BurmaNet News, June 10, 2008

[Editor]

June 10, 2008 Issue #3488


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Suu Kyi's party to appeal against her 'unfair' detention
Irrawaddy: Detained Suu Kyi supporters released
Mizzima News: Private donations for cyclone victims decline
Kaowao News: More Nargis’ survivors flee to Southern Burma
DVB: International relief supplies reach Bogalay
Christian Science Monitor: Burma's (Myanmar's) elite help with aid

ON THE BORDER
DVB: Cyclone refugees flee to Thailand

BUSINESS / TRADE
IMNA: Sea fish avoided, pork price soars

HEALTH / AIDS
Reuters: Cyclone raises tuberculosis risks in Myanmar: WHO

DRUGS
Irrawaddy: Maung Waik, Burmese tycoon, arrested on drug charges

REGIONAL
AFP: Cyclone must not overshadow push for change in Myanmar: EU
Philippine Daily Inquirer: Sight of Myanmar’s cyclone damage unspeakable

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: There will be no intervention in Burma: EIU

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Don’t depoliticize Burma’s cry for help
The Korea Times: UN Chief urged to go back to Myanmar

INTERVIEW
Mizzima News: Zarganar still under detention




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 10, Agence France Presse
Suu Kyi's party to appeal against her 'unfair' detention

MYANMAR'S pro-democracy party said on Tuesday that the ongoing house
arrest of its leader Aung San Suu Kyi was illegal, and demanded the ruling
junta accept an appeal against her detention.

The military regime - which calls itself the State Peace and Development
Council - extended the Nobel peace prize winner's house arrest by one year
on May 27. Her latest period of detention began in 2003.

'The NLD will submit an appeal under the law as the extension of Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi's detention was against the law and unfair,' her National
League for Democracy (NLD) party said in a statement.

'If the State Peace and Development Council assumes that the extension of
the detention of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was in accordance with the law, we
ask them to accept the appeal and open the case in accordance with the
law.'

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi was first detained in 1989, and has spent most of the
last 18 years as a prisoner at her sprawling lakeside Yangon home, with
only brief spells of freedom.

The junta says they are keeping her locked away under a 1975 law to
protect the state from 'destructive elements", but legal experts say that
under Myanmar law, a person cannot be held without charge or trial for
more than five years.

The NLD did not say on what legal basis they would challenge their
leader's house arrest, but also branded the detention of their vice
chairman Tin Oo and two other senior party members illegal.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi led her NLD to a landslide victory in 1990 elections,
but ruling junta never allowed them to take office.

Keeping her under house arrest has effectively silenced the woman known
here simply as 'The Lady,' while leaving her party rudderless.

____________________________________

June 10, Irrawaddy
Detained Suu Kyi supporters released – Saw Yan Naing

Fifteen members of Burma’s National League for Democracy (NLD) who were
arrested on May 27 as they demonstrated for the release of party leader
Aung San Suu Kyi were freed on Monday, according to NLD sources in
Rangoon.

The 15 held their demonstration on the 18th anniversary of the 1990
general election, which resulted in an overwhelming victory for Suu Kyi
and the NLD.

They were identified as Htet Htet Oo Wai, Yan Naing, Htun Htun Win, Saw
Pyit Pyo Aung, Htet Soe Lin, Aung Pe, Thet Naing Htun, Pyit Pyit, Kyaw Myo
Naing, Kyaw Naing, Maung San, Kyaw Din, Hla Myo Naing, Htun Win Thein, and
Kyi Lwin.

Htet Htet Oo Wai told The Irrawaddy that she and the rest of the group had
been released after signing a statement in which the authorities accused
them of damaging national peace.

The fifteen were held at the Government Technology Institute in Rangoon’s
Insein Township.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win complained the 15 had been unlawfully detained
because they had not been charged before a judge in court.

The NLD also released a statement on Monday claiming that Suu Kyi’s
continued house arrest is illegal and challenging the regime to give a
reason for still detaining her.

Suu Kyi completed five full years of house arrest in late May, but the
regime extended her detention by one year. She is confined to her home on
Rangoon’s Inya Lake.

According to the terms of the law under which she is detained, Article 10
(b) of the State Protection Act Law 1975, a person can be detained for a
maximum of five years. Detaining her any longer is illegal, according to
lawyers and human rights groups.

____________________________________

June 10, Mizzima News
Private donations for cyclone victims decline – Zarni

Private donations for Cyclone Nargis victims are slowly petering out one
month after the cyclone struck Burma. Private donors are financially
depleted and physically exhausted.

Private donors from across the country made small scale relief efforts for
cyclone victims in worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta region. Now donations have
fallen drastically.

"This is our second relief effort. There were many donors and donations in
the first relief campaign conducted in mid-May. Now donations have fallen
drastically," Ko Kyaw Kyaw from Rangoon who visited and donated in Labutta
Township, Irrawaddy Division told Mizzima.

Similarly people from Mandalay who are providing relief supplies to
victims in Pyapon Township, Irrawaddy Division by pooling in funds donated
by friends are facing the same difficulty.

"We cannot continue our relief campaign through to the end of this month.
The people are exhausted and the fund is dwindling," a member of this
relief aid group said.

They started their relief campaign by providing food, clothes and medicine
on a small scale. After donating thrice, they are exhausted, he added.

Local residents in Bogale Township conducting relief work said that the
number of private donors coming to their region fell by 33 per cent.

A monk from 'Maha Gandar Yone' monastery said, "Private donors of our
laity and devotees are donating less than before. As time passes, we are
exhausted and the donation has decreased too".

Private donors donated cash and relief supplies to cyclone victims by
collecting these from friends and community members.

Some donated cash and materials to charitable groups such as 'Free Funeral
Service' in Rangoon which visited victims.

"I have donated twice and provided food and clothes to the victims. Now we
are finding it difficult to collect enough materials and cash," a private
donor said.

"The misery and sufferings they are facing is worse than ours. Though we
want to continue our donations, we must think of ourselves too. I feel
extremely sorry for them," a private donor in Rangoon said.

____________________________________

June 10, Kaowao News
More Nargis’ survivors flee to Southern Burma

Cyclone Nargis’ victims from the Irrawaddy Delta are fleeing in large
numbers to Mon State and Karen State, Southern Burma to try and make a
living, according to villagers from Mon State. Witnesses have seen entire
families as well as single mothers and children all fleeing for survival,
laden with heavy bags.

After Cyclone Nargis washed out the Irrawaddy, survivors flowed into
Southern Burma from the third week of May until now. Many were trying to
reach relatives who worked in areas less-affected by the cyclone, and head
villagers were now busy trying to keep track of and register the sudden
influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs).

“Survivor’s relatives and neighbors who work in this area have been
calling their friends and relatives from the areas where the cyclone
really hit hard. They have been calling them in large numbers, as now we
have between four and five hundred new arrivals to Ye township per day,” a
head villager from Ye township told Kaowao.  He went on to say that they
are currently hiring many of the new arrivals as cheap farm labor.

Aye Maung who came from Irrawaddy Delta to Mon state in search of a better
job told Kaowao, “I’d like to say I am lucky because I was here (Mon
state) before the cyclone, seeking work for myself as well as for my
father and my brother. Now my mother and my sisters have arrived here as
IDPs. My father is still missing. My plan before Nargis was not to bring
my mother and sisters here, but we lost our house in the cyclone – which
used to house all six of us – so I decided they must join me here.”  Aye
Maung’s native town is an area very badly affected by the cyclone, East
Gone Hnyin Than village, Pyar Pon township.  He added, “I don’t think we
could go back to our native town to spend the money we earn here. I think
we are here now to find a better life. We are here to work and live.”

Currently in southern Burma there is a lack of labor as high numbers of
people seek work and a better life in the neighboring countries of
Thailand and Malaysia.  Many people who find themselves in Mon and Karen
states for resettlement or in the wake or Nargis can now make a home for
themselves.

A community leader from Kwan Hlar village, Mudon township, Mon state told
Kaowao that there is a strong worker community in his village, with an
entire block for workers which has doubled since the post-Nargis arrivals.
 He added that workers from Irrawaddy and Pegu Divisions were appropriate
for the southern community because they were used to earning their living
in agriculture similar to that of southern Burma.

More than 133,000 people are dead or missing following the Cyclone Nargis,
which hit Burma on May 2nd and 3rd with winds up to 200kph wreaking havoc
and mass destruction through the Irrawaddy delta, Burma’s former capital
Rangoon, Pegu, and some parts of Mon and Karen states.  The United Nations
estimates that one million hungry and homeless survivors have yet to
receive any aid, despite the military junta’s many promises to speed up
the relief effort.

____________________________________

June 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
International relief supplies reach Bogalay – Aye Nai

Residents of Bogalay township, Irrawaddy division, said helicopters sent
by the World Food Programme have arrived in town carrying aid supplies for
local villagers.

A local resident, speaking yesterday, said it was the first time such aid
had reached the area.

"Today is the first time we have seen the helicopters – there are about
six of them, all with UN and WFP logos," the resident said.

"They went back and forth one after the other and dropped supplies in the
football field. They were doing it very professionally," he said.

"I don't know where they’re going to distribute the materials, but
apparently they will go to cyclone victims in small villages."

The international aid effort to cyclone survivors has been hampered by
government obstructions and damage to infrastructure, and many remote
villages have still not received aid in the month since the cyclone.

____________________________________

June 10, Christian Science Monitor
Burma's (Myanmar's) elite help with aid

Business leaders, some under US sanction, are delivering relief supplies. 
While international aid groups and world leaders have been clamoring for
greater access or accusing the government of Burma (Myanmar) of neglecting
cyclone victims, the junta has effectively parceled out areas of the
disaster zone to the country's corporate leaders.

They are a "who's who" of Burma's business class: powerful execs with
close ties to the ruling military junta, some of them under Western
sanctions for that reason.

Despite those connections – indeed, because they have enabled these men to
distribute badly needed relief – foreign aid workers in Burma, their own
efforts inhibited by the junta, are partnering with these
businessmen-turned-relief workers.

Andrew Kirkwood, Burma director for Save the Children, has been sharing
boats and distribution networks in the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta with
corporate-relief volunteers from Serge Pun Associates.

"They've been doing a lot of good things. They have a lot of assets, and
they've been putting it to good use," he says. "We've been coordinating at
various levels to reach as many people as possible."

Burma's power class

A week after the May 2-3 cyclone Nargis left an estimated 134,000 dead or
missing and 2.4 million more affected, the government put out a call
asking business leaders to volunteer for relief operations, says James
Kong, a Hong Kong-based surgeon and former head of Rangoon's Pun Hlaing
International Hospital, who has returned to help his native Burma.

Some of them are under Western sanctions. Others hold foreign passports,
work with business leaders across Asia, and have publicly listed companies
on Asian markets.

On May 12, a number of executives formed the Cape Negrais Committee, named
after the site where the cyclone first slammed into southern Burma's
Irrawaddy Delta.

The team has so far helped 45,000 to 75,000 people on Middle Island, one
of their areas of operation in the delta, says Mark Tippetts, an
Englishman and longtime Burma resident who oversees the Pun Hlaing golf
course, a favorite haunt of Burma's elite.

The hard-to-reach delta is where many of the more than one million people
who have yet to receive aid are located, according to the United Nations.

Htoo Trading, led by young entrepreneur Tay Za, is operating in the
delta's Bogale area. Tay Za came under US economic sanctions last October
when President Bush tightened restrictions on ranking members of Burma's
ruling junta and associated business groups.

Another company, Max Myanmar Ltd., is running relief operations in the
town of Labutta.

'He's got boats'

Save the Children, a respected international organization which has
reached about 300,000 cyclone survivors in Burma, is working closely with
Serge Pun, the chairman of Yoma Bank and 40 other companies, who is not
under US sanctions.

"I feel absolutely comfortable with our relationship with him," says Mr.
Kirkwood, adding that, before accepting Pun's offer to help, the aid
agency conducted a background check and concluded there was no reason to
refuse.

"He's got boats and people and warehouses, and we've got lots of aid to
deliver, and together we can get stuff to people who need it," Kirkwood
continues.

Pun, who is pioneering private healthcare in Burma, flew back to the
country on May 11 and converted his companies' executives, as well as
doctors at Pun Hlaing hospital, into volunteer aid workers.

After some quick training on how to handle emergencies and trauma, 12
doctors and a team of nurses and support staff headed deep into the delta.

They endured seven-hour boat rides amid stormy currents and rain, says
Joseph Lopez, chief operating officer at Pun Hlaing hospital.

Corporate efforts: good, not enough

International aid workers and Western diplomats are quick to praise the
heroic response of private groups and individuals in Burma to the
disaster.

But Western diplomats say this shouldn't distract from the regime's
continued obstruction of foreign aid and equipment and refusal to allow
many foreign experts into the disaster zone.

"There no doubt they [the business groups] are helping people get access
to aid and medicine, says a Western diplomat.

"But rather than rely on local businesspeople with no aid experience, it
makes more sense for experts to be allowed to mobilize properly," the
diplomat continues.

Last Wednesday, a prominent entertainer and political activist known as
Zarganar, who had led private relief operations in the Delta, was arrested
at his home in Rangoon.

His detention may be linked to his background and his speaking out
critically against the government to foreign media, says Win Min, an
exiled Burmese professor in Chiang Mai, Thailand, adding that it sends a
worrying signal to other private groups.

"If Zarganar can be arrested, anyone can be arrested if the government is
angered by what you're doing" in the delta, says Win Min.

Media reports have carried accounts of Burmese being prevented from
driving to the delta with aid supplies and of private trucks being seized
by police and soldiers.

• Simon Montlake contributed reporting from Bangkok, Thailand.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Cyclone refugees flee to Thailand – Htet Yarzar

Around 100 refugees from Bogalay, Labutta and surrounding villages have
fled to the Thai border town of Mae Sot after losing their homes and
livelihoods in the cyclone.

One of the refugees said he had lost his home and family when the cyclone
hit Burma last month.

"We were left with nothing to eat. All our cattle and buffalo were killed,
and all our rice grain was destroyed. That's why we decided to come out
here," he said.

"My house was blown away by the wind during the cyclone. My wife and I had
to swim underwater to save ourselves and our four-year-old son, who I was
carrying in my arms,” he went on.

“But soon my wife was carried away by the tide and I couldn't save her. My
son couldn't make it either – he died in my arms."

Manh Manh, the director of the Backpack Health Worker Team, said a group
had been formed to provide assistance to the new arrivals.

The Emergency Aid Team (Burma) is made up of a number of organisations
including the National Health and Education Committee, the Karen Youth
Organisation, the Burmese Women’s Union and Dr Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao
clinic.

"The group has so far provided 1000 baht and a month’s ration of rice to
each of the refugees and is currently holding discussions on how to keep
providing them assistance in the longer term," Manh Manh said.


____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

June 10, Independent Mon New Agency
Sea fish avoided, pork price soars – Rai Maraoh,

People in Southern Burma are avoiding sea fish, firm in their belief that
the fish have been nibbling corpses floating from Irrawaddy delta. The
price of fish has plummeted by 40 per cent whereas the price of pork has
soared.

Although fish is still selling in the markets the number of people eating
fish has dropped significantly, a resident in Mudon said.

"The price of fish dropped from 5000 Kyat to 3000 Kyat per viss. But some
are still buying fish. The majority favour pork and chicken," she added.
Now price of chicken and pork has soared from 5000 Kyat to 7000 Kyat per
viss. Price of eggs has also risen.

A majority of people in Thanpyuzayart Township and Tavoy are avoiding
fish. Not only Mudon and Thanpyuzayar Township it is difficult to find sea
fish sellers in the markets in Ye township where some bodies were found
floating.

Two weeks after Cyclone Nargis struck, bodies of victims floated to sea
beaches in Mon state. At least 300 bodies have been buried or burnt by
local teams formed by authorities in Thanpyuzayart Township on the Set-sae
beach. Some bodies floated in some costal villages in Tenasserim division
and southern Ye Township.


____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

June 10, Reuters
Cyclone raises tuberculosis risks in Myanmar: WHO – Laura MacInnis

The cyclone that devastated Myanmar last month forced many tuberculosis
sufferers to stop their treatment, triggering fears of drug-resistant
strains spreading, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Myanmar had 83,000 cases of the highly contagious disease in 2006 causing
6,000 deaths, according to the WHO's most recent figures for the
diplomatically isolated country whose army rulers were initially reluctant
to let in foreign aid workers after Cyclone Nargis hit on May 2.

The storm killed up to 134,000 people, left 2.4 million destitute, and
destroyed many of the health centers which handed out antibiotics.

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said experts from the United Nations agency
would travel to cyclone-affected areas this week to track down
tuberculosis patients who lost access to their drugs since the May 2
storm.

"They will go to the hospitals and health centers, look at the records,
look how many people were on treatment, and then try to trace them in
villages and camps," Chaib said, calling the hiatus resulting from the
storm "a serious issue."

"Tuberculosis is a life-threatening disease. Interrupting a course of
six-month treatment can have an effect on creating resistance to
tuberculosis drugs," she said.

Any pause in a course of antibiotics can give the bacterium causing
tuberculosis a chance to mutate and build up immunity to standard
medicines. Drug-resistant strains can require patients to take an
expensive and arduous course of pills and injections, and some types are
virtually untreatable.

Even before the cyclone, the weak health system and pervasiveness of fake
drugs in Myanmar were seen as potential triggers for drug-resistant
tuberculosis.

While no cases of "extensively drug-resistant" or "XDR" tuberculosis have
been confirmed by the WHO in Myanmar, aid workers from Medicins Sans
Frontieres last year reported cases among migrants from Myanmar in
neighboring Thailand, raising concerns that it may already exist in the
secretive state.

Chaib said authorities in Myanmar had worked hard with the WHO in recent
years to fight the respiratory disease, which spreads through the air and
kills about 1.5 million people worldwide every year.

In addition to tracking patients and helping them resume treatment, WHO
staff deployed to Myanmar's cyclone-affected region will also seek to
bolster general health services for those displaced by the storm.

The WHO is appealing for clean water and sanitation supplies to help
reduce the risks of water-borne diseases among cyclone survivors. With the
monsoon season coming, the U.N. agency said it was also critical for
Myanmar to take steps to prevent malaria and other diseases spread by
mosquitoes.

(Editing by Caroline Drees)

____________________________________
DRUGS

June 10, Irrawaddy
Maung Waik, Burmese tycoon, arrested on drug charges – Min Lwin

Maung Waik, one of the richest men in Burma and a powerful crony of the
country’s ruling military regime, was arrested and detained in late May on
charges of drug abuse and involvement in a trafficking ring run by the son
of one of the junta’s leading generals, according to a former business
partner.

The arrest was part of a crackdown on associates of Aung Zaw Ye Myint, son
of the chief of the Bureau of Special Operations No. 1, Lt- Gen Ye Myint.

Aung Zaw Ye Myint was arrested on May 29 for alleged drug trafficking.
When police and military intelligence agents raided his office at Yetagun
Tower in Rangoon’s Kyeemyindaing Township, they reportedly found illegal
drugs and six guns in his possession.

Aung Zaw Ye Myint is widely known among wealthy Burmese and celebrities as
a drug dealer, according to sources in Rangoon. At the time of his arrest,
he was in the company of Nawarat, a well-known movie actress.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, a police sergeant from the
Kyeemyindaing Township Police Station confirmed that the anti-narcotics
division of the police force carried out a raid on Yetagun Tower, but
declined to provide further details.

“Maung Waik and Aung Zaw Ye Myint used to take drugs together and sell
them to movie stars,” said a former business partner of Maung Waik.

“They often held parties at their offices or homes and invited
celebrities,” said one of the partygoers, speaking on condition of
anonymity. “They got people hooked on drugs and then started selling them
to the addicts.”

According to sources in Rangoon, Aung Zaw Ye Myint owns Yetagun
Construction Company, which has its head office in Yetagun Tower on Pan
Hlaing Street. The company relies heavily on subcontractors to do most of
its work, the sources added.

Following Aung Zaw Ye Myint’s arrest, military intelligence went after
Maung Waik and several others, including a number of celebrities. Maung
Waik, the founder of Maung Weik & Family Co., is believed by some to be
the richest person in Burma.

The Irrawaddy contacted the company’s head office in Rangoon’s Lanmadaw
Township on Tuesday, but senior staff declined to discuss Maung Waik’s
arrest.

Maung Weik is known as a generous donor to projects sponsored by the
Burmese junta, once giving 270 million kyat (nearly US $235,000) for
restoration work on Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma’s most famous religious site.

Maung Waik has also attempted to strengthen his ties to the regime through
marriage. According to a relative of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the most powerful
figure in the junta, Maung Waik has recently been courting the general’s
daughter, Khin Pyone Shwe.

According to members of Rangoon’s business community, Maung Weik recently
divorced his wife, Yin Min Khin, in the hope of marrying Than Shwe’s
daughter.

When Maung Waik was arrested in late May, his mother and ex-wife fled to
Singapore.

Maung Waik was released on June 7, and several celebrities associated with
Aung Zaw Ye Myint, including actresses Nawarat and Phoe Kyaw, have also
been freed. However, Aung Zaw Ye Myint is believed to still be in
detention.

Sources said that while under interrogation, each detainee was asked to
name five persons he or she knew in connection with Aung Zaw Ye Myint and
drug trafficking, indicating that the investigation was ongoing.

But some observers said that the authorities were less interested in
pursuing the whole network than in finding a scapegoat so they could
release Aung Zaw Ye Myint.

Meanwhile, Rangoon-based journals and magazines have been forbidden to
publish news of the arrests.

A Rangoon-based journal editor said: “Burmese journals don’t have the
right to publish anything concerning the military or cronies of the
generals, but some journals have published their messages indirectly to
reach the readers.”


____________________________________
REGIONAL

June 10, Agence France Presse
Cyclone must not overshadow push for change in Myanmar: EU

The world must not allow the rush to help Myanmar with relief efforts
after a deadly cyclone overshadow the struggle for political change in the
military-run nation, an EU envoy said Tuesday.

Myanmar's junta has ruled since 1962 and keeps opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi locked away, but the world's gaze has recently been on efforts to
get aid to some 2.4 million survivors of the storm that hit in early May.

"We must not forget the political problems," Piero Fassino, the European
Union special envoy for Myanmar, told reporters in Bangkok.

"The only way for this problem to not disappear from the radar is to
commit not only on the humanitarian side but also on the political side to
a long-lasting solution," he said.

The cyclone left more than 133,000 people dead or missing. The junta
outraged the international community by blocking the delivery of foreign
assistance and refusing visas for aid workers.

The regime relented after a personal visit by UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon, and aid is slowly making its way to Myanmar's needy.

"The priority now is to make sure that the promises (junta head) Than Shwe
made to the secretary general are actually fulfilled," Fassino said at the
end of a tour of Southeast Asia to discuss Myanmar.

The junta has agreed to let regional bloc, the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), lead the relief effort. Fassino said the
organisation should exert its influence over the junta.

"I believe that the ASEAN countries can actually assert a very important
influence on the Burmese (Myanmar) junta and this is why the European
Union is ready to support the ASEAN countries," he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy party to a
landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never allowed them to
take office.

They have kept her under house arrest for most of the last 18 years,
resisting pressure from the international community to free her and move
towards democracy.

A crackdown on anti-government protests last year that left at least 31
people dead briefly invigorated the diplomatic push for change in Myanmar,
but produced few results.

____________________________________

June 10, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Sight of Myanmar’s cyclone damage unspeakable -- RP team – Tarra Quismundo

The Philippine flag waved mightily over a refugee camp in badly hit
Irrawaddy delta, the only foreign flag allowed to be raised in reclusive
Myanmar.

Amid stringent restrictions to foreign aid workers in the cyclone-ravaged
country, the 30-member Philippine humanitarian mission sent to Burma two
weeks ago was permitted to hoist the country's colors in Irrawaddy, the
delegation said upon returning to Manila Monday night.

"We were able to raise our flag in a sovereign country. They allowed us
because they appreciated the performance of the medical team," said
mission chief Dr. Arnel Rivera.

The Philippine humanitarian mission, a team of 30 doctors, nurses,
psychologists, social workers and environmental sanitation experts from
the Department of Health, planted the Philippine flag on a refugee camp in
Laputta, a township in the Irrawaddy delta, when they arrived there on May
30.

It was their first destination in a 15-day tour that took them through
four towns around Myanmar -- two in the Irrawaddy and two in Yangon. The
team folded the flag as they left the delta for Yangon a week later, said
team member William Sabater.

For the mission, it was both a diplomatic and humanitarian breakthrough as
the Philippine flag was raised over Burma amid an international clamor for
the strict military junta to grant foreign aid workers full access to
towns hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis.

"It was more of a feeling that you're brothers and sisters working
together. It was a very nice coordinated activity... and even when we
arrived, you'd see how prepared they were, you can see the way the
briefing was carried out, civilians and military working together," said
Rivera.

The Filipino aid mission was the first group to enter Myanmar after
military rulers agreed to grant foreign access as the country grappled
with its worst humanitarian crisis in years. The junta opened up following
a donors conference initiated by the United Nations and backed by the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar was a member.

"What others say that there were many soldiers around, we never felt like
that," said the team leader.

As they described it, the Filipino contingent was feted to a reception fit
for dignitaries as soon as they touched down aboard a military plane in
Yangon.

"They greeted us with the presence of representatives of the Myanmar
government, from the uniformed services, the ministers of foreign affairs
and health," said Rivera.

The team was provided transport for their mission and a cargo truck for
their load of close to 13 tons of medicine and relief goods. Myanmese
civilian officials were with them throughout the mission, but there was no
feeling of being watched.

"We were accompanied... We didn't find any problem, they were already well
organized, the system was already in place and we were there augmenting
them. We never implied that we were doing something other than assisting,"
Rivera said.

Still, the team had to submit to protocol imposed by Myanmar rulers. As
Sabater put it, "we had to get a clearance for our every move."

"Our guide had to talk to so many people, coordinate with many people to
get clearances. For whatever we do, there has to be a clearance. For the
lecture we gave, we had to get a clearance. What we say, we should be
given clearance," said the engineer.
But the team just went along as "they know we are there to help."

Sabater said the Philippine contingent was the first foreign group allowed
to legally enter Irrawaddy, a region that was the hardest to access for
other international aid agencies and hence was only reached through
stealth.

Once in Irrawaddy, the impact of Nargis' devastation met them eye-to-eye.

For Sabater, a native of disaster-prone Bicol, ground zero was nothing
like any disaster area he had seen before.

"Look to the right, to the left, to the front and back, there was not a
single mountain. The area was like one major river with many branches, and
the terrain was so flat," said Sabater, explaining the lack of natural
barriers against storms.

And unlike in the Philippines, where multiple typhoon visits are part of
the annual weather cycle, Myanmar is not familiar to such a climate
catastrophe. What came with the unfamiliar was Nargis' deadly surprise.

The storm surge came at 28 feet above ground at speeds of 120 miles per
hour, as fast as a car breezing through a highway.

In the aftermath, close to 78,000 were killed as of the latest count, but
the figure is feared to exceed 100,000.

And unspeakable damage was all over.

"Imagine one whole barrio where all homes were destroyed, school buildings
without roofs. And that was already 24 days since the cyclone hit," Rivera
said.

Most refugees suffered colds and coughs but what many urgently needed was
counseling for their loss.

"One of the locals told me they had never seen a cyclone so what they did
was hug trees to survive. Most of the people we talked to lost their
entire families," said social worker Jing Guerrero, one of those who gave
psychosocial treatment to refugees.

The Philippine team went around with the help of interpreters as most
locals only spoke the vernacular. Translators were especially helpful when
the team gave a lecture on disaster management to communities.

There was even technology transfer, said Sabater, as the team taught
locals an improvised water filtration system used in Philippine villages.

The system uses the Burmese version of the tapayan (clay jar) and sand and
gravel for natural filtration, Sabater said. As a tap system is
non-existent, locals source water for drinking, washing, cooking and
bathing from murky ponds or collected rainwater.

"After our demonstration, we showed a bottle of clear water. A child
grabbed it and drank it straight. That's how thirsty the people there
were," Sabater said.

The medical team flew back from Myanamr through a commercial flight that
arrived at 7:30 p.m. Monday.


____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 10, Irrawaddy
There will be no intervention in Burma: EIU – Wai Moe

The influential think tank, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), has
said in its June 2008 report that there is no prospect of any outside
intervention in Burma, although a man-made catastrophe looms in the wake
of Cyclone Nargis.

“Although the junta’s foot-dragging over the acceptance of international
aid has horrified the UN and many foreign governments, there is no
prospect of any outside force intervention,” the EIU said in its recently
released Country Report Myanmar (Burma).
The report noted there had been debate over whether the UN’s
“Responsibility to Protect” mandate—which sanctions international action
to prevent mass atrocities such as genocide and crimes against
humanity—might apply in Burma’s case.

But the general consensus appears to be that it doesn’t, and that attempts
to bypass the Burmese junta when delivering aid could be
counterproductive, the EIU said.

The report also noted that as the ruling generals continued to enjoy the
tacit support of China, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council,
there was “less likelihood” of foreign intervention despite outrage from
many foreign countries over the junta’s inaction during the cyclone
disaster, and calls from some quarters for UN-sponsored intervention.

The EIU also criticized the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)
for again failing to prove that it is an influential and decisive body.
Although Asean took a leading role in channeling international aid to
Burma, it did it in accordance with the junta’s demands, the report said.

However, the EIU saved its most stinging criticism for the Burmese
military authorities, noting that “the humanitarian crisis has revealed
once more the incompetence of the military junta and its callous disregard
for the welfare of the Burmese people.

“The military will keep its primary focus on protecting its grip on power
rather than dealing with the crisis at hand,” it added.

With regard to the junta’s promise to allow “all aid workers” into the
country, the report concluded that there was little likelihood of a rapid
increase in the amount of aid being delivered to those in desperate need
who are facing the risk of starvation and disease.

“The generals also appear unwilling to accept the full scale of the
disaster,” the EIU said, referring to Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein’s
declaration three weeks after Nargis hit that the relief effort had ended
and that the second phase—reconstruction—was now being implemented.

Meanwhile, in a thinly-disguised PR exercise to mock the Burmese regime,
the Joint Task Force Caring Response, a US military relief effort for
Burmese cyclone victims, on Tuesday invited members of the press to a
media junket at Thailand’s largest port, Laechabang. Journalists were
invited to view a warship from the USS Essex group which was withdrawn
from international waters off Burma on June 5, and see its cargo
of relief supplies which the Burmese junta rejected.


____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 10, Irrawaddy
Don’t depoliticize Burma’s cry for help

When Cyclone Nargis struck Burma’s Irrawaddy delta—a heavily populated and
largely agricultural area that feeds much of this impoverished country—it
was immediately obvious that a massive response would be required to avert
a major humanitarian crisis.

But a month later, and after some of the most high-powered intercession
from regional and world leaders that has ever been seen in the aftermath
of a natural disaster, Burma’s military leaders continued to insist they
have the situation under control.

For the regime, the crisis passed almost as soon as it happened: The dead
were already dead, and the dying might as well be.

Time to move on to more important things—like ratifying a constitution
designed to make the generals as politically secure from the threat of
genuine democracy as they were from Cyclone Nargis in their fortress-like
capital of Naypyidaw.

The regime’s insistence on going through with the constitutional
referendum on May 10, at a time when all of its energies should have been
devoted to saving lives, mystified foreign observers. Surely, they
thought, the regime could set politics aside for a week to deal with a
disaster that had devastated the lives of a large swathe of the country’s
population.

Two weeks later, when United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was in
Naypyidaw to plead for international access to the cyclone-ravaged delta,
he was still in “no politics” mode: “Issues of assistance and aid in
Myanmar [Burma] should not be politicized,” he said before his first
meeting with the regime’s leader, Snr-Gen Than Shwe. “Our focus now is on
saving lives.”

What Ban Ki-moon and other world leaders failed to realize is that for the
generals who rule Burma, politics always comes first. Where the world saw
a humanitarian issue, the junta saw a political opportunity. And politics
in military-ruled Burma must be understood in the crudest possible
terms—as a ruthless pursuit of power and privilege.

Alas, despite the regime’s expectation that the world’s eagerness to
deliver aid to the delta might translate into a major payoff, the
international response to Cyclone Nargis had little to offer the generals
except prestige. Than Shwe had the honor of meeting the UN chief in person
(after weeks of refusing to speak with him by phone), and was invited to
host a gathering of international donors eager to pledge millions of
dollars to the relief mission. But that wasn’t enough: Than Shwe wanted
billions, no strings attached.

Unsurprisingly, Than Shwe’s promise to Ban Ki-moon that he would grant
foreign aid workers unhindered access to the delta did not result in the
sort of large-scale relief effort that the donors had in mind. When the
donors offered just $150 million (far short of the $11 billion the regime
said it needed) it was not just an insult to the generals’ dignity—it was
a guarantee that thousands more cyclone survivors would die waiting for
aid.

Of course, the regime’s concessions to the international community were
more than just part of a cash grab. With French, British and American
naval vessels waiting just off Burma’s coast for a green light to begin
bringing aid supplies directly to those most in need, the generals saw a
menace more ominous than any cyclone.

“It would only take half an hour for the French boats and French
helicopters to reach the disaster area,” said French Foreign Minister
Bernard Kouchner. For a paranoid, xenophobic regime, this promise of
almost immediate assistance sounded more like a threat than an offer of
help.

With Kouchner and others invoking the UN’s principle of “responsibility to
protect” (or “R2P”) as a possible way of ending the standoff over access
to the delta, the generals probably realized that they were better off
relaxing their resistance to foreign aid workers, lest they risk inviting
a more aggressive international response.

Unfortunately for the people of the Irrawaddy delta, R2P is a new and as
yet untried idea, one that challenges traditional notions of sovereignty.
It also imposes an unwelcome burden on governments that prefer not to
regard humanitarian intervention as a “responsibility.” As such, it is
unlikely to be put into practice anytime soon.

In the meantime, the Burmese regime will continue to “cooperate” with the
international community on its own terms, using friendly foreign
governments, such as those of fellow members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), as intermediaries. Despite its
longstanding failure to exert any positive influence on the regime, Asean
has been entrusted with coordinating international relief efforts through
an ad hoc “Asean Emergency Rapid Assessment Team,” which had still not
gone into the delta more than a month after the cyclone.

It is a sad fact that the international community, in its efforts to
depoliticize the humanitarian crisis still unfolding in Burma, may end up
ensuring the ruling regime’s political survival while doing little or
nothing to save lives.

It is time for the world to admit that politics is a matter of life and
death in Burma. Otherwise, every attempt to deal with the regime
effectively will end up dead in the water, like those who perished in
Cyclone Nargis.

(This editorial appears in the June issue of The Irrawaddy.)

____________________________________

June 10, The Korea Times
UN Chief urged to go back to Myanmar – Pyay Chit (Han)

If you are a Myanmarese citizen, having lived in the military-ruled
country for decades you have legitimate reasons to deeply worry about the
survivors of the deadly Cyclone Nargis that hit the country on May 2-3.

Despite the ``breakthrough'' of the May 23 discussion between dictator
Than Shwe and the U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon concerning the
critical and urgent relief efforts for the homeless, the sick and the
dying, you still have good reasons to be skeptical about how that
``breakthrough'' is going to work in practice.

While the military regime in the country has successfully deflected
criticism from the international community by halfheartedly, reluctantly
and belatedly promising to open its doors to ``all foreign aid workers,''
life inside the reclusive country remains as gloomy as before, more than
30 days after the cyclone hit.

The visa process at Myanmar embassies abroad still takes several days for
foreign aid workers, nearly two weeks after the crucial meeting between
the country's strongman and the U.N. chief.

Even the handful of volunteers who have managed to enter the country have
a hard time reaching the worst affected areas due to the junta's
bureaucratic red tape, and its deliberate efforts to prevent them from
learning the truth about the situation there.
While the international community appears to be more shocked and dismayed
by the military generals' indifference to the sufferings of the victims
and their inaction than by the powerful storm itself, the victims
themselves are not so surprised to witness relief workers and volunteers
being blocked, prevented, intimidated and driven away by its own
government.

The traumatized citizens are painfully familiar with how badly its
government has handled things during its iron-fisted rule for nearly half
a century.

``The government announced the completion of relief effort 10 days after
the cyclone ransacked the country. But 15 days since the destruction, we
still witness countless numbers of stinking human corpses floating in the
Irrawaddy river near Bokalay," said Lay Maung recounting his own
experiences.

Lay Maung is a Yangon resident who has repeatedly visited the disaster
areas including Bogalay, one of the worst-hit townships.

``In some areas corpses block the waterways, making it difficult for
motorboat drivers to move freely. Though the villagers are trying to rid
the river of dead bodies, the task is simply too big for them,'' said the
young man who spent three days among the living and the dead in the areas,
delivering aid to the victims.

``So how could the government announce that it has finished the relief
effort while people are still dying? It's not the corpses but the
government's announcement that makes me feel sick to my stomach.''

With the help of three local people, Lay Maung and his group, including a
doctor, a nurse and two volunteers, managed to slip into Doke Gyi village
in Bogalay township. They were stopped and questioned at four military
checkpoints along the way.

Disguised as local people and setting up a temporary camp in the village,
the group cautiously began its mission. During their three-day stay they
treated an average of approximately 120 patients per day and helped two
women give birth.

The village was the first among other nearby villages to receive outside
help in the 15 days since the deadly cyclone. With 150 homes, the village
used to have a population of approximately 1,000.

On the night of the disaster, most of the villagers who took shelter in
one of the village's three barns survived, however, those who hid inside
the village school were swept away by ferocious winds and a 12-foot tidal
wave.

When the victims were given the rations the volunteer group had sneaked
in, they said it was the first time in 15 days that they had seen salt.
Since the disaster they had survived by eating plain unsalted porridge.

The government says that so far about 70,000 people have perished with
more than 50,000 still missing since the catastrophe. But Lay Maung and
his group have good reason to be skeptical about these official figures.

Villagers from Bogalay, Labutta and the surrounding areas admitted that in
the past they refrained from reporting to the government the correct
number of people living in each village due to rampant forced labor which
the junta has been persistently using for decades since it came to power
in 1962.

They say they usually register only half of the actual population number
in order to spare themselves from collective forced labor. Therefore, when
the government compiled statistics on the number of casualties and victims
of the cyclone, the number was based on incorrect and outdated registry.

According to the villagers, for example, Neydalin village in Bogalay
township had 200 homes with a population of about 1,500 before the cyclone
totally destroyed the homes and killed all the residents.

But in the governments official record only 500 people were listed as dead
or missing from the village. The authorities have used the same
underestimated and incorrect statistics for other villages too.

This has prompted villagers to claim that the real number of people killed
in the Irrawaddy delta might be twice or three times higher than that of
the governments.

Amid the government's careless, incompetent and unsympathetic response to
this massive loss of live, there are also reports of cyclone refugees
being forcibly removed by the authorities from schools and religious
buildings where they have taken refuge.

The U.N.'s Children's Fund said in an aid agency meeting last Friday that
eight camps initially set up by the government to shelter disaster victims
in Bogalay were now empty after victims were forced to leave, just one
month after the deadly cyclone.

``The government is moving people unannounced," said Teh Tai Ring, a
UNICEF official, adding that authorities were ``dumping people in the
approximate location of the villages, basically with nothing." Camps were
also being closed in Labutta, another town in the delta, a low-lying area
that took the brunt of the cyclone.

According to aid workers in Yangon, nearly 500 ethnic Korean Christians
who took refuge in Yangon's Christian missionary compounds were ordered to
go back to their cyclone-stricken villages in Labutta township.

While Yangon divisional chief general Hla Htay Win made the order, he
failed to provide assurances on how the refugees would be helped and taken
care of once they reached their respective villages which had been
completely destroyed by the storm.

In late May, about 1,000 cyclone refugees were forced to leave Ma-au Bin
town where they were taking shelter and ordered to return to their crushed
villages in Bogalay by the local authorities, according to lawyer U Aye
Myint from legal aid group, Guiding Star, in Myanmar.

Private donors and volunteers traveling to the Irrawaddy delta to deliver
aid on May 25 in about 27 vehicles were stopped in Hlaingtharyar Township,
an outskirt of Yangon, by the local authorities, and the drivers taken to
a technical college compound and questioned.

Others were turned back, while some people had their driving licenses
taken away by the authorities. The incident happened at Pan Hlaing Bridge,
the main route used by donors from Yangon to travel to the disaster zones.
The route has since been shut down by authorities.

Aid workers also complain that in some camps in the disaster zone,
makeshift tents, donated by the U.N. and other foreign aid groups, are
being sold to refugees at Kyats 500 (50 cents) per tent by the local
authorities.

It goes without saying that the appalling situation and unfair treatment
of the victims calls for Ban Ki-Moon to make an immediate second visit to
Myanmar, this time urging the xenophobic generals of this isolated country
to translate their promises into action.

Meanwhile, the U.N. must send a strong and clear message to the rulers of
Myanmar that they will be held responsible for any further deaths caused
as a result of their negligence.

Finally, it is imperative that the U.N. leader personally supervises,
monitors and leads relief efforts on the ground to ensure the hundreds of
thousands of people still at risk are saved.

The writer is a Myanmar resident in South Korea. He can be reached at
justice4allnations at yahoo.com.


____________________________________
INTERVIEW

June 10, Mizzima News
Zarganar still under detention

( Interview with his mother-in-law Daw Kyi Kyi Soe ) News circulated some
corners in Rangoon that famous comedian and actor Zarganar (tweezers) was
released from detention on Monday and is now under house arrest. He
conducted relief efforts actively providing relief supplies to cyclone
victims.

Mizzima tried to contact him last night, but in vain. Mizzima, however,
got in touch with his mother-in-law Kyi Kyi Soe today. She said that the
news of Zarganar being released is not true and his family members still
do not know his whereabouts. Huai Pi contacted and interviewed his family
member.

Q: We heard that Zarganar has been released. Is it true?

A: This is just concocted news. We still don't know his whereabouts since
he was taken from here. His wife, who is in the US called me at 2 a.m.
today after seeing the news of his release on some websites. The news also
said that he has been put under house arrest after being released from
detention. I told my daughter this was not true. I am answering your phone
call from his bedroom staying with my granddaughter's pet dog. I am not
lying. I am telling the truth. He has not yet been released.

Q: What do you think about Zarganar's detention?

A: The authorities forced Zarganar to sign a pledge on 28th October last
year not to talk to the media. After Cyclone Nargis struck Burma, he did
relief work and talked to the media. I think this is the reason why the
authorities took him away.

Q: Are there any surveillance teams outside your residence?

A: Yes, a lot, but I don't know the exact number. I don't know to which
units they belong. Yesterday two police officers came to my home. One was
from the West District Police Force and was of captain rank. Another one
was a police inspector who always watches and monitors Zarganar.

Q: Did you ask them about Zarganar?

A: Yes, I asked them but they could not answer. They said that they also
don't know about Zarganar. They were responsible for monitoring 
Zarganar's movement and had to hand him over to the higher authorities on
that day. An unknown couple asked my younger daughter Ma Nyein to harbour
a youth aged about 23 at our home as they have been fired and are
unemployed at the moment. We happily accepted this boy and he is living
together with my two grandchildren. We simply thought it is a good deed to
provide food to anyone who is in trouble. He reached our home just three
days before Zarganar was taken away. He accompanied Zarganar in his relief
campaign to cyclone-hit areas.

He was out of the house when the police came and took away Zarganar. Our
neighbours informed him about Zarganar 's arrest when he came back. He
left immediately. I don't know where he's gone. He's left here himself. We
don't know even his name. We simply called him 'Kadone' (clean shaven
head).

Q: Did the police visit your home again in the meantime?

A: They came and asked about this youth on the 6th of this month. I told
them I don't know about him as he has not come back since that day. I told
them we don't know about him and his parents. I am worried about the
police visiting the couple and inquiring about the youth. They are simple
persons like Zarganar. The police came at noon and searched all three
bedrooms.

The police said that they have to take away my daughter Ma Nyein and the
youngest one if we cannot find this youth. My youngest daughter is
suffering from heart disease and she is nervous and timid. She was shocked
and collapsed when the police said this. Only after that, a woman police
sub-inspector, a woman police sergeant and other personnel who came to our
home when Zarganar was taken away, left our home at about 10 p.m.