance and are being driven out of
public buildings by local authorities.

In an interview with DVB on Friday, the woman said there were many cyclone
victims in the township, perhaps more than 10,000, but they had been
forced out of buildings where they had taken shelter by local officials
and members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association.

DVB: We understand the cyclone victims were asked to move out of a
building. Can you tell me where that was?

“From state high school No. 3. None of the cyclone victims received
anything when rice and oil were given out. The USDA and the local
authorities were handing out rice and oil, so we went there but we were
not given anything. They only distributed the goods to their own people.
None of the starving victims received anything. There are many people in
serious trouble with many of them staying in monasteries. We are staying
in a hall.”

DVB: When were the authorities distributing rice and oil?

“They have been distributing the food for the past three days.”

DVB: What about today?

“No, not today. The people who are really starving did not receive
anything. The food was distributed to people in their own organisations.
Only about 50 of the victims received the food distributed”.

DVB: You said only 50 of the victims received the food. How many people do
you believe need it?

“Over 10,000.”

DVB: The 10,000 people you speak of, did they lose their homes in the
cyclone?

“Yes, they lost everything. Some died, some lost the roofs of their homes,
and some were left without shelter and are starving. Some couples have
many children.”

DVB: Which ward are you from?

“Ward No. 14.”

DVB: I see, but the victims must be from different wards?

“Yes. People from all wards came to the food distribution area.”

DVB: Why did they force you away from state high school No. 3?

“They said we were not allowed to stay there any longer. The person who
ordered out was U Mya Win of the USDA. We were evicted yesterday and had
to go without meals in the morning. Food is only given to their people and
we, who are starving, did not get anything, neither oil nor rice. We are
all homeless and I have to rent a place.

“I am a cyclone victim but I have not even received a grain of rice. They
said they were distributing food at 1500 hours, so I went there and they
told me the distribution was in the morning. They – the USDA Office -
asked me to come early the next morning and I did and they told me the
distribution would only be in the evening.”

DVB: So, you want to appeal to the USDA and the local authorities to be
fair in distributing food aid. The international agencies are also
concerned about the assistance reaching the people. The aid, it appears,
is not reaching you. So, what would you like to tell the international
community about it?

“I want to tell them that food aid is not reaching us, we are in trouble
because of our food, clothing and shelter difficulties, and we have
nowhere to stay. We want them to help us. The other day, my niece fainted
after they closed the iron gates on the people queuing for food aid and
she was caught in between. We are really in trouble and that is what we
want the international community to know. We want the food aid to be sent
directly to the people because we do not get anything if it comes through
them.”