Myanmar Storm-Update

[zeusbheld]

I'd say humanitarian intervention is best solution, get it over with, call the junta's buff.

this is kinda offensive.

simplistic, gun-toting cowboy diplomacy has already been tried, by such illustrious, beloved diplomats as Dubya. the problem with sabre rattling is if you don't USE the goddamn thing you look like a windbag candyass, and if you DO... Iraq, etc.

Number 2. Maybe a phone call from UN Sec. Gen. Ban saying I'm gonna do everything in my power to make your life a b*tch if you don't let U.S..& British ships deliver aid now.

More sanctions, junta bank accounts, cut off gas line funds, World Court indictments for crimes against humanity.

this is more reasonable. but sadly, it is unlikely the junta will budge. i've yet to read anything that suggests they have the capacity for reason.

[LakeGeneve]

Somehow, some 6 weeks after the cyclone and with the disaster not getting the attention is deserves, we seem to have fogotton that some 130, 00 people died right next door!(and we are talking nearly 40% kids here ).

Thankfully, in spite of the junta is seems that worst case scenario of starvation and water borne outbreaks did not unfold to the extent expected;

Now doctors and aid workers returning from remote areas of the delta are offering a less pessimistic picture of the human cost of the delay in reaching survivors.

They say they have seen no signs of starvation or widespread outbreaks of disease. While it is estimated that the cyclone may have killed 130,000 people, the number of lives lost specifically because of the junta?s slow response to the disaster appears to have been smaller than expected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/world/asia/18myanmar.html?em&ex=1214020800&en=9a6a4e8c3e6c68f6&ei=5087%0A

One day those bastards in the junta will have to face the music in some way.

Most UN agencies and large international NGOs now have at least some staff working with local Burmese in the Delta;

So just a small reminder that you can still help by donating money to International NGOs based in Burma. Check for humanitarian updates/news and links to different orgs via http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc108?OpenForm&emid=TC-2008-000057-MMR&rc=3

[Loburt]

It's important to note these paragraphs from the story:

"But relief workers say the debate over access for foreigners and the refusal of the government to allow in military helicopters and ships from the United States, France and Britain overshadowed a substantial relief operation carried out mainly by Burmese citizens and monks.

They organized convoys of trucks filled with drinking water, clothing, food and construction materials that poured into the delta.

?It?s been overwhelmingly impressive what local organizations, medical groups and some businessmen have done,? said Ruth Bradley Jones, second secretary in the British Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar?s largest city. ?They are the true heroes of the relief effort.?

Aid workers emphasize that of the estimated 2.4 million Burmese strongly affected by the storm, thousands remain vulnerable to sickness and many are still without adequate food, shelter and supplies."

It's the Burmese people themselves who have prevented the worst from happening. And, if possible, it would be more effective to get money to Burmese NGOs, rather than international NGOs, as they have had more success in getting relief to people.

This also shouldn't minimize what a terrible tragedy this has been and is, and that people are still suffering.

I also wonder about the small number of sick and injured. There were reports on websites run by exiles that in the days immediately following the cyclone, the Burmese military picked up in trucks those who were very ill or severely injured, dumped them in mass graves and buried them alive.

Unfortunately, there is no way to confirm whether this in an exiles' rumor or the truth.

[Bruce551]

No Dignity: Alive or Dead

By KYAW ZWA MOE Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Irrawaddy

Being alive or dead is not much different in Burma, as strange as that sounds.

Six weeks after Cyclone Nargis, alive or dead, no one has dignity under the military government?s rule. When people are alive, all their basic rights are stolen. When they die, their bodies are just ignored.

Bloated bodies still lie scattered about, floating in streams or caught in trees in the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta, say aid workers.

The junta officially estimated that 134,000 people are dead or missing following the cyclone. The actual death toll is believed to be much higher.

Relatively few bodies were buried by villagers. Most of the dead have been ignored. The government still has not set up a systematic process to collect and cremate the bodies properly. Victims? bodies decomposed without religious rites.

The United Nations estimated up to 2.4 million people in the delta and Rangoon area were severely affected and tens of thousands still need food, shelter or other aid.

Yet international and local aid workers and supplies are still being shunned by the callous generals.

In the latest outrage, three Burmese volunteer aid workers were arrested in Rangoon last week by the special branch police. Police told the families that Yin Yin Wie, Tin Tin Cho and Myat Thu were detained because of their efforts to gather donations from friends abroad to aid the refugees. The detainees had voluntarily supplied rice, medicine and clothes to refugees since the May 2-3 cyclone struck.

Two weeks ago, the well-known Burmese comedian Zarganar, a strong critic of the regime, was arrested. Zarganar and his team distributed food, blankets, mosquito nets and other aid which they collected from donors. One of his colleagues, Zaw Thet Htawe, was arrested on Friday. After the arrests, another colleague told The Irrawaddy that the Zarganar team has temporarily suspended its aid activities.

Zargarnar told The Irrawaddy a few days before his arrest: ?I see three types of people [refugees] suffering trauma. One type is very violent and sensitive. They are angry, and I can?t say anything to them. They are aggressive all the time.

?The second type is people crying and moaning all the time. They think about what happened again and again, and they repeat what happened over and over. The third type is silent?no talking, very little movement.?

All the people caught up in the disaster?the refugees, the local and international aid workers and the volunteers?have been victimized by the Burmese military government, which?bizarrely? believes the country?s reputation is at stake and people are out to gather damaging information to spread to the world.

Last week, a small group of foreign doctors that had been allowed to work in the delta began to leave after the junta closed down most of the refugee centers. The Thai government was told not to dispatch a third medical team.

In fact, tens of thousands of survivors are still in desperate need of both physical and mental health treatment.

But the military, which has governed for the past five decades, doesn?t care about people?alive or dead. It just keeps repeating to the world that everything is fine, everything is under control.

The Burmese people live without dignity and now they die without it, too.

Also:

Influential US Sen John Kerry has asked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to instruct her department to investigate whether the Burmese junta?s response to last month?s cyclone crisis constitutes a ?crime against humanity.?

[LakeGeneve]

It's important to note these paragraphs from the story:

"But relief workers say the debate over access for foreigners and the refusal of the government to allow in military helicopters and ships from the United States, France and Britain overshadowed a substantial relief operation carried out mainly by Burmese citizens and monks.

It's the Burmese people themselves who have prevented the worst from happening. And, if possible, it would be more effective to get money to Burmese NGOs, rather than international NGOs, as they have had more success in getting relief to people.

This also shouldn't minimize what a terrible tragedy this has been and is, and that people are still suffering.

Yeah mate I am with you all the way which is why I said "Most UN agencies and large international NGOs now have at least some staff working with local Burmese in the Delta"

And give to local Burmese NGOs by all means or someone you know in Rangoon. And we both know it is the Burmese in the whole country who have been surviving the excesses and britality of the junta for decades without much int help.

BUT right now, we all do have to recognise that International NGOs have the best political and diplomatic protection to operate in the highly restricted circumstances which exist (to the degree that they can - esp. the UN with the official mandate and status of immunity). The context is important as this is still a large scale emergency program. Also, int. NGOs have the disaster management technical expertise (not at all ignoring local NGOs who have local disaster expertise) and established logistics to get shitloads of aid into the country - of course they all depend on the Burmese staff and local community for any effective delivery and outcomes.

Any emergency aid operation in the world is totally contingent on the help and local knowledge of those affected to be succesful. Had the junta not allowed anyone in, then the Burmese would still have survived through this but having 100s of tonnes of aid (food, medicines, shelter kits, water purifiers etc) and equipment being flown in does make a big difference whether deliverd by Int. NGOs, local NGOs, monks or locals.

[LakeGeneve]

Decent article by long time Bangkok based Ny Times reporter Seth Mydans in the IHT today. Just in case you forgot that some 140K people died in the cyclone, whilst now many slowly rebuild their lives;

Ghosts amid the wreckage in Myanmar - IHT 25/08/08

BANGKOK: Nearly four months after the cyclone, the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar is a flat, dark expanse of ruin populated by dazed survivors, unburied bodies and visions of wandering, moaning ghosts.

The region seems to have avoided mass starvation and epidemic, and people are rebuilding their precarious lives in this vast and often flooded marshland where the margin between survival and death has always been thin.

Within that thin margin, recent visitors say, many of the survivors seem to have lost their spark of life, and some of the dead seem not yet to have disappeared as they haunt the minds of those they left behind.

Full article - http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/25/asia/myanmar.php

Some fairly evocative pics - http://www.iht.com/multimedia/audioslideshow/2008/08/25/asia/archive-myanmar/index.html

[LakeGeneve]

Maybe worth remembering that a year ago today Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawady Delta which resulted in nearly 140 000 deaths and 800 000 being left homeless.

A year on there is an UN appeal for nearly US$700 m to rebuild the delta in the coming years but many donor countries are reluctant to give money via the Junta for obvious reasons.

There are currently some interesting articles in the world press debating how to address the patent neglect of the Nargis victims compared to victims from other disasters whilst still maintaining sanctions against the Junta.

[Loburt]

Decent article by long time Bangkok based Ny Times reporter Seth Mydans in the IHT today.l

That article is not by Seth Mydans.

[LakeGeneve]

Decent article by long time Bangkok based Ny Times reporter Seth Mydans in the IHT today.l

That article is not by Seth Mydans.

Thanks for the correction Lob.

However, it does seem a bit strange after 7 months and that you chose this as your post on the anniversary of this terrible tragedy. Especially, when your probably more informed on Burma issues than anyone else on TF.

And people call Ian pedantic. :roll:

[Loburt]

Decent article by long time Bangkok based Ny Times reporter Seth Mydans in the IHT today.l

That article is not by Seth Mydans.

Thanks for the correction Lob.

However, it does seem a bit strange after 7 months and that you chose this as your post on the anniversary of this terrible tragedy. Especially, when your probably more informed on Burma issues than anyone else on TF.

And people call Ian pedantic. :roll:

I would like to give credit where credit is due, but I don't see the need to bandy about the name of journalist who obviously is reporting from the delta without the knowledge or permission of the government. The more people who know who he is, the less likely he will continue to be able to get in and do that. But it wasn't Seth Mydans.

My, my, aren't you feeling smug and self-righteous today.

[LakeGeneve]

Decent article by long time Bangkok based Ny Times reporter Seth Mydans in the IHT today.l

That article is not by Seth Mydans.

Thanks for the correction Lob.

However, it does seem a bit strange after 7 months and that you chose this as your post on the anniversary of this terrible tragedy. Especially, when your probably more informed on Burma issues than anyone else on TF.

And people call Ian pedantic. :roll:

I would like to give credit where credit is due, but I don't see the need to bandy about the name of journalist who obviously is reporting from the delta without the knowledge or permission of the government. The more people who know who he is, the less likely he will continue to be able to get in and do that. But it wasn't Seth Mydans.

The point is an excellent one mate but moot if the NYTs/IHT gives the byline to Seth. But now you have drawn attention to the fact it was not him which reported which seems to undermine your point.

AND it still seems completely irrelevent after 7 months.

My, my, aren't you feeling smug and self-righteous today.

Smug, yes as I had a great dance with friends at Tapas last night, my teams won in all sports and the fruit shake I had this morning was a rip snorter. On the other description, we can both be attitudinal wankers on occasion in how we communicate.

Now Loburt, I am genuinely interested in your views on the dilemma of donors funding the UN appeal? What do you think is the best thing to do in the circumstances?

[LakeGeneve]

The FCCT (Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand) is accepting donations of books to restock reading rooms in the Irawaddy Delta. A few of your excess books may be a bring a smile to others.

It is easy to get to the FCCT, just take the west exit from Chitlom and then first building link on the left. Then follow the red signs to the back lifts and go up to the penthouse level.

Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand

Penthouse, Maneeya Center Building

518/5 Ploenchit Road (connected to the BTS Skytrain Chitlom station)

Tel.: 02-652-0580-1 E-mail: [email protected] Web Site: http://www.fccthai.com

Book Drive: Myanmar Book Aid

Have you got books gathering dust at home you don't want to throw away?

Why not donate them to Myanmar Book Aid, via the FCCT?

The FCCT is taking part in a book drive to help rebuild and restock reading rooms destroyed by Cyclone Nargis. Phase one involves distributing books to schools in the Irrawaddy Delta.

Bring any good quality books in English or Burmese to the club and deposit them in a specially marked box. But please note Myanmar Book Aid has said it cannot accept books on Burmese politics or proselytizing literature.

Freight charges for overseas donations are a challenge, so books are cheaper to ship from Bangkok and especially welcome. It's also a way to contribute directly to the people and know that the book-loving Burmese will appreciate it. Read more at www.myanmarbookaid.org