A Roof Over Their Heads

By SOE LWIN
The Irrawaddy News

DEDAYE, Irrawaddy Delta—Forty-two-year-old Khin Htay was promised a house within two or three months. Six months later, she has not heard anything more about it, far less receiving any building materials.

“We don’t feel safe whenever a strong wind blow through this makeshift house,” said Khin Htay, a mother of five from Dedaye Township in the Irrawaddy delta.

Young boys collect water from a fresh-water pond near Laputta Township in Irrawaddy delta. (Photo: Reuters)

Adding to her fears is the memory of losing her husband and seven-month-old daughter when Cyclone Nargis wreaked havoc on her village in May 2008.

“Where shall we all stay if another cyclone destroys our home?” she asked despairingly.

Khin Htay and her young family are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of cyclone survivors who are still living in inadequate shelters some 16 months after the disaster.
The worst natural disaster in the country’s modern history killed close to 140,000 people and severely affected over two million.

About 360,000 homes were destroyed outright by the cyclone, according to official data.

According to UN-HABITAT, which takes a leading role in rebuilding houses for the cyclone survivors, more than 450,000 people are in still dire need of shelter aid.

In a recent statement, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar [Burma] Bishow Parajuli said, "Up to 130,000 families remain exposed and are suffering under severe weather conditions due to a lack of sustainable shelter."

However, humanitarian agencies have claimed that a shortfall of funds has hampered their efforts in rebuilding adequate shelters for the cyclone victims.

According to UN-HABITAT it has received only one-third of its requested amount of funds to rebuild adequate shelters for the displaced survivors.

UN-HABITAT said it requested some US $150 million for repairs and reconstruction under the Post Nargis Recovery and Preparedness Plan (PONREPP). But only about $50 million has been received.

So far, humanitarian agencies have reportedly rebuilt about 25,000 houses. For its part, the Burmese military government claims to have built more than 10,000 houses to date, a very small percentage considering the magnitude of the crisis.

According to the UN, about 209,000 families have reportedly rebuilt their own homes with their own hands over the past year.

But while some families wait for housing materials, others expect housing material and new land.

In Mhawbi Village in Pyapon Township, some families have been told they will be given housing materials, but that they have to find their own land to build on.

“We very much thank the agencies for saying they will build houses for us,” an elderly man from the village said. “But how can we afford the land to build a house on when we don’t have any money?”

Burma Newscasts - A Roof Over Their Heads
7 September 2009

READ MORE---> A Roof Over Their Heads...

Visa Backlog Holds Up Irrawaddy Delta Relief Work

By WAI MOE
The Irrawaddy News

PHUKET, Thailand — The international post-cyclone relief effort in the Irrawaddy delta is under pressure because of a delay in granting visas for more than 200 aid workers, according to a senior official with the Tripartite Core Group (TCG).

William Sabandar, special envoy of the Asean Secretary-General for Post Nargis Recovery in Burma, told The Irrawaddy that although relief workers were still being allowed into the delta area their numbers had been cut because of a backlog in granting visas.

A boy looks past a tarpaulin cover, used by his family for shelter,
in Labutta Township at Burma's Irrawaddy delta region.
Cyclone Nargis, the worst natural disaster recorded in Burma's history,
slammed into the delta region on May 2, 2008, killing
more then 130,000 people and leaving 2.4 million destitute. (Photo: Reuters)

“There’s a backlog in the granting of more than 200 visas,” he said. “We are working on trying to resolve the situation.”

Sabandar—who has experience of post-tsunami work in Aceh, Indonesia, said the greatest difficult in working in Burma was building trust.

He said he raised the matter of the backlog with Burmese Foreign Minister Maj-Gen Nyan Win during a working dinner in Phuket on Sunday. “He understands the issue and he would like to help.”

Relief workers in Burma say they have been experiencing difficulties since Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu, chairman of the TCG, was transferred to an inactive position, as chairman of the ministerial-level Civil Service Selection and Training Board.

After the junta faced international outrage over the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi’s began in May, the activities and visa processing of relief workers had been experiencing difficulties, said a European relief worker who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Two books on Cyclone Nargis were launched at the Asean session: A Bridge to Recovery: Asean’s Response to Cyclone Nargis and Myanmar: Life after Nargis.

According to Myanmar: Life after Nargis, the Burmese regime had missed a crucial opportunity to represent itself appropriately in the eyes of the Burmese people and the international community. The book is published by the Asean Secretariat and the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

“The Myanmar Government missed another opportunity to shore up its legitimacy,” said the authors of the book, saying Nargis victims had expressed their frustration at the regime’s delay in accepting international assistance.

At a donor meeting in Bangkok in February, the TCG announced its three year recovery plan for Nargis victims. The plan has a proposed budget of US $ 691 million.

However, the Asean Secretariat says in the book, A Bridge to Recovery: Asean’s Response to Cyclone Nargis: “Donor support pledged to date needs turning into firm commitments”.

“The recovery experience after other disasters has shown that the receiving of international assistance depends strongly on the effectiveness of the coordination and implementation structure in place,” the Asean Secretariat says in the book.

International donors are reportedly disappointed at the level of corruption in dealing with funds, as well as the lack of direct engagement between donors and the junta’s senior officials.

READ MORE---> Visa Backlog Holds Up Irrawaddy Delta Relief Work...

Burma Rebuilding Uneven After Cyclone

By JOHN HEILPRIN / AP WRITER
The Irrawaddy News

KYON DA VILLAGE, Burma — As the UN helicopter skimmed above the placid Irrawaddy Delta, Burma's military junta was putting the final touches on its showcase village.

This picture provided by the United Nations shows UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arriving at the village of Kyon Da in the Delta of Burma to see the progress of reconstruction from last year's devastating cyclone which killed over 130,000 people.

Throngs of people lined the muddy walkways of Kyon Da village, a relief camp erected in this cyclone-hit area, while others stayed in their homes—neat rows of small houses made out of dried palm and matted bamboo.

The new houses on stilts replaced the plastic tents and stacks of supplies put on display for visitors a year earlier, after Cyclone Nargis devastated the delta in May 2008.

For last weekend's visit by UN officials, some villagers smiled, and their kids sported freshly starched and ironed white linen garments. Many of the women and children wore Thanaka, a cosmetic used by Burmese women for 2,000 years—golden-colored tree bark that is ground, made into paint and used to draw circles on the cheeks and even their ears.

About 1,000 homes collapsed and more than 100 people died in Kyon Da when the cyclone struck.

The angry waters that swallowed 138,000 lives in the cyclone have receded. Seen from above, where there had been a monolith of shimmering water was now a patchwork of rice field and border, river and shoreline, muddy pond and gray cloud.

Gone were the endless stretches of flooded rice fields and islands of destroyed homes with a few people standing on the rooftops. It affected more than two million, leaving a quarter-million homeless.

The biggest health threats remain HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, according to the International Organization for Migration, which began partnering with Myanmar's government in 2005. In the past year IOM-led medical teams treated 110,613 people in 858 of the affected villages.

Local medical officials in Kyon Da Village began to explain to a reporter last Saturday how the clinics were all busy, with the village and the broader Irrawaddy Delta region suffering from a high number of respiratory infections.

But after government minders began listening in, the medical officials suddenly seemed to lose their ability to speak English. End of conversation.

Residents spoke of some improved health conditions—fewer cases of diarrhea and several new clinics nearby. Some other improvements were obvious, but this was the camp that the xenophobic junta that rules Burma wanted the world to see.

"Clearly, they are living in their own world," a senior UN official along for the village inspection said of Burma's ruling junta, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid angering authorities.

Many Western nations haven't fully opened their wallets to the UN's three-year, $691 million recovery plan, lacking trust in Burma or not wanting to provide too much help to an authoritarian regime, a senior UN humanitarian official said on condition of anonymity to protect his relationship with Burmese authorities.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's first trip to Burma more than a year earlier helped overcome the reluctance for which the junta was widely condemned in granting foreign aid agencies access in the first weeks after the disaster, which almost certainly added to the death toll.

But to focus on securing cooperation from Burma's government with various humanitarian agencies, Ban dropped any appeals to the ruling generals to improve their human rights' record or to release jailed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and thousands of other political prisoners.

Ban's visit last weekend was meant to make up for that. He held two rare meetings with the junta chief, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, but was not allowed to see the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been detained by the ruling generals for nearly 14 of the past 20 years.

Suu Kyi is now on trial, charged with violating her house arrest, and faces five years in prison if convicted in a trial that has sparked global outrage.

On a brief visit to Kyon Da Village carefully scripted by Burmese regime, the UN chief was haunted by the memory of a baby girl he encountered here a year ago. "She was only one day old," Ban mused aloud.

He had seen the mother living in a tent with the girl, hours after her birth. He'd seen another girl, too, just 19 days old, sick and clinging to life, but lacking medical support. He'd told the mothers not to lose hope, the United Nations was there to help.

But the UN's World Food Program, which has operated in Burma for 15 years, still cannot muster 44 percent of the $79 million it says is needed over three years. The World Health Organization still lacks 57 percent of $42 million in projected needs for 325 townships.

Ban wasn't able to determine the whereabouts of those fledgling lives he'd seen the year before. Instead, he and his entourage—top aides and two journalists—got a snapshot that showed some improvements while masking remaining problems.

Ban, who carried the same message as last year that the UN was there to help and keep hope alive, said he was satisfied "the government has taken necessary measures."

Nearly a quarter-million people in remote villages rely on boat deliveries of clean drinking water, rice fields remain bare or contaminated with salt from the floodwaters, and food handouts are increasingly scarce.

Schools are rebuilt but short of teachers, and a half-million people still live in the most basic of shelters.

READ MORE---> Burma Rebuilding Uneven After Cyclone...

INGOs Kept Waiting for Visas

By WAI SANN
The Irrawaddy News

RANGOON—International aid workers are being kept waiting several weeks to get visas to enter Burma, according to international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) that are working for the recovery of cyclone-affected areas.

"This is a big headache for us,” an official from one of the INGOs told The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity. “I don't know why the TCG (Tripartite Core Group) stopped facilitating the process of visas for international aid workers.”

Until March this year, INGOS reported that the process for obtaining visas for their staff had become easier and did not take much time. They attributed this efficiency to the efforts of the TCG, which was established in May 2008 as a working mechanism for coordinating, facilitating and monitoring the flow of international assistance into cyclone-hit areas.

The TCG comprises a joint assessment team of representatives from the Burmese military government, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the United Nations.

The military government drew international criticism and condemnation for not allowing many international aid workers into the country in the wake of the Cyclone Nargis disaster on May 2-3 last year, which killed some 138,000 people in Burma and affected more than two million.

However, in the months following the cyclone, the TCG was relatively successful in persuading the military junta to allow international aid workers to obtain visas and get access to the cyclone-affected areas.

However, since March this year, the group has not been in a position to help the INGOs, forcing the aid workers to apply for visas by themselves in the traditionally slow and bureaucratic old system whereby aid workers have to apply for visas through the Burmese line ministries, which in turn submit their applications to the Foreign Affairs Policy Committee (FAPC).

The FAPC handles all kinds of visa applications, and reportedly meets only once a week to consider the INGO visa issues.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)/ Rangoon, there are over 200 visa applications pending with the FAPC.

“This bureaucracy mechanism certainly holds back our work, and slows down recovery efforts,” said an international aid worker working with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

According to UN sources, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is currently frustrated by being unable to operate a helicopter for recovery efforts because one of its pilots has been waiting for a visa in Bangkok for more than three weeks.

“We UN personnel, and some NGO personnel, use this helicopter to go to places like Bogalay and Laputta. It will have a huge impact on our traveling to the cyclone-affected area, which in another way will also have impact on the recovery work,” an official from the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said.

"My impression is that the government no longer wants to cooperate with us, and doesn't want us to be involved in the recovery efforts," said an official from an NGO that is helping cyclone survivors in Laputta Township.

He said that some of their international staff have been waiting outside the country for Burmese visas for over four weeks, but none of them has been informed why the FAPC has taken so long to process or review their visa applications.

"We're used to this sort of bureaucracy in Burma,” an NGO official said. “But the government should know this is a very important time for the cyclone survivors. We are helping those cyclone survivors whom they [the junta] don't want to help.

”The recovery phase has just begun,” the official added. “We need more assistance and more international aid workers.”

READ MORE---> INGOs Kept Waiting for Visas...

Burmese Official Sacked for Nargis-related Corruption

By MIN LWIN
The Irrawaddy News

Burma’s military junta has sacked the head of one of the key government departments involved in the Cyclone Nargis relief and recovery effort following allegations that he stole money donated for survivors of the disaster, according to reliable sources in Rangoon.

Than Oo, a former colonel who was serving as the director general of the Ministry of Social Welfare’s Department of Relief and Resettlement, was accused of stealing millions of kyat (several hundreds of thousands of dollars) from international donations intended for Nargis-related projects, the sources said.

State-run newspapers did not publish any information about the dismissal of the senior official, who was recently arrested and interrogated by the regime’s Bureau of Special Investigation, according to sources in Naypyidaw.

The Department of Relief and Resettlement cooperates closely with international donors providing aid for humanitarian relief and recovery work in the cyclone-stricken Irrawaddy delta.

“The Department of Relief and Resettlement is responsible for accepting funds and donations from international NGOs,” said a Rangoon businessman who runs a local relief organization for Nargis victims.

“The department is supposed distribute the aid to assist people hit by the cyclone. He was probably taken into custody because materials donated by international NGOs went missing,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Burmese junta is holding a secret meeting in its capital, Naypyidaw, where a number of other officials have also reportedly been reshuffled.

Burma’s top military leader, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, has retired or reassigned around a dozen senior officials, according to military sources. However, The Irrawaddy has not been able to confirm the reports with other independent sources.

READ MORE---> Burmese Official Sacked for Nargis-related Corruption...

British MPs vow to support democracy-human rights in Burma

by Solomon

New Delhi (Mizzima) - British Members of Parliament on Tuesday discussed Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial, calling it an ‘injustice’ and vowed to continue to strongly support the restoration of democracy and human rights in Burma.

Initiated by Alistair Carmichael MP and Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Burma (APPB), the debate was held in the main Chamber of the House of Commons. The meeting acknowledged the need to provide more support to Burma.

Carmichael said the charge against the Burmese Nobel Peace Laureate is that of flouting the conditions of her house arrest. “This illegality heaped on illegality is a particular feature of Aung San Suu Kyi’s position, and of the loathsome regime by which she is being oppressed in Burma.”

Nang Seng, Parliamentary Officer of the Burma Campaigns UK said, Ivan Lewis, British Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth has particularly expressed his strong commitment for the restoration of democracy in Burma.

“Ivan Lewis has expressed his commitment to support the development of human rights and democracy in Burma and his willingness to urge neighbouring countries to pressure military-ruled Burma,” said Nang Seng.

The British government, in the ensuing European Council meeting in June, is likely to raise the issue of Aung San Suu Kyi to be discussed as one of the main agendas of the meeting.

“They have even said they are willing to impose financial sanctions on Burma,” said Nang Seng.

The British government is likely to call on the EU to impose a visa ban on all members of the military regime, their families, their business cronies and also lawyers and judges, who are conducting the trial and sentencing of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, she added.

“We are greatly encouraged with their [MP] commitment. However, we want to see more action,” she added.

The Burmese pro-democracy leader, who has spent more than 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest, is currently facing trial for violating her detention law by allowing an American citizen, John William Yettaw, who sneaked into her lakeside house, to stay.

Organized by British Members of Parliament, a meeting between UK-based Burmese organizations and their supporters held discussions for providing more aid to Burma.

“They have promised to donate more aid to Burma,” Nang Seng said.

UK was one of the biggest donor countries providing £ 45 million for relief efforts, when Burma’s Irrawaddy delta was lashed by Cyclone Nargis on May 2 and 3, 2008, which left at least 140,000 dead or missing and devastated the lives of more than 2.4 million people.

READ MORE---> British MPs vow to support democracy-human rights in Burma...

Suu Kyi trial raises Burma aid fears

By Tim Johnston in Bangkok

(FT) -Aid donors have warned that the ongoing trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Laureate, will make it harder to raise aid money for the victims of last year’s cyclone.

“They said there might be some delay; some reservation; that the issue is not separate from the deliberation and consideration of further engagement,” Surin Pitsuan, the secretary General of the Association of South East Asian Nations, said after meeting aid donors on Wednesday.

Aid groups have been struggling to raise money to help the victims of Cyclone Nargis, which hit the Irrawaddy delta last May, killing at least 140,000 people and leaving 2.4m other victims.

International aid to Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, is supposed to be separate from political considerations, but the actions of the Burmese government have made it harder for politicians in donor nations to justify the expenditure.

“We should be scaling up our efforts, but political considerations are going to make that difficult,” said one European diplomat who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s not only the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, it is the whole political situation in Myanmar.”

He contrasted the $315m so far given for the victims of Nargis with the $10bn that was pledged after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Mrs Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 13 of the last 19 years, and she could face five years in prison if she is found guilty of breaching the terms of her detention after John Yettaw, an American, stayed the night after he swam the lake behind her house.

On Wednesday, she met her lawyers and instructed them to launch a further appeal against a decision banning two defence witnesses from testifying. The court is expected to reconvene on Friday.

The trial has sparked international outrage, and the fallout is being felt by those in charge of aid budgets.

“They certainly mentioned the fact that it has not helped the inclination of their constituencies to engage more fully,” said Mr Pitsuan of the donors who attended the meeting in Bangkok.

Despite her prolonged incarceration, Mrs Suu Kyi still represents the most serious challenge to the rule of Burma’s generals, and critics of the regime believe the authorities are using Mr Yettaw’s uninvited visit as a reason to keep her in jail until after next year’s elections.

Burma is a member of Asean, and the regional group is coordinating the post-Nargis aid programme. But relations have been strained after Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thailand’s prime minister and the current chairman of Asean, criticised the decision to put Mrs Suu Kyi on trial, provoking the Burmese authorities to accuse Thailand of bringing the group into disrepute.

READ MORE---> Suu Kyi trial raises Burma aid fears...

Fund crunch threatens rice production in Burma: WFP

by Solomon

New Delhi (Mizzima) - Farmers in the cyclone affected areas in Burma are in acute need of cash and credit assistance to buy inputs for the ensuing monsoon planting season, the United Nations World Food Programme said.

Chris Kaye, country director of the WFP in Rangoon, told Mizzima on Wednesday, “The current priority of the assistance community generally is to help ensure small farmers have the required cash and credit to purchase inputs for the current planting season.”

While WFP is able to continue work without many problems in distributing food assistance, “food and water remains critical for cyclone survivors, in many areas of Burma’s Irrawaddy delta” he said.

But he said the current priority is to help farmers, whose farms were inundated and destroyed by the cyclone, plant crops in the current planting season.

The Irrawaddy delta, also known as Burma’s rice bowl, was laid waste by the deadly Cyclone Nargis, leaving at least 130,000 dead or missing and devastating the lives of more than 2.4 million people.

Sean Turnell, Professor of Economics in Macquarie University in Australia said in an earlier interview to Mizzima that the rural economy in Burma is on the verge of collapse due to lack of funds and micro-credit system.

Earlier, he said, most farmers rely on money lenders for loan or credit, but with the impact of the cyclone, farmers can no longer rely on money lenders as they face equal devastation.

He said farmers are facing extreme difficulties as they were unable to get enough cash from the sale of their paddy products in the last season, because of the decreasing prices caused by the global economic recession.

He urged the Burmese regime to inject money in the rural economy to help the farmers.

Meanwhile, farmers in the Irrawaddy delta complained of lack of available funds even for borrowing and are desperately in need of assistance to be able to plant in the current season.

“We are facing difficulties in starting our work because of financial problems. It is very difficult to get loans,” said a farmer who could only cultivate half an acre in the last monsoon.

“I did not get any monetary support or material for farming except tarpaulins,” he said.

He said like him, most farmers are still unable to cultivate all their farmland as they have no money to buy inputs for cultivation. And some have already stopped farming.

UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) earlier told Mizzima that shortage of fund is becoming a big challenge in continuing with the recovery work.

Shin Imao, FAO’s representative in Burma told Mizzima, rice production has drastically plummeted and the recovery of livelihoods and food security is still a big challenge.

“Production is down, so we need to have more quick responses to assist farmers to recover production,” said Imao.

Rice production in the delta dropped drastically after Cyclone Nargis struck, “with the produce 45 per cent less than previous years,” Imao said.

READ MORE---> Fund crunch threatens rice production in Burma: WFP...

DG of Meteorology and Hydrology Department resigns

by May Kyaaw

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Dr. Tun Lwin, the Director General of Burma’s Meteorology and Hydrology Department has tendered his resignation, departmental sources said.

Though the reason for his resignation is still not clear, it is learnt that the 61-year old Dr. Tun Lwin has begun to hand over charge to his successor.

“Saya (boss) is not working here now. He resigned from his post on health grounds,” a staff member of the Meteorology Department told Mizzima.

Dr. Tun Lwin had also been working as announcer of the weather forecast in the state-media since 1980 in his capacity as DG.

Till Cyclone Nargis, he was known as a credible and reliable person relating to weather forecast. He was also known in media circles as a media-friendly person.

After the contentious Cyclone Nargis warning in May 2008 where the department failed to provide warning in time through the media, he became the epitome of failure. He was in short, in the eye of the storm.

According to unconfirmed reports from sources close to government circles, in the wake of Cyclone Nargis the regime planned to sack him and make him a scapegoat. But surprisingly he was conferred with a doctorate degree instead and he became Dr. Tun Lwin of the Meteorology and Hydrology Department.

According to civil service rules and regulations in Burma, the superannuation age is 65. He surprisingly retired from his post at 61.

Dr. Tun Lwin was born in Kala village, Ngazun Township, Sagaing Division in 1948.

He graduated with Physics as his major in Burma and then studied Meteorology and Hydrology in Florida, US.

He won the Distinguished Service 2nd Class medal in Industry in 2003 and the regime conferred on him a honourary doctorate degree in 2008.

He served as a permanent member of the International Meteorology and Hydrology Association in 2006 and Asia Region Natural Disaster Prevention and Preparation Council, Burma Chapter Chairman in 2007.

(Additional reporting by Sein Win)

READ MORE---> DG of Meteorology and Hydrology Department resigns...

Under a Stormy Sky

Thousands of Cyclone Nargis survivors are still living in tents and
temporary shelters. (Photo: Minn Minn/IPS Asia-Pacific)

By YENI
MAY — JUNE, 2009 - VOLUME 17 NO.3
The Irrawaddy News

One year after Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy delta, there’s a sense of accomplishment, but also a realization that recovery remains a distant goal for those without homes, land and livelihoods

AT a military top brass meeting on May 4 in Naypyidaw, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the leader of Burma’s ruling junta, declared unequivocally that the country has almost tripled its rice production in the past two decades and now enjoyed a surplus.

“There is no need to worry about food, even when the nation’s population reaches 100 million,” he stated boldly.

But, like so many of the aging dictator’s claims, the statement bears little resemblance to the realities of life in a country where 51 million people have been struggling and suffering under military rule for nearly five decades.

In a makeshift hut in Outkwin Village, near Pyapon Town, one of the areas hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3 last year, a 32-year-old mother of six, Than Myint, said she feels completely foregotten by the country’s ruling elite.

Since December, she has not received any food aid from either humanitarian agencies or the government. She constantly faces a severe shortage of rice and there have been times her family has had to skip a meal.

“I often have to go around the village to borrow rice. Sometimes, I have to exchange some of our clothes for food,” she said.

Prior to the cyclone, Than Myint’s family never found it difficult to make ends meet. Her husband worked as a fisherman and her eldest son as a day laborer in the paddy fields surrounding their village. But, since the cyclone struck, Than Myint’s husband and son have barely had a chance to earn any money whatsoever.

There are thousands of families like Than Myint’s in the cyclone-affected townships of Rangoon and Irrawaddy divisions—living in swampy makeshift shelters nailed together from tarpaulin, bamboo and corrugated metal; families with no homes, no land and no livelihoods.

The cyclone and its subsequent tidal wave shattered the agricultural, fishing and small-scale business sectors—the main livelihoods of the delta people—leaving the majority of cyclone-affected people solely dependent on food aid.

On the weekend of May 2-3 this year, Burma’s military leaders coldly ignored the first anniversary of the storm that killed some 140,000 people. There were no ceremonies to mark the country’s worst ever disaster and no mention of events commemorating the dead in the state-run media. Any reports mentioning the anniversary of Cyclone Nargis in Rangoon’s privately owned journals were severely censored by the regime’s notorious censorship board.

The silence was an eerie reminder of the junta’s reaction to the storm one year ago when it stubbornly refused to allow aid to enter the cyclone-affected Irrawaddy delta. To date, no official explanation for the government’s incompetence and callousness during this period has been offered.

Bending to sustained pressure from the international community, the Burmese authorities eventually gave a green light to something approaching a full-scale relief effort, but it continued to assert control in a heavy-handed manner. Military authorities hampered the delivery of aid to the delta, and relief workers faced harassment and arrest if they failed to play by the regime’s rules.

Traumatized villagers whose houses and farms had been destroyed were forced to leave temporary shelters by security forces and return to work in their ravaged fields.

Junta-controlled newspapers carried editorials reprimanding the international community for being tightfisted with its aid. To add insult to injury—and without a hint of irony—they then claimed that Burma did not need help from the rest of the world, because people in the delta could easily survive on fish and frogs from nearby rivers.

The good news was that, despite all the constraints imposed upon them by the authorities, many Burmese did everything in their power to help deal with the horror wrought by the cyclone.

Private relief groups, formed by monks, students, celebrities, medical groups, businessmen, charitable organizations and other like-minded people, are still very active in the cyclone relief effort, laying the groundwork not only for rehabilitation in the delta, but also cultivating hope for the country’s prospects of achieving justice, pluralism and, ultimately, democracy.

“Even UN agencies and INGOs cannot access the delta and run their humanitarian projects ... without the dedication and enthusiasm of local Burmese staff,” said a foreign observer, who has spent nearly 20 years in the region.

The survivors of Cyclone Nargis have certainly been extremely resilient in the face of a dismal situation. But the recovery process has been achingly slow, with recent data showing that some 500,000 people still have no permanent place to live, 200,000 lack access to fresh water and 350,000 are still receiving food aid from the World Food Program.

Access to clean water is still one of the biggest everyday concerns for people in the delta. Wells and ponds were inundated by the inflow of seawater by the cyclone’s horrific tidal wave. Since then, ponds have been repeatedly cleaned but residents claim that the amount of saltwater leakage into groundwater has increased.

Hunger also remains a serious threat. Even farmers who own dozens of acres of rice paddies are unable to feed themselves. According to the British charity Oxfam, thousands of farmers in the delta region lost rice crops to the cyclone, leaving them unable to pay back loans or purchase seeds, water buffaloes and equipment needed to cultivate crops.

U Nyo, a 52-year-old farmer, told The Irrawaddy he grew 15 acres of paddy in the previous rice-planting season. However, this year he only harvested around five acres. The rest failed. “I had to sell all the rice just to pay off the debt that I took during the rice-planting season last year,” he said.

Meanwhile, large amounts of infrastructure—everything from schools, monasteries and churches to clinics, bridges and jetties—remain in ruins. The Burmese government’s promises to build disaster shelters in the delta have proved hollow, with only 20 communal shelters currently standing. “We have no idea where we will run to if there is another cyclone,” a survivor in Bogalay said.

These days, many frightened villagers tune in to the radio just for the weather forecasts. When the regime’s Department of Meteorology and Hydrology warned in April of the approach of Cyclone Bijli, panic broke out in the delta.

People packed up their belongings and immediately headed toward the nearest city. In many villages, families were advised to send elderly folk and children to stay with relatives in Rangoon and other cities far from the Irrawaddy delta seaboard.

According to a recovery plan launched in February by the United Nations, the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) and the Burmese government, almost a quarter of households in the cyclone-hit areas have reported signs of psychosocial distress, but only 11 percent have received help. The UN estimates that more than 2,400 primary teachers have been trained to give psychosocial support.

Meanwhile, Burma’s undeveloped, broken healthcare system has little capacity for handling trauma victims, so aid groups are trying to fill the gaps.

Too often the gaps in the system are simply too large and fragmented. Take the case of Khin Yee, a 43-year-old “cyclone widow,” who was too traumatized to return home and moved with her three children into a makeshift hut along the roadside close to the town of Mhawbi in Rangoon Division.

She was initially promised a house by volunteers from humanitarian agencies. Then it became clear that only those with land could be allotted homes. Left landless and widowed by the cyclone, Khin Yee has to continue living in a shelter she constructed by hand, mainly from bamboo and sheets of tarpaulin. She said her family has nothing to go back to, and there is nowhere she can get access to daily food.

Khin Yee’s family, like others, has no other option than to wait—for aid, for food and for land.

She shook her head in despair when asked about the upcoming rainy season.

“I’m afraid our hut will just get washed away as soon as the heavy rains come and cause flooding,” she said, her tearful eyes staring out across the swamp in front of her shelter.

Irrawaddy correspondents Wai Sann, Aung Thet Wine and Kyi Wai contributed to this article

READ MORE---> Under a Stormy Sky...

Distrust and Division in the Delta

A full year after Cyclone Nargis, evidence of its destructive force
can still be seen in many parts of the Irrawaddy delta. (Photo: AFP)

By HTET AUNG
MAY — JUNE, 2009 - VOLUME 17 NO.3
The Irrawaddy News

One year after Cyclone Nargis, doubts about the Burmese regime’s role in the relief effort continue to slow the recovery of the Irrawaddy delta

ONE year on, the nightmare of Cyclone Nargis still haunts people living in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta region. Those who narrowly survived the storm have seen their lives changed permanently. Proud farmers and workers are now vulnerable refugees living in makeshift shelters—their land destroyed, their livelihoods stolen by a horrific storm.

The magnitude of the May 2-3 disaster—the worst in Burma’s recorded history—challenged the ability of the military regime to conduct and control a massive relief operation. Around 140,000 people were killed, while some two million others were directly affected. Many suffered injuries and few were spared the trauma of losing their homes or loved ones.

The international community responded with an outpouring of emergency aid for the affected areas. But once the recovery and reconstruction phase began, the country had to pay an enormous price for the junta’s initial rejection of aid and obstruction of efforts by relief agencies to reach the delta during the first weeks after the disaster.

The United Nations appealed to the international community to donate US $690.5 million for the Post-Nargis Recovery and Preparedness Plan (PONREPP), but has so far received far less, with the total in pledges amounting to around $100 million.

Why is the international community so reluctant to donate generously for the Nargis victims in Burma? Why do donors find it so hard to accept the assessments of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) working inside Burma, who insist that aid is being utilized effectively?

The problem appears to be that the junta has done little to earn the trust of the outside world, and continues to act as if it is up to other countries to demonstrate their sincerity by providing unconditional assistance.

“Myanmar [Burma] is one of the countries that wants to seclude itself from the outside world,” said Koos Richelle, the director general of the European Commission’s EuropeAid Cooperation Office during the Asia-Europe Development Conference held in Manila in April. “It’s not us punishing them; it’s them not opening up for what we consider to be normal contact.

“There is no possibility for us to start [development aid] because we are not a money machine throwing envelopes over the fence.”


Distrust of the junta

The greatest impediment to the flow of humanitarian aid into Burma is the junta’s policies and attitude towards foreign aid agencies working in the country.

It is evident that the junta tried to manipulate the international humanitarian assistance and created an element of competition between the INGOs, playing games of favoritism and giving concessions to those who pleased them.

In 2005, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) France left Burma due to the junta’s growing restrictions, while MSF Holland stayed in the country and has so far been able to carry out its programs. The Global Fund also withdrew from Burma the same year as MSF France, taking with it about $100 million in aid.

Perhaps the best example of the regime’s disdain for the work of INGOs was its treatment of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Renowned throughout the world for its impartiality and apolitical objectives, the ICRC has managed to maintain health projects and treat the wounded in world wars, civil conflicts and humanitarian disasters since 1863.

In March 2007, the ICRC made the decision to close down some of its field offices and cease several major operations because it couldn’t navigate its way through the regime’s red tape and restrictions due to a complete lack of cooperation from the junta.

Just a few months later, the junta drastically hiked fuel prices, exacerbating the already deteriorating humanitarian situation and sparking the worst civil unrest in nearly two decades, culminating in massive Buddhist monk-led demonstrations nationwide.

Witnessing the people’s plight, 13 INGOs in the country issued a joint statement in October 2007 calling on the junta and the international community to work together to achieve three goals: strengthening public sector policies by increasing public expenditure in health, education and sustainable livelihoods; improving the operating environment for local and international humanitarian organizations; and significantly scaling up international humanitarian assistance to directly address the needs of the poor.

A year later, however, none of these objectives had been met, a fact that was made evident by a report issued by MSF Holland criticizing the regime for its failure to do its part to provide adequate access to anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to patients with HIV/AIDS.

“MSF can no longer continue to scale up ART provision, in the face of so little response by other actors,” said the report, titled “A Preventable Fate: The Failure of ART Scale-up in Myanmar,” released in November 2008.

“Therefore, it has had to make the painful decision to restrict the number of new patients it can treat… With growing revenue from oil and gas exports, the government must invest more in its ailing health system and specifically HIV/AIDS care and treatment,” the report stated.

The report, released nearly half a year after Cyclone Nargis, demonstrates the military regime’s lack of commitment to cooperation with the INGOs in their efforts to meet the basic needs of Burma’s people.

This is the kind of report that international donors carefully scrutinize for indications that the junta is a reliable partner in multimillion-dollar aid projects. Generally, however, they find nothing to suggest that the country’s rulers share their concerns for the well-being of ordinary Burmese citizens.


Distrust weakens relief and breeds division

Cyclone Nargis abruptly changed Burma’s humanitarian landscape, with the number of INGOs operating in the Irrawaddy delta doubling to more than 100 and numerous field offices opening around the region since last May.

The scope and depth of the relief operation is unprecedented, requiring the creation of a networking mechanism among the INGOs to address disaster-related issues. No such mechanism had ever existed before in Burma.

Save the Children-Myanmar has emerged as the leading INGO in the region since the cyclone, coordinating a consortium of six local and international NGOs. Known as “Paung Ku,” the consortium was created to offer capacity-building support and a small grants service to the emerging local relief groups which were urgently in need of technical and financial support. Another similar consortium is the Local Resource Center (LRC) initiated by the Burnet Institute and several other INGOs.

When analyzing the expansion of the humanitarian aid programs in the region, there is no denying that Cyclone Nargis significantly altered the capacity of the INGOs in terms of the number of organizations operating and the structural expansion within those organizations. For instance, Save the Children employed around 500 staff before the cyclone; now it has a staff of 1,600.

However, now that the emergency relief period is over, many INGOs are scaling down their operations. According to a source close to Save the Children, the organization will reduce its staff by some 300 in the near future and close down five of its field offices.

Many INGOs that entered the delta after the cyclone are now leaving, even though the region is still in crisis, with many people lacking food, access to clean drinking water and shelter. Despite the evident need for their services, the INGOs are scaling down their operations or pulling out completely because they face a severe shortage of funding.

Another significant factor in the equation is the expansion of local civil society organizations (CSOs), which have continued to play a key role despite being forced to operate under numerous restrictions. One major obstacle for these local groups is that they cannot officially register or open a bank account with the state-owned Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, which is the only conduit in the country for receiving money transfers from overseas and conducting other foreign currency transactions.

Due to such constraints, they have to rely heavily on INGOs inside the country to channel aid funds to them. This means that they are also likely to be adversely affected by the funding shortages faced by the INGOs, with the result that they may also be forced to cease or scale down their operations.

Just as aid groups working in the delta were raising the alarm about the desperate need for more international funding, a new report was released detailing human rights abuses by the junta in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.

Produced by the Thailand-based Emergency Assistance Team (Burma) with technical support from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the report, titled “After the Storm: Voices from the Delta,” soon came under attack from some aid groups operating inside Burma.

A group of 21 INGOs—including Save the Children—challenged the credibility of the EAT-Johns Hopkins report and accused its authors of undermining the case for further aid to the survivors.

Andrew Kirkwood, the country director of Save the Children-Myanmar, said in an interview with The Irrawaddy that the EAT-Johns Hopkins report was not “balanced.” He went on to say that Save the Children was working closely with the Burmese junta.

“With [the regime’s] cooperation, we are able to do a lot of community-based assistance. So it’s really not right to say that all parts of the government are not being cooperative.”

However, some exiled groups say that criticism of the EAT-Johns Hopkins report is unfair. If the same report had been released by an internationally recognized human rights group, they say, its critics would not have been so quick to dismiss its conclusions, which were based on interviews with local villagers who would have been unwilling to speak openly with foreigners for fear of reprisals from the junta. Because most EAT members were ethnic Karen, they were able to conduct interviews discreetly to get a better picture of the situation in the delta, defenders of the report argued.

In any case, the report did not call for a moratorium on humanitarian aid to the cyclone victims, as some have erroneously reported, but simply urged the donor countries to ensure that aid is delivered with “transparency, accountability and respect for human rights.”

Although many aid groups inside Burma have been quick to defend the junta’s role in the Nargis relief effort, they have so far been silent on the fate of local aid workers who have been arrested by the regime and given prison sentences ranging from two to 35 years.

One year after Nargis, the regime has shown no signs of relenting in its efforts to intimidate local relief workers who might be tempted to offer a different picture of the situation on the ground from the official one. In early April, it handed down prison sentences to Dr Nay Win, his daughter and four colleagues for their efforts to help villagers in the delta cremate the bodies of the deceased. The six were detained by authorities and sentenced under sections 6 and 7 of the Unlawful Association Act.


Nargis changed the delta, not the junta

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in Bangkok on April 22, Dr Frank Smithuis of MSF Holland acknowledged that restrictions on the activities of international aid agencies outside the cyclone-affected areas remain unchanged.

The past two years have been a critical period for INGOs working in Burma, during which they have proven that they can carry out their programs to a certain extent even under severe governmental restrictions.

They should be commended for taking on this difficult task, and for their occasional criticism of the junta and efforts to change its policies, even if these efforts have so far not met with any success.

International relief agencies inside Burma have been especially effective in establishing networks that have enabled them to respond not only to the challenges they face in the field, but also to threats that could potentially undermine the continuation of international aid to Burma.

However, the time has come for the INGOs to reassess their three demands and exercise their networking mechanism to try to impress upon the junta the benefits of truly allowing the aid groups to work to the full extent of the capabilities.

More international humanitarian aid will follow if the regime genuinely creates a better operational environment without restrictions and repression.

The author is an independent researcher and a graduate in International Development Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok

READ MORE---> Distrust and Division in the Delta...

Irrawaddy News Weekly Business Roundup - May 29, 2009

By WILLIAM BOOT
The Irrawaddy News

Trade Unions Pressure Chevron on Burma

Two American trade unions backed by a several human rights groups have attempted to force US oil giant Chevron to justify its continued involvement with the “pariah military regime” of Burma.

The teamsters’ and AFL-CIO unions sought to press a vote at Chevron’s annual shareholders’ meeting in California on Wednesday to disclose business dealings in Burma, where it has a stake in the Yadana gas field.

The disclosure bid, which garnered 25 percent of the vote but failed to pass, questioned the Chevron management’s political risk assessment criteria.

“We’re pleased that other Chevron shareholders recognize the enormous legal, financial, political and reputational risks associated with operating in Burma,” said teamsters’ general-secretary Thomas Keegel after the vote.

“The Burmese military junta is one of Chevron's partners in Yadana through its military-run oil company, Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise.

That makes Chevron business partners with a pariah military regime that has brutally dominated the people of Burma and that has put a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest.”

Chevron, which has a 28 percent share in the Yadana field, managed by France’s Total, says it will not quit Burma, despite pressure also from the US Congress.

The Californian company insists that its business presence in Burma benefits ordinary people.


China’s Green Policy Stops at Border where River Changes Name

A Chinese state-owned company is pressing ahead with a project to build a large dam on the Salween River in Burma—after the Beijing government ordered a halt to similar projects along the same river in China.

Praise has been lavished on China’s Pemier Wen Jiabao for suspending dam work on the upper reaches of the Nujiang River, reportedly over environmental concerns.

But those concerns appear to evaporate after the 3,240-kilometer river from the foothills of the Himalayas crosses into Burma.

The Chinese Sinohydro Corporation construction company is still moving ahead with a 1,200-megawatt hydroelectric dam scheme on the same river at Hatgyi in Karen State.

In Burma, the river is called the Salween and the military regime is unconcerned about the environment. Chinese and Thai government state agencies are involved in the Hatgyi project.

Environmentalists say the concerns now apparently preoccupying government officials across the border in China do not apply in Burma, where a number of controversial dams are proposed.

“All of the dams planned on the Salween River will greatly disrupt the riverine ecosystem and destroy the livelihoods of those peoples living along the river,” says the NGO Burma Rivers Network. “Large areas of land…will be flooded. Those living along the river will be forcibly relocated, likely without compensation.”

Most of the electricity from the Hatgyi project is earmarked for Thailand.


Burma, Bangladesh Discuss Improved Sea Links to Boost Trade

Burma and Bangladesh are attempting to improve trade and cooperation in the Arakan coastal region border area between the two countries.

Proposals for agricultural fertilizer factories, hydroelectric schemes and commercial coastal traffic between Chittagong and Sittwe were discussed at a ministerial level meeting, according to Bangladeshi media reports.

The two sides talked about ways of boosting the value of bilateral trade more than 300 percent—from US $140 million a year in 2008 to US $500 million in 2010.

The proposals, between a Bangladeshi delegation led by Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and several of Burma’s military leaders, including energy minister Gen Lun Thi, came despite friction in other relations between the two countries.

The issue of sea territory boundaries between the two countries in the Bay of Bengal remains unresolved, and Dhaka is expected to refer that issue to the United Nations for arbitration.

Both sides claim areas believed to harbor lucrative undersea natural gas deposits.


New Cyclone Hits Fishing, Rice Industries

Cyclone damage in Burma’s Arakan State has damaged coastal shrimp farms and agricultural crops while other farming communities are still trying to recover from last year’s Cyclone Nargis.

Cyclone Aila earlier this week ripped through coastal areas on both sides of the border between Burma and Bangladesh.

Hundreds of flimsy built houses have been destroyed and fishing and shrimp farming businesses badly dislocated, according to the Kaladan news agency.

The cost of damage has not yet been assessed. Reports from Arakan say the authorities had made little or no preparation for this year’s cyclone season.

Burma’s fishing and rice industries are still struggling to recover from the devastation wreaked by Nargis one year ago.

READ MORE---> Irrawaddy News Weekly Business Roundup - May 29, 2009...

Slowdown Strains Myanmar Economy

Scarce Jobs, Dwindling Remittances and Limited Credit Strain Economy Further Amid Tension Over Dissident's Trial

YANGON, Myanmar (wsj)-- Myanmar's financial system and economy are largely cut off from the outside world -- but not the global economic crisis.

As the country's military junta wraps up its trial of dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, conditions in the capital and rural areas illustrate the effects of the slowdown on this isolated nation's already-tenuous economy. Key sectors such as agriculture and tourism are reeling, and business in the commercial center of Yangon has dwindled, residents and economists say.

Credit has dried up, remittance income is falling as thousands of workers returning from abroad are discovering that jobs are scarce.

"People don't have money these days, and if they do have it, they don't spend it," says Kyi Kyi Win, a saleswoman at a store in Yangon. Last year, the shop was selling $300 to $400 in merchandise a day, she says, but now it's selling less than $100 a day.

Myanmar's economic health is critical now, as discontent over Ms. Suu Kyi's fate spreads. The 63-year-old Nobel laureate is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest, imposed by the government six years ago, by allowing an American well-wisher to visit her residence without state approval.

Some residents say they hope the verdict -- which is widely expected to be "guilty," potentially resulting in up to five years in prison for Ms. Suu Kyi -- could ignite protests and destabilize a regime that has ruled the resource-rich nation since the 1960s.

The trial has drawn international outrage, which Myanmar's leaders addressed on Thursday. According to Reuters, Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint, at a meeting in Cambodia, accused critics of meddling in the country's affairs and denied that the prosecution was a political or human-rights issue.

Maung Myint, Myanmar's deputy foreign minister, accused critics of meddling in the country's affairs.

There is little indication of serious unrest now. But the relatively calm circumstances could change if the verdict is seen as harsh. Ms. Suu Kyi is widely viewed as Myanmar's most legitimate leader after her political organization, the National League for Democracy, won Myanmar's last elections in 1990; the government ignored the results.

Economic distress has played a role in past unrest. The last major protests in September 2007, which were crushed by the military, were ignited largely by a surge in fuel costs.

Myanmar's economy has long suffered from high unemployment, minimal foreign investment and crumbling infrastructure. With few successful domestic industries, the country relies heavily on sales of natural gas, timber and other commodities to the few countries that continue to do significant business with the regime, notably China, Thailand and India.

U.S. and European sanctions in place for years prevent all but a few Western companies from operating there. Commodities prices have collapsed over the past year, and with few links to external capital markets, Myanmar is unable to raise cash for new lending.

Conditions in Yangon are especially difficult. Fewer than 300,000 of its six million residents have mobile phones and power blackouts are becoming more common and many taxis are so worn that the road is visible through holes in the floorboards. Abandoned colonial buildings rot in the monsoon weather, with vines growing out of broken red-brick windows.

Myanmar doesn't provide timely economic information. Official data indicate the economy grew 10% or more a year since 2000, but the Asian Development Bank and private analysts say such data likely are exaggerated, with actual growth probably less than half the government's estimates and headed lower this year.

The situation isn't all bad. Lower commodities prices have helped ease inflation, which hit 30% in recent years, and weaker demand for imported goods has improved the country's trade balance. Some shops, such as computer dealers, that cater to Myanmar's wealthy elite, say business is holding up.

Government finances are in relatively good shape. With the help of natural-gas revenue, Myanmar has more than $3 billion in foreign-exchange reserves, and has improved tax collection, the Asian Development Bank says.

But natural-gas revenue has fallen by as much as 50% this year, says Sean Turnell, a Myanmar expert at Macquarie University in Sydney. In addition, the past year has been disastrous for agriculture, which accounts for about 45% of Myanmar's gross domestic product.

Cyclone Nargis, which killed 135,000 people a year ago, wiped out much of the equipment and livestock in Myanmar's southern rice bowl, and many indebted families have been unable to replace both. Tourism is suffering, too. Arrivals have declined since 2006, according to local media reports and travel agencies.

READ MORE---> Slowdown Strains Myanmar Economy...

Cyclone Aila lashes Burma–Bangladesh border and coastal belts

Written by Webmaster
Tuesday, 26 May 2009 19:09

Maungdaw, Arakan State: Cyclone Aila ripped through the Burma-Bangladesh border area, accompanied by heavy rains and raised river tide levels, burst mud embankments, flooded homes, and destroyed houses, schools in Maungdaw yesterday, a local elder said. READ MORE...

and also read
Cyclone Lashes Bangladesh and India, 33 dead

....

READ MORE---> Cyclone Aila lashes Burma–Bangladesh border and coastal belts...

Foreign Companies in Burma Must Review Their Involvement

By YENI
The Irrawaddy News

As the Burmese regime brutally increases its isolation of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the US and countries of the European Union remain steadfast in applying their pressure on the junta. US President Barack Obama formally extended his administration’s sanctions, while the EU is considering whether to step up its own measures.

Burma's stubborn, thuggish military leaders can shrug off Western pressure, however, knowing they can rely on support from such friendly and powerful neighbors as China and India. While neither Beijing nor New Delhi has officially commented on the latest moves against Suu Kyi, many Southeast Asian countries, some of whom have significant trade and investment links with Burma, are also inclined to follow a live-and-let-live policy towards the regime.

However, both camps—supporters of sanctions and proponents of engagement— acknowledge failure in their efforts to influence Burma’s military leaders. That is why US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February correctly said that sanctions applied by the US and the European Union, as well as the policy of constructive engagement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and Burma’s neighbors, were not working.

So the question remains: who can influence the Burmese generals to listen to world opinion?

Many observers agree that a start could be made on at least ending ongoing human rights abuses if oil and gas companies operating in Burma use their influence with Burma's ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

Current investors in Burma’s oil and gas industry include companies from Australia, the British Virgin Islands, China, France, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Russia and the US.

Those companies are funding the Burmese dictatorship. At the height of the monk-led demonstrations in September 2007, Marco Simons, US legal director at EarthRights International, an environmental and human rights group with offices in Thailand and Washington, declared: "The oil and gas companies have been one of the major industries keeping the regime in power."

The concept of "corporate social responsibility" is often advanced by companies operating in Burma, although that’s usually just a shield behind which they campaign against international environmental and human rights regulations.

For instance, there have been documented abuses connected to the Yadana project operated by the French company Total and the US-based Unocal, including land confiscation, forced labor, rape, torture and killings within the communities along the pipeline. Compensation was paid to some victims after human rights groups filed legal actions against the companies before a federal court in the US.

Foreign investment in Burma’s oil and natural gas sector is significant. But there is no transparency in Burma about how much the government receives in oil and gas payments, nor clarity about how the funds are spent.

The military receives the largest share of the official budget and the Burmese regime allocates little to public sectors such as health and education. Instead, hundreds of millions of dollars disappear annually into the pockets of the ruling generals, their cronies and their pet projects, such as the new administrative capital, Naypyidaw, the cyber city, Yadanabon, and even a nuclear research reactor.

The latest action against Suu Kyi, following the regime’s criminal mismanagement of Cyclone Nargis relief and its crackdown on the September 2007 demonstrations should lead companies to search their consciences when contemplating deals with the regime.

ERI Project Coordinator Matthew Smith believes there are also business reasons to think twice about accepting Burma contracts. "Financing the Burmese regime in this way can only reflect poorly on a company’s reputation and that will ultimately affect their bottom line and ability to capitalize on deals in the future,” he says. “It’s simply bad business.”

Of course, good business must come with ethics, morality and responsibility. This is the time for shareholders of global and regional oil and gas companies operating in Burma not only to think about maximizing profits but also to face up to their responsibilities by evaluating the human rights impact and the criteria for continuing to invest there.

READ MORE---> Foreign Companies in Burma Must Review Their Involvement...

BURMA: Nature Conspires Against Cyclone Victims, Denying Them Clean Water

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 19 (IPS) - A year after powerful Cyclone Nargis tore through Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta and southern Rangoon, killing tens of thousands of people, nature continues to play a cruel trick on survivors.

It has led to thousands of villagers still left without access to clean water, a situation that is rare in natural disasters of similar magnitude. In Indonesia’s northern province of Aceh, which was flattened by the 2004 tsunami, clean water was restored to the survivors within the first year.

The problem in Burma stems from the challenge to clean the large ponds that serve as a major source of water for the villages spread across the nearly 18,500 square kilometres that was affected by the cyclone in the early hours of May 3, 2008.

Out of the 4,540 ponds that were damaged, nearly 1,000 have still to be rehabilitated, according to aid agencies. The latter are struggling against the forces of nature - where salt water seeps into the ponds that have been cleaned, preventing the cyclone-affected victims from turning to such ponds as they did before the disaster.

"This is an unusual situation," Andrew Kirkwood, head of the humanitarian agency Save the Children’s operations in Burma, told IPS. "In these areas, the drinking ponds and wells have been contaminated by salt water and the streams and rivers are much too salty to drink at this time of the year."

Consequently, some 240,000 people in the southwestern swathe of the delta "don’t have access to fresh drinking water in their own communities," he revealed. "We are distributing three litres of water per day per person. That is the absolute minimum."

It is a situation that is "not sustainable," he added, due to the pressure on the 10 water treatment plants that Save the Children set up in remote parts of the delta to remove salt from the water. "Because the machines cost a lot to operate. The boats to distribute the water are expensive to run. And, the machines will eventually breakdown."

Aid agencies are hoping that the onset of the monsoon rains this month will help. "We hope the problem will ease during the rainy season," says Bernd Schell, head of the Burma office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). "It takes time to rehabilitate this particular type of water source."

The efforts to clean the ponds were not limited to flushing out the water with high salinity. "There were many dead bodies inside; there were many dead animals," Schell told IPS.

IFRC’s initial supply of water to the victims soon after Nargis struck conveys the challenges faced by relief agencies. It supplied some 800,000 litres per day as its contribution to the relief efforts.

Cyclone Nargis, which killed nearly 140,000 people and displaced 2.4 million, created a major humanitarian challenge for the government of military-ruled Burma, or Myanmar. Restoring the supply of clean water was among them.

A report by a tripartite group, including the Burmese government and the United Nations, revealed that 63 percent of victims surveyed admitted that their "current access to clean water was inadequate."

"Approximately 1.8 million severely affected people (are) in need of improved water supply," added the report, released two months after the disaster.

The Burmese junta’s reputation as an oppressive and corrupt regime did not help in the relief efforts. Much needed foreign funds to help in the immediate relief efforts and longer-term rehabilitation programmes have fallen well short of the set targets.

A U.N. flash appeal to attract 477 million dollars to help in the urgent relief efforts has succeeded in raising only a 66 percent financial commitment, or 315 million dollars, according to the world body.

And early this year, a fresh appeal by the U.N. for 691 million dollars to fund the Post-Nargis Recovery and Preparedness Plan - covering a period from 2009-2011 - has only raised 100 million dollars.

This funding shortfall is reflected in water and sanitation programmes for the Nargis victims. Only 29.7 million dollars have been subscribed, which is some 60 percent of the 49.7 million dollars requested in the initial flash appeal after the disaster.

The money that has come in has helped to ensure that 150,000 school children in 800 schools have access to water and sanitation facilities, in addition to constructing 2,000 hand-dug wells, states a U.N. background note on the on-going humanitarian relief and recovery efforts in Burma.

Such work, in addition to cleaning some 3,500 ponds, also went a long way to prevent the outbreak of major water-borne diseases, which many feared would sweep through the delta after the cyclone.

"We believe that the interventions have helped in averting major disease outbreaks," says Waldemar Pickardt, chief of water and environmental sanitation for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), one of the many U.N. and aid agencies that teamed up to supply clean water to the victims. "There have not been any reported cases of mortality or morbidity related to shortage of water or consumption of unsafe water."

To ensure that picture prevails, relief agencies agreed to increase the amount of water supplied to cyclone victims who still lack access to natural sources of water. "The initial minimum limit was set at a minimum of three litres per person per day. In March 2009, this was increased to a minimum of five litres per person per day," added Pickardt in an e-mail interview from Rangoon, the former Burmese capital.

READ MORE---> BURMA: Nature Conspires Against Cyclone Victims, Denying Them Clean Water...

Experts Challenge Than Shwe’s Rice Production Claims

By ARKAR MOE
The Irrawaddy News

Claims by Burmese junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe that Burma is enjoying a rice production surplus are being greeted with skepticism by the experts.

Than Shwe made his claims—including a statement that Burma is making remarkable progress in agriculture—one day after the first anniversary of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the country’s richest rice producing region.

Farmers there are still struggling to restore their destroyed paddy fields.

A temporary shelter for survivors of the May 2008 Cyclone Nargis. Hundreds of thousands of people are living without adequate food and shelter in Burma a year after a deadly cyclone ravaged large swathes of the country. (Photo: AFP)

In a report issued in July 2008, three months after the cyclone hit Burma’s Irrawaddy delta, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said 63 percent of the paddy fields there were still under water, up to 85 percent of seed stocks had been destroyed and 75 percent of farmers lacked sufficient seed to prepare for a new harvest.

Earlier this week, as Than Shwe was delivering his disputed report to a Naypyidaw meeting, an official of the World Food Program said most households in the delta were worried about food shortages. “In fact, even some farmers who own dozens of acres of paddy are unable to feed themselves,” he said.

Reporting to the Naypyidaw meeting on Monday, Than Shwe said—according to the state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar—“due to remarkable progress in the agricultural sector, the nation had not only self-sufficiency but also surplus in food.”

The paper said Than Shwe told the meeting that when the present government came to power in 1988 paddy output was just over 600 million baskets annually (a basket is 33 kilograms). Today, Than Shwe claimed, annual output was about 1,600 million baskets, and efforts were being made to increase this to 2,000 million baskets.

“Complete rubbish,” was the reaction of Burma expert Sean Turnell, associate professor at Australia’s Macquarie University “Burma’s rice production is routinely, ludicrously exaggerated.”

Turnell said: “Farmers are under the gun to report good production numbers to their superiors, like the pattern of the former Soviet Union and other places. Meanwhile, bribes and corruption grease the wheels along the way.”

If Burma really had tripled its rice production, said Turnell, the country would once again be one of the world’s largest rice exporters.

However, Burma exports only a small amount of rice—much of it a broken, poor quality product which finds customers in Africa.

Far from having a surplus, said Turnell, Burma faced widespread food shortages this year.

A leading Burmese economist who requested anonymity told The Irrawaddy, “Than Shwe’s speech may have been intended to counter the UN and other international organizations reports about food shortages in Burma.”

READ MORE---> Experts Challenge Than Shwe’s Rice Production Claims...

Will the Mangrove Forests be Rebuilt?

By KYI WAI
The Irrawaddy News

BOGALAY, Irrawaddy Delta — Before Cyclone Nargis struck Burma's Irrawaddy delta, the island known as Mein Ma Hla (in Burmese "pretty woman") was beautiful, the home of dense mangrove forests and bamboo.

Now, the island remains badly scarred, the mangrove forests devastated, and large fallen trees still testify to the cyclone’s wrath.

Cyclone Nargis destroyed 16,800 hectares of mangrove forest (about 30 percent) and 20,999 hectares of forest plantations in Rangoon and the Irrawaddy delta, according to the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) report.

At one time, mangrove forests formed impenetrable areas along the delta coastline. Large kanazo and beau trees towered toward the sky. One local resident recalled it was like living in a big tree house.

Traditionally, local villagers cut down trees on Pretty Woman Island and nearby Kyun Nyo Gyi for firewood and charcoal.

But more rapid changes started in 1990s, when investors began to develop the area into prawn farms. Vast stretches of mangrove forests were cleared for the farms, which reaped investors big profits.

Fortunately, much of Pretty Woman Island itself was protected by law and escaped deforestation and prawn farm development, while continuing to provide local resources to residents and offer shelter for numerous animals including crocodiles, monkeys, samburs, birds, squirrels and fish.

The one Hundred Monkeys Pagoda and other religious sites located in the area also gave many residents a feeling of sacredness and tradition, say local residents.

A forest ranger on the island recalled, "In the past, villagers who came into the forest didn't bring along meat to eat. To pay respect the spirits, they even spoke politely. They chopped a few trees for their own use, not a lot, and maintained a tradition which paid respect to the spirits." According to a local belief, a greedy tree-cutter who didn’t honor the spirits would be eaten by a crocodile.

While Cyclone Nargis destroyed most of the villages along the costal area and killed nearly 140,000 people, residents on Pretty Woman escaped unharmed.

"That night, me and my wife were illegally cutting trees on the island,” said a man from Lama village. “Those big trees in the mangrove forest saved our lives. Not only us, all the villagers who were on the island that night escaped from the storm.”

Most of the bigger trees were broken or toppled down. Smaller trees and bushes survived.

"The bushes were there even after the cyclone,” said a resident of Padaekaw village. “But many dead bodies from the villages were floating in the water and were caught up in the bushes. After about a week, the army burned the dead bodies. They used a flame-thrower. That's why many trees and bushes are also burned.”

Following the cyclone, many crocodiles, monkeys, samburs and squirrels were killed or have since left the area.

"The crocs are moving,” said a resident of Sitsalong village. “After Nargis, the crocs got a chance to eat dead bodies. They are now human-eating crocs. Recently, a man in our village was attacked and eaten by a croc while he was setting his fishing net. And a child from Ngethu village was taken by a croc. That time, the little boy was sitting on the back of a boat. The croc first hit the boy with its tail, then the boy fell into the water and the croc took him away. The villagers in this area are now very afraid of croc attacks."

A forest ranger estimated that there were about 1,000 crocodiles on Pretty Woman Island and in the nearby area. A crocodile farm was located on the island, and the animals were protected by law.

Conservationists have warned that deforestation plays a key role in climate change, and Burma has lost large portions of forests in the delta and throughout the country since 1990, largely due to timber cutting.

The mangrove forest in the delta at one time served as a natural barrier against storms. Environmentalists had warmed of the consequences of deforestation and the loss of animal habitat, but their pleas largely went unheeded.

An environmental conservationist in Rangoon said, “When the cyclone hit, thousand of people lost their life. It's a direct consequence of the deforestation of mangroves. Prawn farms should not be allowed in those areas. The government should consider the interest of local people and the habitat."

Initial plans call for 750 hectares of mangrove forest to be replanted in Irrawaddy Division over a five-year period, according to an officer with the Forest Resource Environment Development and Conservation Association.

Additionally, UN Development Programme plans to replant 30,000 coconut and palm trees in five townships of the Irrawaddy delta, but that represents only a small portion of the trees destroyed.

Many aid organizations and other groups are working to replant the mangrove forests, Following Nargis the attitude of local people toward the forest has changed.

"Before Nargis, I was selling firewood in Bogalay,” said a villager from Lamu. “When the cyclone hit, I was on Pretty Woman. The trees saved my life. The other thing is that some people from rescue organizations talked about the importance of the mangrove forests. I don't want to cut the trees for a living anymore. I changed my mind. Instead, I am going to work as a fisherman."

He said villagers have also reassessed the role of prawn farms in the area

"In our village, prawn farms were everywhere. We had no place to hide. If we had mangrove forests, most people would have survived. Many of us are now ready to help replant the mangrove forests"

Lamu village, where the man lives, was home to about 700 people before Cyclone Nargis. About 100 survived.

READ MORE---> Will the Mangrove Forests be Rebuilt?...

Can Burmese junta learn from Nargis !

Nava Thakuria (Narinjara): It is one year now, since the devastating tropical cyclone that struck Burma (officially known as Myanmar). The deadly cyclone hit the Burmese land in the first week of May last year and left a trail of devastation in the entire Irrawaddy and Rangoon (Yangon) divisions of the country.

Originated from the Bay of Bengal, Nargis also partially destroyed the areas under the Bago, Mon and Kayin region. With human casualties, the cyclone added to the damage of social infrastructures, killing of thousands of livestock and also causing flood, wiping out paddy fields, which were made ready for the country’s primary crops rice.

Nargis hit the country on the night of May 2 and continued its devastation till the next morning. Over 80,000 Sq Km areas with high population density were under the slam of the cyclone that claimed nearly 140,000 people. Another few hundred thousand people went on missing.

The United Nations estimated that Nargis affected 2.4 million people and rendered thousands families homeless. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated the loss of nearly 300,000 water buffalo and cows, 7,500 goats, 65,000 pigs, 1.5 million chicken and ducks. It also destroyed the fish ponds, hatcheries and shrimp farms in the localities.

Moreover, nearly 10,00,000 acres of farmland in Irrawaddy and 3,00,000 acres in Rangoon division were destroyed. Similarly Nargis damaged over 800 000 houses, including schools and hospitals.

Of course, the military government reported the final death toll as only 84,537 only. The government-run daily newspaper ‘The New Light of Myanmar’, revealed that the storm left 53,836 missing and 19,359 people injured. Burma has neither independent media nor easy internet access through out the country.

In fact, Nargis helped exposing the State Peace and DevelopmentCouncil, which rules Burma, to the world communities. The military junta not only wanted to hide the statistics of casualty, but also prevented initially the international aid workers to enter the country. International agencies and local donors were stopped from entering the affected areas and also delivering aid, which was meant for hundreds of thousands of people in jeopardy.

The military regime at its new capital Naypyidaw, which is north of Rangoon, had an apprehension that the massive flow of foreign aid workers to their country might create trouble for them in the coming days. Even the SPDC chief senior general Than Shwe got time to visit those victims only after international criticism came out in a bigger way.

The military rulers were softened only after the personal visit of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in the middle of May. Slowly the communication between Naypyidaw and the international agencies got improved. Visas and travel permits were made little easier and faster for the foreign aid workers.

India, which maintains strategic relationship with Burma, was one of early supplier of aid to the cyclone victims. New Delhi launched Operation Sahayata to deliver more than 175 tonnes of relief materials including food supplies, tents and medicines. Moreover, the Indian government successfully pursued with the junta to accept the international aid. Later a team of 50 medical personnel was also sent by India to the Irrawaddy delta.

After 12 months of the disaster, the situation remained almost same. Now there are no refuges in the camps, as the military dismantled those nearly six months back. But the affected people are still living with acute shortage of pure drinking water and food, not to speak of proper shelter. More over most of the victims, who survived Nargis, are facing unending trauma.

“The humanitarian situation in Burma remains desperate even a year after Nargis,” said a young Burmese writer Zoya Phan. The author of ‘Little Daughter’, while talking to the London based Sky News, revealed that the poor Burmese were still struggling to rebuild their lives. Zoya, 28, also added, “Those who survived had their attempts to recover hindered by the country's military rulers, who obstructed the access of vital aid supplies in the aftermath of the cyclone.”

Tyaza Thuria, a Burmese exile living in Europe, claimed that nearly two million people, mostly farmers and their families, were still living in horrible situations. Talking to this writer, Tyaza expressed his anger that the military regime had done nothing for the rehabilitation for the cyclone victims.

“They are only interested in retaining the political power. So they went ahead with their plans for referendum (only to forcefully approve the pro-military constitution) and finally to install a puppet civilian regime after the 2010 polls,” he asserted.

Meanwhile, the UN has highlighted urgent needs for the cyclone affected people. Addressing a donor meeting in Rangoon during the first week of April, Bishow Parajuli, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, emphasized that there was still an imminent need for sustainable shelter and agricultural support ahead of the monsoon season.

“Whilst steadily recovering from cyclone Nargis affected areas remains high on the agenda, the UN also addresses needs for funding to other parts of the country, where immense humanitarian and development challenges exists," Parajuli added.

Organized by the UN, the meting was attended by around 70 participants, including the Heads of Diplomatic missions, UN Agenciesand National and International Non-Governmental Organizations. Speaking to this writer from Rangoon, Astrid Sehl, the communication officer of United Nations in Myanmar, admitted that the level of humanitarian assistance that currently being provided in Burma was much lower than the actual needs of the people. She also revealed that there were no cyclone affected people living in the camps at his moment, as those were dismantled last year.

The donors have so far reportedly contributed $US 310 million. The UN, the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and the Burmese government have already finalized a recovery plan with the budget of another $US 691 million for restoring livelihood and housing through grants and microfinance. It is understood that the initiative might take three more years.

The cyclone, as it hit Burma in the beginning of the harvesting season, made significant impact to the rice production. Primarily because of salinity in the water, poor quality seeds, lack of draught animals and also agricultural labours, production suffered.

A recent report of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme revealed that at least 10 % people (out of 50 million) in Burma were forced to live below the food poverty line. The report on the crop and food security assessment mission to Burma disclosed that over five million people were finding it difficult to access to nutritious food in Burma after the cyclone Nargis ravaged the delta region last year.

But amidst all negative aspects, there are some positive outcomes that emerged out from the post-Nargis humanitarian activities. The natural disaster had finally opened up the country to the international communities to some extent. The situation compelled the junta to join hands with the ASEAN and the UN. The international exposure to the alienated Burmese, who have been living under military rule for over four decades, seems to play the role of a catalyst for a change in the coming days.

The ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan expressed optimism that the Burmese government and the people have gained a higher degree of confidence after the Nargis relief and rehabilitation exercise, as they had the opportunity to work with the international community and donors.

In fact, Pitsuwan, who served Thailand as a Foreign Minister yearsback, is credited to break the ice in initiating for a Tripartite Core Group comprising the representatives from the ASEAN, the UN and the Burmese government. The forum was officially declared on May 31 last to pave way for continuing the mission to support the Nargis victims. Win Naing (name changed), a pro-democracy activist said that though the aid was one time effort with no political influences, it should play an important role in the changing political and diplomatic equation.

Speaking to this writer from an Indo-Burma border area, Win Naing added, “We are aware of that only aid to the Nargis survivors will not bring the change we are talking about; neither it would herald democracy for us. But the new found link between the Burmese and the world communities is expected to enhance the confidence of those poverty stricken people of our country. It has the potential to influence the military rulers in the long run for improving the human rights record in Burma.’

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The author is a Guwahati (Northeast India) based independent journalist whose focus area remains the socio-political developments taking place in Northeast as well as its neighbouring Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Burma and Bangladesh.

He may be contacted at navathakuria@gmail.com

READ MORE---> Can Burmese junta learn from Nargis !...