"Unimaginable tragedy" if Myanmar delays aid
Pastor Dale Morgan
"Unimaginable tragedy" if Myanmar delays aid*
11 May 2008 05:24:12 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON, May 11 (Reuters) - Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured
out of Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Sunday in search of food, water and
medicine but aid workers said thousands of them would die if emergency
supplies do not get through soon.
Buddhist temples and schools in towns on the outskirts of the storm's
trail of destruction are now makeshift refugee centres for women,
children and the elderly -- some of the 1.5 million people left clinging
to survival.
The reclusive military government is accepting aid from the outside
world, including the United Nations, but has made it very clear it will
not let in the foreign logistics teams needed to transport the aid as
fast as possible into the inundated delta.
"Unless there is a massive and fast infusion of aid, experts and
supplies into the hardest-hit areas, there's going to be a tragedy on an
unimaginable scale," said Greg Beck of the International Rescue Committee.
In the delta town of Labutta, where 80 percent of homes were destroyed,
the authorities were providing just one cup of rice per family per day,
a European Commission aid official told Reuters.
The scenes are the same across the delta, the former "Rice Bowl of Asia
where as many as 100,000 people are feared dead in the worst cyclone to
hit the continent since 1991, when 143,000 people died in neighbouring
Bangladesh.
"We have 900 people here but we only have 300 lunch boxes. We gave it to
the women and children first. The men still have not had any food," one
woman said at a relief centre in the town of Myaung Mya, 100 km (60
miles) west of Yangon.
"More are coming every day," she said.
The World Food Programme said on Sunday it is now moving aid down to its
field headquarters in Labutta using trucks provided by its long-time
partners in Myanmar, including the Red Cross.
The WFP has flown in seven shipments of aid, and an eighth was due to
land on Sunday, WFP spokesman in Bangkok Marcus Prior told Reuters.
"PATRIOTIC DUTY"
Despite the devastation, the junta has kept its focus firmly on a
seven-step "roadmap to democracy" that is meant to culminate in
multi-party elections in 2010 and bring an end to nearly five decades of
military rule in the former Burma.
The New Light of Myanmar, the junta's main mouthpiece, carried a
front-page photograph of military supremo Than Shwe and his wife casting
their ballots in Saturday's constitutional referendum in Naypyidaw, the
remote new capital he built in 2005.
The paper said election officials were "systematically and accurately"
counting the ballots, but said nothing about when the results would be
released.
The referendum, the first exercise in democracy in nearly 20 years, has
been delayed by two weeks in the worst-hit areas, including Yangon, the
former capital and city of five million.
There is little doubt about the final result.
The generals spurned offers of United Nations monitors, and in the
run-up to the vote army-run media pumped out a relentless barrage of
propaganda, telling the country's 53 million people it was their
"patriotic duty" to approve the charter, which enshrines the army's grip
on power.
"I voted yes. It was what I was asked to do," 57-year-old U Hlaing told
Reuters in the town of Hlegu, northwest of Yangon.
PROTESTS AGAINST REFERENDUM
Even before Cyclone Nargis hit on the night of May 2, groups opposed to
military rule, and foreign governments led by the United States, had
denounced the vote as an attempt by the military to legitimise its
46-year grip on power.
Washington regards Myanmar as an "outpost of tyranny" but sidestepped
direct criticism of the constitutional vote, saying only that the
junta's focus should be on relief efforts.
The first U.S. military aid flight is expected to leave Thailand on
Monday, although nothing is for certain when dealing with a regime that
is deeply suspicious of outside -- and in particular Western --
interference.
"Our position on the referendum is well-known," White House spokesman
Gordon Johndroe told reporters. "Our focus now is on getting assistance
to the people of Burma and we would certainly hope that is the focus of
the Burmese government as well."
The U.N. has appealed for $187 million in aid, even though it is still
not confident the food, water and tents flown in will make it to those
most in need because of the junta's reluctance to admit international
relief workers.
The government's official death toll stands at 23,350 dead and 37,019
missing from the May 2 disaster, although foreign aid officials say the
number of dead could exceed 100,000.
Most of the victims were killed by the 12-foot (3.5 metre) wall of
sea-water that slammed into the delta.